Page 59

The Cost of Being Chosen

T he sky was painted in bruised rose and lavender by the time we returned to the Academy.

Snow flurried gently across the castle grounds, catching the last blush of sunset as students unloaded from the carriages in clusters of laughter and tired chatter.

The warmth of Mistholm still clung to my skin—echoes of soft velvet, flickering candles, and the sweetness of memory-laced chocolate—but already the castle felt colder. Heavier. As if it knew something we didn’t.

Our footsteps echoed through the halls as we parted ways, heading toward our dorms beneath arched stone ceilings that shimmered faintly with lingering enchantments. Somewhere above, the great clock in the center courtyard struck the hour with a sonorous chime. Six bells. Still hours until midnight.

The anticipation hummed beneath our skin like a shared secret.

“Tonight’s the night,” Bethany whispered beside me, her arms full of wrapped packages from Mistholm. “If we pull this off, Cordelia better come back from the dead to congratulate us.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, though a small smile tugged at her lips. “Let’s just hope the Silencing Ward works as well in the library as it did in her chamber. I’d rather not explain to the Headmistress why we’re sneaking around after curfew.”

Leander offered a low whistle, glancing up toward the frost-streaked windows. “Perfect weather for unraveling ancient secrets. Snow always makes the mystery feel a bit more dramatic, don’t you think?”

We laughed quietly, all of us wrapped in that strange blend of nerves and excitement. Though even as I walked with them, even as I nodded and smiled, something inside me felt—off.

Like the calm before a storm.

By the time I returned to my dorm, night had fully descended. The castle lights glowed gold against the deepening dark, and frost began to creep along the edges of the windows like lace.

I was peeling off my gloves when the knock came—soft and deliberate against the panes of glass.

Not the door. The window.

I turned, confused, and crossed the room slowly. Outside, perched against the narrow stone ledge, was a raven.

Its feathers were ink-dark and dusted with snow, eyes glowing faintly with a silver sheen. Clutched in its beak was a scroll sealed in deep violet wax.

My pulse quickened.

I unlatched the window, letting in a burst of icy air. The raven dropped the scroll into my hand before leaping off the ledge and disappearing into the night, wings slicing cleanly through the snow-swirled sky.

I stood frozen for a long moment, staring down at the scroll in my hand.

I stared down at the scroll in my hand again.

“Midnight. The library. Come alone.”

The words felt heavier with each repetition.

I didn’t know who had sent it. There was no name, no clue. Just the mark on the wax seal—a crescent moon cradling an eye, unfamiliar but deliberate. Someone wanted to meet me. Alone, at night.

I closed my eyes, weighing my options. Every instinct warred inside me—logic warning of traps, of danger—and yet something deeper urging me to go.

If I told Lydia, Bethany, or Leander, they’d insist on coming. They’d never let me go alone.

What if that made things worse?

No. This is something I need to do myself.

I moved quickly, lighting a single taper candle on my desk and reaching into the drawer beneath it for a small, velvet pouch.

Inside, my fingers found the three enchanted raven tokens—small, obsidian-carved silver coins—temporary messengers.

I pressed my thumb to the first and whispered, “Bethany.” The coin pulsed once and melted into a shadowy shape, rising on sleek wings into the still air of my dorm room.

I summoned another. “Lydia.” Then the last. “Leander.”

Each raven hovered in place, waiting.

I leaned over my desk and scribbled three notes on narrow parchment strips—each message nearly identical.

‘I’m so sorry to miss tonight. I think the hot chocolate didn’t sit right—my stomach’s turned upside down, and I’m not in any shape to sneak around enchanted halls.

Can we try again the night after the Ball? I promise I’ll be better. Don’t worry about me.

– Elvana’

I folded each note carefully and tucked it into the banded clasps the ravens offered with outstretched talons.

One by one, they soared out the narrow window and disappeared into the snowy sky, wings like slivers of black silk against the pale night.

I stood by the window for a while, my cloak already pulled tight around my shoulders, watching until the last raven vanished over the South Tower.

Only then did I turn, slip the mysterious scroll into my pocket, and make for the library.

Whatever awaited me there—I’d face it alone .

The clock on my wall ticked in slow, deliberate beats, the sound louder in the silence of my room.

11:45 p.m.

