Chapter 31 — Willow Hall, Room 3B
By the time they reached Willow Hall, Aiden's legs felt like they'd been carved from wet wood and left to dry wrong.
The building sat along the inner ring of the Academy, half-embraced by a real willow whose hanging branches swept the roof tiles like a hand smoothing someone's hair. The stone here was softer in color, veined with pale green. Vines had been encouraged—not to choke the walls—but to frame the archways in balanced, deliberate patterns.
It looked less like a fortress.
More like a place people actually lived.
Myra let out a low whistle. "Okay. I'm willing to forgive the whole 'trying to kill us with sentient roots' thing if they keep giving us buildings like this."
Nellie clutched her satchel straps. "Do you think they'll really let us all stay in the same room? Even with Runa and the pup and… you know." She wiggled her fingers in vague "storm" gestures at Aiden.
Runa shrugged, hammer over one shoulder, pack over the other. "Headmistress said we're an early-formed field unit. Field units don't separate. Field units get rooms where they can yell at each other in the same air."
"That's… weirdly comforting," Nellie said.
The lightning pup padded at Aiden's heel, tail flicking, little sparks snapping between its toes every third step. It'd calmed since the Gate incident, but every now and then it glanced back toward the distant marsh, fur rippling with faint static like it could still feel something out there turning in its sleep.
"3B," Aiden muttered, reading the plate beside the door. "They actually did it. One room."
Willow Hall's hallway smelled like beeswax and old paper, faintly floral under the sharper tang of metal polish and weapon oil. Other doors were open as students moved in—leaning out to call to friends, hauling trunks, arguing about bed order.
A few heads turned as the four of them passed.
Whispers rose in their wake like small waves.
"That's them—"
"Marsh Cohort—"
"The one with the lightning—look, the cub—"
"Is that a dwarf in first year?"
"Gnome too, wow, this hall's cursed and blessed."
Myra rolled her eyes so hard it was audible. "I can't wait until the next scandal shows up and they forget we exist."
"Give it a day," Runa said. "Maybe two. Humans love new disasters. Takes pressure off the old ones."
They stopped at 3B.
Aiden pushed the door open.
The room was… not huge.
But it was theirs.
Four sturdy wooden beds—two on each wall—each with a trunk at the foot and a shelf overhead. A narrow window at the far end looked out over the inner training fields, where distant figures were already practicing forms. Light slanted in through green-tinted glass etched with curling leaf designs.
A single, massive support beam ran along the ceiling, carved with intertwining willow branches.
It felt solid.
Safe.
Like the kind of place you could fall asleep and know the roof would still be there in the morning.
Myra breezed in first and pointed. "Window bed. Dibs."
"You called dibs in the Arrival Wing and then snored like an avalanche," Nellie said.
"That's slander. I snored like a dignified avalanche."
Runa walked in and thunked her pack onto the bed nearest the door, back to the wall, angle perfect for seeing anyone who came in. "This one. Closest to hitting whoever tries anything."
Nellie hovered in the middle, visibly torn.
Aiden set his pack down on the remaining bed under the willow-carved beam. "Take the one across from the window," he said. "Less glare. Good for stitching people back together."
Her eyes brightened. "You thought about that?"
"Yes," Myra said dryly. "He thinks about things. It's very annoying. Especially when he's right."
Nellie hurried to the bed he'd indicated and set her satchel down with both hands, like she was putting it on a shrine.
The pup hopped up onto Aiden's mattress in a crackle of sparks, circled twice, then flopped in the exact center like it had just claimed the entire bed by divine lightning law.
"Hey," Aiden said. "I need some of that space."
The cub cracked an eye open and scooted exactly one paw-width to the left.
Myra snorted. "Compromise. That's growth."
They unpacked slowly.
Not because they had much—everything they owned had survived the caravan by miracle and stubbornness—but because each item felt like proof. Proof that they'd made it here alive. Proof that they were staying.
Nellie lined up her jars of salves and dried herbs on her shelf with reverent precision. Tiny labels in her looping handwriting faced outward like they wanted to introduce themselves.
Myra tossed a handful of whittled beast tokens onto her trunk—little carved wolves and hawks and one suspiciously lightning-looking fox. "Future contract options," she said when Aiden glanced. "Gotta practice visualizing, right?"
Runa pulled out exactly three things: spare clothes, a whetstone, and a folding brush carved with dwarven knotwork. She set the brush on the shelf, clothes in the trunk, the whetstone on the trunk, then sat on the bed like the rest of her life could be conducted with those three objects.
Aiden laid out what little he had left from the road—travel knife, spare shirt, the locket he still hadn't explained to anyone, a tiny, worn stone from his first life he carried like a superstition.
As his fingers brushed the stone, the System flickered behind his eyes.
