Percy glared as he pushed himself to stand, still hunched slightly, his hand pressed to his ribs. His breathing was labored, but his fury burned through the pain.

"You," he spat. "You and your master. You're the ones to blame."

Thorne's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

Percy's lips curled into something between a snarl and a grimace. "My family. My whole family is gone. Gone in an instant."

Thorne's expression shifted, confusion knitting his brow.

"One day we were laughing, celebrating my return to Aetherhold," Percy continued, his voice rising, raw and shaking, "the next... they're dead. Assassinated. My father. My mother. My two brothers. My little sister. Gone."

Thorne said nothing, his mind already calculating, trying to connect dots that hadn't existed moments ago.

Percy continued, "just the day before. I remember it. My sister was painting again. My father was talking about the eastern trade expansion. We had guests, enjoying a quite evening..." He stopped, his voice catching.

Thorne's stomach began to knot.

"All of them are dead," Percy whispered. "Do you understand that? All of them. My uncles, my cousins. The whole manor burned. No survivors."

"My family, Thorne. The Vaynes. We're dead."

Thorne blinked. "You're standing right in front of me."

"I'm all that's left!" Percy shouted. "Them and the Valmonts, and the Caerharts, and the Lorne family, all gone. Entire households, wiped clean. The bodies left in their beds. Their throats slit. Their manors in flames."

Thorne didn't respond. His breathing slowed. Something inside him was already turning cold, calculating. Weighing.

He looked up then, eyes red-rimmed and sharp. "Except me and Seraphina. You know why?"

Thorne didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"Because we weren't there," Percy growled. "We were in Vellun attending a political summit. That's the only reason we're alive. And when we returned..."

He broke off. Swallowed hard.

"The smoke hadn't cleared. There was blood on the steps. And no answers. Just rumors. A purge. Silent. Precise. Targeted."

Thorne's jaw tightened.

"And I know why," Percy said, voice low. "Everyone who had dealings with the man you worked for, your Master, was hunted down. Your whole damned Guild, your whole network. The ones who made your assassinations easier, the ones who profited from the fear you all sowed."

Thorne looked away. The truth was bitter on his tongue.

Thorne's voice dropped to a whisper. "When?"

Percy stared at him. "About three weeks ago. Two days after the solstice."

Three weeks ago. A few days before Thorne had slain Uncle and fled the burning remains of Alvar. Just before the Red Mage descended with the man from the capital and his followers, the purge had begun.

But not just in Alvar.

They'd razed Valewind too.

"Why?" Percy snarled. "Why all of them? We weren't saints, but they weren't part of his guild. They were just… associated. They had business ties. Dinner conversations. A few favors. And now they're nothing but smoke."

Thorne was silent.

Because he knew why.

It wasn't revenge. It was containment.

No witnesses. No history. No trail.

The man from the capital hadn't just dismantled the guild, he'd cleansed the entire network. Uncle's empire, rooted in secrets and leverage, was being uprooted down to the last whisper.

"What did they leave behind?" Thorne asked quietly.

Percy blinked, caught off guard by the question.

Thorne stepped closer.

"Anything unusual?" he pressed. "Marks? Symbols?"

Percy hesitated, then shook his head. "No. Nothing. Just… silence."

Thorne exhaled slowly, then peeled off his right glove and extended his hand, palm up.

Etched into the skin was the crow, a glowing, pulsing mark wrought in aether, faintly purple in the dim light. It shimmered like it breathed.

Percy stared. His eyes widened, the recognition striking like a bolt.

"That," he whispered. "That was found scorched into the gates of the Valmont manor."

Thorne's eyes darkened. So it was true. The capital assassins had moved through the region like a phantom wind and left no trace but the mark of the crow.

He slipped the glove back on.

Percy stared. His eyes widened.

"You…" he whispered. "You're one of them," Percy said, stepping back. "You're..."

"I'm not," Thorne cut him off. "I'm not part of their group."

He sighed. "They marked me with it. It's how they found Uncle. Found Alvar. I think..."

Percy's voice was hollow now. "And because of you… they're all dead."

Thorne's jaw tightened.

He didn't deny it.

He couldn't.

The silence between them stretched. Cold. Hollow.

"I wasn't responsible for the purge," Thorne said finally. "It was Uncle's doing. His ambition, his greed, caused everything..."

Percy's fists clenched. His eyes were bloodshot. "They erased my family like they were stains. My little sister, Thorne. She was ten. She liked painting stars on the ceiling of her room. Do you know what it's like to come home and find nothing but ashes?"

