Chapter 33: Threads After the Trials
Aiden woke to lightning in his ribs and a small, warm weight on his chest.
For half a second his brain supplied the Hollow: collapsing stone, fog like knives, the crack of thorn-bone, the feeling of falling sideways through a Gate that wanted to swallow him whole—
Then something small sneezed sparks into his chin.
"Ow," he muttered.
He blinked his eyes open.
The temporary dorm ceiling stared back at him—rough plaster, a hairline crack shaped vaguely like a crooked river. Morning light slid in through the thin window, greened by the glass panes etched with faint ward-runes.
The weight on his chest shifted.
The lightning pup sprawled there like a smug, sparking blanket—paws in the air, belly exposed, chin tucked under his collarbone. Tiny arcs of blue-white crackled lazily between its toes as it dream-kicked at some imaginary enemy.
Aiden let out a slow breath.
Not the Hollow. Not the Gate. Not the Warden's voice curling through his bones.
Just a dorm, a pup, and his own heart still moving.
"Morning," he whispered, touching two fingers gently between its ears.
The pup cracked one eye open, blinked, then decided this greeting was acceptable and headbutted his sternum once before rolling off. It landed with a soft thump on his blanket, shook itself, and skittered off the bed in a scatter of sparks.
The storm inside him hummed.
Not wild.
Not calm either.
More like… pacing.
He swung his legs over the side of the cot and winced. Every muscle from his shoulders to his calves ached like he'd been beaten with a sack of rocks. His arms looked worse—faint vine-patterns still glowed under his skin where the Thorn Marks had sunk in, curling around old scars and new bruises.
He flexed his fingers.
Lightning whispered down his nerves like water over stone.
Still there. Still his.
Good.
"Myra's going to yell at you if you keep testing it before breakfast."
Nellie's voice floated from the corner.
Aiden turned.
She sat cross-legged on her cot, curls a wild halo around her head, her green Academy cloak wrapped around her like a blanket. She'd clearly been awake a while—her eyes were too bright, and her hands were busy braiding and unbraiding the same loose thread at the hem of her cloak.
"You were watching me sleep?" he asked.
She flushed. "I was making sure you were breathing. Just in case the Gate… I don't know… retroactively decided you failed."
He blinked. "Retroactively?"
"The Academy is weird," she said seriously. "I don't trust its doors."
Fair.
Across the room, the third cot creaked.
Myra groaned into her pillow. "Is everyone talking already? I'm dead. Tell the Headmistress I died. She can hang my cloak on a wall as a warning to future troublemakers."
"You snore," Nellie informed her.
"I do not," Myra said, scandalized, lifting her head.
"Yes, you do," Aiden and Nellie said together.
The pup yipped in agreement.
Myra betrayed on four fronts flopped back dramatically. "Fine. I snore adorably. Whatever. What time is it?"
"Past first bell," Nellie said. "Trial results posting is in less than an hour."
That knocked the sleep from all of them.
Aiden's stomach tightened.
Pass. Provisional. Fail.
They technically already knew they were in—Veldt and Elowen had said as much—but the Academy liked ceremony. It liked putting results where everyone could see them. It liked lists.
Lists meant rankings.
Rankings meant targets.
Myra swung her legs off the bed and scrubbed her face. "Right. Okay. We wash, we eat, we pretend we're fine, then we go let the entire school judge how we nearly died. Great morning."
"You don't have to come stand with me," Aiden said quietly. "If the black-mark thing makes people—"
Myra threw a sock at his head.
It bounced off his forehead and landed on the pup, who froze, betrayed, then violently shook it off and tried to kill it.
"You're not standing alone," she said flatly. "That's not happening. Right, Nellie?"
Nellie nodded so fast she almost fell off the cot. "Absolutely not. If they're going to stare at you, they're going to have to stare at us too."
Aiden opened his mouth to argue.
Closed it.
Smiled instead.
"Okay," he said. "Then we go together."
---
The courtyard looked different with the sun fully up.
Yesterday it had been all fog and fear and the Gate looming like a mouth full of green thorns. Today, with the Thorn arch dormant and the ward-lanterns burning more softly, the space felt almost like a normal gathering ground.
Almost.
Students packed the stone square beneath the balconies—first-years crowded in front, older students lounging along the higher ledges, instructors stationed like quiet pillars at the edges.
A massive slate had been erected near the central platform.