[LOCATION: WILLOW HALL – ROOM 3B]
[STATUS: TEMPORARY STABILITY NODE]
[PARTY ESTABLISHED: PROVISIONAL UNIT – WILLOW-3B]
[NEW TRAIT UNLOCKED: SHARED SHELTER (+Minor Recovery Boost when all bonded allies rest in same space)]
He blinked.
A soft pulse of warmth rippled through his chest, out toward where Myra, Nellie, and Runa sat in different corners of the room. The lightning pup's fur lifted in a small, pleased shiver.
"Anyone else feel… that?" Nellie asked suddenly, rubbing her arms. "Like a tiny hug from the universe?"
Myra tilted her head. "Huh. Yeah. Thought that was just blood finally returning to my bones."
Runa squinted at the ceiling. "Feels like good stone."
Aiden swallowed a smile. "Maybe it's just… being inside real walls for once."
"Don't ruin it with logic," Myra said.
A knock hit the door.
Three sharp raps. Authoritative, not aggressive.
Runa was up first, reflexes like loaded springs. She cracked the door and looked out, ready to swing if it wasn't worth listening to.
It was.
A lanky boy with copper-brown skin and ink-stained fingers stood there, a staff tucked under one arm, an armband marking him as a Hall Warden. His hair was pulled back into a messy tail, and he wore an expression that said he'd seen too much nonsense already today.
"New residents?" he asked.
Runa stepped aside just enough to let him see in without actually giving him full entrance. "Depends who's asking."
"Jalen Mor," he said. "Willow Hall Warden. I keep the peace, break up fights, make sure no one sneaks a baby chimera into the bath-house."
"That happened?" Myra asked from her bed.
"Twice."
Nellie made a horrified squeak.
Aiden stepped closer. "We're Aiden Raikos, Myra Lynell, Nellie Tinkwhistle, and Runa Ironjaw. Provisional unit Willow-3B."
Jalen's gaze slid briefly to the pup.
It crackled a warning spark at him.
His brows lifted. "And a storm cub. Fantastic. I love my job."
"Is that sarcasm?" Myra asked.
"Deeply."
Jalen flipped a small slate in his hand, checked something, then nodded. "Right. Official greeting, then. Welcome to Willow Hall. Basic rules: no dueling in the hallways, no beast-binding rituals inside rooms, no deliberately flooding the washrooms, and if any of your experiments try to eat someone, you tell me before it gets past three limbs."
Nellie paled. "We're… not going to do experiments like that."
"Good. You'd be surprised how often people say that and lie."
His gaze lingered a second on Aiden. Not hostile. Not exactly wary.
More… measuring.
"You were the black-mark in the trials," he said.
The room went still.
Aiden felt everyone's attention tilt.
"Yes," he said slowly.
Jalen sighed through his teeth. "Figures they'd put the storm anomaly in my Hall."
"Storm—" Aiden began.
Jalen lifted a hand. "Relax. I don't mean that the way the gossips do. I mean paperwork. Endless paperwork. The Headmistress flagged your room for additional warding. Which means if anything in here explodes in the middle of the night, I get to explain why. Please, for the love of all ancient quietly sleeping things, try not to spontaneously combust."
Myra folded her arms. "He hasn't spontaneously combusted yet."
"Encouraging," Jalen said. "Let's keep that streak going."
He tapped the doorframe twice with the butt of his staff. Faint runes flickered where wood met stone, then steadied—like the room took a breath and filed them under "mine."
"There," Jalen said. "Room's keyed to you four now. You'll feel it if anyone tries to force their way in without invite."
"Can we feel it if someone just lightly annoys us from the hallway?" Myra asked.
"No," Jalen said. "For that, you're on your own."
He turned to leave, then paused. "Oh. One more thing."
Everyone tensed again.
He jerked his chin down the hall. "If anyone gives you trouble for the trials, or the marsh incident, or the cub—don't start a war in the corridor. Come find me. I deal with bullies. You lot are here to survive classes, not politics."
Runa eyed him. "You sure? I'm very good at dealing with bullies."
"I believe you," Jalen said without missing a beat. "But if you start, I have to file forms. Let me file fewer forms."
There was something tired but genuine in his eyes.
Aiden nodded. "We'll try to keep your paperwork light."
"Best thing anyone's said to me all week." Jalen took a step back. "Welcome to Willow. Don't die."
He disappeared down the hall, calling, "Sorrel! I swear if that's a salamander in your boots—"
The noise faded.
The room felt different again.
Not bigger. Not smaller.
Just… theirs in a way it hadn't been a few minutes ago, now that a bored-looking upper-year had stamped it with "officially part of the Academy."
Myra flopped back onto her bed. "Well. I like him."
"He's… nice," Nellie said.
