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The Thorn And The Vale
Rain swept across the stone walls of Warborn Academy that night, softening the roar of celebration in the upper halls. The survivors of the Mockery Games were treated like returning warriors, hoisted on shoulders, toasted with mead. But not Liora.
She sat in silence by the narrow window of the first-year dormitory, watching the lightning fork over distant mountains. Her cloak was still damp. Her boots still carried dust from the arena. She hadn't spoken a word since the trial ended.
She hadn't needed to.
"Not even a bruise," muttered Amaris, leaning against a bunk nearby. "You didn't just survive—you embarrassed them."
Liora didn't answer.
Because it wasn't survival that bothered her. It was who had been watching.
---
Riven Thornhart had never been this distracted.
He stood alone in the Council's private tower, eyes fixed on the map of Warborn pinned to the wall, but his mind elsewhere.
She hadn't used magic.
She hadn't drawn a weapon.
And yet she had made it through a maze that took down spellweavers and seasoned warriors without so much as a scratch.
He hated enigmas.
"What do we know about her?" he demanded aloud.
Behind him, Callan lounged in a chair. "Liora Vale. Seventeen. Enrolled under Wyrmere's old banner—probably some political favor. Or a joke."
"Wyrmere was erased from the maps after the Uprising," Riven said. "Their nobility scattered. Magic purged."
"Which makes her nothing," Callan shrugged. "A shadow of a dead kingdom."
Riven turned, dark eyes narrowed. "Nothing doesn't walk through the Mockery Games untouched. Nothing doesn't look at me like she's the one judging me."
Callan scoffed. "You're obsessed."
"I'm cautious," Riven replied coldly. "The last time Warborn let its guard down, three towers burned. I won't make that mistake."
---
The next day, the academy's routine resumed—but a shift had occurred, subtle yet powerful.
Where once Liora had been dismissed as forgettable, now students turned to look when she passed. Some with curiosity. Some with envy. Others with quiet fear.
She hated it.
In the library, students whispered as she moved between shelves, trailing fingers along spines of books older than kingdoms. She kept her head down, pulling a volume titled The Echoed Flame: Forbidden Histories from the top shelf.
"Trying to cheat your way into the Arcanum exams already?"
The voice behind her froze her in place.
Smooth. Cold. Amused.
Riven.
She turned slowly.
He stood in the narrow aisle, arms crossed, still dressed in the black and crimson of the Bladeward elite. Even here, where silence reigned, his presence crackled like static in the air.
"I don't cheat," she said quietly.
"No," he said, stepping closer. "You just... glide through trials meant to break people. Fascinating trick, that."
"It's not a trick if no one notices."
"But I noticed."
His smile didn't reach his eyes.
Liora's grip on the book tightened. "Should I apologize for surviving?"
"No. You should apologize for being interesting."
The silence between them grew tense, charged. Books seemed to lean in to listen.
"You don't like mysteries, do you?" she asked.
"I don't like threats wrapped in quiet," Riven said. "You walk like someone who has nothing to prove but everything to hide. I've seen that walk before. It ends with bodies."
Liora didn't blink. "Then maybe you should stop following me."
Riven leaned in slightly. "I'm not following. I'm investigating."
"Then you're wasting your time."
For the first time, something flickered in Riven's gaze. A flash of frustration. Or maybe… intrigue.
Then he stepped back, his expression smoothed once again.
"We'll see, Wyrmere," he said, and left without another word.
---
Liora remained frozen for several moments. Her breath was steady. But inside, her mind whirled.
He was getting too close.
Not just physically—but intellectually. He was unraveling something, piece by piece.
She returned to her dorm that evening and slipped beneath her mattress, pulling out a bundle of cloth. Inside was a necklace—delicate silver, bearing a single sigil: a half-bloomed rose within a circle of flame.
The mark of the lost Vale bloodline.
She held it tightly.
They could never know what she carried.
What she was.
---
Far above the dorms, Headmaster Kael stood before an obsidian scrying mirror, watching the flickering image of Liora Vale moving through the library.
A hooded figure stepped beside him. "She passed the Mockery Games."
"Unscathed," Kael said. "More than I expected."
"She has the blood," the figure murmured. "But is the power still buried?"
Kael's eyes narrowed. "If it isn't, and she awakens... not even the Thornhart boy will stop her."
The figure nodded. "Then let's make sure she never has a reason to awaken."
---
That night, Liora dreamed of fire.
Not flames of destruction—but cleansing.
A white fire, burning away lies, secrets, names.
In the dream, she stood on a battlefield of bones. Behind her, shadows whispered warnings. Before her, a figure cloaked in light stretched out a hand.
The sigil on her necklace burned against her chest.
And from the figure's lips came a single word:
Remember.
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Sorry if you got a bit confused,I made a lot of mistakes ,I accidentally posted an uncompleted chapter,which was Chapter one. So sorry guys😭, please do like my work and leave reviews good or bad ,I can take it😊