Chapter 29E — Threads That Pull Back
Nellie didn't stand right away.
None of them did.
They stayed beneath the willow until her breathing found something like a rhythm, until the bright glow beneath her skin stopped flaring and settled into a slow, steady pulse.
Aiden stayed crouched in front of her.
Myra stayed pressed against her side.
Runa stayed planted just off Nellie's right shoulder like a carved stone guardian.
The storm-pup refused to move at all.
It was a small, stubborn ball of lightning in her lap, chin dug into her thigh, staring at anyone who came near with a crackling, suspicious glare.
[VERDANT THREADS: STABILIZING…]
[LINKS: AIDEN / MYRA / RUNA / PUP — INTEGRITY 83%]
The faint text faded from Nellie's vision. She sniffed and swallowed, throat raw.
"I can walk now," she whispered. "I think."
Aiden didn't move immediately. "You sure?"
She nodded. "If I stay here, I'll cry again. And Myra will narrate it."
Myra gasped. "I would never—"
"You absolutely would," Nellie said, and the soft tremble on her lips turned into the tiniest smile.
Myra opened her mouth, then smirked instead. "Okay, maybe. But only to call it a heroic emotional overflow."
Runa snorted.
Aiden pushed to his feet and held out his hand.
Nellie took it without hesitation this time. No flinch. No apology. Just small fingers curling around his wrist like she knew he'd still be there when she reached.
He helped her up.
Myra popped to her feet and immediately started fussing over her — tugging her robe straight, brushing dirt from her sleeves, adjusting curls that had escaped in every direction during the trial.
"You look like you wrestled a bear made of guilt," Myra muttered.
"I did," Nellie said. "His name was Also Me."
Runa's lips twitched like she was fighting a smile and losing.
The four of them moved out from beneath the willow.
As they emerged into the courtyard proper, the world remembered how to stare.
Conversations dipped and bent around them. First-years in trial cloaks, second-years in half-uniform, older students leaning against railings — all turned, all looked.
Some stood straighter in respect.
Some shifted back in uncertainty.
Some watched with open, hungry curiosity.
Nellie shrank slightly, shoulders beginning to hunch—
—and then Aiden shifted half a step, blocking some of the eyes.
Myra stepped to Nellie's other side and took her hand like it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world.
Runa fell in on her right, heavy steps sure and deliberate.
The pup lifted its head and gave the courtyard a low, warning growl that crackled with static.
The whispers rose anyway:
"That's her. The Verdant-mark girl."
"She came out glowing."
"Is that a storm cub in her lap?"
"Those four keep coming out of the gates changed."
"Storm-child's healer, right?"
"If they're a team, I feel bad for anything that fights them."
Aiden kept his gaze forward.
Myra met every stare with a look that said she'd happily rearrange someone's face if they pushed it.
Runa didn't glare at all — she just carried herself like if anyone tried something, she would consider that a gift.
No one tried.
They reached the stone bridge that arched over one of the inner gardens. Below, wind stirred the leaves of dark-green shrubs and pale flowers that looked like they'd grown out of moonlight.
Halfway across, Nellie tugged Aiden's sleeve.
"Aiden…?"
He slowed. "Yeah?"
She didn't look at him.
She was staring off past the walls, eyes unfocused, fingers pressing against the center of her chest.
"The threads," she whispered. "They're still here. The ones I saw in there. They're… quieter now. But one of them—"
Her voice went thin.
Aiden's storm stirred uneasily. "One of them what?"
"It's pulling." She swallowed hard. "Not to you. Not to Myra. Not to Runa. Outward. Far. Like…"
She lifted her hand and pointed — not at a building, not at the sky, but at the distant line of forest beyond the Academy wall.
"Past there," she said. "Through the trees. Under the ground. Outside the wards. There's… someone hurting. Or something. I can't tell. It feels like when a patient's heartbeat skips wrong, but… bigger. Farther. Older."
The pup's ears pricked. A faint, uncertain whine slipped out of it.
Runa followed Nellie's line of sight, jaw tightening. "The outer marsh."
Myra shivered. "Where the Hollow collapsed."
Aiden's chest went cold.
Fog.
The Warden.
That whisper: if he loses himself, I end him.
He took a breath anyway. "Can you ignore it?"
