Page 27

The Vale Within the Walls

A week had passed since the duel in Magical Combat, a week since our intimate encounter in the library, yet I could still feel the ghost of Samael’s words crackling in the air between us.

No one spoke of it outright, but the tension lingered—subtle, unspoken, like a thread stretched taut between two distant points.

I caught him watching me sometimes, his gaze heavy with something unreadable, but neither of us acknowledged it.

Now, beneath the willow trees in the courtyard, the morning air crisp with autumn fully descending around us, I let the cool stone of the bench ground me. My fingers traced the cracks in its surface as Lydia flipped through a stack of weathered notes, her brows furrowed in thought.

The disappearances had ceased—for now—but the mysteries of the Umbra Gate and the missing relics remained unanswered.

“I think we’re missing something,” Lydia muttered, pushing her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose.

Her brow furrowed as she tapped a finger sharply against the parchment spread across the table.

“All these references to the amulets, the gate… they point to places across Mystral, but they’re maddeningly vague.

” She exhaled, frustrated. “It’s like trying to decipher a language that rewrites itself the moment you think you’ve cracked it. ”

Across from her, Leander stretched like a cat, limbs loose, voice light. “Then maybe it’s time we stop chasing riddles on parchment and start chasing them in the real world.”

He glanced at me, a mischievous gleam catching in his eye. “What do you think, Elle? Feel like making a little trouble?”

Bethany snorted into her tea. “He means reckless adventuring , ” she said, folding her arms. But the corners of her mouth twitched, betraying her curiosity.

“Still…” she added, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “we haven’t exactly gone back to look for that corridor you found near the Divination Tower last week.”

Her gaze slid to me. “Maybe this time we actually follow it.”

The academy was ancient, its walls steeped in forgotten knowledge. What else had been hidden away, buried beneath centuries of dust and silence?

I glanced toward the distant corridors, where shadows pooled in the recesses of towering archways. My pulse quickened.

“Then we start there.” A silent agreement settled between us.

Abandoning the comfort of the courtyard, we turned toward the academy’s main hall, our footsteps quiet against the stone. If the answers we sought lay beyond that hidden wing, then it was time we uncovered them ourselves.

The academy welcomed us with a cold embrace, the air heavy with the scent of aged paper and forgotten time.

Dust motes danced in the slanting afternoon light that filtered through tall, narrow windows.

Our footsteps echoed against the worn stone floors; each sound amplified in the silence that pressed around us.

Many of the students spent their weekends tucked into armchairs in the third-floor Study Lounge or wandering down to the docks to soak in the saltwater breeze. The castle always felt a little looser on weekends—its tension softened by distance from lessons.

As we climbed the sweeping staircase in the atrium, Lydia took the lead, eyes already scanning the corridor ahead like it might reveal something new.

Behind her, Leander rested both hands on her shoulders as he gave an exaggerated shiver.

“This place gives me the chills,” he muttered, his voice theatrical. “Feels like we’re about to uncover a secret chamber or be devoured by cursed masonry.”

I understood his unease. There was something almost ghostly about the academy’s corridors—a consciousness that seemed to observe us from the shadows.

The walls were lined with paintings of beautiful landscapes and portraits, their subjects' eyes following our every move, their painted lips frozen in perpetual silence.

Generations of scholars, headmasters, and notable members of Mystral gazed down at us with expressions ranging from stern disapproval to enigmatic knowing.

“These paintings date back to the founding of Drakestone,” Lydia murmured, her fingers hovering just shy of the gilded frame. Her eyes traced the details with near-reverence. “Some of these faces... they’re in the texts I’ve been studying about the early days of the academy.”

Behind her, Leander pulled a small vial from his pocket and uncorked it with a quiet pop . A soft blue glow spilled into the air, curling like mist around his fingers.

“A little something I’ve been working on in Potions,” he said, grinning as the light flickered across his face. “Still haven’t mastered the illumination charm.”

Lydia turned, eyebrows raised in what might have once been disapproval—but her expression shifted as her eyes met his. A flicker of knowing passed through her gaze. Not quite indulgent, not quite amused—just Lydia, as always, one step ahead.

“Of course you haven’t,” she said lightly. “You’d never pass up an excuse for theatrics.”

