The new uniform still sat wrong on his shoulders. Too polished, too stiff, the silver trim catching torchlight as though meant to draw eyes instead of deflect them. He adjusted the cuffs as he moved down the corridor, boots whispering across marble. From below, music and laughter swelled—bright, careless, belonging to another world.
A mirror caught his reflection. He almost didn't recognize himself—more ornament than soldier. The young lords had ordered every knight of Delmar "presentable" for the evening's display. He scoffed under his breath, imagining Cassandra's response when she saw him so polished.
Then the air shifted.
It came like the pressure before a storm—subtle, heavy—lifting the fine hairs at his nape. His steps slowed. The music ahead carried on, oblivious. Not sound. Not sight. But presence. Dark, oily, clinging to the edges of sense.
His hand closed on his hilt.
The corridor dimmed, torchlight smothered into uneasy shadow. Moonlight bled pale through stained glass, sharpening each breath of silence. Beneath the arch ahead, something moved—low to the ground, skittering wrong.
The first beast lunged.
Leoleta pivoted, steel flashing free as claws scraped marble. Small, wiry, its hide a smear of blackened sinew, teeth gnashing with sickly green light. He met it with clean precision: a sidestep, a slash, blade carving deep across its flank. The thing shrieked and collapsed into ash before its body touched stone.
The second came before the first had finished dying.
It dropped from the lintel above—heavier, broader, claws sparking fire across stone. Leoleta caught its strike on his blade, the force jarring bone. He turned with it, drove his knee up, then twisted hard. His sword rammed beneath its jaw. Ash burst across his sleeve.
And still—he wasn't alone.
From the far end of the corridor, something else stirred.
A presence larger, heavier. Watching.
He didn't need to see it fully to know—it was there. A silhouette hulking in the archway, its outline too broad, its breath dragging in a guttural rasp. Red eyes burned faintly in the dark.
It didn't join the fray. It simply observed.
Every instinct screamed at him to press, to strike, to force it into motion—but the beast only held its ground, as though weighing him. Measuring his strength.
Then, in the space of a blink, it was gone. Drawn back into the dark like smoke sucked into a void.
Leoleta's breath hissed between his teeth. The realization struck sharp and cold.
The first two had never been meant to kill him.
They were distractions.
The true threat had already moved past him.
Cassandra.
Leoleta sprinted down the corridor the instant the air shifted—dread, bloodlust. The silence was too taut, the mana too heavy. It bled toward the garden, fury and dread coiling tight in his chest, a dark pulse he could feel in his bones. He would not be fast enough. Not this time.
The stairs would take too long.
He didn't think.
He hurled himself through the nearest gallery window, glass shattering around him. He hit the gravel hard, rolled, and came up in a crouch, sword drawn. By the time his boots found their footing, the creature had already turned.
Its body was a nightmare of strips and sinew, ichor dripping and hissing where it touched stone. Where eyes should have been, black pits stared back.
It shrieked. Lantern glass cracked in its wake.
Leoleta advanced. The air hummed, lightning gathering beneath his skin, begging release. He forced it down, into his blade.
The creature lunged.
Steel met rot with a sound like tearing hide. Each strike was clean, deliberate—blade arcs honed through endless drills, steps light and precise. Lightning flashed only at the moment of contact, sparking through steel as his sword bit deep.
The monster reeled, shrieking, but came on again. Its limbs bent wrong, speed unnatural. Leoleta pivoted, parried high, then low, sliding across gravel. Sparks flared with each deflection, brief, controlled.
Then it turned—toward Cassandra's still body.
Leoleta's chest clenched. He lunged, both hands snapping forward. For that heartbeat he let discipline break—lightning burst from his palms, slamming into the beast and hurling it back across the garden.
It struck stone, black smoke rising from its chest. For an instant it stilled.
He surged forward, blade ready—too focused on Cassandra, too desperate to keep the thing from reaching her. He left himself open.
The monster's claw slashed across his shoulder. Pain ripped hot, staggering him. Lightning flared uncontrolled from his feet into the gravel, stones cracking under the surge. He hissed through clenched teeth, forcing the power down again, into his blade, not out into the night.
Control is strength. Frenzy is ruin. His father's voice rang like a command.
The beast pressed, ichor sizzling where it landed, forcing him back. He pivoted, spun and slashed, severing a limb. Black fluid sprayed, smoking holes in the grass. The creature reeled, but still it did not fall.
Lightning snapped wild again, striking perilously close to Cassandra. His heart seized. He dragged it back with a guttural cry, chest burning. Not her. Never her. The storm did not care who it consumed. He did.
The monster lunged again. Each strike forced him thinner, his focus split between battle and the fragile rise and fall of Cassandra's chest. It made him reckless. It made him unbreakable.
The beast leapt. He met it head-on. Sword through chest, lightning bursting bright with the thrust. Water from the fountain erupted in spray as they crashed into stone.
Smoke curled. Silence. For a moment he thought it finished.
Then it rose again—half-burned, still reaching.
Leoleta planted his feet, drew the storm into his arms, and let it flow into steel. Lightning wrapped the blade, not wild but precise, every arc hugging the edge. With a roar, he drove it through the creature's chest.
The beast convulsed, shrieked once more, then collapsed into ash and smoke. The wind carried its remains away.
The garden was ruin—lanterns shattered, hedges torn, stone split by scorched arcs. Blood stained the stones.
Leoleta turned, chest heaving, shoulder burning. Cassandra lay crumpled, blood streaking her gown, pale in the wreckage.
He dropped to her side, pressed trembling fingers to her wrist. A pulse—weak, but there. Relief struck harder than any wound.
He gathered her in his arms, the storm dimming to embers. The world narrowed to her shallow breaths, her weight against him. Nothing else remained.
Behind him, the ballroom doors burst open. Light spilled across the ravaged garden, shattering the night's silence. Screams and shouts from nobles surged into the courtyard
Gasps rose like a wave. Knights rushed forward; servants fought to push the guests back inside. A steward barked orders, a footman fumbled for water, two guards sprinted toward the wreckage with blades raised—only to falter when they saw there was nothing left to strike.
Alfonse and Alistar shoved through the crush, their swords drawn too late. Their eyes swept the devastation—the scorched stone, the shredded hedges, the smoking ruin of lanterns—before fixing on the heart of it: Cassandra bloodied in Leoleta's arms.
Whispers tore through the crowd, horrified, awed. Some cried for a healer. Others muttered of curses, of shadows, speculations of what had prowled the garden.
Hands reached to help, to steady, to pull Cassandra from him. Reluctantly, he let her go—his gaze never leaving her face, watching only the fragile rise and fall of her breath.
Alfonse's voice cut through the din, sharper than steel. "Clear the courtyard! Now!"
Alistar snapped orders to the guards, his jaw tight. "Fetch the healer. Secure every gate. Move them back!"
The press of nobles wavered, silks and jewels retreating under command. Then another voice rose above the clamor—measured, commanding, impossible to ignore. The Headmaster of the Academy stepped into the light, his robes brushing the ruined stone. With a single outstretched hand, he silenced the crowd, his gaze cold and assessing as it fell upon Leoleta.
"Take him."
The words rang louder than the storm. Knights moved in, their gauntlets closing around Leoleta's arms. He didn't resist. His eyes remained on Cassandra as they dragged him from the wreckage, the storm dimming to embers inside him.