Nellie's eyes shimmered. For a moment, she looked like she might say no.
Then she pressed her palm flat against her Verdant mark.
The glow steadied.
"It hurts to ignore," she admitted. "But… I can. For now. If I don't, I'll run until I fall over. And probably die on the way."
Runa nodded, approving. "That's called wisdom. Don't chase the first scream you hear; that's how hunters get eaten."
Myra squinted at her. "Why do you keep dropping terrifying wood-wife proverbs like that?"
"Dwarf proverbs," Runa corrected. "We don't put them on tea mugs, so they stay sharp."
Nellie let out a tiny, helpless laugh that somehow made the whole conversation feel survivable.
They crossed the rest of the bridge.
By the time they reached the dorm steps, the worst of the staring had subsided. Students peeled away in clusters, whispering and glancing back, but no one approached.
Runa slowed at the base of the steps and shot Nellie a sideways look. "You going to make it up those?"
Nellie squared her shoulders. "Yes."
She made it up two before her knee wobbled.
Runa didn't wait.
She stepped up in one quick stride, slid an arm behind Nellie's back — not lifting, not carrying, just steadying — and walked her the rest of the way up with steady pressure.
Nellie froze mid-step and turned bright red.
"Thank you," she mumbled.
"You were going to fall," Runa said gruffly.
"But you caught me."
"You were falling in my direction."
Nellie blinked. "You still caught me."
Runa made a small, strangled sound and looked away so hard she almost tripped on the last stair.
Myra's eyes sparkled. She leaned toward Aiden and whispered, "Oh yeah, this is going to be fun."
Inside, the dorm was quieter than the courtyard — stone walls muffling the outside buzz, air warmed by braziers and the faint herbal steam drifting from the common-room kettle.
Aiden guided Nellie straight to the wide couch near the main window.
She sank into it like someone who finally found the edge of her strength. Myra was already there, dragging a thick wool blanket off the back and tucking it around Nellie with zero respect for personal space.
"There," she said. "Healer burrito."
Nellie sniffled. "It's warm."
"That's the point."
Runa appeared behind them with a pillow, plopped it carefully behind Nellie's back, then adjusted it three more times like it mattered enormously.
The pup hopped up beside Nellie, circled twice, then flopped half on her lap and half on the blanket, tiny paw resting protectively over her Verdant mark.
Nellie's eyes softened. "Okay. Now I really might cry again."
"Then we did it right," Myra said lightly.
Aiden didn't sit right away.
He hovered, hands on the back of the couch, still scanning Nellie's face, the faint flicker under her skin, the way the previously wild green glow had settled into a steady, living shimmer.
"How's the pull now?" he asked.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
"Farther," she whispered. "Like… someone closed a door between me and it. I can still feel it. But it's quieter. Like a pain in a different room."
He exhaled slowly. "Good."
The dorm door knocked.
Four heads snapped toward it at once.
Myra's hand went automatically toward the knife in her boot.
Runa was already shifting her weight to stand.
Aiden's storm tensed on instinct.
Nellie's fingers curled in the pup's fur.
Then a calm, familiar voice said through the wood:
"Aiden Raikos. Myra Lynell. Elenora Tinkwhistle. Runa Ironjaw."
Nellie whispered, "She said my full name."
Runa muttered, "She said mine at all. How does she know where—"
Aiden answered without thinking. "It's Elowen."
The door opened.
Headmistress Elowen Thorne stepped into the common room with the kind of quiet that made the entire space feel suddenly smaller and more important.
She wasn't in ceremonial robes now — just high-collared forest-green layered with darker leather at the edges, sleeves rolled once at the wrist. Her silver hair was pulled up, a few strands loose. She held a wooden tablet in one hand.
Her pale-gold eyes swept the scene: Nellie wrapped in blankets, Myra half-leaning into her, Runa sitting so close she could shield them both in one move, Aiden standing behind with one hand on the couch like he'd hold it in place if the world tried to move it.
Elowen's gaze softened by something too brief to label.
"These arrived sooner than expected," she said, lifting the tablet. "The trial verdicts. And the Cohort assignments."
Myra sat up straighter. "We get those already? I thought they posted them on the main board with everyone crowding and screaming and—"
"That tradition," Elowen said mildly, "was designed by people who enjoyed noise."
Aiden swallowed. "And us?"
