The Academy had always lived.
Every corridor, every courtyard, every echoing stairwell had thrummed with sound at some point — laughter tumbling from the dining halls, debates rising and falling in the lecture chambers, the rhythmic chant of spell practice, the mischievous whispers shared past curfew. For Aria, those sounds had been comfort, proof that she belonged somewhere vibrant, alive, brilliant. Somewhere that felt like home.
Now, they cut like knives.
When she walked, the conversations thinned. Laughter grew brittle, words snapped off midsentence. The same walls that once hummed with camaraderie now vibrated with suspicion. Eyes followed her, not with curiosity, but with quiet judgment — glances a fraction too late, too sharp, like shards of glass.
Because she had spoken to him.
Because she had sat beside him.
Because she had been seen with Erevan Vale.
She told herself she could endure it. That she didn't care what the whispers carried. But every look landed like a bruise, every silence pressed harder against her ribs. The Academy had already chosen its stance, unspoken yet absolute: Erevan was dangerous. Anyone who lingered too close was tainted by his shadow.
Still… she couldn't stop thinking of him.
Two days had passed since the Tribunal. The Academy gathered in the grand dining hall, but the usual warmth was gone. The air felt thick with rumor, heavy as wet cloth. Servants moved silently among the tables, trays scraping faintly against stone, their movements cautious, strained. Even the chandeliers seemed too bright, casting sharp pools of light over tense faces, attempting in vain to mask the unease threading through the crowd.
Then Archmagister Serath appeared at the head of the hall.
Silence fell before he even spoke. His robes caught the light like storm clouds — black and gold, ominous and commanding. Behind him, Mistress Kaelen stood, flanked by two Councilors whose faces were carved from stone, expressionless yet speaking volumes.
Serath's voice rolled across the marble, deep and practiced, carrying the weight of authority like thunder in a cathedral.
"The disturbance in the Hall of Wards has been contained," he said. Each word struck against the walls, echoing sharp. "A student among you faltered. None here are to be blamed. Yet none here are to speak lightly of what they do not understand."
Aria sat near the back, hands clenched in her lap until her nails bit into her skin.
His gaze swept over them, slow, precise, measuring. Hundreds of students, pale and silent, caught in the weight of those words.
"The Academy endures because it does not flee from peril," Serath continued. "When shadows rise, we do not scatter. We bind them. We study them. We make them yield to discipline."
He paused. The silence pulsed in the hall like a held breath.
"So too shall it be with this matter. The student has been placed in the Lower Ward. He is no longer among you until it is deemed safe."
Aria's chest hollowed.
The student.
Not Erevan. Not even his name.
As if by refusing to speak it aloud, they could erase him completely.
She swallowed, forcing herself to stay still. But her fingers trembled anyway, betraying the storm inside. Around her, whispers began to rise — faint, almost imperceptible at first, then swelling like insects under skin.
Then Cassian stood.
He moved with the poised grace that had always drawn attention — his uniform sharp, his golden pin catching the light, posture immaculate. His voice was calm, smooth, a blade wrapped in silk.
"Archmagister, if I may."
Serath inclined his head.
Cassian didn't face the dais; he faced the students. His words cut through the tension like a scalpel.
"We place our trust in the Council's wisdom," he said, each syllable measured, deliberate. "Yet it must be said that some among us witnessed what happened. There were… signs. Invocation. A shadow where no light fell. Words spoken in no known tongue."
A shiver ran through the hall. Students shifted nervously in their seats, eyes wide, hands tightening on table edges.
Cassian's tone never faltered, but his gaze swept the room with precision. "Such things endanger not only the one who utters them, but all who dwell within these walls. We would do well to remain vigilant — lest sympathy cloud our judgment."
When he said sympathy, his eyes found her.
Aria froze.
Her throat went dry.
The moment was brief, a fraction of a heartbeat, but the meaning cut deep, deeper than any lecture or reprimand.
By the time Serath dismissed them, the hall buzzed again — not quiet now, but feverish, like the hum of insects trapped in amber.
Aria rose slowly, each movement heavy, awkward, haunted. Whispers trailed after her, tiny shards of sound:
"Sympathizer…"
"She was always near him."
"Dangerous to defend someone like that…"
Her chest tightened until breathing hurt.
She reached her chamber in a blur, hands shaking so badly she could barely unfasten her cloak. When it finally fell, she pressed her palms to the table, letting out a ragged breath that trembled like glass.
The next steps felt like wading through fog.
Aria moved through the Academy halls like a shadow, each footfall muffled by the weight pressing down on her chest. Lectures droned in the background, quills scratching against parchment, chalk squealing faintly across slate — but the sounds were distant, blurred, irrelevant. They were life happening elsewhere, leaving her behind.
She reached her chamber and collapsed against the door, hands trembling as she fumbled with the latch. The cloak fell to the floor in a heap, and she pressed her palms to the table, letting the tension spill out in a ragged, shuddering breath.
Her eyes burned from holding back tears. Coward, whispered a voice from within, sharper than any voice in the hall. Coward for not speaking, for letting them take him without protest.
Because he was gone.
Erevan.
Gone, buried beneath the Academy in some cold, echoing prison, treated like less than human. And she had let it happen.
By candlelight that night, the flickering flame threw soft gold across the parchment before her. She tried to write — class notes, letters, anything to anchor herself — but the ink bled uselessly under her trembling hand. Her thoughts refused to stay on the page. They kept returning to him.
