Chapter 24: The Green-Lantern Path
The Academy path was older than the marsh.
You could feel it the moment your boots touched it — a subtle change in the earth, less sucking mud and more packed stone beneath the moss. The fog still clung to everything, but here it thinned in slow ribbons, like it didn't quite dare settle on ground claimed by something bigger than the wild.
Green lanterns hung from the branches overhead.
Not fire-lanterns.
They were glass orbs filled with pale, living light — soft enough not to blind, bright enough to keep you from vanishing into the white. They swayed gently without wind, as if listening for footsteps and reacting to them.
Aiden walked beneath them with the pup pressed tight to his ankle, Myra on one side, Nellie on the other. Captain Rhosyn kept pace half a step ahead, posture straight, eyes sweeping the forest like a man who knew exactly how many beasts could hide in a silence.
Behind them, the caravan followed in slow, shaken lines.
No one spoke loud anymore.
Even Garrik had stopped barking orders. He walked with blood dried on his arm and a stare that kept sliding back to the fog behind them, as if expecting the Hollow to spit something out any moment.
Aiden didn't look back.
He'd already looked back enough for one lifetime.
The pup did, though.
Every few steps it paused, ears flicking, nose lifting to the fog as if tasting something sour in the air. Then it returned to Aiden's heel, closer than before.
Aiden wasn't sure if that closeness comforted him or frightened him.
It felt… final. Like a decision made without asking him.
Myra noticed his expression.
"You're doing the brooding face again," she whispered.
"I'm not brooding."
"You are," Nellie whispered, too, curling closer into her cloak. "It's like your eyebrows start arguing with the world."
He tried not to smile.
Myra leaned forward, voice low. "You okay?"
Her tone was casual. Her eyes were not.
Aiden swallowed. "I don't know. I keep thinking I'll wake up back in the Hollow."
"You won't," she said. "We're walking on Academy ground now. If something tries to eat you here, it'll have to fill out a form first."
Nellie snorted, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth as if laughter might summon fog-monsters.
Even Rhosyn glanced back, one brow lifting.
Myra offered him an innocent smile. "Sorry, Captain."
He didn't smile back, but his shoulders eased just a fraction.
"Keep your humor," he said quietly. "It's lighter than gear and more useful than fear."
They walked another mile in hushed rhythm, lanterns passing overhead like slow stars.
The forest here changed with each turn.
Ancient trunks thicker than wagons rose like pillars. The undergrowth was neat — not because it had been cut, but because something had trained the wild to behave. You could see old stone markers at intervals, half-buried and mossed over, engraved with sigils the same steel-green as the Riders' cloaks.
Protection.
Claim.
Boundary.
Aiden felt the pup relax as they passed each marker, its sparks dimming from alert to sleepy flicker. The storm inside Aiden did the same — still there, still coiled, but no longer clawing at his ribs.
The breath in his chest came easier.
For the first time since the Hollow, he had room to feel what he hadn't allowed himself to feel.
The fear.
The exhaustion.
The memory of Myra screaming his name.
The memory of Nellie thinking he was dead.
His throat tightened before he could stop it.
He slowed.
Myra noticed immediately. "Hey."
He opened his mouth, then closed it, not sure which truth was safe to say in front of Riders, caravanners, and a lightning cub that felt too much like a promise.
"I'm…" he exhaled. "I'm sorry. For dragging you into all this."
Myra blinked. Then scoffed softly, like the idea offended her. "Aiden, I chased you into a marsh with a lightning beast. That wasn't dragging. That was me being me."
"That doesn't mean it wasn't dangerous."
She bumped his shoulder, gentler this time. "If I wanted safe, I'd be at home logging herb counts for my mother and flirting with boys who think a beast core is something you buy at market."
Nellie, half-listening, glanced up. "People flirt with beast cores?"
Myra deadpanned. "Oh, Nell, you'd be shocked what people flirt with."
Nellie flushed even in the dim lantern light.
Aiden let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh, but close.
Then he looked at Nellie.
She'd been quiet for most of the walk, not because she had nothing to say, but because she was holding everything in so hard her tiny frame looked like it might rattle apart if she let go.
"Nellie," he said softly, "you okay?"
Her lips trembled like she'd been waiting for permission to stop pretending she was brave.
"I…" she swallowed. "I keep thinking about the people we lost. The ones in the back of the caravan. We didn't even get to—"
Her voice snapped.
Myra reached across Aiden and took Nellie's hand.
"We didn't have a choice," Myra whispered. "You know that."
Nellie nodded fast, blinking hard. "I know. It just… I wanted to help. I wanted to heal everybody. And I couldn't. And now I'm going to the Academy and I'm supposed to be useful there too and I don't even know if I'm good enough to—"
Her words crashed into each other.
Aiden stopped walking.
So did Myra.
So did Rhosyn.
The caravan flowed around them for a moment, then slowed as people realized the captain had halted.
Aiden knelt so he was eye-level with Nellie.
"You kept people alive in a collapsing death-trap," he said quietly. "You didn't freeze. You didn't run. You helped when you were terrified."
"That was adrenaline," she whispered.
"That was you."
Her eyes filled.
Myra squeezed her hand harder. "Also, you healed Garrik's arm faster than any apprentice I've ever met. He's just too mean to say thank you."
From up ahead, Garrik's voice floated back without him turning. "I heard that."
Myra didn't flinch. "Good."
Nellie let out a tiny, wet laugh, and something in her shoulders loosened.
The pup circled behind her and sniffed her curls, then sneezed at the strong herbal scent, which made Nellie giggle properly this time.
Aiden felt the tightness in his own chest ease a little too.