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Thorne's gaze dropped. His voice, when it came, was quieter than it had ever been.

"Yes."

That stopped Percy.

The two stared at each other. Assassin and heir. Ghost and survivor.

Thorne turned toward the door.

"I didn't come here to hurt you," he said without looking back. "But I'm telling you now. Whatever you think I am… don't force me to become it."

Percy's voice came softly. "Then why are you here?"

Thorne paused at the threshold. "To make sure you wouldn't become a threat."

"And am I?"

Thorne didn't answer.

He just walked out into the corridor, leaving Percy in the echoing silence, the shimmer of the crow still burning behind his eyes.

The banging started early.

"Thorne!" Isadora's voice, muffled by the thick wood of his door, rang like a chime of irritation. "You're going to make us late for our first class. Honestly."

Thorne groaned into his pillow. His head felt heavy with lingering dreams and the tension from last night's conversation with Percy. He rolled onto his side and blinked at the enchanted lantern hovering above his desk. Its violet flame danced gently, casting shifting shadows across the walls of his small room.

Isadora banged again, sharper this time. "I'm counting to ten. Slowly. But elegantly."

He pulled himself out of bed and dragged on his uniform with more defiance than finesse. The fabric felt stiff today, unfamiliar and oddly tight around the shoulders.

When he finally descended the spiraling stair that led to the Umbra common room, Lucien stood waiting by the exit, arms folded and one brow arched. He looked irritatingly polished, his uniform embroidered with his family's crest in gleaming thread. Beside him, Isadora rolled her eyes.

"I was beginning to think you'd expired in the night," she said.

"Almost did," Thorne muttered, adjusting the collar of his sky-blue jacket.

Lucien checked an invisible pocket watch with exaggerated patience. "We should hurry. The whole academy will be there."

The three of them crossed the chamber with the great wooden wheel still spinning in solemn rhythm. As Thorne passed beneath it, the sigil of Umbra ignited at his feet.

Soon they emerged into the broader hallways of the central keep, winding through bridges and glowing archways as more and more students joined the river of motion. By the time they approached the east wing, it felt like half the school was heading in the same direction.

When they turned a final corner, the crowd stopped abruptly.

Before them loomed a set of colossal doors, twelve feet tall and banded with inlaid silver, runes etched across every inch. An ethereal mist shimmered across the surface, warding glyphs pulsing in slow rhythm.

Thorne tilted his head. There had to be close to two hundred students gathered, most of them first-years in varying states of anticipation or nerves. Some were chatting excitedly. Others studied the doors like they were about to open into a battlefield.

Rowenna stood stiffly near the front of the crowd, arms crossed and her expression unreadable. Beside her was Ronan, posture military-straight, eyes sharp. Both wore their uniforms like armor, tailored, crisp, and adorned with gold and red threads. Caledris' lion gleamed proudly over Ronan's heart.

"That's a lot of bodies for one classroom," someone murmured nearby.

Lucien glanced at the voice, realizing it was Gariddan and said, "There won't be for long. First term always thins them out."

Thorne raised a brow. "Encouraging."

"Not everyone's meant to be a mage," Lucien replied with a shrug.

Suddenly, the runes across the massive doors flared to life, glowing blue and gold as the enchantments unlocked. With a groaning hum, the doors began to part. Mist spilled out like breath from a sleeping giant.

Inside lay a vast, circular amphitheater, its walls carved from black stone veined with glittering crystal. Floating platforms ringed the chamber like the layers of a beehive, with staircases that folded and shifted underfoot. Light danced across the dome above, not from chandeliers, but from drifting motes of aether, like stars caught mid-birth.

As the crowd slowly filed in, awe settled over the students like a second skin.

The amphitheater was even larger than it had first appeared. Once inside, the space seemed to unfold upon itself, rows of curved seating arranged in perfect arcs around a sunken central platform, like ripples on a pond. The stone beneath their feet hummed faintly with aether, and the shifting staircases adjusted without warning, rising and lowering to ferry students into open seats like a living mechanism.

As the crowd trickled in, certain presences drew more than casual glances. The three royal heirs made no attempt to be subtle.

Ingrid Valara entered first, gliding down one of the floating stairways like a descending icicle. She wore the Aetherhold uniform without alteration, yet still managed to look like a sovereign carved from moonlight and snow. Her pale hair was bound in a braid that gleamed like silk, and her expression was glacial, still. She took her seat at the front without a word, her retainers forming a quiet crescent around her like frost forming on glass.