His face at the Tribunal: pale, trembling, wrists raw from the bindings. His eyes searching the crowd for someone, anyone, before the guards dragged him away.
The quill snapped under her fingers. Ink spilled across the parchment like blood.
Aria's breath caught. She dropped the pen and pressed her hands to her face.
She had wanted to act. To rise, to speak, to challenge the Archmagister. But fear had sealed her mouth then. And now it sealed him in stone.
She pressed her forehead to the table. Her chest heaved. The silence of her chamber was suffocating.
The next morning passed like walking through a thick, endless fog. Lectures blurred together. Voices droned. Quills scratched. Chalk scraped. But nothing reached her. The world went on around her, bright, moving, leaving her trapped in a muted bubble of guilt and fear.
When the last students filed out, Aria stayed seated, waiting until the hall emptied, until she could breathe without the judgmental weight of dozens of eyes pressing down on her.
She moved toward Mistress Kaelen's desk, steps quiet but heart hammering in her throat.
"Excuse me," she said, voice small, almost swallowed by the cavernous hall.
Kaelen looked up sharply. Presence like iron. Tall. Severe. Every line of her face carved with discipline.
"Yes?"
Aria's courage faltered under that gaze, but she forced herself forward. "I… only wish to know how he fares."
Kaelen's brow furrowed. "Vale is under containment," she said flatly. "That is all you need to know."
"With respect, Mistress…" Aria's fingers twisted together. "He is not a creature to be caged. He—"
"Enough." Kaelen's voice snapped like a whip. "You would do well not to speak so freely, child. The Council's patience is thin. Sympathy for Vale may brand you as foolish at best, dangerous at worst."
Aria's chest constricted. Dangerous. The word hung between them, cold and sharp. She lowered her gaze. "Yes, Mistress."
Kaelen's voice softened, almost human, almost human enough to carry the weight of reluctant pity. "He endures."
Aria froze mid-step.
Endures.
She searched Kaelen's face, looking for some thread of meaning. Just a fraction of acknowledgment, of recognition. There it was, fleeting — eyes softened for a heartbeat. Pity? Admiration? She didn't know. But the moment was gone before she could name it.
"Go." Kaelen's command returned, hard, final.
Aria obeyed, but the word endures lingered in her chest like a pulse, a reminder that he was still alive, still fighting.
That night, she could not stay still.
The thought of him — alone, buried beneath stone, unseen — gnawed at her until it hurt to breathe. She wrapped her cloak tight around her shoulders and slipped into the hall. Curfew had already rung. The torches burned low, casting pools of blue light, stretching shadows into impossible shapes.
The Academy at night was a different world. The silence thick, almost alive, broken only by the faint hum of the runes embedded in the walls.
Her footsteps echoed softly against the stone as she wound her way down the west wing, through a stairwell seldom used, spiraling toward the depths.
The air grew colder the deeper she descended. It pressed against her lungs, heavy, sharp, as if the stone itself breathed against her. Faint glimmers of runes lined the steps, watching, waiting.
He's somewhere below this, her heart hammered. Somewhere in the dark.
At the end of the corridor, two acolytes stood guard, each gripping a staff etched with faintly glowing sigils. Behind them, a steel door swallowed the light.
"You should not be here," one said immediately, voice hard, cutting.
Aria straightened, pulling her cloak tighter. "Please," she whispered, "I only wish to see him. Just for a moment."
"No visitors," the other replied, sharp, final. Hand at the hilt of his blade, though he did not draw it.
The faint hum of the runes filled the silence between them.
Her courage faltered. Her pulse thundered. "He's a student," she said, barely audible. "He hasn't done anything—"
"That is not for you to decide," the first guard interrupted. "Leave now."
Her throat burned. Tears welled and threatened to fall, but she refused to let them see. She bowed her head, silent, and turned away.
Every step back felt like tearing something from herself. She reached the upper halls, pressed against a wall, hands over her face, and let herself shiver.
The air smelled faintly of dust and iron. Her tears tasted like salt and shame.
A quiet, gnawing fear bloomed in her chest. Not the sharp, immediate fear of punishment, but something deeper, quieter. Fear for him. Fear for what the silence and shadows were shaping him into.
Because silence could change a person.
And she now understood that fully.
The next days passed in fragments. Aria moved through the Academy like a shadow — efficient, hollowed out, quiet. Whispers followed her everywhere:
"He spoke in tongues, they say."
"No — it was a summoning."
"My friend saw the shadow's eyes."
"Aria was near him often. What if she knew?"
The words clung to her like smoke, sharp and persistent. Once, when she passed a group of students she had once called friends, a girl named Lira murmured "traitor" under her breath.
Aria did not answer. She just kept walking. But the word stuck.
That evening, returning to her chamber, something caught her eye — a slip of parchment pushed beneath the door. Her heart leapt, then fell.
She knelt, unfolding it carefully. The handwriting was neat, precise. Three words only:
You are watched.
Her blood ran cold.
Candlelight flickered, shadows stretching and curling along the walls. She looked up, scanning the corridor outside. Empty.
The parchment crinkled in her trembling hands. You are watched.
A warning? A threat? A reminder? She did not know. But it changed everything.
She realized then that she was no longer just grieving for him. She was part of it now — woven into the same web, caught in the same unspoken fear threading through the halls.
And if she could not help him openly… she would find another way.
Something in her — small but fierce — hardened.
She blew out the candle. Smoke curled up, thin and ghostlike.
The whisper of the dying flame seemed to say what she could not:
You are not alone.