Chapter 26B — The Headmistress of the Verdant Hall
The Academy at dawn felt different.
At night, it had seemed like stone and safety. In the morning mist, it felt like something older—awake, listening, weighing every footstep like it was deciding whether to accept or reject the newcomer who dared walk its halls.
Headmistress Elowen Thorne walked ahead of Aiden at an unhurried pace. The mist curled around her robes without clinging, as if the air itself knew better than to touch her without permission. She didn't look back to make sure he followed.
She didn't need to.
Aiden could feel her awareness like a steady warmth between his shoulder blades—focused, sharp, silent as snowfall.
Students slowed their steps as they passed. Some whispered. Some bowed their heads. Some stared at Aiden with open curiosity, as if trying to fit the stories they'd heard to the boy in front of them.
Elowen led him across a pale granite bridge arching over terraced gardens. Moss blanketed stone lions. A windchime made of beast-bones clicked softly. Runes glimmered faintly beneath the frost, whispering power.
Aiden's chest tightened.
The air felt alive.
"Your friends are safe," Elowen said without turning. "They are still asleep. A healer is watching over them."
Aiden blinked. "…You knew I was worried."
"Elowen," she corrected gently. "Headmistress, if we must be formal. But I prefer noticing things over being worshiped for them."
Aiden swallowed. "I didn't mean to cause trouble."
"Survival does not cause trouble," she answered. "Survival reveals it."
They reached a pair of towering darkwood doors inlaid with silver and threaded with living vines. At their center was the crest of Erylwood—a split beast core cupped between two carved hands.
Elowen placed two fingers against the crest.
The doors opened soundlessly.
The Verdant Hall breathed.
There was no other word for it. The air smelled like rain on stone after lightning—sharp, clean, strangely sweet. Light spilled from high windows in pale lances, reflecting off shallow pools along the walls. Vines—real, alive—twined along the beams overhead, faintly glowing with emerald sparks.
No students.
No guards.
Only quiet.
Aiden felt the shift immediately. The Hall wasn't empty.
It was watching.
Elowen walked toward the central dais. She didn't sit. She merely turned and looked at him as if examining a map no one else could see.
"Do you know why I asked you to walk with me?"
Aiden inhaled slowly. "Because of the marsh."
"That is what others will assume."
He stiffened. "…There's another reason."
Elowen's expression didn't change, but the vines above her rustled once, like leaves brushing together in warning.
"Tell me what you saw when the Hollow broke," she said softly. "Not what you told the Riders. What you saw."
Aiden hesitated.
Then he told her.
The monster.
The fog-thing that fought it.
The moment everything turned to lightning.
He didn't mention the numbers.
He didn't mention the messages.
He didn't mention the presence behind his ribs that measured everything.
Those secrets stayed behind his teeth.
Elowen listened without blinking. "The fog entity… did it feel aware?"
Aiden nodded once. "Yes. It wasn't just… fog. It knew what it was doing."
"And the thing it fought?"
Aiden shivered. "Wrong. Like something that shouldn't exist."
"Did either of them focus on you?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The Hall responded for him—lantern flames dimming slightly, as if his silence was a truth louder than words.
Elowen exhaled a slow breath. "So it is as I feared."
She stepped closer. Not threatening. Not comforting. Simply… certain.
"You do not move like a sixteen-year-old," she said. "Your eyes do not hold fear the way a child's should. You see danger as someone who has already made peace with dying."
Aiden's pulse stopped for half a heartbeat.
She knew.
Not how he died.
Not why he lived again.
But she saw the weight.
The years behind the eyes.
He said nothing.
She didn't push.
"People with old souls attract old things," she said softly. "Some benign. Some hungry. Some that do not recognize the lines between 'child' and 'threat.'"
The Hall's water pools rippled.
Aiden felt his skin prickle.
Elowen walked to a stone table. On it sat a shard of green-lit crystal—small enough to fit on a fingertip.
"A beast core fragment," she said. "Memory trapped in stone."
