Aurelia Moretti arrived at Blackhawk Elite Academy with a scholarship letter, a single suitcase, and a message from her grandmother reminding her to eat breakfast.
She had remembered the letter.
Breakfast had been less successful.
The mountain road had turned her stomach, and now the smell of butter and cinnamon drifting from the academy kitchens made her realize how long it had been since she’d eaten.
Beyond the iron gates, Blackhawk rose against the mountains in towers of dark stone. Rainwater shone in carved channels shaped like branches. Along the gateposts, names had been cut into bronze beneath the figures of wolves, winged guardians, and robed scholars. One of the scholars was a Black woman with locs drawn over a shoulder, a book open in her sculpted hands. Aurelia paused over her name before the crowd carried her forward. Narrow bridges connected the upper floors. Rain clung to the ivy beneath the windows, and bells sounded somewhere beyond the courtyard, deep enough to vibrate through the handle of her suitcase.
For years, she had studied a photograph of this place.
The photograph had not included the crowds.
Cars lined the entrance road. Parents straightened collars and argued over luggage. A mother kissed her son’s cheeks while he protested that vampires did not need scarves. Near the gate, a father carried an enormous trunk as though it weighed nothing.
Aurelia shifted her suitcase to her other hand.
Her grandfather had offered to bring her. That morning he had stood in the kitchen wearing his old university sweater, his silver-threaded locs tied back, and pretended not to watch while she fastened her suitcase. Grandmother had checked the ends of Aurelia’s twists, tucked a jar of hair cream into a side pocket, and kissed the space between her brows. The tenderness of that departure had held until the first mountain bend. After that, Aurelia had allowed herself to cry.
She had insisted on coming alone, eager to arrive without an escort, without anyone fussing over whether she had packed enough socks or remembered the bitter tonic her grandmother made after difficult healings.
Now she wished she had let him come.
Not for the suitcase.
Her phone vibrated.
GRANDMOTHER: Have you eaten?
Aurelia considered lying.
A second message arrived.
GRANDMOTHER: Tea is not breakfast.
She smiled despite herself.
AURELIA: I’ve arrived safely. I’ll find food once I’m registered.
GRANDMOTHER: You belong there. Remember that when the paperwork becomes irritating.
Aurelia read that twice before putting the phone away.
She belonged at Blackhawk.
She had earned her place.
Neither fact stopped her from feeling like someone approaching a house where she had not been expected.
“Auri!”
The voice reached her before the familiar warmth beneath her ribs.
She turned.
Azalea hurried down the steps, her academy blazer unbuttoned. Her dense black curls had been swept into a high puff, with two narrow braids framing her face; the mist had coaxed loose coils along her temples. Against the pale stone, her deep brown skin caught the morning’s muted light. Aurelia saw her own broad cheekbones, dark eyes, and full mouth coming toward her, familiar features animated by a confidence their separate childhoods had taught differently. She passed a porter carrying three cases and came straight into Aurelia’s arms.
The suitcase toppled.
Neither sister caught it.
“You’re late,” Azalea said against her shoulder.
“The driver stopped for sheep.”
“Actual sheep?”
“I didn’t ask about their ancestry.”
Azalea laughed and held her tighter.
Aurelia closed her eyes.
Jasmine shampoo. Peppermint. The faint woodland scent of her sister’s wolf. Aurelia’s cheek brushed the satin lining Azalea had sewn into the collar of her travel coat. Their grandmother had insisted on that small protection for their hair, and both girls had complained before quietly keeping the habit.
Home, in a person.
For sixteen years, their lives had taken place in different houses. Their parents’ home had given Azalea four brothers, birthday celebrations, pack ceremonies, and the steady certainty of belonging. Their grandparents’ house had given Aurelia love, discipline, and more knowledge than most people acquired in several lifetimes.
It had also given her a bedroom window facing the drive.
For years, she had checked it whenever a car approached.
Azalea drew back.
“You look pale.”
“You look as though you’ve packed for a diplomatic occupation.”
“I brought necessities.”
