CHAPTER 44 — Elowen's Shadow and the Storm
Aiden didn't go back to the dorm.
He could hear it behind him, if he listened—laughter somewhere down the corridor, boots on stone, the muffled slam of a door as someone ran late to evening drills. Normal Academy noise. Noise that meant he could pretend today had only been a long training session and not… whatever the marsh had just become.
He almost turned that way.
Almost.
Then the hum brushed his bones.
Not sound.
Resonance.
A subtle vibration under his Thorn Marks, under his ribs, under the place the Warden had looked through him and left that wordless pressure behind.
It wasn't the Warden.
He knew that now. The Warden felt like deep water and old thunder and a headache behind his eyes.
This felt like sap running under bark.
Like roots humming.
Like the Hall.
Like Elowen.
The pull wasn't a command. Just a suggestion. A quiet, steady awareness that if he went left instead of right, someone would be waiting who already knew what the marsh had done.
Aiden glanced once down the dorm stairwell.
He pictured Myra sprawled on the couch complaining about swamp smell, Nellie trying not to fall asleep mid-sentence, Runa sitting on the floor cleaning her armor like it had personally offended her.
He wanted that.
He wanted soft light and warm blankets and the pup drooling on someone else for a while.
But the storm under his ribs was too awake, pacing too hard. If he lay down now, he wouldn't sleep. He'd just stare at the ceiling and hear the marsh whisper not ready on repeat.
He turned the other way.
The pup trotted after him without hesitation, claws ticking lightly on the stone. Its fur still held the faint scent of wet reeds and old water. Every so often, a tiny arc snapped from its whiskers to his cloak.
"Yeah," Aiden muttered. "I know. I feel it too."
The corridors near the Verdant Hall were quieter than the rest of the Academy. Lights burned softer here, greener. Vines crept along the high windows, leaves etched with faint sigils that pulsed in a slow, sleepy rhythm.
Statues lined the alcoves—past Headmistresses, wardens, healers, beastbinders—faces worn smooth at the nose where nervous students had touched them for luck. The air smelled of dried herbs and old paper and rain that hadn't fallen yet.
The hum in his bones settled into a direction.
Up.
Aiden climbed the narrow stairway that led to the upper terraces, the pup keeping pace with surprising seriousness for something whose ears were currently too big for its head.
He stepped out into open air.
The terrace wrapped around this side of the Hall, a long, stone balcony with a waist-high wall and a view that reached to the horizon. The sky was slipping toward evening—blue thinning to violet, streaked with long, slow clouds. Lanterns along the rail burned green, casting soft halos on the stone.
Elowen Thorne stood at the far end.
She was a dark silhouette against the fading light, coat longer today, split at the sides for movement. Her silver hair was pulled into a braided crown that caught the last scraps of sun along its edges.
She didn't turn when he stepped onto the terrace.
She didn't need to.
"Stormthread," she said, quiet but clear.
He walked to her side and stopped, leaving a respectful distance. The pup sat between them, tail flicking little sparks that died against the stone.
"Elowen," he said.
Her gaze stayed outward, fixed on the line where the forest met the sky.
Below them, the Academy sprawled like a half-woken beast—courtyards, halls, training rings, the glint of core lanterns, the faint flash of spellwork as someone practiced late. Beyond the northern wall, only dark trees and the marsh's low, unmoving fog.
"You felt it," she said.
It wasn't a question.
Aiden swallowed. "The Warden. It… pushed again. Through the wards."
"And left you a symbol in the mud."
He stared. "You knew?"
Her mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "I know my wards, Aiden. And I know when something old toys with them."
He looked back out at the marsh, arms folding tightly across his chest. The Thorn Marks along his ribs pulsed once, faint green under cloth, like they remembered the shape carved in the wet ground.
"It's not just pushing," he said quietly. "It's… talking. Or trying to. To me."
"And what is it saying?" Elowen asked.
He hesitated.
Then, because lying here felt like trying to hide lightning in his fist, he answered.
"Today it said 'not ready,'" he murmured. "Not with words. But that's what it felt like. Like it expected something and didn't get it."
Elowen was silent for a long breath.
"And you?" she said at last. "What did you feel?"
"Pressure," he whispered. "Like it was measuring me. And… disappointment." That part was harder to admit. "Like I'd… failed some test I didn't know I was taking."
The admission left a raw, aching place in his chest.
The pup made a small, offended noise and leaned against his leg as if trying to physically shove that feeling away.
