The gates appeared out of the mountain fog like a bad omen in a horror movie.
It was a massive black iron. Wrought into shapes that looked almost like screaming faces if you squinted, which I did, and then immediately wished I hadn't. The carriage slowed, and I heard the driver mutter something under his breath that sounded like a prayer.
I told myself it was just aesthetic. Every magic school in every book ever written had creepy architecture. It was basically a requirement. You don't build a prestigious supernatural academy out of drywall and good lighting. You build it out of gothic nightmares and questionable design choices. That's just branding.
The gates groaned open.
The Academy rose behind them like a cathedral designed by someone who hated joy. Black stone towers clawed at a grey sky. Windows glowed faintly from within the cold, blue light, nothing warm. The whole place looked less like a school and more like a monument to something that had died a long time ago and refused to stop standing.
"Wow," the nervous boy, Isaac, whose name I'd finally learned, whispered. "It's... um..."
"Terrifying?" Ferine finished flatly.
"I was going to say impressive."
"Liar."
The carriage stopped. We filed out one by one, and the cold hit me immediately, not weather cold, but something deeper, like the air itself was hostile. My white cloak snapped in the wind. I gripped the edges and tried to look like I belonged here.
We weren't alone.
Carriages lined the path ahead of us, each one marked with a kingdom crest. And the students spilling out of them were well...
Okay. I need to be honest. The Eastern students were stunning, annoyingly so. They stepped out of golden carriages like they were walking onto a runway, there skin glowing with that perpetual sun-kissed look, hair catching light that didn't seem to come from anywhere. They moved like royalty because they were royalty, and they knew it, and they wanted everyone else to know it too.
Two of them stood apart from the rest. A girl with cascading golden-brown hair that moved like it had its own personal wind machine, liquid gold eyes scanning the crowd like she was cataloguing who was beneath her. I didn't need the book to tell me she was dangerous. Her smile told me everything.
Beside her, a tall guy with dirty-blonde hair and two different colored eyes one pale yellow, one light blue that watched everyone with the calm focus of someone who was already ten moves ahead. He didn't smile at all.
The girl's gaze swept over our group. It paused on me for half a second, and her lip curled. Not disgust worse. Dismissal, Like I wasn't even worth hating.
Then I saw the Western students. Quiet, Cloaked. A few of them weren't quite touching the ground, one boy in particular, shoulder-length grey hair, dark circles under his stormy eyes, drifted an inch above the stone path like gravity just couldn't be bothered with him. He looked like he hadn't slept in three years and was fine with it.
And then the Northern carriage opened.
Black poured out. Literally black cloaks, black boots, black everything. They moved like shadows given form. Silent, Controlled. The air around them felt heavier, like the light was physically struggling to reach them.
And then I saw him.
Kasai Holar
Midnight-black hair slicked back but with loose strands framing a face that was almost too sharp, too perfect, like a blade someone had spent too long polishing. Deep violet eyes with flecks of crimson near the iris that seemed to glow in the grey light. He was tall and lean and moved the way predators move in nature documentaries, he fluid, effortless, like violence was just another way of walking.
I knew who he was. Not from the book the pages about the Academy were blank. But from the character list that had appeared at the very beginning, before Chapter One, like a cast of players in a game program.
I stared.
I shouldn't have stared.
His violet eyes slid to mine, slowly and deliberately like a wolf catching a scent. He didn't smile. He didn't smirk. He just looked at me, and the temperature of my blood dropped about fifteen degrees.
I looked away. My heart was slamming against my ribs so hard I was sure Mira could hear it.
Jaxon stepped slightly closer to me. Not protective not quite, but present. I latched onto that presence like a lifeline.
Then Headmaster Thorne appeared on the top step.
I say appeared, because I didn't see him walk there. He was just suddenly there like the building had spawned him. He was tall and skeletal his skin stretched grey and tight over a skull that didn't look like it had enough room for a face. He wore a pristine white suit that made him look like a corpse at a funeral nobody attended. He didn't blink. Not even once.
The courtyard fell silent. Every student, every kingdom, went quiet.
He opened his mouth.
"Welcome," he said, his voice dry and flat, like paper being crumpled slowly, "to the proving ground."
Not "welcome to the Academy." Not "welcome to your studies."
"Only the worthy survive."
A laugh almost escaped my throat. I swallowed it. He was being dramatic. Principals loved being dramatic. It was, then suddenly, the sky cracked.
Not literally. But something split open above us a seam in the air, and through it emerged a mask, Porcelain and Massive, Floating. No mouth. Just two enormous eyes that projected light, staring down at every single student with an expression that shouldn't have been possible on something inanimate.
Hatred. The mask looked like it hated us.
A voice erupted from nowhere and everywhere, deafeningly calm.
"The first test begins at dawn. Category: The Siren's Silence. Fatalities are expected."
The mask vanished without any warning then the sky sealed shut immediately.
Silence filled the hall.
What was that about I thought to myself, something seemed kinda off but either way anything can happen, who would believe I'm leaving in someone else's body in a completely different world, yeah right.
Then the Eastern students started whispering. The Northern students didn't react at all like it normal i could say, but nothing was normal about this world. Isaac made a sound like a small animal dying.
My legs stopped working.
Then my thoughts started again those words...
Fatalities are expected.
Not "injuries are possible." Not "discipline will be enforced."
Fatalities.
The book never said this. The book described the Academy as prestigious. The Qualifying Test sounded like an exam. I thought, or I assumed, I had walked into my best Hogwarts fantasy with magic and friendship and purpose and unknown to me,
I had no idea what I have walked into.
I wasn't here to learn.
I was here to die, then I felt a cold hand on my shoulders, which disrupted my thoughts.