Chapter 88 — The Wrong Side of the Ward

Chapter 88: Chapter 88 — The Wrong Side of the Ward

~Dante~

"THERE ARE ELEVEN OTHER FOUNDER SEALS IN THIS FUCKING FOREST!"

The observation grounds erupted.

Dante had heard crowds lose their minds before, but the combination of laughter and screaming that followed Raven’s shout was something else entirely. Two rows below him, a girl in Hale grey had both fists in the air and was yelling eleven at the projection as if Raven might somehow hear her through the Ward.

On the feed, an Ashbourne second-year went straight past Raven.

"We already found this one."

"It’s mine!"

That made it worse.

Someone behind Dante laughed. "She’s going to lose her collar arguing about property rights."

"Five marks says she doesn’t."

"I’ll take that."

Dante barely heard them.

His attention stayed on the clearing.

Raven was being hunted. There was no other way to read it now. Ashbourne wasn’t throwing itself blindly into Hale; every opening they created bent toward the same person. Garrick Holt was using most of his formation just to keep someone between Raven and the next hand reaching for her collar.

Raven, for once, seemed to understand exactly what was expected of her.

When Holt shouted left, she moved left. When he told her to get down, she dropped without hesitation. She wasn’t wasting time trying to prove she could handle wolves stronger than her or turning every opening into a fight. Hale was creating space, and Raven was using every bit of it to stay on her feet and keep both seals intact.

Farther along the rail, Rowan had barely shifted since the clash began. His attention stayed fixed on Seren, though Dante caught the way his fist tightened when Celeste broke formation and ignored the Ashbourne fourth-year’s orders to keep chasing Raven.

Nikolai was just as focused on Hale.

Cassian looked like he was keeping track of several feeds at once, but Dante had noticed his attention drifting back to Raven often enough to recognize the pattern.

He was about to look again when Mara was forced sideways.

The centre of Hale’s formation opened.

Someone near Dante shot to their feet.

"She’s alone!"

Celeste Blackthorn saw it too.

She crossed the clearing and hit Raven hard enough to put both of them into the leaves.

The entire ground reacted at once.

Dante’s hands closed around the barrier.

Celeste got her knees down on either side of Raven’s waist and sat back, breathing hard, half her hair hanging loose.

Then her hand went up.

The Ashbourne section started roaring.

Dante stared at the feed.

He knew that position. Anyone who had seen the two of them together for longer than five minutes knew exactly what Celeste intended to do.

Don’t you fucking dare take that.

Raven’s hand moved through the leaves.

For half a second Dante thought she was trying to push herself up.

Then she came up with a fistful of dirt and threw it straight into Celeste’s face.

Celeste had her mouth open.

The grounds detonated.

She jerked back coughing, hands flying to her eyes, and Raven bucked hard beneath her. Celeste went sideways. Raven rolled clear and came up on one knee, filthy, breathing hard, both seals still intact.

The feed caught her perfectly.

"EAT SHIT."

Hale lost its mind.

Prymont wasn’t much better.

Someone near the rail folded over laughing, another student nearly fell off a bench, and Dante felt the grin spread across his face before he could stop it.

Of course.

Every fucking time.

Then the noise changed.

Not across the whole observation ground. Just one section at first.

The students watching one of Blade’s feeds had gone quiet.

Dante looked over.

Isolde Marchmont had stopped in the middle of the forest.

She wasn’t watching the path anymore. Her attention had shifted into the trees, body gone still as she stared at something beyond the trail.

Someone was standing there.

Dante leaned forward.

There were twenty representatives inside the Ward. By now, he knew every face and every set of Wing colours moving through those feeds.

This person belonged to none of them.

No Wing colours. No registration seal.

A dark hood had been pulled low over their head, shadowing most of their face.

They had no reason to be inside the Hunt.

"Who the hell is that?"

"An instructor?"

"There aren’t instructors inside."

Isolde moved first.

A reddish shimmer rippled around Isolde as the figure closed on her, the unmistakable distortion of Tempered essence gathering tight around her body. She met the attack cleanly, turned it aside and drove them back.

For several seconds, she looked exactly like the First Seat.

Then someone else stepped out behind her.

The crowd went quiet.

Isolde twisted, but not fast enough.

The blow caught her hard enough to fold her sideways. She staggered, recovered before the next one could land, forced enough space between them and ran.

Her feed vanished.

Not dimmed.

Gone.

The projection collapsed, leaving only Blade’s insignia hanging at the edge of the empty frame.

"What happened?"

"Bring it back!"

A Warden was already moving.

On the main display, Hale and Ashbourne were still fighting.

Then something crashed through the trees into their clearing.

Isolde.

She stumbled into the middle of the confrontation looking nothing like the woman who had entered the Hunt that morning. Her hair was partly loose, her uniform filthy, her face drained of colour.

Then she fell.

The fight stopped around her.

Isolde pushed one hand beneath herself and failed to rise properly.

She wasn’t looking at Hale.

She wasn’t looking at Ashbourne.

She was staring back at the forest.

The cheering across the observation grounds began to die in pieces.

Another section of students stood almost at once, their attention snapping toward a different feed.

Someone shouted for a Warden.

Farther down the rail, another group rose.