Names glowed on it in steady lines.
Aiden could feel the weight of those names even before he read them. The air buzzed with whispers.
"—I heard three failed outright—"
"—they say one boy tried to blast through a trial wall and knocked himself cold—"
"—did you see the Gate? It actually moved—"
"—where's the Hollow kid—?"
"—storm-brat, you mean—"
Runa met them at the edge of the crowd.
The dwarf girl leaned against a pillar, arms folded, hammer slung over one shoulder like a casual threat. Her braids were tied back tighter today, and someone had actually polished the runes on her gauntlets—they caught the light with faint bronze glints.
"You're late," she said.
"We're not late," Myra shot back. "We're fashionably in denial."
Runa grunted, which might have been a laugh. "Come on. They'll call placements soon. You don't want to be stuck behind tall people when they read out your business."
Nellie swallowed. "Are they… are they going to read everything? Like… details?"
"Just pass status and track," Runa said. "If they read details, half the instructors would get letters from parents and the other half would be fired for emotional damage."
"Comforting," Aiden muttered.
They moved as a unit into the crowd.
Heads turned as they passed.
Not subtle.
Not kind.
"What's the gnome doing here?" someone whispered.
"Exchange program," another voice said. "Northroot Accord. My uncle says they're rare. Worth watching."
"I heard she rebuilt a man's hand in the marsh," someone else breathed.
"That can't be right—she's tiny."
"That storm cub is right there—don't stare, don't stare, don't stare—"
"Look at his arms—are those marks?"
"Two sets. I swear I see two—"
"Is that even allowed—?"
Aiden kept his eyes forward.
The lightning pup trotted at his heel, fur flat but eyes sharp, tail flicking in short, unsettled arcs. Tiny sparks jumped between its paws and the stone each time it stepped.
Runa shot one particularly loud whisperer a hard look. The boy immediately remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere.
They stopped a few rows from the front.
From here, Aiden could see the slate clearly.
Names glowed in three main columns:
ADMITTED
PROVISIONAL
FAILED / REDIRECT
His eyes skimmed the first column.
Myra Lynell — Admitted — Track: Scout-Binder
Nellie Tinkwhistle — Admitted — Track: Verdant Healer
Runa Ironjaw — Admitted — Track: Vanguard Stoneguard
Relief punched through his chest.
Then he found his own name.
Aiden Raikos — Admitted (Flagged) — Track: Stormbound Provisional
"Stormbound," Myra whispered over his shoulder. "That sounds… cool. Vague. Terrifying. Mostly cool."
"Provisional?" Nellie squeaked. "Why are you provisional? He literally saved a whole caravan, they can't provisional that—"
"It's fine," Aiden said, though his stomach twisted. "Elowen said I'd be under observation. This is just how they write it on a wall."
"Still rude," Myra muttered.
Runa's brows knit. "Flagged means extra eyes. You watch your back."
"Planning on it," Aiden said.
He tried not to look at the third column.
He failed.
A handful of names glowed there—first-years who hadn't passed, their tracks replaced by short notes: Redirected to Auxiliary. Referred to Town Guild. Offered Civil Apprenticeship.
He didn't know their faces.
He still felt a hollow spot open in his chest for them.
The Academy smiled and lit its lanterns and carved its runes into stone, but underneath all of that, it was sharp. It cut.
A horn sounded.
The chatter dimmed to a low murmur.
Master Veldt stepped onto the central platform, cloak hanging in clean, sharp lines, his scar catching the sun like a pale bolt. A clerk in gray stood at his side, ledger afloat in green light.
"First-years," Veldt called.
His voice carried effortlessly.
"You survived the Gate of Thorns."
A few nervous laughs scattered the crowd.
He didn't smile.
"Survival is the lowest bar," he continued. "It is the floor, not the ceiling. You are here because you did more than survive. You listened when the Hollow spoke. You chose when it forced you to choose. You bled and did not break."
Beside Aiden, Nellie's fingers twisted in her cloak.
Myra's jaw set.
Runa just watched.
"From this point," Veldt said, "you are not travelers. You are not caravanners. You are not children of whatever village or clan or family sent you here. You are students of Erylwood. Your failures stain our stone. Your successes strengthen it."
He turned his head slightly.
His gaze passed over the crowd.
For a heartbeat, it locked on Aiden.
Not long enough for most people to notice.
