We woke to the smell of smoke and cinnamon.
Lorian sat cross-legged on the floor, burning something in a chipped clay bowl. Sylva rolled out of bed and kicked it.
"Gods, what is that?" she groaned.
"Shit! Sylva! It's focus incense," he replied, dramatically waving the smoke toward her face. "Imported from the East. Supposed to enhance mental clarity."
"Smells like burnt regret."
"You wound me," he said, clutching his chest. "I'm preparing my spirit for orientation."
Sylva rolled her eyes and dragged a comb through her curls. I sat on the edge of my cot, watching the morning light break through the stained-glass window — it cast golden glyphs on the floor, fractured pieces of an old dialect I didn't quite know. Lorian's bed had magically appeared overnight.
"You think we'll get answers today?" I asked.
Lorian popped a piece of honeyed bread into his mouth. "Answers? No. But I'm hoping for at least one dramatic speech and possibly a curse or two."
"I'll settle for not being hexed before breakfast," Sylva muttered.
Later that evening, we were getting dressed for the orientation.
"You call this a dress?" Sylva held up a glittering slate-blue gown like it might bite her. "It has… shoulder wings."
"They're epaulettes," I corrected, trying not to laugh.
"They look like bat wings. If I wear this, I will take flight against my will."
Across the room, Lorian was already shirtless, holding up a crimson vest with gold thread and far too many buttons. "Ladies, contain yourselves. I haven't even flexed yet."
"No one is looking," I deadpanned.
"I was," Sylva muttered without thinking — and by the look on her face she regretted it instantly .
He turned to her with a grin so smug. "Oh, Syl. If you wanted a private show, all you had to do was ask."
"You're not that special."
"And yet," he said, flicking his hair back dramatically, "here you are. Flustered."
"I'm not flustered."
"Your ears are literally red."
She huffed and continued to brushing her hair.
I turned away and focused very hard on fixing the laces of my gown, which was an elegant deep gray with threads of silver spiraling up the sleeves like ink glyphs. The bodice fastened tight — and I was halfway to passing out when Sylva came to my rescue.
"Honestly, these people expect us to battle monsters and wear corsets?" she grunted, tugging the laces with a sailor's strength.
"They're testing our will to live," I wheezed.
Meanwhile, Lorian had found a mirror and was adjusting his ridiculous ruffled collar. "How do I look?"
"Like a prince," Sylva said.
"Thank you."
"Of a failed kingdom," she finished.
"Ouch. Jealousy doesn't suit you, Syl"
The three of us stood there in the final minutes — Sylva in a flowing gown that did somehow make her look like a knife in silk, me in smoky gray elegance I was not prepared to own, and Lorian... a disaster in crimson and confidence.
"We look like the opening act to a noble house soap opera," I muttered.
"And yet," Lorian said, linking his arm through mine, "we are the main characters, darling. Come on. Let's go flip these scribes off."
The Citadel's inner courtyard had transformed overnight. Long carved tables stretched between marble pillars, adorned with flickering glyph-lamps and enchanted banners that rippled in air.
Reis stood among the senior scribes, his indigo robes ink-stained and crisp, his expression unreadable. My gaze snagged on him — not for the first time — but what caught my breath wasn't him.
It was what walked beside him.
A wolf.
Massive, silver-black, sleek as smoke and twice as silent. Its eyes glowed faintly — not gold, not green, but something ancient, like old runes etched in amber. And it wasn't alone. Every senior scribe had one.
Some rested at their masters' feet, others stood at attention. Each wolf bore a collar with markings etched in iron — glyphs that pulsed faintly like heartbeat magic.
Lorian leaned into my shoulder. "I thought the wolves were just symbolic."
"They're not," I whispered. "They're bonded."
"Do we—" Sylva's voice was hushed, cautious. "Do we get one too?"
"Only if we live long enough," I said.
A bell rang, drawing every gaze to the high steps.
The Archwarden emerged, tall and robed in black trimmed with threads of crimson. On either side of him, wolves. Two — not one. Larger than the rest. Older. Their eyes glowed brighter, their presence heavier, as though they were made not of flesh but of memory.
"Welcome, Initiates," the Archwarden intoned. "You have passed the first threshold. You have spilled fear on these stones and left fragments of your names behind."
"But Lore does not remember the timid. Nor does it serve the unbound."
"What you saw last night was the Reckoning. What comes next… will decide if you are worthy of a name in ink — or ash."
The wolves howled.
Not loud — not savage — but deep, like the echo of a truth spoken in a forgotten tongue.
I didn't realize I'd gone still until Sylva touched my arm. "You okay?"
I nodded. "I think... they're watching us."
"You think everything's watching us," Lorian muttered. "But in this case, you might actually be right."
Suddenly the murmurs quieted down as a howl echoed through the cave.
Each scribe stepped forward into the center — not students, but full scribes cloaked in deep midnight-blue, embroidered in starlight thread — and beside every one of them stood a wolf. Not beasts. Not pets. These creatures were massive, fur like smoke and moonlight, eyes too knowing to be called animal. They moved like shadows given shape.
