Page 50

Cyrus muttered something under his breath.

Elio smirked. “Well, this should be entertaining.”

Keane didn’t react. He hadn’t looked at me once.

I squared my shoulders, trying to hide how my hands trembled. “Fine.”

Around the hall, other students were divided into small groups, each assigned different combinations of magical disciplines. I caught sight of Raven, paired with two students who specialized in defensive enchantments, their runes already glowing faintly. At least they knew what they were doing.

Rivera gestured toward the far end of the hall, where the enchanted combat doors pulsed with magic. Lord Raynoff watched in silence as shadows poured into the hall.

The vampires weren’t real, but they might as well have been. Constructs made of combat magic, designed to mimic real enemy attacks—fast, relentless, and deadly if you hesitated even a second too long.

Each team faced different challenges. To our left, a group of students held their ground with warding spells, barriers of shimmering silver light flaring to life. Further down, illusionists worked together to distort reality. But I couldn’t focus on their techniques—my magic was already surging in response to the threat, raw and unstable.

Cyrus moved first, fire racing over his arms as he launched an explosive wave that sent two creatures skidding back. Keane opened a portal to reposition us—

And then his magic wavered.

I felt it before I saw it—a ripple in the air, like space bending the wrong way. The portal’s edges stuttered, jagged like cracked glass.

The vampire twisted at the last second and lunged, slipping through the glitching spell.

Keane didn’t react in time. His portals had always been steady, even when distracted—but now, the silver rim sputtered between brilliance and shadow.

The vampire construct spun midair, claws outstretched—closing fast.

That drop in my stomach came before the thought. A gut-deep certainty: he wouldn’t stop it.

My magic moved before I could.

Shadows surged forward, not as an attack, but as instinct. A pulse of raw necrotic force crushed the construct to nothing before it could reach him. It wasn’t a spell. It wasn’t planned. It was something older than training.

The power didn’t stop. It kept building, feeding off my panic, my need to protect. The dead things responded to my fear, rising from every corner of the room. I couldn’t control it—couldn’t even try. All I could do was let it flow.

“No more screw-ups,” Cyrus snapped, yanking Keane upright. “We finish this together.”

I barely heard him. My magic was everywhere now, wild and desperate. But it wasn’t alone. It wasn’t just pushing outward, it was pulling.

Cyrus’s fire wrapped around my shadows, not consuming them, but shaping them. The edges of his flames flared deep blue, something flickering beneath them that didn’t belong.

Keane’s portal, the one that had wavered and cracked, suddenly stabilized. No effort. No adjustment. It simply… fixed itself. His fox pressed harder against his legs, ears flat, as if sensing something Keane couldn’t.

Elio’s illusions solidified. His conjured images had always been beautiful, but now they carried weight. Like they weren’t just projections but remnants of something real. His chameleon’s scales flashed through a rapid-fire sequence of colors, unsettled.

When the last construct fell, the hall was silent, except for our breathing. For a second, no one spoke.

Cyrus flexed his fingers like they didn’t feel like his own. His phoenix, usually still and regal after a fight, kept his wings slightly spread, watching the space where the construct had disappeared.

Elio was still watching Keane. Not me. Keane.

And Keane… Keane hadn’t moved. Wisp had pressed so tightly against his legs now that her claws dug into the fabric of his pants. Keane’s hands clenched at his sides, but he wasn’t looking at the battlefield anymore—he was staring at where his portal had failed.

Behind the glass, Lord Raynoff’s face didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted.

Rivera folded his arms. “That was… unexpected.” He said it too neutrally. Too carefully. Like he was measuring the weight of what had just happened.

Our magic had moved like it was remembering, instead of learning.