Cassian Ravenaire, in contrast, made sure everyone noticed his entrance. The Swaggering Heir of the Rivenwald court swept in with one hand already adjusting his perfectly tailored collar, the other twirling a wand carved from some glossy black wood. His sky-blue uniform had been altered with bold crimson piping, and he wore his house crest, an obsidian stallion wreathed in red fire, embroidered across one shoulder like a declaration of war. He grinned at the watching crowd, then chose a seat directly opposite Ingrid, as if daring her to acknowledge him.

And then there was Amira Nahir, the Jewel of the Emerald Sands.

She moved like wind through silk, dressed in layered translucent scarves of sunlit gold and desert bronze that somehow complied with the school uniform's requirements while still looking nothing like what anyone else wore. Her long, dark hair shimmered with threads of enchantment, and her boots sparkled with sigils. She didn't walk so much as drift, and when she sat, her presence seemed to reshape the mood of the entire row, like stepping into summer after a long winter.

Around them, students whispered and shuffled, eyes pulled like magnets. Thorne caught fragments of conversation, rumors, titles, speculation. Every first year noticed. Every eye lingered.

Except his.

He was scanning the rows for Elias, but saw no sign of him. Strange. The elf had said he was looking forward to their first lesson.

With no better option, Thorne drifted toward the section where the Caledris students had gathered. He found Isadora already seated and animatedly chatting with a few nobles he didn't recognize. Lucien was nearby, cool and collected, arms folded across his chest, surveying the room like it was a battlefield. Rowenna gave him a small nod, and Ronan barely acknowledged him at all.

Thorne slipped into a seat beside Rowenna and tried not to dwell on the sudden absence of Elias.

It took several minutes for the last students to file in. The floating staircases stopped shifting, the aether motes above dimmed slightly, and the murmurs fell into an expectant hush.

Then, the door at the base of the amphitheater opened.

And the professor entered.

The door shut with a soft click behind her.

The woman who entered didn't stride or float. She glided like ink spreading across parchment. Her robes were long and flowing, not the structured uniform most faculty wore, but a deep cobalt trimmed in silver, with constellations embroidered across the sleeves in thread that shimmered faintly as she moved.

Her skin was the color of polished obsidian, smooth and flawless, her cheekbones high and her features sharp, almost regal. Her hair, silver and black and tightly braided was pinned back in a complex pattern that seemed to match the sigils along her sleeves. At her hip hung no wand or staff. Only a small, rectangular crystal sat nestled in a silver holster, like a shard of frozen starlight.

But what truly set her apart were her eyes.

Not glowing. Not swirling with power.

They were utterly blank.

No irises, no pupils, just pools of soft, opalescent white. And yet, every student she passed flinched slightly under her gaze, as if she saw far more than she should.

She stopped at the edge of the central platform and looked up at the crowd, quiet now, utterly still.

"Welcome," she said. Her voice was soft, but every syllable landed with precision. "To the beginning of the end."

A pause. Murmurs.

She smiled faintly, as if amused by her own drama. "The end of ignorance. Of thinking spells are just pretty words and wand-waving. The end of chaos, if you choose to trully learn."

With a flick of her fingers, the crystal on her hip floated free and hovered in front of her. Light erupted from its core, expanding into a glowing circle that formed a diagram, three rotating layers of sigils and terms.

"I am Professor Nayeli Vorr," she continued. "I hold three doctorates from Aetherhold, six from other institutions. I am a former Battle Mage of the Calithan Reach. And this..." she tapped the crystal with a single, lacquered finger, "is where we will begin."

The diagram spun slowly, breaking apart into its components. Incantation. Gesture. Aether Weave. Catalyst.

"Magic is not a gift," she said, tone sharp now. "It is a craft. An architecture of intention. To cast a spell, you must know its bones. To master it, you must know its soul."

A pause. Her eyes, empty and glowing faintly now, scanned the amphitheater.

"Who among you believes they are gifted?"

No one moved.

Then a single hand rose.

Cassian Ravenaire, of course. Flashing his winning smile.

Nayeli didn't smile back.

"Excellent," she said. "Then we know who will fail first."

Gasps. A few stifled laughs.

Cassian's grin faltered.

Professor Vorr turned back to her floating crystal. "Lesson one: Magic rewards the disciplined. Not the arrogant."

The diagram reformed into a sigil, simple and elegant.

"Let us begin."

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