Behind her, the porter struggled with a fourth case.
Aurelia glanced at it.
Azalea lifted her chin.
“Shoes are necessary.”
Their laughter loosened something in Aurelia’s chest.
Then Azalea touched the sleeve of her coat.
“Did you sleep?”
“A little.”
“You were thinking.”
“An unfortunate lifelong condition.”
“Auri.”
Aurelia looked toward the academy doors.
“I’m all right.”
Azalea studied her, plainly unconvinced, but did not press.
Instead, she picked up the fallen suitcase.
Aurelia reached for it.
“I can carry that.”
“I know.”
Her sister kept it anyway.
* * *
The courtyard fountain had been carved in the shape of a wolf beneath a crescent moon.
Aurelia noticed the moon first.
She usually did.
Their birth story had followed them through childhood, though it had been told differently depending on who was listening.
Twin daughters born beneath a red moon.
Two heartbeats arriving within minutes of each other while every wolf in the royal territory lifted its head and howled.
Azalea had grown up hearing that it marked a blessing.
Aurelia had overheard other interpretations.
One child had answered the pack’s call.
One had not.
By two, Azalea’s wolf presence had become unmistakable. Aurelia’s remained silent. Physicians examined her, consulted one another, and used careful words until a less careful adult finally said defective within her hearing.
Their parents sent her to their grandparents.
At four, she lifted an entire basin of water because she wanted to wash her doll.
By six, she could summon fire.
By ten, her grandfather had stopped pretending the lessons he gave her were ordinary.
Their parents never came to see them.
There had been calls. Gifts. Promises attached to events that always seemed more urgent than a journey to their youngest daughter.
Aurelia had not understood it at six.
At eighteen, she understood enough to be angry, and still not enough to stop asking why.
Azalea’s fingers brushed hers.
Their bond did not give them unrestricted access to each other’s thoughts. It offered impressions: unease, joy, a sudden tug when one was hurt.
Now her sister sent a gentle warmth through it.
Aurelia squeezed her hand.
Then the wind changed.
Cedar.
Rain on sun-warmed stone.
She stopped so abruptly that Azalea’s suitcase bumped her ankle.
Across the courtyard, a young man lifted his head.
A woman stood close to him, smoothing the silver insignia on his chest. Her dark hair fell in a glossy braid over one shoulder. She was smiling up at him.
Aurelia saw all that in a detached, oddly precise instant.
Then his eyes met hers.
The breath left her lungs.
Something moved beneath her ribs, a deep, instinctive recognition that had nothing to do with thought.
There.
Her fingers tightened around her admissions folder.
The young man stepped away from his companion.
His expression had opened with the same astonishment Aurelia felt.
For one reckless moment, hope rose in her.
She had never admitted how much she wanted this.
Not a title. Not a ceremony.
Someone who would see her and come closer.
He crossed the courtyard.
Students made room for him.
“Auri?” Azalea whispered.
“I know.”
The young man stopped within arm’s reach.
Up close, he had dark lashes, a firm mouth, and a small scar near his jaw. His close-cut curls were black, his skin a rich brown, and the silver of his crest looked cold against the warmth of his throat. She noticed how his hand lifted toward her and stopped. That unfinished gesture was more unsettling than his beauty. His breathing was uneven.
So was hers.
“What’s your name?”
“Aurelia.”
He repeated it softly.
The sound sent warmth down her spine.
Then his gaze lowered.
Her traveling coat.
Her worn satchel.
The scholarship ribbon pinned to her admissions folder.
His expression changed.
It was slight. A tightening around the mouth. A brief withdrawal.
Aurelia felt it before she understood it.
“Aurelia what?”
“Moretti.”
His eyes moved to Azalea.
Recognition arrived there differently.
“Azalea Moretti.”
“Cassian Vale,” her sister replied.
Aurelia knew the surname.
Vale heirs appeared beside her father in council photographs. They commanded wealthy northern territories and treated marriage as something negotiated with maps nearby.
The woman joined them.
“Cassian, Professor Bell is expecting us.”