Long enough for Aiden to feel the weight of being seen. Not as a curiosity. As a problem. As a possibility.
"Tracks have been assigned according to demonstrated instinct and potential," Veldt went on. "These may change. You may impress us. You may disappoint us. Both have consequences."
The clerk lifted the ledger.
"Track captains," Veldt called. "Step forward when named. Students in your tracks will report to you after this assembly for orientation."
Names rang out.
A tall, dark-haired girl with a spear across her back for Vanguard. A sharp-faced boy with too-bright eyes for Arcane Channel. A broad-shouldered woman with soft hands for Verdant Healer.
When "Scout-Binder" was called, a lean elf with wind-tangled hair stepped up, bow slung over one shoulder.
Myra sucked in a breath. "That's our captain? She looks like she hasn't slept in a week."
"She looks like she's been fighting things bigger than you in the woods," Runa said. "That's good."
Nellie elbowed Aiden gently. "Stormbound doesn't even have a track captain listed."
Aiden looked.
She was right.
Under Stormbound Provisional, instead of a captain's name, there was only a note:
Oversight: Headmistress Elowen Thorne
His mouth went dry.
"Of course," Myra muttered. "Of course your track is literally supervised by the scariest person in the Academy."
"She's not scary," Nellie whispered. "She's… intense."
Runa grunted. "Same thing from the wrong side of the door."
Veldt finished the list.
"Orientation will proceed by track," he said. "You will learn your dorm assignments, your training schedules, your curfew, and the fifty-seven ways we will make your lives difficult so that the outside world kills you slightly less quickly."
A few students actually laughed at that.
Veldt let them.
Then his gaze swept the courtyard one last time.
"Remember your trials," he said. "The Gate did not show you comfort. It showed you truth. If you ignore it in here… the world out there will remind you."
He stepped back.
The horn sounded again.
The crowd broke into moving clusters, students gravitating toward their track captains. The courtyard dissolved into a controlled chaos of shifting shapes and new beginnings.
"Come on," Runa said. "Healers meet under the east awning. Scouts near the south stairs. Storm idiots—" she glanced at Aiden "—wherever Elowen tells you."
"You coming with Nellie?" Aiden asked.
Runa blinked at him like he'd asked if water was wet. "Obviously."
Nellie startled. "Y-you don't have to—"
"I do," Runa said. "You'll get trampled if you walk into that crowd alone. Also, you chatter when you're nervous. Someone has to make sure you don't hyperventilate into a potted plant."
Nellie made a mortified squeak.
Myra grinned. "Marry her."
"MYRA!"
Runa shrugged. "Too early. Ask again after we survive midterms."
They peeled off—Nellie and Runa toward the green-bannered group under the east awning, Myra toward the knot of Scout-Binder candidates gathering by the south stair.
Aiden watched them go.
For the first time since stepping through the Gate, he felt something like… hope.
They had tracks. They had captains. They had each other.
He still had no idea what "Stormbound Provisional" meant.
But he wasn't alone.
Not entirely.
He turned back toward the platform—
And stopped.
Headmistress Elowen stood at the top of the nearest stairway.
He hadn't seen her arrive. One moment the stone was empty; the next, she was there, forest-green robes still as carved leaves, silver hair bound back, eyes pale gold and steady.
She didn't address the whole courtyard.
She didn't need to.
She lifted one hand.
A thin thread of green light unspooled from her fingers, drifting through the air like a guided wisp until it reached Aiden.
It hovered in front of him, pulsing softly.
He felt the storm inside him sit up and pay attention.
A single word whispered in his mind—not System text, not Hollow voice.
Just Elowen's, clear as if she stood beside him.
Come.
Aiden exhaled.
Of course.
Orientation, track meetings, awkward introductions—they could wait.
The Headmistress wanted her stormbound headache back in the Verdant Hall.
He glanced once toward the healer cluster, where Runa already stood with her arms folded protectively near Nellie.
Toward the scout group, where Myra was gesturing too big and talking too fast at a captain who looked both exasperated and amused.
The pup pressed against his boot, fur bristling softly.
"We'll be quick," he murmured to it.
It gave him a look that clearly said: You keep saying that.
Then it trotted at his heel as he stepped away from the flood of first-years and followed the drifting thread of light—
back toward the heart of the Academy,
where old stone and older secrets were waiting
for whatever a stormbound soul might become.
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