Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Dawn broke over Shadowmoon, gray light bleeding through the towers and spilling across the cold stone floors. The Undercroft dorm was quiet, the usual morning banter replaced by something heavier something that felt almost like ceremony.

Nyra stood by her bunk, adjusting the straps of her pack. The pendant Soren had given her rested against her collarbone, warm despite the morning chill. Corvin’s potion was tucked into the inner pocket of her tunic, close to her heart. Two tokens. Two Alphas. Two reasons to survive.

"Everyone ready?" Finn’s voice was too bright, the way it always was when he was trying to hide how scared he really was.

"Ready," Marek said.

"Ready," Jasper echoed.

Nyra looked at her friends, her first real friends, the boys who had waited outside the healer’s wing while she lay dying, who had defended her against Draven, who had walked her to Corvin’s laboratory and refused to leave. Finn with his easy grin and fiercer loyalty than he let on. Marek with his quiet strength and steady hands. Jasper with his sharp eyes and sharper mind.

"Whatever happens out there," Nyra said, "I want you to know—"

"Don’t." Finn held up a hand. "Don’t do the emotional goodbye thing. We’re all coming back. All four of us. That’s not a hope, that’s a fact."

"You don’t know that."

"I do know that. Because I refuse to die in a forest full of rogue wolves. It’s undignified." He pulled her into a sudden, fierce hug. "We’ll meet back here tonight and laugh about how scared we were. Deal?"

Nyra hugged him back. "Deal."

Marek clasped her shoulder, his grip firm. "Watch yourself out there. Draven is on your team. So is Valeria. Don’t turn your back on either of them."

"I won’t."

Jasper was last. He didn’t hug her Jasper never hugged anyone but he met her eyes with that piercing gaze of his. "Corvin’s team will be in a different sector. But if something goes wrong, light your flare. I’ll come."

"You’ll be too far away."

"I’ll come anyway."

They left the dorm together for the last time before the mission, four figures walking through the cold morning corridors toward their separate fates.

The west wing was already busy when Nyra arrived. Seniors and first-years mingled in nervous clusters, checking weapons and adjusting gear. The air smelled of leather and steel and the faint electric tang of anticipation.

She saw him before he saw her.

Soren was walking down the corridor with Valeria at his side. They were speaking in low voices something about the route, the formation, the logistics of the mission. Valeria’s hand rested on his arm, familiar and possessive.

Nyra expected him to look at her. To nod. To acknowledge her existence in some small way.

He walked past without a glance.

It was like she was invisible. Like the pendant around her neck meant nothing. Like the conversation they’d had before the trials, the way he’d pressed his mother’s heirloom into her palm and told her he needed her to come back, had never happened.

She stopped walking. Turned to watch them go.

Valeria glanced back over her shoulder. Her lips curved into a slow, victorious smirk. Then, deliberately, she slid her hand down Soren’s arm and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. Claiming him. Marking her territory.

Soren didn’t pull away.

He’s just following your wish, a voice in Nyra’s head whispered. You pulled away from him yesterday. You told him you didn’t want to talk. This is what you asked for.

It didn’t make it hurt any less.

"Whoa." A passing student some Beta she vaguely recognized from the cafeteria stopped with his friends and let out a low whistle. "Who angered the prince this morning? Look at those fists."

Nyra glanced down. Her hands were clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

She shot the student a glare cold enough to freeze water. "Walk away. Now."

The student’s grin faltered. "Just joking, Your Highness. No offense meant."

"Walk. Away."

They walked.

Nyra forced her hands to uncurl. Forced her breath to steady. Forced her feet to carry her toward the briefing area where the rest of Team Alpha was assembling.

I don’t care. I don’t care who he walks with or who touches his arm or who he looks at. I don’t care.

The last-minute briefing was short and brutal.

Soren stood at the front of the room, his voice clipped and professional, as if the coldness from the corridor had been a figment of her imagination. He reviewed the formation again Orion on rear guard, Silas scouting ahead, Elias handling navigation, Draven as his backup, Nyra in the middle with Valeria. The route. The river crossing. The fallback point if everything went wrong.

"Questions?" he asked when he was done.

No one spoke.

"Good. Let’s move."

They filed out of the briefing room and into the main courtyard, where the other teams were already assembling. The gray dawn had brightened into a pale, sickly morning, the kind of light that made everything look washed out and cold.

Proctor Vesper Kane stood on a raised platform at the center of the courtyard, flanked by senior lecturers. His iron-gray hair was pulled back, and his face was carved from stone.

"Students of Shadowmoon Academy." His voice rolled across the courtyard, silencing every conversation. "You have been briefed. You know your objectives. You know the dangers. What you do not know is what waits for you in the Mistwood."

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.

