CHAPTER 26C — WHAT HE TELLS THEM (AND WHAT HE DOESN'T)
The corridors felt colder on the walk back.
Maybe it was the dawn mist clinging to the stone.
Maybe it was the way the Academy's lanterns watched him without eyes—green flames in iron mouths, steady as judges.
Or maybe it was Elowen's words still ringing in his bones.
Marked.
Watched.
Not safe.
Aiden kept his pace even. Students were trickling out now—fresh-faced first-years in travel-stained coats, older students in crisp steel-green, instructors moving like their schedules had already swallowed the day. The campus wasn't loud yet, but it wasn't asleep either. It hummed with early nerves.
As he passed a courtyard, a pair of upper-years paused mid-conversation.
"That's him," one muttered.
"The survivor?"
"The lightning cub boy, yeah."
Aiden didn't look at them.
He didn't need to.
The storm behind his ribs stirred, low and aware—not angry, not scared, just quietly cataloging every voice, every step, every glance that lingered longer than a normal glance should.
He reached the Arrival Wing stairwell and paused.
Something in him wanted to listen.
Not for footsteps behind him—those were easy.
For something deeper. Something that made the air feel too still, the way it had felt right before the Hollow screamed again.
But the corridor stayed ordinary.
Aiden let out a slow breath and pushed into the dorm room.
The door had barely opened before—
"My gods—Aiden!"
Myra shot upright on her cot, hair a mess, blanket halfway off. Nellie nearly toppled out of hers trying to sit up. The lightning pup snapped awake, sparks hissing softly as it scrambled to Aiden's boots like it had been waiting there between heartbeats.
"You were gone forever," Myra hissed. "What happened? Did they expel you? Did they arrest you? Did someone die? Did you—"
"Myra," Aiden said gently. "Breathe."
She didn't.
Nellie's voice came out thin with panic. "We thought something happened. They don't summon first-years alone unless…"
Aiden stepped fully inside and shut the door. The latch clicked—small, solid, safe.
Three pairs of eyes locked on him—one suspicious, one terrified, one bright with crackling concern.
Aiden sat on the edge of his cot and exhaled.
"Nothing bad happened," he said slowly.
Not a lie—just a careful carving of truth into safer shapes.
Nellie slid off her cot and shuffled closer, blanket pulled tight around her shoulders like armor. "Did she yell at you?"
"No."
"Did she interrogate you?"
"Kind of."
Myra leaned forward, elbows on her knees, expression hard as flint. "Did she mention the lightning? The Aberration? Us? The pup? What did she want?"
Aiden ran his fingers through the pup's fur, grounding himself in its soft static. He felt its heart racing against his ankle. Still scared. Still alert.
"She asked about the Hollow," he began. "About the monster. About the fog. About… resonance."
Myra winced like the word had teeth. "Resonance as in… you almost exploded?"
Aiden gave a small, tired smile. "Not quite that dramatic."
"You threw lightning like it was a spear," Myra shot back. "That's dramatic enough."
Nellie bit her lip. "What did the Headmistress say about what happened?"
Aiden chose his words carefully, cutting around the sharpest truths.
"She believes the Aberration wasn't acting randomly," he said. "She thinks it chased something it sensed."
Nellie's eyes widened. "Us?"
"No," Aiden said quickly. "Not you. Not Myra. Not the caravan."
Myra's gaze sharpened. "You."
Aiden didn't deny it.
Nellie grabbed his sleeve. "Aiden—you're not cursed, right? You're not… marked for death? Because if you are I'll faint, and then Myra will panic, and then the pup will panic, and then—"
"Hey." His voice softened. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. "I'm okay. She just wanted to understand what happened. That's all."
Myra studied him like she was weighing a blade.
"Did you tell her everything?" she asked.
"No," Aiden said plainly.
Nellie exhaled shakily. The pup pressed against Aiden's shin with a tiny whine, as if it approved of the answer.
Aiden looked down at it, the memory of Found you flickering like a shadow across his mind.
There was so much he wasn't saying.
The mark.
The Warden.
The way Elowen had looked at him like a storm she couldn't name.
Myra waited.
"Some truths aren't mine to speak out loud," he said finally.
Myra's shoulders loosened a fraction—not because she loved the answer, but because she recognized it.
Nellie's voice came smaller. "Are we in trouble?"
"No," he said immediately. "But… we're not invisible anymore."
That got Myra's attention fast.
She sat up straighter. "Explain."
Aiden nodded once.
"She warned me the Academy will watch us because of what happened. The Aberration incident wasn't small. And a lightning cub bonding like that is… rare. Strong. Dangerous in the wrong hands."
Nellie flinched. "So people are going to look at us like—like a problem?"
"Some will look at you like a prize," Aiden said quietly. "Some will look like you're a threat. Most will just be curious. But either way… eyes are on us now."
Myra groaned and fell back onto her cot. "Great. First day and we're already the weird kids."
Nellie hugged her blanket tighter. "I don't want to be weird."
Aiden gave a faint smile. "Then stand next to me. Weird comes with me now."
The pup barked proudly.
Nellie's lips twitched into a tiny smile despite herself.
But Myra wasn't done.
She rolled back up and stared at him the same way she'd stared into the Hollow when she thought they were dying—like fear could be bullied into submission.
"What aren't you telling us?" she asked.