I stood from my desk and fastened the clasp of my cloak, fingers fumbling slightly against the silver loop. The room was still, lit only by a single dim enchantment orb overhead, casting everything in a pale violet glow.

I pulled up my hood, exhaled slowly, and moved.

The snow had thickened since the group returned from Mistholm. Flakes fell slow and silent, settling like ash across the courtyard, untouched and glistening in the moonlight.

I stuck to the shadows, hugging the outer wall of Sapphire House and staying low. The wind bit at my cheeks, but I didn’t slow.

A lantern bobbed somewhere far across the grounds—one of the night guards on patrol. I waited until the glow turned a corner and vanished behind the herbology gardens; then I ran.

My boots barely made a sound against the snow as I darted across the back courtyard, breath puffing like smoke.

The Blackbloom Library loomed ahead—its tall windows and stone archways glowing with faint lantern light.

The library doors rose into view, black wood framed by curling stone. I reached them, heart pounding in my throat, and pressed my palm against the door.

They opened without a sound.

As I slipped inside, the air shifted.

Cold. Still.

Not just the chill of the stone floors, but something deeper. A hush that crawled under the skin.

I paused just inside the threshold, fingers tightening around the amulet at my neck.

“Is this a trap?” I whispered to the Raven’s Echo.

No answer. Nothing.

Not even the usual hum of presence I’d grown used to. It was as if the amulet had fallen asleep—or was purposefully silent.

The library stretched out ahead of me, all dark shelves and high windows, the moon casting pale lattices of light across the floor.

I walked slowly; the sound of my footsteps was swallowed by the ancient wood beneath my feet. Every creak felt amplified. Every shadow, deeper than it should have been.

I turned past the row of astronomy texts, then the weathered binding of ancient spell theory—moving toward the rear alcoves where light rarely reached.

My breath fogged in front of me. I was starting to doubt everything—

When I heard it.

“You came.”

The voice emerged like smoke from behind one of the shelves.

Smooth. Unhurried. Familiar.

I turned sharply—and there he was.

Professor Crowe stepped out from the shadows, moving like he’d always been part of them. His long coat whispered around his boots; gloved hands were clasped behind his back. He inclined his head slightly, a faint smile touching his lips.

“Miss Vale.”

My pulse skipped.

He looked no different than usual—sharp-lined features, midnight-dark clothing, and that calm, disconcerting presence, but again—his eyes.

They didn’t focus on me.

Not truly.

They hovered—one slightly higher than the other; their inky color seeming to shift as if looking through something distant. Like fog. Or time itself.

I straightened. “You sent the raven.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He motioned to a pair of nearby chairs in the reading alcove. “Because we are running out of time. You are standing far too close to things you don’t yet understand.”

I didn’t move. “How do you know what I’m involved in?”

He tilted his head slightly, considering. “Because I see things, Miss Vale, and not only with these.” He tapped the edge of his temple. “Sight, true sight, is more than vision. It’s the space between memory and prophecy. The flicker between cause and consequence.”

The weight of his words settled around us. My eyes narrowed as the realization finally clicked. “You’re blind.”

A soft smile. “You’re quick. Yes. I have not seen the world through my eyes in over sixty years.”

That explained the way his gaze never quite landed. The distant focus. Nevertheless—he knew things. Always had.

“Yet you know so much,” I said quietly.

He nodded. “Because I study patterns. Threads. The echoes people leave behind when they walk through this world. That is my gift. And my burden.”

He stepped closer, the lanterns flickering as he passed beneath them.

“You’ve been seeking the first portal,” he said. Not a question.

My breath caught. “How do you know that?”

His expression sobered.

“Because I’ve seen the path you’re walking. Or, more accurately… the one someone else set in motion long ago. Cordelia Vale among them.”

My breath caught.

Cordelia.

Not just a name in a textbook or a ghost in Academy folklore—but my ancestor. A bloodline tied to power, secrets, and the shadows of a legacy no one had fully dared to follow. Until now.

She was the one who had left the symbols. The hidden chamber. The clues that had begun unfolding beneath my feet like ancient thread unraveling.

“What you seek isn’t here,” Crowe continued, lifting a pale hand to gesture toward the vaulted ceiling of the library. “It never was.”

I frowned, heart racing. “Then where—?”

Crowe took a measured step forward. The folds of his long coat whispered against the floor as he moved.