The bells of evening prayer still rang through the academy when Rynna Vale hurried across the courtyard, her satchel bumping against her hip. The scent of burning incense clung to the air — thick, sweet, and a little too heavy for her liking.
She slowed near the main hall, watching lines of robed initiates bow toward the Eternal Flame. The orange glow painted their faces, calm and devoted. Rynna sighed softly. "Same prayers. Same fire. Same everything."
Eren Dhal caught up behind her, late as usual, his collar undone and his sash half-tied. "Careful, Ryn," he said, grinning. "Someone might think you're losing faith."
"Faith doesn't mean silence," she muttered.
Eren chuckled. "Maybe. But silence keeps you out of the Inquisitors' notice."
They both turned as a procession of priests passed through the hall's far archway. Two of them carried a stretcher draped in white cloth. The smell of smoke followed.
Rynna frowned. "Another accident?"
"Maybe a training mishap," Eren said, though his tone wasn't sure. "They've been sending people below for purification lately."
The priests walked past, murmuring in low voices. As they passed under the torchlight, Rynna caught a glimpse through the folds of the cloth — pale skin, streaked with ash and faint light pulsing beneath it.
Her stomach tightened. "That didn't look like a burn."
Eren's grin faded. "You noticed it too."
They stood in silence until the footsteps disappeared. Then Rynna exhaled slowly. "He looked… alive. Like the light was moving inside him."
Eren adjusted his sash. "Don't think about it. The last time someone started asking questions about the lower halls, they vanished."
"Maybe they just stopped asking," Rynna said.
He smirked. "That's the same thing."
She wanted to argue, but the sound of the bells deepened, echoing through the marble corridors. The sun had nearly set, and the sky outside the stained windows glowed the same color as dying coals.
They started walking again.
"Classes start again tomorrow," Eren said, glancing at her. "Think we'll finally get to see the new initiates?"
Rynna shrugged. "Maybe. Most of them don't last through the first month anyway."
They reached the dormitory steps. Rynna paused at the top and looked back toward the courtyard. From this angle, she could see the distant spire rising behind the main tower — black against the burning sky. The Spire of Silence.
No one was supposed to go there after dark.
Yet as the last bell rang, she saw movement at its base — a faint flicker of red light, pulsing once, then vanishing.
Her breath caught. "Eren."
He followed her gaze. "What?"
"Look."
By the time he turned, the light was gone.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "You're seeing things again."
"Maybe." But she didn't sound convinced.
That night, while the rest of the dormitory slept, Rynna sat by the window with a candle and her notebook open. The page was half-filled with sketches — symbols she'd seen once in a forbidden archive, glowing patterns shaped like fire caught in glass.
She tapped the pen against her knee, thinking of the stretcher, the ash-marked boy, and the strange light beneath his skin.
Something about it all felt wrong — not dangerous, exactly, but familiar.
When the candle burned low, she whispered a quiet promise to herself.
"If the academy hides the truth," she murmured, "then I'll find it myself."
Outside, the wind carried faint whispers through the courtyard — like voices echoing from stone. Somewhere beyond the walls, Kael Verrin stirred in his guarded cell, the mark beneath his chest pulsing softly with firelight.
He didn't know her name yet.
But the flame inside him flickered once, as if answering something far away.
And for a brief second, both of them — the boy bound by fire and the girl who questioned everything — dreamed the same dream.
A world burning not in destruction, but in awakening.