She rested her hand on his arm.
His attention flicked toward her.
Aurelia felt an immediate, irrational urge to move that hand.
She hated the impulse.
Cassian looked between the sisters.
“You’re related?”
Azalea’s fingers tightened around the suitcase handle.
“We’re twins.”
The woman’s gaze sharpened.
“I thought the Alpha King had only one daughter.”
“He has two,” Azalea said.
Aurelia could feel her sister’s anger now, banked and deliberate.
The woman smiled.
“Of course. I meant the daughter attending court.”
“Then you should have said that, Seraphine.”
Cassian scarcely seemed to hear.
“You lived with the retired royal healers.”
“My grandparents,” Aurelia said.
“Yes. I remember hearing something.”
She waited.
He offered no explanation of what he had heard.
He didn’t need to.
She had seen that guarded expression before.
The forgotten daughter.
The one sent away.
The one whose absence could apparently be explained without asking her anything.
Seraphine glanced at Aurelia’s folder.
“You earned a scholarship. How admirable.”
“Thank you.”
“Blackhawk can be difficult for students without the right preparation.”
“My examination results were sufficient.”
“Of course.”
Her tone made agreement sound like indulgence.
Cassian shifted closer, lowering his voice.
“We should discuss this privately.”
Aurelia glanced at Seraphine’s hand, still resting on his sleeve.
“Privately?”
He followed her gaze.
Seraphine withdrew her fingers, slowly.
Azalea did not move.
Cassian looked toward the gathering students.
“Whatever you felt just now—”
“You felt it too.”
He paused.
“Yes.”
Aurelia’s heartbeat stumbled at the admission.
Then he continued.
“That doesn’t mean we should act on it.”
The courtyard noises seemed to recede.
A cart rolled over the stones. Someone called for a missing registration form. Water splashed steadily into the fountain.
Aurelia heard each sound with painful clarity.
“Why?”
“My circumstances are complicated.”
“What circumstances?”
“My father has expectations.”
Seraphine looked down, but not before Aurelia caught the satisfaction in her eyes.
Cassian continued.
“A future Alpha has responsibilities beyond personal preference.”
Aurelia looked at him.
Only moments ago, his arrival had felt inevitable and extraordinary.
Now he sounded like a council notice.
“And you’ve decided I would interfere with them.”
“I’ve decided we know nothing about one another.”
“Yet you seem comfortable deciding what I’m worth.”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s not what I said.”
“What are you saying?”
He glanced at the scholarship ribbon again.
The gesture was small enough that he might have believed she wouldn’t notice.
Aurelia noticed everything.
She would remember it tomorrow. In a year. The angle of his eyes, the hesitation before he answered.
Her memory had never learned mercy.
“I cannot acknowledge a bond with someone whose standing is unclear.”
Azalea went utterly still beside her.
Aurelia heard herself ask, “Unclear to whom?”
“To my family. The council.”
“You could ask.”
“People make claims, Aurelia.”
He used her name as though it might soften the accusation.
She stared at him.
Seraphine stepped closer.
“Cassian has been approached before. You must understand why he’s cautious.”
Aurelia looked at her.
“And you’re protecting him?”
“Someone has to.”
For a moment, the metal clasp on Aurelia’s satchel grew warm.
She loosened her hand.
Breathed.
The heat subsided.
Beside her, Azalea noticed.
Her sister said nothing.
Cassian straightened.
“I won’t pursue this bond. I think it’s best we settle that now.”
The pain was not dramatic.
No collapse. No broken stone. No cry torn from her throat.
Just a deep ache beneath her breastbone, where hope had briefly found a place.
Aurelia folded the edge of her admissions letter back into its proper shape.
“All right.”
He frowned.
Perhaps he had expected argument.
Perhaps tears.
She had spent too much of her childhood waiting for reluctant love.
She recognized it faster now.
“Then we understand each other,” she said.
Cassian looked toward Azalea.
“I’m sure you can explain—”
Azalea stepped beside Aurelia.
Not in front of her.
Her gaze held his.