Elowen finally turned to look at him.
Twilight and lantern-light picked out the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the kind that came from squinting against sun and smoke, not laughter. Her gaze swept his face, his stance, the tight grip of his hands on his own arms.
"You did not fail," she said, each word deliberate. "The Warden's expectations are not your exam."
"Feels like it," he muttered. "Every time I breathe, something old is judging my technique."
"Good," she said.
He blinked. "How is that good?"
"Because you are still breathing," Elowen replied. "If the Warden truly wanted to test you, you would not be behind stone and wards. You would be standing in its marsh, and the question would be survival, not conversation."
That… was not comforting.
She let him sit with that for a moment anyway.
"The Warden recognizes you," she continued. "It feels its own pattern echoed in your marks. It searches for itself."
"In me," Aiden said, throat tight.
"In your resonance," she corrected. "Not in your mind. Not in your will. Those are yours. It smells the Hollow's storm-root in you. The Gate's thorns. Verdant echo. That familiarity draws it like blood draws beasts."
He went a little cold at that.
"So it's interested," he said. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No," Elowen said. "That is supposed to make you cautious."
He huffed out a humorless breath. "What happens if I answer it?"
She didn't sugarcoat it.
"You might anchor it," she said. "Mark to mark. Storm to storm. Warden to boy."
The pup's fur stood on end, a sharp crackle snapping from its paws to the stone.
"And if that happens?" Aiden pressed, heart hammering.
"Then I cut the thread," Elowen said calmly. "However I must."
He went still.
She held his gaze, unflinching. "That is my duty," she said. "To this Academy. To the wards. To you."
He couldn't quite breathe for a second.
"And you're just…telling me that."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you deserve the truth you're already afraid of," she said. "Lies will not protect your friends if you fall. Clarity might."
He swallowed hard. The wind tugged at his cloak and at Elowen's coat, carrying the faint scent of rain that wasn't here yet.
The storm under his ribs paced faster.
He forced words out past the tightness. "I don't want it," he said. "I don't want to be… anything to it. I don't want to be its mark or its anchor or its… whatever."
Elowen's gaze softened by a fraction. "Good," she said again. "That gives us leverage."
He stared. "How is that leverage?"
"Because the Warden is bound to its purpose. You are not. It cannot choose to be anything but what it is. You can." Her eyes gleamed faint in the green lantern light. "That freedom terrifies old things more than power does."
He'd never thought of it like that.
It helped. A little.
Not enough.
"Elowen," he said quietly. "What do I do now? Just… pretend it's not there?"
"No," she said. "You learn to hear it without opening the door."
He frowned. "What does that even mean?"
She nodded toward a quieter part of the terrace where the wall jutted inward, making a small alcove shielded from the wind. A simple wooden bench sat there, worn smooth by years of use and weather.
"Come," she said.
He followed, the pup hopping along at his heels. Up close, the bench smelled faintly of resin and old polish. A climbing vine had crept along the corner of the wall nearby, tiny white flowers blooming even in the cool air.
Elowen sat on the stone ledge opposite the bench, not taking the higher position, but leveling their eye line.
"Sit," she told him.
He did.
The pup leapt up beside him, turned twice, and plunked itself down with a soft huff, head on his knee.
"Close your eyes," Elowen said.
He obeyed.
The world narrowed.
He heard the distant clatter of armor from another terrace, someone laughing two courtyards over, the faint whisper of leaves.
"First," Elowen said, "you notice. You do not judge. You do not react. You only name what is yours and what is not."
Aiden tried.
The weight of his cloak on his shoulders. His boots against the stone. The warmth of the pup's fur under his hand. The low, familiar crackle of its tiny storm.
Then—
Deeper.
The storm under his ribs, pacing in circles. Not violent. Not calm. Coiled.
"That's mine," he murmured.
"Good," Elowen said softly. "Now reach farther. Carefully. Tell me if you feel the Hall."
He stretched his awareness outward, like Elowen had taught him in the training circle—without flinging his storm along with it.
There.
A low, patient thrum in the stone beneath them. The hum of old runes woven into the Hall's bones. The sense of being observed not by eyes, but by a forest that had decided to grow in place of walls.
"I feel it," he whispered. "Like trees watching."
"Hall," Elowen confirmed. "Bound to this place. Bound to my line. It will not harm you without cause."
Reassuring. Sort of.
"And beyond that?" she asked. "Careful now. Do not reach with hunger. Reach with caution."
