The night air outside the dormitory windows was still, but Zyren couldn't sleep. Not with the pendant pulsing faintly against his chest, not with the whisper of dreams still echoing in his ears.
When the Academy's bells chimed the midnight hour, he slipped quietly from his room.
Alaric was waiting for him by the old statue of Ardyn the Just, arms crossed and boots propped lazily against the plinth.
"I assume this isn't just a walk to admire architecture," Alaric said, tossing him a cloak.
Zyren nodded. "Corwin's on his way. Fira too."
Alaric's brow lifted. "You sure about her?"
"She asked questions no one else dared," Zyren said. "She deserves answers too."
Zyren pulled his cloak tighter against the chill, his fingers brushing the pendant beneath his shirt. It was glowing faintly now—more steady than before, almost... deliberate.
He stepped away from the statue and into a patch of moonlight. The stone shimmered softly through the fabric, casting faint patterns across his chest.
It was guiding him. Not tugging, not demanding—just... pointing. Like it had found something it recognized. Or something it feared.
He looked toward the East Wing, its silhouette half-eclipsed by mist curling low along the lawn. There was no wind, no sound—but the weight in the air was impossible to ignore.
Zyren swallowed hard and let the pendant drop back against his chest.
They were close to something. He just didn't know what it would cost to find it.
Moments later, Fira approached, wrapped tightly in a fur-lined cloak. Her breath misted in the cold.
"This is reckless," she said without greeting. "We'll be expelled if we're caught."
"Then don't get caught," Alaric replied, smiling.
Fira shot him a look, but her bravado cracked when Zyren spoke next.
"It's the East Wing."
She went still. "…You're serious?"
Zyren met her eyes. "You've heard what happened there."
"I've heard rumors," she said, quieter now. "Wards gone wrong. Students who never came back. And..." Her voice dropped further. "I've heard the Order may have once used that wing for research before the Sundering."
Alaric's grin faded. "You believe that?"
"I don't want to." Fira's gaze flitted to the distant wing, shrouded in mist. "But I believe they're real. And if they've returned…"
She didn't finish. She didn't have to. Her hands, usually steady with flame, trembled slightly at her sides.
Corwin arrived last, panting from the run. "If we're doing this, let's go before someone sees."
Zyren turned toward the dark corridor. "We find out what's hiding in our own walls—before we think about running off to face what's in the Vale."
—
The Academy grounds lay still beneath a brittle frost, but the silence felt watchful.
They moved like shadows—Alaric scouting ahead, Corwin murmuring low warnings when stone cracked underfoot. Fira wrapped her cloak tighter, teeth clenched against the cold.
A flicker of movement—light. A lantern swinging from a tall iron staff.
"Warden," Corwin hissed.
They ducked behind a half-collapsed archway, crouching low. The lantern's glow passed just feet away, spilling golden light across the path. Zyren held his breath, one hand pressed flat to the cold stone.
The pendant's pulse quickened.
He felt, for an instant, that they weren't hiding from the Warden at all—but from something watching even him.
Then the light moved on.
They exhaled as one.
"Next time," Alaric muttered, "we're doing this with a map. Or at least a bribe."
At the entrance to the East Wing, wind whistled faintly through the high arches. The door loomed like a wound in the Academy's foundations—ancient, untouched, but not abandoned.
Alaric crouched beside the glowing glyphs. "Double wards. First one's a misdirection. Second's a trap."
"Can you break them?" Zyren asked.
"Can I?" Alaric smirked. "Absolutely. Should I? Probably not."
Corwin leaned against the wall. "You're stalling."
Alaric rolled his eyes and got to work. "Fine. But if the floor turns into a pit of snakes, I get to say I told you so."
Fira watched, hugging her arms tight. "Why here, Zyren? Why now?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he pulled the moonstone pendant from beneath his shirt.
The glow had grown stronger—steady, insistent.
"It's pointing here," he said softly. "And I think Tolren was trying to warn me. This place… whatever it used to be, it's connected to the Order. And to the dreams."
Fira's face paled at the word. "If the Order truly touched this place… then we shouldn't be anywhere near it."