"Memory?" Aiden echoed.
"Real power always is." She held the shard lightly. "Cores are the way the world refuses to forget itself."
She extended it toward him.
Aiden didn't touch it.
He didn't have to.
The shard pulsed—once—then dimmed.
The Hall shivered.
"…Interesting," Elowen murmured.
"What does that mean?" Aiden asked, throat tight.
"The Hall doesn't know what to make of you." Her tone held wonder and concern in equal weight. "You walk like someone who belongs here… and like someone who doesn't belong anywhere at all."
The words hit deeper than he expected.
Elowen placed the shard down and faced him fully.
"What happened in the Hollow is not random," she said. "An Aberration does not chase a lightning cub unless it senses a thread stronger than its instincts."
Aiden tried to steady his breathing. "You think it was after… me?"
Her gold eyes didn't waver.
"I think it recognized something on you."
Aiden's heartbeat stumbled.
"Recognized what?"
"Not a blessing," she said. "Not a curse."
Her voice softened.
"A mark."
The word felt too close to truth.
Aiden swallowed. "I didn't choose any mark."
"No one ever does," she replied. "Marks choose you."
Her tone was gentle, but the Hall felt colder.
A moment passed before Elowen continued.
"There is something else," she said. "Tell me truthfully—when the fog entity looked at you… did something in you respond?"
Aiden felt the echo like a cold wind down his spine.
Found you.
"Yes," he whispered. "It felt like… it knew me."
Elowen closed her eyes, pain flashing across her expression for the first time.
"That is worse than I feared," she said quietly. "Because that entity was not born in the marsh."
Aiden frowned. "Then where did it come from?"
Elowen opened her eyes.
It felt like being weighed by a mountain.
"We call them Wardens of the First Lines," she said. "They are ancient protectors—older than this Academy, older than the forest around it. They rise only when the world recognizes a threat too great for mortals to face alone."
Aiden's voice was barely a whisper. "It saved us."
"It saved the cub," Elowen corrected. "You… it simply acknowledged."
Aiden felt cold all over.
"How does something like that recognize me?"
Elowen stepped back, hands clasped behind her back.
"That is the question that keeps me awake," she said softly. "And it should keep you awake as well."
She turned toward the doors.
"This conversation remains between us," she added. "Not because I fear the Academy will harm you… but because fear breeds chains. And there are enough people in this world who chain what they do not understand."
Aiden nodded.
His voice felt small. "Will I be safe here?"
Elowen paused at the threshold.
"You will be tested," she said. "But safe…?"
A faint smile touched her lips—sad, knowing.
"No one carrying a mark is ever truly safe."
The doors began to close.
But before they sealed, she added one last line, quiet as falling ash:
"And Aiden Raikos—whatever chased that lightning cub has not stopped searching."
The doors closed.
The Hall fell silent behind him.
Aiden stood alone in the misted corridor, breath unsteady, pulse loud in his ears.
He didn't know what the Wardens were.
He didn't know what the Aberration wanted.
He didn't know why the world had drawn a thread between him and storms.
But he knew one truth now:
The Academy wasn't the beginning of his journey.
It was the arena the world had pushed him into.
And something in the mist—something old, patient, and furious—
had already found his scent.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Alright, real talk for a second.
WebNovel rejected Reborn with the Beastbinder System.
Yeah. They said it "wouldn't make money."
So now it's up to us to prove them wrong.
If you're enjoying the story even a little—Aiden, the lightning pup, the worldbuilding, the fights—
then please help this book climb:
⭐ Power Stones → they matter way more than people realize
📚 Add to Collection → boosts the book in the algorithms
💬 Leave a Comment → even "nice chapter" helps more than you think
Right now, every push tells the system,
"Hey, this story actually can compete."
If you want to support the journey even more (never required), my Patreon is here:
My patreon is CB GodSent
(Early chapters, and it helps me keep writing.)
Thank you for reading.
Seriously.
Let's show them what this story can do.