For several seconds, she did not speak.
She had watched Aurelia hold a wall of river water away from a flooded village. She had sat beside her after a healing that left her too weak to lift a cup. She knew that this quiet young woman could do things the council’s finest specialists would struggle to explain.
Cassian knew none of it.
Worse, he had shown them what he would do when he believed there was nothing extraordinary to gain.
Azalea took Aurelia’s hand.
Then she led her inside.
* * *
They found an empty passage beside the registration hall.
Aurelia stood beneath a window while Azalea set down the suitcase.
For a few moments, neither spoke.
Then Azalea asked, “Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
The answer came out too quickly.
Her sister’s face softened.
Aurelia looked away.
“I don’t understand how it can hurt.”
“You felt him.”
“I don’t know him.”
“You didn’t have time to.”
Aurelia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
She wanted to be sensible.
The bond had appeared less than ten minutes ago. Cassian had given her every reason to distrust him. Nothing precious had been built between them.
Still, her body mourned something her mind knew better than to want.
“I thought…” She stopped.
Azalea waited.
“I thought he was glad.”
Her sister drew her close.
For a moment, Aurelia let herself lean.
Then she straightened.
“Don’t tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“What I can do. What Grandfather taught me. Any of it.”
Azalea’s expression hardened.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Someone will think it makes a difference.”
“Not to what he just did.”
Aurelia nodded.
The bell rang overhead.
Her assessment began in twelve minutes.
She could have asked for a delay.
Instead, she opened her folder.
“Where is Hall Three?”
Azalea picked up the suitcase.
“We’ll find it.”
* * *
Hall Three smelled of chalk, rain-damp uniforms, and the sharp mineral scent of active wards.
Aurelia took a seat near the back.
Azalea sat beside her.
Across the room, Cassian stood with Seraphine beneath a portrait of Blackhawk’s founder.
Seraphine was speaking softly.
He looked toward Aurelia.
She opened her examination schedule before their eyes could meet.
Her scholarship was provisional until the practical assessment.
She knew the terms exactly. Passing granted full access to the healing program, advanced theory seminars, and supervised clinical placements.
Failure meant reassignment.
Reassignment meant distance from the work she had crossed half the country to learn.
She would not let one cruel conversation follow her onto that platform.
At the front of the hall, an instructor struck the floor with a staff.
“Professor Thorne. Practical control and combat foundations.”
He was broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, with the expression of a man already disappointed in several people he had yet to meet.
Beside him stood a silver-haired woman wearing the blue insignia of a senior healer.
“Professor Voss,” she said. “Your written examinations established what you know. Today we assess what you can safely apply.”
Aurelia breathed more easily.
That, at least, made sense.
Near the platform, four men entered through a faculty door.
She knew them before she saw their faces.
Matteo. Rafael. Nico. Luca.
Their brothers.
All four wore instructor insignia, though they did not share the same rank. Matteo, twenty-five, taught combat; Rafael, twenty-three, specialized in defensive wards. Nico, twenty-two, held a junior teaching appointment, while twenty-year-old Luca assisted the practical instructors under supervision. At home their differences had blurred into the single fact that they were her brothers. Here, their authority had separate names.
Azalea lifted a hand.
Luca smiled immediately.
Nico crossed the room to touch her shoulder.
“Ready, little wolf?”
“I was until you asked.”
“You’ll be fine.”
His gaze passed to Aurelia.
“Aurelia.”
“Nico.”
“Good luck.”
A polite phrase.
Already moving away.
Matteo paused by Azalea’s desk.
“Don’t rush your shift. Keep your breathing steady.”
“I know.”
“And remember what we practiced.”
He did not ask Aurelia what she intended to demonstrate.
Rafael glanced at her folder.
“Foundational healing?”
“Advanced healing.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Your grandparents signed off on that?”
“They taught it.”
“Just be honest about your limits.”
Then he joined the other instructors.
Aurelia stared at the edge of her desk.
Azalea’s hand found hers beneath it.
She did not squeeze back until she was certain her fingers would stay warm.
