By the ti I woke up, several hours had already slipped away into the quiet darkness of the night.
At first, everything felt distant and heavy, as though my body didn’t quite belong to yet.... like I was floating sowhere just beneath the surface of consciousness, wrapped in thick layers of exhaustion and lingering pain. My limbs felt leaden, my thoughts slow and fragnted. Then, gradually, I beca aware of sothing warm and steady wrapped around my hand.
Soone was holding it.
Gently.
Possessively.
Their thumb brushing faint, absentminded circles against the back of my skin, as if the motion had beco automatic, sothing they didn’t even realize they were doing.
I frowned slightly, confusion cutting through the fog, and forced my eyes open.
The first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t on the academy field anymore.
I was lying on a bed.
The single one in the Red dorm room, the one that caused this who fight that leads to the punishnt. The mattress felt surprisingly soft beneath , the sheets cool and clean against my still-clammy skin. The familiar high ceiling stretched above, the faint golden glow of a single bedside lamp casting long, soft shadows across the walls.
And the second thing I noticed... was Elion.
He was sitting right beside on the edge of the bed, his posture relaxed yet attentive, one hand loosely but firmly wrapped around mine. His thumb continued those slow, soothing circles, tracing invisible patterns over my knuckles. His Blond hair was slightly tousled, as if he’d run his fingers through it too many tis, and his grey eyes were fixed on my face with quiet intensity.
For a long mont, I simply stared at him, too disoriented to speak or pull away. The warmth of his touch seeped into my palm, strangely comforting against the deep ache that still radiated through every muscle in my body.
Then voices broke through the heavy silence around us.
Loud.
Sharp.
Heated.
No one had noticed I was awake yet.
They were too caught up in their argunt, words flying back and forth like sparks ready to ignite another fire.
"You caused all this trouble, Kaden," one of the girls snapped, her voice sharp with accusation.
So that was his na.
Kaden.
The sa silver-blond idiot whose arrogant outburst had gotten every single one of us punished on our very first night.
"It seems you people don’t even understand what I was fighting for," Kaden shot back, his tone defensive, almost self-righteous, laced with the kind of righteous indignation that made my stomach twist. "Ivy, you of all people should get it."
I slowly let my eyes fall shut again, pretending I was still unconscious, my breathing deliberately slow and even.
If they thought I was still asleep... then they wouldn’t hold back.
And right now, I desperately wanted to hear everything, every ugly, unfiltered truth they were willing to spill while they believed I couldn’t listen.
Still, I cracked my eyes open just a sliver.... just enough to watch the scene without being obvious, peering through the narrow gap of my lashes.
"The problem is we all got punished for what you were ’fighting for,’" another girl said, her voice laced with clear irritation and lingering resentnt.
"And we might still get punished again for destroying things in the room," the brown haired said crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
A low groan followed from sowhere near the wardrobes.
"Just pray it’s not too severe," Ivy muttered, her tone heavy with frustration. "Because I don’t understand why I should be punished when I did absolutely nothing wrong."
Ivy is the vampire that was the first to finish
Honestly?
I felt the sa.
I hadn’t asked for any of this either.
"The whole problem started with Nyx," Kaden said suddenly, his voice cutting through the room like a fresh blade.
My breath stilled in my chest.
Of course.
Bla the easiest target.
But how exactly was I the problem?
I didn’t ask to be chosen as leader.
I didn’t even want the damn title.
"How is she the problem?" Elion’s voice cut in smoothly, calm but edged with steel, a clear warning threaded beneath the surface.
I felt sothing tight in my chest loosen slightly at his words.
At least soone was willing to push back.
Kaden scoffed loudly, the sound dripping with disdain. "How can she beco the leader of this group? Look around... everyone here is powerful except her."
Each word landed heavier than the last, pressing down on like stones.
"Three laps," he continued, voice rising with incredulity. "Just three.... and she’s been unconscious for four hours. And you expect us to follow soone like that?"
Silence followed.
Not disagreent.
Not outrage or defense.
Just heavy, loaded silence.
And sohow... that was far worse than any shouted insult.
"Well," Ivy said after a mont, her tone almost thoughtful, as if she were considering a perfectly reasonable suggestion, "even if she becos leader, we can just wait."
A pause stretched out, thick with unspoken implication.
"Wait for what?" The other lady asked, the question hanging uncertainly in the air.
"For her to die naturally... Lyra"
For a second, I thought I must have misheard her.
But then she continued, completely serious, her voice calm and matter-of-fact.
"We all know Morvalis isn’t a place for the weak. It’s only a matter of ti."
Wow.
I almost laughed aloud... bitter, hollow, and humorless.
Not because it was funny.
But because the way she said it... was so casually, chillingly cruel. As if my potential death was nothing more than an inconvenient but inevitable detail in their grander plans.
"That’s too much, Ivy," the other girl... Lyra said uneasily, her voice wavering with discomfort.
"She’s telling the truth," Kaden added without hesitation, doubling down on the cold logic.
"And both of you sound incredibly stupid," Elion replied flatly, his thumb still tracing those gentle circles on my hand even as his tone sharpened.
The air in the room shifted instantly, tension crackling like electricity before a storm.
"How dare you speak to like that?" Kaden snapped, his defensive anger flaring hot and imdiate.
"What are you going to do?" Elion shot back, unflinching. "Start another fight?"
"Please... can we not do this again?" Theo’s... The human voice cut in, strained and weary. "I don’t want another punishnt."
I silently agreed with every fiber of my exhausted being.
I wasn’t even sure I could survive half a lap right now, let alone whatever fresh hell another fight might bring.
My body still felt like it had been torn apart on that endless black field and poorly stitched back together with rusty needles.
I glanced around briefly through my barely-open eyes.
Thorne wasn’t in the room.
Good.
Or maybe... not good.
I wasn’t sure anymore. His absence left an odd, unsettled hollow in my chest that I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Before the argunt could escalate any further and spiral back into chaos....
The door opened with a soft, deliberate click.
And just like that, everything went silent.
Every single voice died mid-sentence.
Mr. Asher stood at the doorway.
Cold... Composed.... Watching.
His presence alone was enough to suffocate the entire room, draining the air of oxygen and replacing it with heavy, oppressive authority. The faint scent of night air and sothing sharper... perhaps ink or old parchnt... clung to him as he stepped inside.
"You should all prepare yourselves," he said calmly, his voice smooth and asured, carrying the weight of absolute certainty.
A pause followed, letting the words sink in like stones dropped into still water.
"To spend a day in Morvalis."
For a second, no one reacted. The room seed to hold its collective breath.
"What?" I blurted out, shooting upright so fast that my head spun violently, the room tilting in a nauseating whirl of color and shadow.
The sudden movent startled everyone, including Elion, whose grip on my hand tightened instinctively, steadying before I could collapse back against the pillows.
Pain shot through my body in sharp, electric waves, my muscles protesting against the abrupt motion. But I barely felt it through the surge of panic.
Morvalis?
Why are we going to Morvalis?
The thought echoed loudly and frantically inside my skull, bouncing off the walls of my mind like a trapped bird.
And even without a mirror, I knew exactly how I looked in that mont.
Pale.
Wide-eyed.
Like soone standing on the trembling edge of sothing far worse than re punishnt.
Like soone who already knew....
This wasn’t going to end well.
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