The Academy nudged and guided. Occasionally, it would shove us where we needed to go or slam walls in front of us, but it didn’t speak in riddles meant to unsettle. It didn’t loom like this and linger in the dark spaces between thoughts.
Something else was here.
Or someone.
As I walked, the corridor stretched longer than it should have, the familiar turn toward my room drifting just out of reach time and again. A sigil along the floor charged as if redirecting me.
“No,” I said softly. “I’m exhausted. This, whatever it is, can wait.”
But in front of me, the hallway curved gently, just enough so that my room was no longer in view.
And my blood went cold.
I stopped again, heart hammering, as my magic stirred in response to this invitation, but the whispers grew clearer.
Blood remembers.
Legacy answers.
Choice echoes.
It wasn’t the Academy speaking to me.
It was my grandmother.
The Priestess.
My pulse roared in my ears as I turned slowly in place, searching the shadows for a presence I prayed I wouldn’t find. I wanted to believe that after Gideon, the Academy didn’t make a sudden habit of inviting guests from Shadowick into its fray.
“You don’t get to just… drop in, especially here.”
A low, knowing warmth slid through my veins, followed immediately by ice.
Do I not?
The question didn’t sound offended. It sounded amused.
And that worried me most.
The light dimmed as the corridor ahead narrowed, the stone pressing in with quiet inevitability. Doors that should have offered escape slid seamlessly into the walls, their seams vanishing as if they’d never existed.
The Academy wasn’t fighting this.
“Why are you letting this happen?” I demanded, pressing my palm to the wall. The stone thrummed beneath my hand, familiar and steadfast, but distant now.
Remember who’s in charge.
My stomach dropped, and the corridor opened abruptly, the ceiling lifting, the air changing, heavy with something old and reverent and sharp as oathbound steel.
The Oath Room. The Academy placed me here without the staircase to get here, without the trek down quiet halls.
It wasn’t my grandmother. It was the Academy calling me to the mirrors.
I hadn’t been here since the night everything changed. It felt like just yesterday that I chose to join the Academy as it saw fit.
I stepped forward despite myself, my feet moving as if drawn by gravity rather than will. The doors swung closed behind me with a soft, final sound.
The mirrors gleamed.