Rhosyn watched them for a moment — not impatient, not judgmental. Just… observing a kind of bond he didn't see every day.
"Keep moving," he said gently. "We're close."
The path rose.
Trees thinned.
Fog peeled away in slow sheets until the world opened into a broad, stone-cleared ascent.
Ahead, through the last veil of mist, the Academy gates emerged.
They weren't simple walls.
They were a fortress married to a temple — tall black-stone pillars embedded with green crystal veins, arching upward into a spread of carved beast shapes that looked like they might step down and walk if the wrong person approached.
Beyond the gate, you could glimpse rooftops and towers and courtyards lit in steady green-gold lantern-glow.
The University of beasts.
The place everyone had been walking toward for years.
Myra let out a quiet breath. "We made it."
Nellie did too — and then immediately froze.
Because the gate guards froze.
There were six of them, armored in the Academy's steel-green plate, helms off, faces stern and sharp. Human, all of them — but not soft humans. The kind that had survived long enough to be trusted with the Academy's throat.
They stepped forward in a line as the caravan reached the final stone marker.
Captain Rhosyn lifted a fist in salute. "Escort retrieved. Caravan survivors. Hollow collapse. Aberration activity confirmed."
The guards' attention shifted over the caravan.
Then landed on Aiden.
Not on his face.
On the pup.
Every guard's posture changed instantly.
Hands went to blades.
Not drawn — but ready.
One of them muttered, "Lightning."
Another whispered, "Why is it here?"
Another took a step forward and said, louder this time, "Captain Vale. That beast is not permitted inside the lower courtyards."
Rhosyn didn't flinch. "It's bonded."
The guard's eyes narrowed. "To who?"
Rhosyn tilted his head toward Aiden. "To him."
Silence hit the gate like a sudden drop in temperature.
Aiden felt every stare slice into him.
He held still like Rhosyn had told him.
The pup did not.
It stepped out in front of him and gave a tiny, trembling growl.
Not a threat.
A warning.
The guards stiffened harder.
Aiden's pulse rose.
Myra slid half a step closer to him, chin lifting like she dared anyone to say the wrong thing.
Nellie, still holding Myra's hand, shifted closer too… then caught herself looking up at the guards.
Her chin dropped.
Her shoulders curled inward.
Her knees almost locked.
One of the guards noticed her.
His gaze slid down.
Down.
Then farther down.
Because Nellie was barely taller than his waist.
His expression flickered. Confusion. Then recognition.
"…Gnome?" he said quietly.
The word carried the weight of rarity here.
Several heads turned.
Not hostile heads.
Curious heads.
Aiden felt Nellie go rigid.
She'd been running on adrenaline and travel and survival for days. But now the road had ended, and there was nowhere to hide what she was.
She was small — not child-small, but gnome-small.
Her ears were subtly tapered under her curls.
Her hands were finer, built for herb work and ward stitching.
Her bones were light.
And there was a quiet, old-world spark in her eyes that humans didn't carry the same way.
She swallowed and found her voice.
"Yes," she said softly. "Nellie Tinkwhistle. Exchange student. Healer track."
The guard blinked, like he hadn't expected her to stand up straight when named.
"You came with this caravan?"
She nodded.
"You survived the Hollow."
Her jaw trembled.
Then she said it louder, because she had to. "Yes, sir."
Another guard leaned closer, peering like she was a rare beast core in human skin.
"She's one of the gnome enclaves," he murmured. "I didn't think they were sending anyone this year."
Myra bristled lightly. "She's not a specimen. She's with us."
The guard who'd spoken first cleared his throat and stepped back.
"Apologies," he said, tone more stiff than rude. "Exchange-folk are uncommon. We weren't informed—"
"You are now," Nellie said, and her voice didn't shake this time.
Aiden felt a quiet swell in his chest.
She'd been terrified five minutes ago.
Now she was standing at the Academy gates like she belonged there.
Because she did.
Rhosyn cut through the moment. "We're bringing them in. Temporary dorms. Medical check. Report to the Warden at dawn."
The gate guards hesitated one more beat — eyes still on the pup.
Then the lead guard nodded once. "Very well. Captain Vale. You may pass."
The massive gates began to open.
Stone grinding against stone.
Crystal veins glowing faintly as they recognized the Riders' sigils.
Aiden stepped forward.
The pup stepped with him.
The guards watched every inch of its movement.
Aiden kept his breathing steady.
Myra let out a quiet breath and leaned close to his ear. "If they try to take it, I bite knees."
"Noted," he whispered back.
Nellie, walking on his other side, whispered even softer, "If they try to take it, I'm going to cry… and then bite knees too."
He almost laughed.
Almost.
The gates opened fully.
Warm lantern-light spilled across their faces.
The Academy waited.
But right as they crossed the threshold, the pup stiffened again.
Its ears flicked back.
Its sparks rose, not in fear —
in attention.
Because something on the other side of the gate was watching them, too.
Not a guard.
Not a student.
Something deeper in the Academy's bones.
Something old enough that even the fog outside had felt it.
Aiden didn't know why he was sure.
He just felt the storm in his blood tilt toward it like a compass.
Rhosyn felt it too.
He didn't stop walking, but his voice dropped low enough that only Aiden heard.
"Don't show it your System here," he murmured. "Not yet."
Aiden's breath caught.
Myra looked between them. "What is he talking about?"
Aiden didn't answer.
Because ahead, inside the Academy courtyards, a bell began to ring.
Not a welcome bell.
A warning bell.
Slow.
Measured.
Like the Academy itself had just realized who had walked through its gates.
And somewhere deep in the stone, something answered with a distant, hungry echo.
The road had ended.
But the real test had just begun.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Alright, real talk for a second.
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