The dining hall buzzed with the warm hum of voices and clinking cups. Students from all three years gathered in clusters, each group replaying the day's chaos in loud bursts of excitement.
I sat with Lorian and Sylva at the far end, where the light from the tall windows pooled in soft gold. Sylva's cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes bright with pride as she leaned in.
"You should have seen his face when I finished the puzzle," she said, grinning. "That instructor looked like someone swapped his tea with vinegar."
I laughed—really laughed, for the first time since the trial began. "I wish I had. I didn't even know you'd cracked it until after the horn blew."
"Well, you were a little busy saving us from becoming firewood," Lorian teased, his lips quirking in that infuriatingly smug way.
My face heated at the memory. "I wasn't trying to—"
"Uh-huh," he cut in, raising a brow. "Just happened to tear through half a glyph lock like you were born doing it?"
Sylva shot him a warning glance, but the corner of her mouth curved, too. "Don't listen to him. Whatever you did, it worked. And if you hadn't, you'd still be in that chamber, choking on smoke."
The words should have made me proud. Instead, they only twisted tighter around the knot in my stomach. Born doing it. What did that even mean?
A guard approached me just as Sylva was laughing at something Lorian had said.
"Miss Cressida?" His tone was clipped, formal. "Captain Ivendale requests your presence."
Lorian whistled low. "Captain Ivendale? Sounds serious." Sylva wiggled her brows at me. "Careful. You know what they say about men who brood near torches—they're either trouble or poetry." I rolled my eyes, but my stomach tightened anyway. Reis. Why now?
The guard didn't wait for an answer. I followed him down a narrow corridor, its stone walls still radiating the day's heat, until we stopped at a chamber lit by one lone fire. Shadows licked the corners like restless smoke. And there he was—leaning against the table, arms folded, the fire curling gold around him like it knew who owned the room.
"Cressida," he said without looking up. My name in his voice felt like something sharp being unwrapped.
"You sent for me," I said, managing not to sound as breathless as I felt.
He finally raised his eyes. They caught the firelight in that unnerving way—steel holding an ember's glow. He motioned for me to pour myself some wine which was on the table and I did, only after I took a sip he spoke.
"I did." He pushed off the table and closed the space between us, his boots whispering against the stone floor. "Because I have questions."
My throat went dry as I forced myself to take another sip. "About the trial?"
"About how you won the trial." His gaze swept over me, assessing, dissecting. "Most first-years barely make it through that maze without losing half their supplies. You? You burned through it."
"It wasn't—"
"Luck?" His mouth curved—calm, not unkind. "No. You've got instincts. And something else."
I swallowed. "And you dragged me here to… compliment me?"
That earned a low breath of laughter, warm but edged.
"No. I dragged you here because you need a reminder." His voice softened, but not in a way that made me feel safe. "Whatever you are, whatever you're hiding—it will come out. This place doesn't forgive secrets."
Something inside me flared at that, wild and sharp. I hated how he could make me feel cornered without a single threat.
"And what if I'm not hiding anything?" I shot back.
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing like a man measuring distance before loosing an arrow. Then his lips curved, just enough to make me question everything.
"Then I guess you're just naturally… incendiary."
He tilted his head, studied me like he could see straight through the layers I'd built. Then his lips curved, just slightly. "Flare."
The word caught me off guard.
"What?"
"That's what I'll call you."
My mouth opened, ready to demand why, but the question never made it out. He'd already stepped back, the firelight cutting shadows across his face like a secret carved in stone.
"You can go," he said simply, turning his back to me as if the conversation had never happened.
I placed the empty glass on the table and turned to leave, my pulse still thrumming from his voice, from that strange name—Flare—seared into my mind like a brand. The courtyard stretched quiet and shadowed, the distant torchlight casting long, jagged silhouettes across the stone.
One step forward—then pain sliced white-hot across my ankle.
A thin coil of metal wire lay half-buried under loose gravel, a snare hidden at the edge of the path. I barely saw it before it snapped tight. My breath tore out in a gasp as the ground vanished beneath me.
Except… it didn't.
A flash of silver-gray barreled through the dark, slamming into me with bone-deep force. The world spun, my back colliding with soft fur instead of cold stone. Before I could scream, teeth tore metal like paper. The wire snapped free, curling uselessly as Eivar dropped it with a snarl that made the night shiver.
He stood over me, hackles high, lips peeled back in a soundless warning—toward nothing I could see. His amber eyes cut to mine, sharp and deliberate, before he lowered his massive head.
"Eivar," Reis's voice broke the silence—calm, commanding, but there was an edge beneath it. "Enough."
The wolf gave one last rumbling growl before stepping back, though not far. His gaze never left me, as if daring the shadows themselves to try again.
I sat frozen, breath ragged, fingers digging into the gravel. "What… what was that?" My voice cracked on the last word.
Reis was already crouched, coiling the broken wire in his hand with disturbing precision. His expression was unreadable, but something dark flickered in his eyes—something dangerous.
"Nothing you need to worry about." His words were clipped, final. But his stare… his stare pinned me like the snare almost had. "You should learn to watch where you step."
Eivar moved closer again, brushing his head against my arm. A gesture that felt less like comfort and more like… claim.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry as ash.
Reis straightened, towering above me, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft—but there was steel in it.
"Go back, Flare."
And just like that, the night swallowed the meaning of it all—the trap, the wolf, the name—but left the fire of his words burning in my bones.