Shinjō Kura's first night at Ravenwood Academy was not a night at all—it was a long, oppressive silence broken only by the creaks of the old building and the restless beating of his own heart. He had been given a small dorm room tucked into the eastern wing, its narrow window overlooking the steep drop of the mountainside. From there, the view stretched endlessly, beautiful in daylight, but now the cliff below seemed to swallow all sound, leaving only the whisper of the wind clawing at the glass. Sleep never came. When the morning bell finally tolled, its mournful echo across the peaks felt less like a beginning and more like a warning.
The corridors were already alive with footsteps when Kura stepped into them. He moved through the academy quietly, eyes tracing the portraits lining the walls, their painted gazes following him with unnerving intensity. He remembered the emptiness of the courtyard the evening before, how the silence had pressed down on him until he thought he might break. Yet now, in the light of day, Ravenwood seemed to have shaken itself awake. Students hurried about, their chatter mixing with the clang of the bell—but even so, Kura felt the same invisible distance he had always known. They glanced at him, then away, as though he carried a shadow too heavy to look at for long.
Room 2-C. He slid the door open, already bracing for the stares. Back in Japan, he had lived his life under those stares—first as the boy with the bruises, then as the outcast who didn't belong. But what he saw here was different.
By the window, the morning light fell on a girl who seemed untouched by it, as though the sun itself hesitated to warm her. Silver-blonde hair framed her pale face, and her eyes—an icy blue, startling against the dim wood of the classroom—did not meet anyone else's. Around her, an emptiness lingered. The desks closest to her were unoccupied, as though an unspoken rule kept others away.
For a moment, their eyes met. Kura felt it at once—that same suffocating silence from last evening, heavy and consuming, only now it was bound within the narrow space between them. The rest of the class went on as if nothing had shifted, yet to him the air had grown colder.
He caught whispers behind him. Lila Frost. The name clung to the air like frostbite. They said she was from England, the last of a crumbling bloodline. Her father found frozen to death in his chambers, her mother vanished one storm-wracked night, the servants scattering until none were left. The Frost estate abandoned, its legacy sealed in rumors. Three years ago she had been sent here, tucked away in the academy as if exile could dissolve whatever curse followed her.
The words were meant to be gossip, but to Kura they were a mirror. His own exile had come not from noble tragedy but from a house filled with shouting, fists, and a mother who turned her eyes away. In Japan he had been branded an outcast. Here, thousands of miles away, he saw the same mark upon her.
Midway through the lesson, her voice reached him. Low, quiet, yet it cut through the drone of the teacher like a blade of ice.
"You shouldn't sit near me."
Kura turned, caught off guard. "Why?"
Her eyes shifted briefly to the window, where mist curled against the glass like ghostly hands. "Because if you do… they'll notice you too."
He frowned. "Who?"
Her gaze returned to her desk. She gave no answer. The silence pressed in once more, heavier than before.
When the day ended, the sky had turned a bruised violet, the mountain's shadows stretching long across the paths. Kura pulled his jacket tight as he left the classroom. He thought she was gone—vanished into the crowd of students hurrying down the halls. But near the gates, he saw her. Alone, standing against the fading sun, a pale figure framed by the encroaching dark.
The wind shifted, carrying her words to him—soft, cold, undeniable.
"Don't look for me after dark."
The bell tolled again, slow and heavy. Its echo spilled across the mountain, sinking deep into Kura's bones. For the first time, he wondered if Ravenwood Academy had not only given him a place of exile, but also led him to the one person whose curse might rival his own.