"The rogue wolves you will face are not like the wolves you train with. They have no honor. No code. No mercy. They will not yield, and they will not retreat. If you hesitate, you will die. If you show weakness, you will die. The only way to survive is to trust your training, trust your team, and trust your instincts."

He gestured to a row of wooden crates stacked near the platform. Senior students were already prying them open, revealing racks of weapons swords, daggers, axes, bows, all gleaming with fresh oil.

"You will each be issued a standard weapon and a fire flare. Use the weapon to fight. Use the flare only if you have no other choice. Rememberblighting a flare means failure. It means your team completes the mission without you. It means your ranking is forfeit. Do not light it unless death is the only alternative."

The teams lined up. Nyra took her place behind Soren, keeping her eyes forward and her expression blank. She accepted a short sword from the weapons master light enough for her frame, sharp enough to kill. She strapped it to her hip and tucked the flare into her belt.

Soren was speaking with Ragnar near the edge of the courtyard. Their heads were bent together, their voices too low to carry. Ragnar clasped Soren’s shoulder once a gesture of solidarity, of brotherhood and then walked away to join his own team.

Soren turned toward Team Alpha.

Corvin stepped into his path.

The movement was so smooth, so deliberate, that for a moment Nyra thought she’d imagined it. But no Corvin was standing directly in front of Soren, close enough to touch, his whiskey-dark eyes burning with quiet intensity.

He leaned in. Whispered something in Soren’s ear.

Nyra couldn’t hear the words. But she saw Soren’s expression flicker surprise, there and gone in an instant, replaced by something harder. Something colder.

What is he saying?

Corvin pulled back. His face was unreadable, but his hands were steady at his sides.

Soren’s lips curved into a smirk. Not a kind one. The kind of smirk that preceded violence.

He said something in response something short and sharp and clearly dismissive then walked away without looking at anyone.

Corvin stood motionless for a moment, his jaw tight. Then he turned and walked toward his own team.

And Nyra saw Killian watching from the shadows of the courtyard.

His hands were fists. His dark eyes were fixed on Corvin with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Hatred and longing and jealousy, all tangled together in a look that made Nyra’s skin crawl.

What is his problem?

She didn’t have time to wonder. Because Valeria was walking toward her, her dark hair pulled back in a severe braid, her lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

She stopped inches from Nyra. Too close. Deliberately close.

"Prince Thorne." Her voice was a whisper, meant for no one else. "I want you to know something."

Nyra didn’t step back. "What?"

"I will find out your dirty little secret." Valeria’s breath was warm against her ear. "Whatever you’re hiding, whatever mask you’re wearing, I will tear it off. And when I do, you will suffer for it." She paused. "Soren has always been mine. He will always be mine. And you—you little prince, you impostor, whatever you are you cannot take him from me."

She straightened. Her smile returned, victorious and cold.

"See you in the forest, Your Highness."

She walked away.

Nyra stood frozen, her heart hammering, her hands trembling with the effort of not reaching out and slapping that smug expression off Valeria’s face. She could do it. She could strike her right now, in front of everyone. It would feel so good.

And it would expose everything.

She forced her fists to unclench. Forced her breath to slow.

Then she felt it again—eyes on her. Watching.

She turned.

Killian was staring at her from across the courtyard. His gaze was pure venom, a hatred so intense it felt like a physical blow. She didn’t understand it. She’d barely spoken to him. She’d done nothing to him.

But the way he was looking at her, like she was the source of every misery in his life made her stomach turn to ice.

She looked away first. Walked toward the rest of Team Alpha. Didn’t look back.

The Mistwood loomed before them like a wall of darkness.

The trees were ancient and twisted, their branches clawing at the sky. Fog coiled around the roots, thick and white and cold. The path into the forest was barely visible a narrow trail that disappeared into the gloom after only a few feet. The air smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves and something else. Something animal.

Team Alpha gathered at the gate. Soren stood at the front, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his dark eyes fixed on the treeline. Valeria was beside him, her crossbow already loaded. Orion and Silas flanked the rear. Elias was somewhere in the middle, quiet as always. Draven cracked his knuckles, his smirk firmly in place.

Nyra stood between them all, her short sword heavy at her hip, the pendant warm against her chest.

Soren turned to face them. His expression was unreadable.

"This is it," he said. "Stay in formation. Stay alert. Stay alive." His eyes swept across the team, landing on Nyra for the briefest of moments. "We move now."

He pushed open the gate and stepped into the mist.

One by one, they followed.

Valeria. Draven. Orion. Silas. Elias.

Nyra paused at the threshold. Looked back at the academy one last time, the towers, the windows, the life she’d built in the shadow of her brother’s name.

Then she turned and walked into the darkness.

The mist swallowed her whole.