Bethany slowed beside him, eyeing the collection of portraits critically. “The craftsmanship is remarkable. Look at the detail in the—”

But I was no longer listening.

Something pulled at me—an invisible current drawing me forward, past Lydia’s scholarly observations and Leander’s quiet amusement. My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me deeper into the corridor until I stood before a portrait that seemed to pulse with an energy unlike the others.

It depicted a woman with features hauntingly similar to my own—the same dark hair, the same curve of the jaw, the same ethereal blue eyes that stared back at me from my mirror each morning.

But where my expression usually held curiosity or determination, hers was a mask of serene power.

She wore a high-collared dress of midnight blue, and around her neck hung a familiar pendant: the Raven’s Echo.

“Elvana?” Lydia’s voice seemed to come from miles away. “What is it?”

My fingertips trembled as they reached toward the canvas.

"Cordelia Vale," I read from the small plaque beneath the frame, my voice barely audible. "1768–1813."

The portrait’s eyes seemed to follow me as I reached out, my fingertips hovering just inches from the painted surface.

“She’s beautiful.”

Samael’s voice cut through the corridor like a blade—low, sudden, and far too close.

I spun around.

He stood at the far end of the wing, silhouetted by the soft spill of light from the main hall. I hadn’t heard his footsteps, hadn’t felt his presence until he spoke—and now that he had, the air around us felt heavier.

He moved toward us with that same effortless grace, each step measured, deliberate—like he was always calculating more than he let on.

“How long have you been following us?” I asked, my voice low, wary.

Samael stepped closer. The warmth that radiated from him was jarring against the chill that clung to the corridor.

Leander subtly shifted beside me, positioning himself just slightly in front of Lydia and Bethany. His stance was relaxed, but I could see the tension coiled in his frame.

Samael ran a hand through his dark hair, the motion lazy—but I didn’t miss the calculation behind it.

“I wasn’t following you,” he said, voice even. “I was looking for something.”

His gaze flicked to the portrait—Cordelia’s face—and lingered.

“You know who she is,” I said quietly, though I already saw the truth written across his expression.

His jaw tensed.

“The Vale women are… well known,” he said at last. “Even among the Norwoods.”

He stepped closer to the portrait, eyes tracing every brushstroke.

“Cordelia was Imogen Vale’s great-granddaughter. One of the brightest minds Drakestone ever saw.”

There was something in his voice—not admiration. Not reverence.

Almost… grief.

Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, Samael leaned back against the stone wall, his posture deceptively casual.

“She went on to become a professor,” he said, voice low and detached. “History and Literature. But her time at Drakestone was cut short. She was found murdered—in the Blackbloom Library. Left behind a daughter, Allison, and a son, Thomas.”

A heavy silence fell over us. Even the air felt stiller.

The portrait seemed to shimmer faintly under the corridor’s low torchlight, as if Cordelia herself were listening.

“And how do you know so much about them?” Bethany asked, narrowing her eyes. Her tone was skeptical, sharp with suspicion.

Samael didn’t flinch. He pushed off the wall and let his gaze slide briefly to Bethany before settling—inevitably—on me.

“My father is a powerful man,” he said simply, the words flattened by lack of emotion. “He makes it his business to know every name that matters in Mystral.”

His lips curled—something between disdain and amusement.

“The Vales. The Ravenshaws. The Montclaires. Your name, little raven, is carved into the bones of this country. Whether you want it or not.”

I swallowed, my grip tightening around the strap of my satchel.

There was something clinical in the way he said it—as though we were just names in a ledger, pieces in a long-buried game.

“So, he made you memorize bloodlines?” Leander raised a brow. “How thrilling.”

Samael let out a low, humorless chuckle. “It’s not memorization, Stirling . It’s strategy. Power isn’t just magic—it’s history. And those who control history…”

He paused, gaze flicking once more to the portrait before finishing—

“…control everything .”

Samael turned back to the portrait, his voice dropping—quieter now, almost reverent.

“Cordelia Vale was more than a professor. She studied things others wouldn’t even name. ”

He paused. “My father believes her research was… dangerous.”

Lydia stepped forward, her hand tightening around Leander’s sleeve. “Dangerous how?”

Samael exhaled, slow and deliberate. “She was searching for something. Something buried deep in the Vale legacy.”

His eyes locked onto mine—unblinking.

“And whatever she found… got her killed.”