It's been a few hours since my duel with Alaster, and already everything feels different. After Evanora's little spectacle out on the platform—her making the others salute , painting a target on my back—the proctors herded us into the station building. From the outside, it looked small, almost like an afterthought tacked onto the tracks. But the mont the doors swung shut behind us, that illusion shattered. The inside was enormous, the ceilings high and echoing, corridors branching off in every direction. Each hallway seed to stretch impossibly far, and when I peered down the stairwells, the floors unspooled downward into a kind of gray-lit infinity, lined with numbered doors as far as I could see.
They sorted us quickly. Girls to the upper floors. Boys down lower. Two to a room, they said. Yet when I reached my assigned floor, the proctor leading us paused before a solitary door near the central stairwell and waved inside without a word. No roommate. A reward, they claid, for killing another Elite before stepping foot on the Academy's true grounds.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't grateful.
The room is simple but larger than I expected which I guess considering how the rest of the building was unnaturally big makes seem kind of dumb. Cool stone floors, dark wood furnishings, and a bed with soft, untouched sheets. There's also a narrow desk with an inkwell, a wardrobe holding a fresh Academy uniform my normal black outfit, with a new robe a serpent embroidered at the collar in silver thread. A narrow window set high in the wall lets in a sliver of light although if the sun outside the window is real or not is up for discussion. There's a private bath behind a paneled door, steam still lingering from the heated water as if they knew I'd be arriving. I stripped off the dust, sweat, and dried blood from the duel and let myself soak until the water turned cool.
Now, dressed in the new uniform, I sit on the edge of my bed waiting. The proctors haven't said when the interviews or tests for House assignnts will begin whatever that ans, only that we'll be "called upon" soon. I've managed to pick up the nas of three proctors so far. Evanora Hilta, the pink-eyed woman with the silver hair and that jagged scar; she moves with the assurance of soone who expects obedience and is used to getting it. Jax, the tall, green-eyed man who shapes stone like it's soft clay; his voice is always bored, his gaze sharp. And Eve, the purple-haired woman with those mindaro-colored eyes hers is the face I rember twisted in disgust as she disposed of Alaster's body. The rest of the proctors have deed it unnecessary to share their nas yet.
I keep thinking soone will barge in any mont summon for an interview, or one of these "house" assignnts they keep talking about. I don't even know what a house is. A team of so sort I suppose? How are they supposed to sort eighty of us—more, once the other trains arrive—through "small tests" in a single day? Do they divide us by power, personality, bloodline? The logistics alone seem impossible. Maybe they just throw us in an arena and see who cos out walking.
I'm turning these questions over, picking at the threads, when the silence shatters.
Boom.
A muffled, thunderous crack shakes the walls. I sit up sharply. Dust filters down from the ceiling. What the hell?
Another explosion this ti closer. The floor trembles beneath , and distant shouting bleeds in through walls. Screams. Panic.
Is this the test? What is happening?
I spring up from the bed so fast my knee bangs hard against the fra, but the jolt barely registers through the adrenaline. I re-latch the robe around my neck with a single practiced motion and snatch up my sword from where it leans against the wall.
The hallway is carnage. The floor's buckled, stone tiles split and heaved like the aftermath of a siege. Cracks race up the walls, plaster raining down in dusty sheets. The ceiling sags and groans, and I can see daylight in places where there shouldn't be any. My breath catches. For a split second, I freeze, scanning both ways down the corridor. The third floor looks like it's one good shove from dropping out beneath us. I step out, moving carefully but quickly, feet crunching over debris. I look both ways and regret it. The third floor's wrecked. Entire segnts of the corridor have caved in, and the ceiling's splitting apart in jagged veins. This place was supposed to be protected. Untouchable. A sanctuary for the Empire's future monsters.
What the fuck is going on?
No alarms. No orders. Just the dull, distant thud of explosions from sowhere below and above—faint, but close enough to rattle my bones. Between the booms, I can hear the echo of shouts and screams from other floors, warped by stone and panic. It's the kind of sound that crawls under your skin and settles in your gut. Where are the proctors?
I reach the stairs and stop cold. A knot of first years lies sprawled across the floor a dozen at least, blood pooling beneath their bodies, spreading in slow, sticky rivers between the stones. Their faces are slack, eyes wide and staring. The tallic tang of blood cuts through the dust and I have to swallow, hard, to keep the bile down.
My thoughts go cold, sharp. Who could breach the Academy like this? Who'd dare? My body flattens against the wall, breath shallow, eyes sweeping the shadows for any sign of movent. The urge to run fights with the urge to fight. My training is a lifeline I check corners, keep low, move quick. But nothing in my training covers this. Not a massacre in a place that's supposed to be untouchable.
I move slowly down the fractured staircase, boots skimming over broken stone and slick patches of blood. The scent down here is thick iron and ash, and sothing burnt I don't want to identify. More bodies lie crumpled on the steps, students who just saluted hours ago. Faces slack, clothes torn, so missing limbs. A few look like they tried to fight back.
It hits with a cold, crawling certainty: this wasn't one person's work. There's too much carnage, too many angles of attack so cut down from behind, so from the front. So seem to be torn apart by plants. It's organized. Coordinated. My discomfort grows, a leaden weight in my gut as I realize that at least one of the attackers is above , moving further up the building. Their footsteps are faint, asured, never hurried they know what they're doing, and they aren't afraid.
I freeze for a mont, pressed against the wall, letting my breathing slow as I weigh my options. Every ounce of logic tells to move in the opposite direction. Head down, find an exit, or a proctor, or anyone who might actually be able to stop this. Whoever dared to launch an attack here, in Lusa of all places, within carriage distance of the Emperor's palace, has to be either suicidally insane or strong enough not to care.
Caution claws at the back of my mind, logic screaming at to keep moving downward, find a way out, slip into the city and disappear until the dust settles. Survival. That's what all the rules say. But at the edge of my thoughts, the old voices stir low, hungry, angry. You can't let them do as they please. Not here. Not while you watch. They must pay. They must suffer. Make them regret crossing your path.
I close my eyes for a heartbeat, jaw clenched tight, and let out a slow, bitter curse. I know I should keep running, but the idea sits cowardly. So I turn, boots scraping against broken stone, and start back up the stairs, sword balanced in my grip. My gaze flickers from shadow to shadow, hunting for movent. I need other Elites. More Bodies. Shields, you call them. The more I save, the less likely I am to end up another corpse cooling on the stairs. And if I can use them to slow the bastards down in the process?
Even better.
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