An official broke into a run.

Dante turned toward Cassian.

His seat was empty.

——+——-

Cassian was already moving.

The Founders’ Ward looked exactly as it had all morning. The sigils were steady, the boundary intact, with no flicker or visible break anywhere along it.

But something had changed.

Cassian felt it in the air before he could put a name to it.

He had spent enough time near the Ward that the constant pressure around its boundary had become background noise. Now that pressure was moving differently.

Pulling inward.

Not hard enough to stir the trees or disturb the grass.

Just steadily.

Cassian’s pace quickened.

And with the realization came an image from an hour earlier.

Raven Rivers stopping beside one of the Ward anchors.

Brielle Vance had checked it and found nothing wrong.

Raven had still stood there staring at the lower eastern face of the stone.

Then, even after they walked away, she had looked back.

What did you feel?

Cassian kept running.

"Prymont."

Dante turned.

Cassian was already several strides past him before the other man understood where he was going.

"What happened?"

"Move."

Dante followed.

Students scattered out of their path as the two of them crossed the observation grounds. The confusion around the projections shifted almost immediately toward them.

By the time Cassian reached the edge of the field, the change in the Ward had become impossible to ignore.

The nearest opening was shrinking.

The layers of light were drawing together slowly, sealing from either side.

Cassian pulled on his Lattice.

Air snapped around him.

The final stretch disappeared beneath his feet as the pressure drove him forward faster than running alone could have managed.

Behind him, Dante shouted his name.

The opening was almost gone.

Cassian threw himself through.

Cold light folded around him for one disorienting instant.

Then he hit the forest floor on his hands and knees.

Behind him, the Ward sealed.

Dante reached it a heartbeat too late.

The boundary hit him like a wall.

Light exploded across his vision and the force tore his feet from the ground, throwing him backward hard enough that he hit the grass and rolled.

For several seconds, he heard nothing but ringing.

Then sound came back all at once.

"DO NOT TOUCH IT!"

The Headmaster’s voice cut across the grounds.

Dante pushed himself onto one knee.

Heat was already gathering around him, anger dragging it out before he could rein it in. The grass beneath his hand browned at the edges.

He got up.

"Open it."

The Headmaster was already moving past him.

"Array team, north boundary. Find out what changed."

She reached the control lectern.

"Hold the rotation."

A Warden moved for the controls.

"It isn’t rotating."

Nikolai.

He stood on the other side of the lectern, staring down at the array.

The easy expression he had worn through most of the Hunt was gone.

The Headmaster came closer.

"What?"

"It’s closing itself."

Rowan arrived moments later.

"Extract them."

"Emergency withdrawal," the Headmaster ordered.

She pressed her seal to the plate.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Fear began moving through the students behind them.

"Again," Rowan said. "Seren is in there."

The Headmaster didn’t look at him. "I know exactly who is in there."

Nikolai had gone completely still.

His attention had fixed on one section of the array.

Then another.

His face changed.

"Those sigils."

The Headmaster looked toward him.

Nikolai leaned closer to the lectern, his eyes tracking the pattern across the array.

Then his expression changed.

"They’re inverted."

For a moment, nobody around him spoke.

Nikolai stared at the sigils, and whatever he saw there stripped the last trace of ease from his face. His jaw tightened.

"Two years ago," he said, quieter now. "They are back."

The Headmaster went completely still.

Recognition came a heartbeat later, hardening her expression.

"Yes."

Nikolai’s hands curled against the edge of the lectern.

For once, there was nothing easy or amused about him. Rage burned openly across his face as he stared down at the array, his fingers tightening until his knuckles paled.

One of the Sigil Masters straightened sharply from the controls.

"Headmaster."

She turned.

"The Ward’s closed on itself."

"Plainly."

"Everything is still powered. Protection. Containment. Observation. Extraction." He looked toward the forest. "The essence is all still there. It simply isn’t answering anything outside."

Dante looked at the sealed boundary.

"Then break it."

The Headmaster turned to him.

"I can."

That silenced everyone close enough to hear.

Then she said, "And every ounce of essence stored in that Ward will collapse inward with it."

Dante’s anger disappeared beneath something colder.

The Headmaster looked toward the forest.

"It would kill everyone inside."

The words spread.

Students who had been screaming over the Hunt only minutes earlier were suddenly searching the surviving projections for familiar faces. Names were being called. Wingmates pushed toward the rails. Someone nearby demanded to know where her brother’s feed had gone.

The Hunt was no longer entertainment.

Dante turned back toward the Ward.

The boundary was still clear enough for him to see Cassian on the other side.

Blade had gotten to his feet and was brushing dirt from one sleeve.

He checked the sealed Ward behind him.

Then looked at Dante.

His mouth flattened.

"You’re slow."

Dante stared at him.

"I just got thrown halfway across the field."

Cassian’s expression suggested that was somehow Dante’s problem.

"You were supposed to be on this side."

"You crossed first."

"Exactly."

Even now.

Dante stepped closer to the boundary.

"Focus, Blade. Find out what the fuck is happening in there."

Cassian’s eyebrows rose.

"I don’t take orders from you."

He turned.

"Cassian."

No response.

He walked toward the trees.