They summoned me at dawn.
No rest. No tea. No time to wash the dried blood from my coat.
The messenger was a second-year from the Honor Guard division—stiff-backed and silent as he handed over the summons scroll. Formal script. Gold crest. A wax seal bearing the sigil of Augustus Evercrest, Headmaster of Noctis Ardentis Academy.
And below it, a name scrawled in precise handwriting that made my skin crawl.
Lysaria Valehart, High Arcanist and Head of the Department of Arcane Theory.
The walk through the eastern tower was quiet. Too quiet.
No students here. Only watchers—faculty members in their flowing robes and polished insignias, whispering behind closed doors. I recognized a few. Others I'd avoided since my appointment.
They looked at me differently now.
Rumors traveled faster than spellfire.
They'd all heard about the Blood Mist. The beast. The trap that should've killed a dozen students. And the unstable, illegal runework that stopped it.