Runa rolled her shoulders, some tension leaving her stance. "He knows when to get out of the way. That's enough."
Aiden sat on the edge of his bed.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Outside the window, training bells rang for a different Hall. Students shouted. Somewhere, someone's beast let out a resonant, echoing cry that sounded like a hawk and a drum and a waterfall all at once.
Inside, there were four beds and one storm cub and three people who had watched him walk into an ancient Gate and still believed in him when he came out marked.
The System flickered again.
[NEW NODE REGISTERED: SAFE REST – WILLOW 3B]
[PARTY STATUS: STABLE]
[UPCOMING: FIRST-WEEK SCHEDULE AVAILABLE]
A soft chime pulsed behind his eyes.
A thin sheet of light unfolded in his vision, transparent enough that he could see the room through it. He tilted his head slightly, pretending to look at the carved beam while reading.
[ERYLWOOD ACADEMY – FIRST WEEK TIMETABLE]
DAY ONE:
– Dawn Conditioning (Optional)
– Core Theory: Beast-Lore & Natural Orders (Mandatory)
– Resonance Discipline I (Mandatory)
– Survival Practicum: Field Basics (Mandatory)
– Combat Rotation: Group Trials & Pair Assessments (Assigned)
– Supplemental Observation: Unit WILLOW-3B (Flagged)
Of course.
"Supplemental observation," he muttered.
Myra rolled over to peer at him upside-down. "What's the face?"
"They've got us flagged," he said. "Extra eyes on us, looks like."
"Let them watch," Runa said, checking the edge of her hammer with the whetstone. "Staring isn't teeth."
Nellie fidgeted with a jar of salve, thumb tracing the label. "It still makes my stomach feel… knotty."
Aiden leaned back against the wall.
He could be angry about it. He could be afraid of it. He could sink into the weight of being "storm-child" and "anomaly" and "black-mark candidate" until it crushed his ribs.
But when he looked sideways—
Myra caught his eye and raised her brows, daring the world to try something.
Nellie smiled tentatively when she noticed him looking, as if checking that he was still real.
Runa watched them all out of the corner of her eye, the corners of her mouth turning down like she disapproved of everything—but her body was angled toward the door, protective.
The pup snored quietly on his pillow, small sparks jumping with each exhale.
"Then we give them a show," Aiden said.
Myra grinned. "Oh, I like that. Terrify them with competence?"
"Or confuse them with survival," he said.
Nellie nodded fiercely. "We'll prove we belong here."
Runa gave a single, decisive grunt. "We already did. Now they have to catch up."
Silence settled again, comfortable this time.
The kind of quiet that came before sleep or storms.
Aiden stretched out on his bed without thinking too hard about it. The beam overhead framed his view in carved willow and faint green light. He could feel the others' presence in the room—not pressing, just there.
The storm inside him shifted.
Not restless.
Not raging.
Just… coiled.
Waiting.
A soft, un-terrifying waiting, like the pause between lightning and rain instead of the scream of sky splitting.
His eyes started to drift shut—
Someone yelled outside in the courtyard.
Loud.
Panicked, but not hurt.
"AIDEN RAIKOS! MYRA LYNELL! NELLIE TINKWHISTLE! RUNA IRONJAW!"
All four of them jolted.
The pup sprang awake in an explosion of sparks and fell off the bed with a disgruntled yip.
Myra scrambled upright. "We didn't do anything! We've been good for at least fifteen minutes!"
Nellie squeaked, clutching her satchel. "Is it classes already? Did we miss a bell?"
Runa was already at the window.
She shoved it open.
Down in the courtyard below, a harried-looking runner in Academy green was staring up at the building, hands on his knees, clearly having sprinted across half the campus.
When he saw Runa's head appear, he cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Unit Willow-3B!" he shouted. "Headmistress Thorne requests your presence in Spire Hall—immediately!"
The word rang up through the stone.
Immediately.
Aiden's storm flickered.
Myra turned to him slowly. "So. Odds that this is just for tea and congratulations?"
"Very low," he said.
Nellie swallowed. "We didn't even get to nap."
Runa reached for her hammer. "Then we go tired."
The pup shook itself, sparks flaring, and looked up at Aiden.
Ready?
He slid off the bed.
His legs ached. His ribs still remembered thorn pressure. His mind was frayed around the edges.
But he was here.
Not alone.
"Come on," he said, opening the door.
The four of them stepped out of Willow Hall, room 3B, and onto the stone path leading toward the Spire.
Behind them, their new room hummed faintly, a quiet pulse of magic and memory claiming them as its own.
Ahead—
the Academy's tallest tower waited.
And somewhere beyond its high windows, a woman with gold eyes and too many answers had decided it was time to ask the next set of questions.
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