Aiden's hand stilled in the pup's fur.
He didn't want to lie.
He didn't want to drag them into a truth that might call the wrong thing closer.
So he picked the part they needed.
"…She said the Aberration wasn't done," he murmured.
Silence snapped taut.
Nellie's breath caught. "What does that mean?"
"That whatever chased the pup might look again," Aiden said. "So we don't split up. We don't wander. The pup stays close. All of us stay close."
Nellie's hands trembled. "Will it come here?"
Aiden shook his head firmly.
He didn't know.
But she needed to hear certainty right now, not possibility.
"This place is warded," he said. "If anything tries to cross the gates uninvited, the Academy will know long before it reaches us."
Myra's jaw tightened. "If it does get here, we fight."
Aiden gave a tired huff. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
She didn't smile back, but she nodded once.
In.
Scared, furious, but in.
Nellie swallowed and forced herself upright like a soldier half her size. "We'll face it together."
Aiden felt something loosen in his chest.
This part was safe to share.
This part protected them.
The rest stayed behind his ribs with the sleeping predator.
A quiet settled over them—not heavy, not awkward. The kind that meant:
We're not okay.
But we're not alone.
So we keep moving anyway.
Myra finally broke it with a groan. "So basically the Academy's already side-eyeing us, the Headmistress is scary but not evil, the Aberration might still be sniffing around… and trials start in like five hours."
Aiden snorted softly despite himself. "Yeah. That's about right."
"I want breakfast," Myra declared. "And maybe a weapon. Or two."
Nellie pulled her blanket over her head. "Can we skip today?"
"Nope," Myra said.
"No," Aiden agreed.
The pup yipped as if it had a vote too.
Myra slid off her cot and paced once like she was waking up for war. "Okay. We eat. We gear up. We find the trial grounds. And we don't let anybody push us around just because we look like we crawled out of a haunted swamp."
Nellie peeked out from under her blanket. "We did crawl out of a haunted swamp."
"That's the point," Myra said. "We're already the kind of people who don't die when they're supposed to."
Aiden smiled faintly.
Myra's voice softened, barely, because she didn't know how to be gentle except sideways.
"Aiden… we don't need every detail. Not right now. But don't carry it all alone."
Nellie nodded hard. "Please don't."
Aiden's throat tightened again.
He nodded once. "I won't."
Not fully true—yet.
But closer than it had been yesterday.
They washed up quickly in the basin. The water was cold enough to make Myra hiss and Nellie squeak, but it cut the Hollow dust from their faces and made them look less like ghosts.
The pup trotted in a circle twice, sniffed their packs, then shook itself like a wet spark-dog, scattering tiny static flickers across the stone floor.
Myra watched it, then watched Aiden.
"It really does trust you," she said quietly.
Aiden looked down at it. "Yeah."
Nellie crouched and let the pup sniff her fingers. It gave her a gentle head-bump, eyes half-closed.
Her face brightened like that alone fixed something inside her.
"Okay," she whispered. "I can do trials if it's with us."
"Good," Myra said. "Because if you faint in the arena, I'm dragging you by the collar."
Nellie gasped. "Myra!"
"I'm kidding," Myra lied.
A knock echoed down the corridor outside—another door, not theirs. Voices rose faintly. More first-years waking. The building shifting from hush to hum.
Aiden slid his cloak on. Felt the weight of it settle over his shoulders like a decision.
"Let's go," he said.
They stepped into the corridor together.
Students were already moving in clusters toward the refectory—some whispering, some laughing too loudly, some staring at their hands like they expected power to appear if they stared hard enough.
As the trio joined the flow, whispers drifted past like blown ash.
"That's him."
"Lightning pup boy."
"Look how small her friend is."
"Gnome, right?"
"I heard they survived the Aberration."
"I heard he caused it."
Myra's shoulders went rigid.
Nellie leaned in closer to Aiden, instinctive.
The pup let out a low, warning whuff.
Aiden didn't look left or right. He just kept walking.
Past stone arches.
Past verdant lanterns.
Past faces already building opinions.
They reached the refectory doors.
Warmth spilled out—bread, broth, smoke, and the thick comfort of food you didn't have to fight for.
For a heartbeat, it felt normal.
Then a bell rang somewhere deeper in the Academy—not the curfew bell.
A sharper one.
A calling bell.
Students all over the hall stilled.
An instructor's voice rolled through the space like a drumbeat.
"First-years. Prepare. Trials convene at midday. All candidates assemble at the Ember Courtyard by the third bell."
Myra exhaled through her nose. "Ember Courtyard. Sounds cheerful."
Nellie whispered, "That's where they do combat evaluations, right?"
"Probably," Myra said. "Because this Academy hates happiness."
Aiden didn't speak.
He felt the storm inside him shift, a quiet tightening like a blade sliding from its sheath.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Just readiness.
He looked down at the pup.
It stared back, ears up, sparks flickering like it knew the day was about to bite.
"Stay close," Aiden murmured to both girls and beast.
"We are," Myra said.
Nellie nodded so hard her curls bounced.
They stepped into the refectory for breakfast—
but all three of them knew the same thing:
By midday, Erylwood would stop being a shelter.
It would become a proving ground.
And whatever was watching Aiden from the edge of the world…
would be watching the trials too.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Alright, real talk for a second.
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