"You're afraid," Alaric noted without judgment.
Fira turned on him. "Of course I am. They burned entire cities before the Sundering. They warped magic itself. My grandmother fled when they rose the first time—I grew up on those stories."
Zyren stepped between them. "That's why we have to know what they left behind."
The door creaked open.
A gust of air swirled out from the opening—frigid, whispering. It wasn't wind, not truly. It sounded like… voices. One word, maybe two, layered atop one another, fading too quickly to grasp. The pendant flared. For a heartbeat, the stone door trembled as if reluctant to allow them passage.
---
Inside, the air was sharp and cold, untouched by the warmth of the Academy. Dust coated everything. Faint blue flames ignited along the sconces as they stepped inside, casting eerie shadows across the forgotten hall.
Portraits lined the walls—professors of old, their names half-faded, their eyes sunken with time. Many of them had been defaced. Some entirely removed.
"Who wipes out history like this?" Corwin whispered.
"Someone trying to erase a legacy," Zyren replied.
They passed shuttered classrooms, shattered glass displays, and broken sigils scratched into the stone floor. At one point, they found a hollowed-out alcove where a pedestal had once held something. Whatever it was had been violently removed.
Fira knelt. "This was a power source. A core of some kind."
Alaric frowned. "Not just any core. This glyph pattern… it's Ravari. I saw it in a banned scroll my brother stole once."
Fira stood quickly, eyes wide. "We need to leave. Now."
"No," Zyren said. "We're close. The pendant's pulling harder."
It led them to a final door—massive and round, embedded with a carved spiral flame. Zyren froze. It was the same symbol from the girl's dream.
"She stood right here," he whispered. "She showed me this door."
They opened it.
The air rippled as the door parted. For just a second, Zyren heard her voice again—the girl from the dream. Don't trust the first one you follow. He glanced at Alaric, then at Corwin… and froze. Footsteps echoed ahead, but no one had moved yet.
---
The chamber beyond was circular and silent. At its center was a cracked silver orb, just like the one that had shattered during the feast. Carvings circled the room—constellations, sigils, and images of the Wildlights: emerald skies above dark trees.
But most chilling of all were the seven robed figures, etched into the stone, reaching upward.
The Order.
"They were here," Corwin said. "Maybe even before the Academy took over this land."
Zyren stepped toward the orb, his pendant glowing with each step. "This was their anchor. A conduit."
Fira turned away, shaking. "We shouldn't have come. We're not ready for this."
"I don't think we were ever meant to be," Alaric said. "But that doesn't change the truth."
A sudden snap of sound echoed from down the corridor.
Footsteps.
Slow. Unhurried.
Zyren motioned sharply, and the group scattered into the shadows.
A moment later, Kael stepped into the chamber, alone.
He studied the room without surprise. Without fear.
When he approached the orb, he knelt and whispered something in a language none of them recognized.
The orb pulsed once, then went dark.
Kael stood, turned… and stared directly into the shadows where Zyren crouched. His gaze locked onto him for a long, chilling second.
Then he smiled.
"I told you," he said softly. "The East Wing eats the curious."
And he walked away.
---
When the silence returned, no one moved for a moment.
Fira was the first to speak, voice trembling. "He's one of them."
"Or worse," Corwin said. "He's watching for them."
Zyren finally straightened. "He knew we were here."
"And he didn't stop us," Alaric added. "Which means he either doesn't care... or he wants us involved."
Fira stepped to the orb. "This thing was drawing power from somewhere. It's not gone. It's hidden."
Corwin glanced at Zyren. "What now?"
Zyren looked at the carvings on the wall. At the Wildlights. At the reaching hands.
"We can't wait anymore," he said quietly. "The Order has already moved. And if Kael's involved…"
Alaric nodded grimly. "Then we're not just chasing ghosts."
Zyren looked down at the orb, still faintly warm beneath his fingers. The pendant pulsed again.
"We go north," he said. "To the Vale. But we don't go as students."
"We go as witnesses, to what's coming."
---
**End of Chapter Ten**