Elowen stepped closer and held out the tablet.
"A special case," she said. "Look."
Aiden took it.
The surface flared softly to life at his touch, lines of green script resolving into clear, carved letters.
He read.
Twice.
Then a third time.
COHORT IX — PROVISIONAL FORMATION
> Aiden Raikos — Resonant Storm Mark, Thorn-Bound (Stage II)
Myra Lynell — Wind-Edge Aptitude, Shadow Instinct (Dormant)
Elenora Tinkwhistle — Verdant Sight, Healer's Thread
Runa Ironjaw — Ironblood Temper, Corebearer Candidate
Nellie's breath caught.
Myra leaned in so close her nose nearly hit the wood. "We're—"
Runa craned her neck, frown fading by degrees. "A cohort."
"No," Elowen corrected quietly. "A Cohort. Capitalized. Recognized. Bound together for the duration of your training — unless you fall or break."
Nellie's fingers tightened in the blanket. "…Bound how?"
Elowen studied her. "By results. By resonance. By how the trials reacted to you — and how you reacted to each other."
Her gaze flicked from Aiden's ribs to Myra's hands to Nellie's gleaming chest mark to the way Runa's hammer-hand always hovered near the others.
"The Academy has not formed a full Cohort from first-year trials in twenty-seven years," she said. "Usually we reshuffle. Balance. Spread risk."
Myra's eyes widened. "So why didn't you spread us?"
"Because you are already unbalanced," Elowen said, a flicker of dry humor ghosting her mouth. "Separating you would not remove the risk. It would scatter it. I prefer my storms where I can see them."
She turned to Aiden.
"And you," she added, "are not a storm alone anymore."
Aiden swallowed.
The tablet felt heavy in his hands. Not like weight.
Like responsibility.
"What makes us different?" he asked softly.
Elowen didn't answer right away.
She walked to the window instead, looking out at the distant line of trees.
"Cohorts are usually formed to strengthen what is already there," she said. "You four are different. The Academy did not shape you into a team. The Gate only… acknowledged it."
She looked back at them — gold eyes steady, sharp, and strangely proud.
"The world noticed you," she said simply. "And it is moving pieces in response."
Nellie shivered.
Myra leaned closer to her, chin lifting in stubborn defiance. "Then we move back."
Runa nodded once. "Together."
The pup gave a serious, crackling yip as if filing that promise as law.
Elowen's mouth softened.
"Rest tonight," she said. "You earned more than you know. Tomorrow, Cohort Nine begins specialized training. You will not be treated as average. You will not be allowed to pretend you are."
Aiden felt his storm quiet.
Not soothe.
Stand.
"Yes, Headmistress," he said.
"Elowen," she corrected gently. "If I must drag you through the years ahead, we may as well be honest about names."
She turned to the door.
Paused.
"And one more thing," she added without facing them. "Outside the walls… something pressed the wards after your trials. It bears the same storm-scent as you four. The same mark threads."
Nellie sucked in a breath.
Aiden's skin went cold.
"Is it dangerous?" Runa asked.
"Yes," Elowen said. "In all the ways that matter."
Her hand rested briefly on the doorframe.
"That," she added, "is why this Cohort exists at all."
She left them with that.
The door closed softly behind her.
Silence breathed through the room.
The only sound for a moment was the pup's slow exhale and the faint, steady thrum of Nellie's Verdant mark.
Then Myra twisted around on the couch and grinned — fierce and shaky and alive.
"Well," she said. "Guess we're officially trouble."
Nellie laughed — a small, watery sound, but real. "The good kind, right?"
"The absolutely terrifying kind," Myra replied.
Runa reached over the back of the couch and set her hand — carefully, deliberately — atop both of theirs.
"The necessary kind," she said.
Aiden looked at their hands. At the tablet. At the marks faintly glowing under their skin.
He felt his storm respond.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
"We're a team," he said quietly.
Nellie nodded.
Myra squeezed their fingers.
Runa's eyes softened in the way only they ever saw.
Outside, wind stirred the trees.
Far beyond the courtyard, the marsh fog rolled and rose, pressing again — just lightly — against the Academy's wards, as if testing the strength of the newly formed thread that bound Cohort Nine together.
The world noticed.
And somewhere deep in the old roots and old storms…
It whispered back.
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