The bell tower struck five chimes before the sun broke fully over the eastern wall, flooding the capital's Arcanum District in pale gold. And with that echoing ring, the first day began.
Kael stood at the foot of the Grand Ascendant Stairway, the entrance to the Royal Academy yawning open before him like the mouth of some sleeping god. Even prepared, even steeled, he hadn't expected this. The academy wasn't merely large, it was a city unto itself. Ringed by high silver-trimmed walls and shielded by multi-layered arcane wards, it loomed across more ground than the entire village he'd grown up in.
The architecture struck a strange harmony between brutalist stone and elegant artistry, soaring columns flanked every corridor, each carved with enchanted scripture and house banners woven in elemental thread. At the heart stood the Ivory Keep, the oldest structure, now serving as the central administrative tower and the seat of the Dean's Circle. Beyond it stretched a dozen specialized halls: for spell theory, blade arts, alchemical rites, transmutation, planar studies, politics, and more.
Every hallway hummed faintly with magic, not the dramatic kind that exploded in battle but something subtler, old enchantments sunk deep into the walls, whispering rules, suppressing wild bursts of energy, and tracking the movement of every student with chilling precision.
Kael moved quietly among the wave of first-years funneled through the main concourse. Dozens of them, all roughly his age, fifteen, maybe sixteen, clad in fresh-cut uniforms of black and silver, each bearing a gilded rank bar over the chest. He saw nervous smiles, whispered jokes, the wide-eyed stares of noble children marveling at the infrastructure their families had likely funded for generations. They looked clean. Unscarred.
Seret walked a step behind, face calm, eyes hollowed from years of training. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the dorm tower, her expression unreadable beneath the soft curls she'd let fall over her cheek. Her uniform fit too well, and that worried Kael, it made her look like one of them. Normal.
The air reeked of incense and ink and polished marble. Above, ravens perched on floating pillars that drifted mid-air like drifting ships, enchanted to patrol the skies as familiars for the upperclassmen. A giant banner hung above the orientation gate: "Through Discipline, Dominion."
A professor stood at the archway entrance, face weathered, robe lined with runes so old they shimmered with dust instead of light. "First years to the Glass Pavilion! Keep formation!"
The crowd moved.
Kael and Seret followed in silence through an arched corridor into a vaulted atrium known as the Glass Pavilion. It lived up to its name, a dome of interwoven crystal and gold-glass filigree arched overhead, revealing the sky in its raw morning glory. Rays of sun refracted through the structure, casting hexagonal beams across the pale blue floor and sending rainbows dancing across every face.
At the front of the chamber stood five elevated thrones, empty for now, each one a relic of a founding discipline, Command, Spellcraft, Swordsmanship, Theory, and Diplomacy. Behind them towered a great relief carved into the wall itself: a throne at the center, encircled by twelve masks of differing design. Some smiled. Some wept. One was cracked.
Kael felt something cold ripple through his bones when he looked at it.
They were addressed by the Dean of Integration, a silver-haired elf whose voice carried through the chamber like the breath of winter. She spoke of tradition, of legacy, of the endless honor in shaping the future. But Kael heard none of it. His eyes moved instead across the gathered crowd, watching who listened, who fidgeted, who whispered. Upperclassmen lined the balconies above, each wearing long coats marked by years. Some leaned on enchanted rails, smirking. Others watched with the flat, measured gaze of predators observing fresh meat.
It didn't feel like an academy.
It felt like a battlefield waiting to be drawn.
Kael's fingers itched for the hilt of a blade he no longer carried. He glanced at Seret. She was watching the same balcony he was.
They were still prey. The rules had changed, but the war hadn't ended.
The speech ended with a rising chorus of applause, but Kael didn't move. Neither did Seret. The sound washed over them like a wave of static, dozens of hands clapping, voices murmuring, shoes scraping against tile, laughter rising in clusters. It was too much. Too fast. Kael's pulse quickened as the crowd around them surged forward, herded by glowing glyphs that pulsed across the floor, directing each group toward different buildings for their departmental assessments.
He wasn't used to this. He wasn't used to anything like this.
Voices came from every direction, some casual, some arrogant, some trembling from the nerves of first-timers trying to mask their fear behind forced confidence. A girl bumped into his shoulder, mumbled an apology without looking, and kept walking. Kael flinched. His instincts screamed to push back, to draw his weapon, to control the perimeter, but there was no perimeter. Just a sea of strangers, each carrying their own magic, their own intent, their own shadows.
Seret shifted closer, her fingers brushing against his sleeve. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but Kael understood. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes flicking too fast to track, faces, exits, weapon shapes, mana signatures. She was breaking every room down into angles of threat. That was how they were trained. That was how they survived. But here, the threat was everywhere and nowhere at once.
The academy was not a battlefield. That was what he kept telling himself.
But it was a pressure cooker. An arena. A forge where minds and magic were smashed together until something sharp came out.
They followed the stream to the Orientation Hall, another impossibly large structure, shaped like a half-moon amphitheater with wide stone benches and floating quills that annotated everything said aloud. Students were handed packets detailing their schedules, housing codes, and initiation rituals. None of it felt real. The words blurred across the page in Kael's hand. He could read them, he knew how, but comprehension slipped through his fingers like smoke.
A thunderous cheer erupted from one side of the room as some noble brat from House Estervane was introduced with far too much pomp. Kael flinched again. He didn't realize how tightly he'd clenched the edge of his seat until Seret gently tapped his wrist.
"Breathe," she said softly, her voice just above the background din.
He did. Slowly. Once. Then again.
They had faced darker things in the cult's dungeons. They had endured pain, starvation, and soul-fracturing rituals. But this, this, was different. There was no clear enemy to kill. No objective to seize. Only the invisible, suffocating weight of civilization pressing down on their raw, unfinished selves.
"Come on," Seret muttered as the session ended, pulling him toward a corridor lined with student guides.
They moved like ghosts through the hallways, too stiff, too quiet, drawing curious glances from those around them. The people here laughed with ease, flirted without consequence, complained about the early lectures like it was some great hardship. Kael could feel the distance between them and the others like a canyon. They didn't know the world. Not like this. Not like them.
By the time they reached their assigned classroom, Kael's shirt clung with sweat, and Seret looked ready to bite through her own tongue. The desks were staggered in a five-point array, magic whiteboards levitating overhead and crystals humming faintly in the corners to record each session.
Their instructor hadn't arrived yet.
Kael slid into a seat near the back. Seret sat beside him without a word. Neither of them looked at the other.
They couldn't say it aloud, but they were thinking the same thing.
This place was worse than the cult in one terrifying way: at least in the cult, you knew who your enemies were.