One by one, the scribes turned to face the initiates. Their wolves followed, silent and still.
A hush fell.
A woman stepped forward — tall, dark-skinned, with her hair woven into gold-threaded braids. Her robes shimmered faintly with glyphs that pulsed like heartbeats.
"I am High Scribe Maelra," she said, her voice like flint striking steel. "You stand at the edge of a legacy written in blood and ink. The Citadel of Lore does not merely record history. We remember it. Bind it. Protect it."
Her gaze passed over us, sharp as a blade.
"And now… it will remember you."
There was a hum beneath my feet. Not sound, exactly. A feeling. The mosaic glowed.
The wolves raised their heads in perfect unison and let out a single, echoing howl that carved itself into the bones of every initiate present.
Lorian grabbed my hand.
"I've never been excited and terrified at the same time before," he whispered.
"Shut up," Sylva muttered, but she didn't let go either.
The High Scribe raised a hand. Silence returned.
"Each of you, if proven worthy, will be bonded to a wolf of your own. They are not pets. They are not weapons. They are not your servants." Her voice deepened. "They are memory. They are power. They are the voice that answers when the world forgets."
After the formal speech, the amphitheatre transformed. Candles sprang to life, suspended in midair. Tables unfolded from stone, laden with food — roasted meats, gleaming fruits, spiced wine, sweet tarts, and glimmering confections that looked like crystallized dreams. Music began to play — low and strange, but beautiful.
I stood a little apart from it all, watching the wolves still seated near the dais. One of them met my gaze — its eyes were silver, flecked with gold. There was something unsettling in the way it didn't blink.
"They say they choose you," a voice said at my side.
It was Reis.
I hadn't seen him arrive, but there he was — lean and straight-backed, dressed in scholar's black trimmed with gray. A simple silver pin fastened his cloak at the shoulder — not a quill, not a crown. A broken chain.
"I thought it was just a myth," I said.
"It's not." He didn't look at me when he spoke, but at the wolves. "They remember more than we do. And they don't lie."
There was something in his voice — soft, like sorrow not yet spoken.
I wanted to ask what his wolf had been.
But he turned before I could, walking away into the crowd like a shadow drawn to shadow.
Reis's wolf stood by the dais alone and something in me got pulled by it.
The music faded into a hush behind me as I moved toward the dais. The wolves remained motionless, statues of breath and muscle. But one of them had not looked away from me and it was Reis's, maybe that's why I can't stop walking towards it.
The silver-gold gaze still held me. Not threatening. Not welcoming either. Just… watching.
It stood slightly apart from the rest — larger, maybe. Its coat was darker than shadow, with streaks of ash-gray striping down its back like ink spilled in snow. It looked ancient. Wrongly so. Like something born before words.
I stopped just outside the glowing ring of the mosaic, uncertain.
"That one's not for you," someone murmured nearby, but I didn't turn. The wolf tilted its head.
And I stepped closer.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. The wolf didn't growl. Didn't move. I lowered myself slightly, careful not to appear like I was approaching a wild beast.
"I know you're not mine," I said quietly, "but you've been staring like you want to say something."
The wolf took one slow step forward.
Behind me, I heard someone hiss. "She's going to lose a hand."
But the wolf only stopped a foot away, its eyes level with mine. It sniffed — once — and then, with the strange gentleness of something that knew what it could destroy and chose not to, it pressed its nose lightly to my cheek.
Something flared in my chest.
Not heat. Not light. A memory. But not mine.
Flames. Screaming. A hand—my mother's?—writing glyphs in the air as the door burst open and—
I stumbled back with a gasp.
And then there was Reis.
He was there before I even caught my breath, stepping between me and the wolf. Not rough. Not angry. Just present. Calm, but tense as wire.
"Eivar," he said to the wolf. "Enough."
The wolf — Eivar — backed away immediately, seating itself again beside the dais like a carved sentinel.
Reis turned to me. "You shouldn't have approached him."
"You didn't say I couldn't," I managed.
His jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. Instead, he looked at me, really looked.
"You saw something," he said, quieter.
I hesitated. "Yes."
He nodded once, slowly. "He doesn't show people things unless he remembers them."
"Then he remembers me?" I asked.
Reis was silent a moment too long.
"Eivar doesn't forget. Especially not fire."
The way he said it made my blood run cold.
Back at our table, Sylva raised a brow. "Why do you keep getting into trouble?"
"It's nothing," I muttered, dazed. "Just… a wolf."
Lorian bit into a fruit tart and smirked. "If that's how wolves look at people they're not supposed to be bonded with, I'd like to be forbidden from about ten of them."
I ignored him. My fingers still trembled.
Something had passed between me and that wolf. And whatever it was… it wasn't over.
The clattering of the plates stopped when the ball music began and Reis approached me.
"I was hoping I could have a dance with you my lady"