Carson Vale:
If the Assembly was the Academy's theater, the Training Yard was its arena.
By midday, the autumn sun had turned the stone yard into a furnace, heat rippling off the walls. Students in black-and-gold training uniforms stood in a circle, watching as pairs went head-to-head in "controlled" sparring matches that looked about as controlled as a bar fight.
The Academy called it combat etiquette. I called it public humiliation hour.
"Vale," the instructor barked. "You're up."
I stepped forward into the ring, ignoring the murmurs that spread through the crowd.
My opponent was a broad-shouldered upper-year named Dren Holt — a brute with a jaw like a brick wall and a family crest tattooed on his neck. His smile was all teeth.
"Don't worry, scholarship boy," he said, flexing his hands. "I'll make it quick."
The instructor gave the signal, and Dren came at me fast.
I wasn't slow, I just didn't have his bulk or his training. He slammed me back a step, then another, the crowd laughing with each hit.
I caught Elera's eyes in the front row.
She didn't move, didn't speak, but there it was again that waiting.
Dren swung again, aiming for my ribs. This time, I caught his wrist.
And looked at him.
The world narrowed. The heat, the noise, the crowd all of it dropped away until it was just him and me. His grin faltered, confusion flickering, then fear. His pupils shrank, his breathing went shallow.
In my head, something whispered. Not words, not exactly, just the understanding that I could do anything I wanted to him right now. Make him fight for me. Make him crawl. Make him forget his own name.
I didn't even realize my grip had tightened until he cried out, falling to his knees.
Gasps rippled through the circle. The instructor shouted something, but I wasn't listening. I was still staring into Dren's soul and it was staring back at me, trembling.
"Carson."
Elera's voice cut through the haze. Calm. Controlled. But layered with something sharper a warning.
I blinked. The heat in my chest faded, the world rushing back in. Dren scrambled away, pale and shaking, muttering like he'd seen a ghost.
The instructor was halfway to me when Elera stepped into the ring.
"He's fine," she said before the man could open his mouth. "It was a stare-down. Perfectly within combat rules."
The instructor hesitated, glancing between her and Dren, who was still clutching his wrist like it might bite him. Finally, he nodded and waved the next pair into the ring.
Elera walked with me to the edge of the yard, her voice low so no one else could hear.
"You almost broke him," she said. "Completely. Do you understand what that means?"
I didn't answer. I was still feeling it that rush, that absolute control, like I could peel the world apart if I wanted to.
She glanced at me, her expression unreadable.
"You're not ready to use it in front of them," she said finally. "Not yet. Until you are… I'm your shield. You're the storm."
And the way she said it made me think she wasn't warning me for my sake.
She was warning everyone else.
.....
By the time classes ended, Dominion's golden sunset had turned the stone walls a deep, blood-red.
Elera walked beside me down the east courtyard path, her heels ticking against the cobblestones in perfect rhythm. Out here, in the open, she was the queen again — chin high, gaze cold, every step daring someone to try her.
And yet, anyone watching closely enough would notice the smallest thing.
She wasn't walking ahead of me.
She was walking half a pace behind.
We were halfway to the dorms when I spotted it, a single black envelope on the bench by the fountain. No one around, no breeze to have carried it there. Just… waiting.
I stopped.
Elera's gaze followed mine. Her body went still. "Don't touch it."
Of course, I touched it.
The paper was thick, heavy, and ice-cold. On the front, in sharp silver script: Vale.
Inside was a single card matte black, embossed with a crest I didn't recognize. A crowned serpent coiled around a dagger.
No words.
Just the crest.
Elera swore under her breath, something sharp and foreign.
"What?" I asked.
She took the card from me like it might explode. "That's not Knox," she said. "That's his father."
I'd never met the man, but I knew the name. Cael Courtney the kind of power you didn't read about in newspapers because newspapers were too afraid to print it.
Before I could ask more, a shadow moved at the edge of the fountain. A man in a black coat was standing there, too still, like he'd been carved out of the night. His face was hidden under the brim of his hat.
"Carson Vale," he said, voice low and even. "A word of advice. This is a school for heirs. Not… predators."
Something in the way he said predators made the air feel heavier.
Elera stepped in front of me just far enough to make it look like she was shielding me, but I could tell she was waiting. For me to move. For me to tell her what to do.
I took one step forward so I could see his eyes.
And just like that, the world hushed again.
He didn't flinch. Didn't pale. But I saw it — the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he'd bitten back an instinct to look away.
Then he smiled.
"You'll burn bright here, Vale. Too bright." He turned, melting back into the courtyard shadows. "And flames… always attract the wrong kind of wind."
When he was gone, Elera's hands were tight fists at her sides.
"That was a message," she said. "Next time, it won't be words."
I looked at the black card still in her hand.
For a second, I could almost feel the coiled serpent breathing.
And I knew Knox was just the first move.
The real game was only starting.
...
The envelope came at night.
No knock, no sound just there, slipped under my door like it had been waiting for me to open my eyes.
White, this time. Gold wax seal. The serpent-and-dagger crest again.
I didn't break it right away. I just sat there on the edge of my bed, watching the seal catch the lamplight, feeling that same quiet heaviness from the courtyard.
Elera didn't knock when she came in. She never did. "You got one too?"
"One what?"
She pulled a similar envelope from her coat pocket and tossed it to me. "An invitation."
I cracked the seal. Inside no words, just a small card with a time, a place, and nothing else.
12:00 AM — East Wing Conservatory.
Elera leaned against my desk, crossing her arms. "Only the Courtneys send things like this. And they never mean welcome."
"Then why are you going?" I asked.
She smiled faintly. "Because if you don't show, you're already dead in their eyes. And I don't work for dead men."
The East Wing Conservatory was old glass and shadow, a skeleton of iron frames and arched windows stretching into the night. No lights inside , only candles, dozens of them, glowing on tables draped in deep red.
The air smelled faintly of wine and something sweeter, heavier.
Elera and I stepped in together. The first thing I noticed wasn't the silence.
It was the faces.
Every table was full. Not just Knox, but half the Academy's untouchables heirs of banking empires, political dynasties, and criminal families whose names never made headlines.
They weren't talking. They were watching.
A man I recognized from whispers Cael Courtney himself... rose from the far end of the room. Immaculate suit, dark hair streaked with silver, smile like a blade.
"Carson Vale," he said, voice smooth as silk over steel. "Finally."
He gestured to a chair at the head of the long table. Not his chair mine.
Elera's hand brushed my arm, a subtle warning, a question.
I walked forward. Sat down.
Every eye followed me.
Cael poured a glass of wine, slid it across the table toward me. "You've stirred the air here, boy. I like storms. But storms… need direction."
He raised his own glass. "Tonight, you tell us who you are. And more importantly—" his gaze sharpened like he could see every secret I'd ever had "what you want."