Aiden eased his awareness farther out, over the terrace's edge, past the inner courtyards and training rings, toward the northern wall where the wards curved.
He felt the line of them like a band across his chest—cool, firm, occasionally sparking as something pressed against from the other side. They whispered in an old language of boundaries and bargains.
Past that—
Fog.
Far away but vast.
A presence like a storm cloud lying down in a marsh and deciding never to leave. It didn't push right now. Didn't claw or drag.
It simply… was.
"It's there," he said, breath tight. "Far. But it knows I'm looking."
"Of course it does," Elowen said. "It has watched this place longer than you have been alive. It can feel any hand running along the walls."
The pressure sharpened, just a hair.
Aiden's storm rose to meet it on instinct.
He flinched.
"Pull back," Elowen said calmly. "Not all the way. To your ribs. Not to fear. To center."
He dragged his awareness back like hauling a net full of something heavy. It wanted to snag on the wards, on the fog. He pulled anyway.
His storm was there, restless and bright.
He focused on that instead.
On the way lightning felt in his veins when he thought of protecting, not attacking.
On Myra's laugh.
On Nellie's small, determined hands.
On Runa's steady presence at his back.
On the pup's heartbeat thudding against his leg.
The outer pressure dimmed.
"The Warden will always feel you," Elowen said quietly. "That cannot be undone. But you do not have to step outside barefoot every time it calls your name."
He exhaled, slow and shaky.
"I don't know how long I can keep that up," he admitted. "It's… loud."
"Then we build endurance," she replied. "Like any muscle. Like any core. You did not learn to throw lightning in a day."
"I didn't learn it at all," he muttered. "It kind of… exploded first."
"Exactly," she said. "Now you learn the rest."
He opened his eyes.
The terrace was the same.
The world felt slightly different.
He hadn't realized how wide open he'd been holding himself until now, like windows left unlatched in a storm. Pulling back didn't shut everything out.
It just… latched the shutters.
A little.
The pup yawned and nosed his hand, clearly pleased with itself simply for existing during this very serious lesson.
Elowen watched him with that measuring gaze that never quite tipped into pity or fear.
"Tonight," she said, "you practice this until the bells change. Tomorrow, we add motion to it. You will walk, speak, even fight while keeping that door half-closed. When you can let the Warden howl and not flinch—"
She looked north again.
"—then you will be ready to decide how to answer. Or if you ever should."
Aiden's throat tightened.
"Elowen," he said suddenly. "Back in the Hollow… when it whispered to me. You knew. Before I told you."
"Yes."
"How?"
A corner of her mouth tilted. "Do you think you are the first child I've seen walk out of a storm with someone else's shadow on their bones?"
"Am I… the worst?" he asked, attempting a weak joke.
Her eyes went distant for a heartbeat, like she was looking at something a long way away and a long time ago.
"No," she said softly. "But you may be the first who still has the choice this early."
That didn't sound like something she'd meant to say out loud.
He thought about that.
About choice.
About being a threshold.
The word scared him.
It also fit in a way that made his storm… settle.
"Okay," he said, more to himself than to her. "Then we train."
Elowen inclined her head. "We do."
She rose, smooth and unhurried. "I will leave you to your practice for an hour," she said. "Then you will go back to your team. Eat. Sleep. Let them see you return alive and mostly intact. That also matters."
He blinked. "You're… trusting me up here alone?"
"I am trusting you to try," she said. "And I am trusting the Hall to smack you if you start doing something foolish."
A vine nearby twitched as if offended.
Aiden almost smiled.
Elowen turned to go, steps silent on the stone. At the archway, she paused.
Without looking back, she said:
"Stormthread is not just a pretty name the students gave you. Threads bind. Storms move. Where you go, the world will fray or hold." She glanced over her shoulder, gold eyes catching green lantern glow. "Make sure you like the pattern you leave behind."
Then she was gone.
The pup sighed and flopped sideways against his thigh.
Aiden sat on the terrace bench, closed his eyes again, and reached carefully inward and outward at once.
Storm.
Hall.
Wards.
Fog.
Door.
He began learning how to hold them all at once without letting any one of them own his next breath.
Far beyond the walls, out in the marsh, something vast turned its attention this way again.
It felt him feel it.
It waited.
The world around Aiden did not crack open.
He breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
And for the first time since the Warden whispered not ready, he thought:
Good.
Neither am I.
But I will be.