The journey to Aetherhold began at dawn, through a road carved not just by wind, but by centuries of ambition.
Elira sat alone inside a dark velvet-lined carriage, her window half-covered in frost. She didn't bother clearing it. The view outside was a blur of icy branches, ash-coated valleys, and snow-thin roads winding like veins into the mountains.
Somewhere behind her, the palace of Caerith slumbered. Somewhere ahead—Aetherhold Academy waited, ancient and hungry.
She did not look back.
Her arrival was unspectacular.
No trumpets. No footmen. No seal of House Caelis on display. Just a gray wax emblem hidden beneath her glove and a letter of admittance signed in ink and blood by the Inner Court itself.
The carriage stopped before a towering obsidian gate carved into the cliffs.
Elira stepped down, boots crunching against frozen gravel.
The gate shimmered faintly with runes. Beyond it lay what looked like a city—spires twisted toward the sky, walls pulsed faintly with enchantments, and magic saturated the air like rain before a storm.
A figure in obsidian armor approached. Helmeted. Tall. Voice clipped and efficient.
"State your identity."
"Elira Vellaria Caelis," she answered calmly. "Trial-certified. Inner-Court cleared."
He paused. Consulted a glowing crystal slate embedded in his bracer.
The blue light danced across his gauntlet before flickering once—then pulsing violet.
He tilted his head.
"Your authorization bears a Trial Seal. Rare. Unexpected."
"So is my existence," she replied, not blinking.
He said nothing more, but with a gesture, the gates opened soundlessly.
Elira walked through.
Aetherhold's interior was both beautiful and strange.
The outer wards gave way to floating corridors and impossible geometry. Stone stairs rearranged themselves in spirals when touched. Glass walkways refracted moonlight into symbols. Hovering lanterns pulsed with low, steady hums, whispering minor incantations for warmth, light, or silence.
The academy had no guards.
It didn't need them.
Its walls remembered every student who ever died within them—and it didn't easily forget.
Elira moved through it like a phantom, observing.
Noble students passed her in flocks, dressed in long embroidered coats and crests sewn into collars. She recognized a few crests from books—House Liraeth, House Venloren, House Ashgrave.
Some noticed her and looked again. Others whispered.
Is that… her? The one from the Temple of Ash?
She shouldn't be here.
I heard she's cursed.
Elira didn't flinch.
Whispers meant she was visible. Visibility meant relevance.
And relevance—was survival.
The Atrium of Starlight
By dusk, the sorting ceremony began.
The Great Atrium stood at the academy's heart: a vast dome of enchanted crystal and obsidian, built to reflect the stars as they looked during the rise of the First Mage Sovereign.
Hundreds of students had gathered. New admissions, robed initiates, and academy faculty stood around an ancient pool of scrying water that rippled with silent, silvery magic.
Four divisions were etched into the stone circle:
Solara, for elementalists and casters.Verdane, for healers and nature-bound.Mirethorn, for shadow, contract, and warlocks.Thorne, for anomalies—those who didn't fit.
Only Thorne had no heraldic sigil. Just a jagged black line through marble.
Elira stood at the back. Still. Watchful.
A professor with burn-scarred hands stood near the scrying pool. His voice was rough, but calm.
"Step forward. State your name. The pool will sort you."
One by one, students advanced.
The light glowed, flared, and shifted—blue for Solara, green for Verdane, crimson for Mirethorn.
Then it was Elira's turn.
She walked forward.
Murmurs rippled.
"She's the one. Look—no house crest."
"She survived the Phantom Mirror Trial. That's impossible."
She stepped into the light.
"Name?" the professor asked.
"Elira Vellaria Caelis."
The pool rippled. Paused.
Then—glowed deep violet.
And crackled with silver threads.
A harsh silence fell over the Atrium.
The professor's eyes widened.
"Assigned to Division Thorne. Seldom used. Rare."
"Fitting," she said.
A faint smile—no more than a twitch—appeared on the man's lips.
"You may proceed."
Thorne Hall
Thorne Hall stood at the northern edge of the campus, near the cliffs where wind howled day and night.
It was colder than the others. Older too.
Its walls bore no banners. Its windows were narrow. Everything inside was stone, steel, and silence.
Elira found her room—third floor, east wing.
Inside: a single bed, a rune-marked desk, and an old armoire with a cracked mirror.
Nothing else.
She liked it that way.
She sat at the desk. Let her fingers trace the edge of the glyphs. They responded to her touch—soft pulses, like a heartbeat long forgotten.
She pulled her journal from her satchel. Opened to a new page.
"Day 6. Aetherhold has teeth, but it hides them behind glass.I've been sorted into Division Thorne. The hall feels abandoned.Like a place they expect students not to return from."
"But I will."
"I didn't come here to hide. I came to remember who made me forget."
Night fell fully.
The academy's lights dimmed.In the distance, the outer wards thrummed.Somewhere, a distant horn signaled the closing of the gates.
Then—a knock.
Elira turned sharply. Her pulse didn't quicken, but something inside her stilled.
She rose.
Opened the door.
And froze.
Standing in the hall was Caelum.
Older.
Sharper.
No longer dressed in ceremonial black, but in the casual gray-and-midnight uniform of an upper-year student. His hair was tied back now, shorter than she remembered, and his gaze—
—was exactly the same.
"You made it," he said quietly.
"So did you," she replied.
A pause stretched between them.
He stepped inside without being invited. Walked past her to the desk. His eyes landed on the journal—but he didn't touch it.
"They put you in Thorne," he said.
"Where else would they put a ghost?"
He looked at her. Not in pity. Not in surprise.
"You're stronger now."
"You left," she said.
"I didn't have a choice."
"We all choose. Even silence is a choice."
For a moment, he didn't respond.
Then—
"I was told you were dead, Elira. And when I tried to ask questions, they made sure I wouldn't ask twice."
The old ache rose in her chest—but she buried it beneath calm.
"You never sent a letter."
"I wrote fifty."
"And burned them?"
He met her gaze.
"Some things don't survive fire."
Silence again.
Not cold.
Not warm.
Just the kind that existed between two people with too many words, and no safe place to speak them.
Finally, Caelum reached into his coat.
He placed a folded envelope on her desk.
It bore no crest.
Only one word.
"Look."
Then he turned and left.
Elira stared at the door long after it clicked shut.
She picked up the letter.
Opened it.
Inside—was a single sheet.
And written in a hand she recognized instantly:
"Not all ghosts stay dead.Not all enemies come with blades.Trust no one in gold."
And beneath it, scratched faintly into the corner:
"Your mother was right."