* * *
The assessments moved quickly.
A witch formed three linked shields. A vampire repaired a shallow wound across his palm. A wolf shifted one hand without losing his grip on a glass.
Azalea’s name was called.
She rose, smoothing her skirt.
Aurelia smiled at her.
On the platform, Azalea placed her hand against the resonance crystal.
Silver light filled it.
Her partial shift came smoothly: white fur at her wrists, pale eyes brightening, a brief glimpse of claws before she withdrew them.
Then she healed a damaged tissue model with patient, precise magic.
It took concentration.
Aurelia saw the effort in her shoulders and loved her for staying with it when the repair resisted.
When the model’s pulse steadied, Voss nodded.
“Well controlled.”
Matteo smiled openly.
Luca applauded first.
Pride warmed Aurelia’s chest.
Whatever else their family had done, Azalea had worked for that moment.
She deserved it.
Then Thorne called the next name.
“Aurelia Moretti.”
The room stirred.
She walked to the platform.
The boards felt firm beneath her shoes.
She noticed the fine cracks in the practice basin. The fresh chalk along the ward boundary. A loose thread on Voss’s sleeve.
Too much detail.
She narrowed her attention.
“Hand on the crystal,” Thorne instructed.
Aurelia obeyed.
Red appeared beneath her palm.
Then blue.
Green.
White.
The colors wound around one another.
Thorne looked at Voss.
“Residual charge?”
“Remove your hand, please.”
The crystal cleared.
Aurelia waited.
“Again.”
The same four colors returned.
Someone laughed nervously.
From the front row, Seraphine spoke.
“She’s wearing a focus.”
Aurelia looked at her grandmother’s ring.
A simple silver band. Not enchanted.
But proving that would require another argument.
She removed it.
Then her bracelet.
Voss watched without comment.
Aurelia placed her hand against the crystal a third time.
The colors returned, brighter now.
Thorne’s expression changed.
“How many affinities have you demonstrated before?”
“Four.”
A chair scraped.
Her brothers stood near the wall.
Matteo had stopped smiling.
Rafael’s eyes narrowed.
“Under whose supervision?” Thorne asked.
“Alessandro Moretti.”
Voss stepped closer.
“Your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“And healing?”
“My grandmother.”
The older woman glanced toward the faculty wall, then back at Aurelia.
“What can you demonstrate without strain?”
She could have chosen one.
Water would have been simplest.
But the murmurs had begun. Questions. Doubt. The assumption that the apparatus had failed rather than that she might be telling the truth.
If the result remained disputed, her placement could remain provisional.
Aurelia looked at the scholarship ribbon.
Then she lifted her head.
“All four. On a small scale.”
Voss studied her for a long moment.
“Proceed.”
* * *
Earth came first.
Aurelia touched the soil in the practice basin.
A green shoot emerged, unfurling two small leaves.
She left it rooted.
Water rose from the vessel beside her, cool and clear, drawing into a suspended sphere.
A soft sound moved through the room.
She held her attention steady.
Fire appeared above her other palm. Gold light traveled over her brown skin, catching the creases of her fingers and the fine hairs at her wrist. She turned her hand slowly, controlling the flame’s hunger until it burned with a clear blue heart.
Heat warmed her fingers.
The room became very quiet.
Last, she called air.
A fallen leaf lifted from beside the basin and circled her wrist.
Four elements.
Four distinct sensations.
The patient weight of earth. Water’s responsive pull. Fire, eager to grow. Air moving through the smallest spaces. Her grandmother had taught her to approach each one through attention before force: feel a root drinking, listen for the change in a kettle, watch how heat altered the air above a pan. Those kitchen and garden lessons had grown into equations, formal spell structures, and control exercises. The academy had names for techniques Aurelia had first learned with bare feet on the warm back steps.
She had practiced this in her grandparents’ garden until she could maintain it while answering questions, walking backward, or listening to her grandfather deliberately misquote a text.
Here, every breath felt exposed.
Voss’s gaze moved between Aurelia’s hands and the plant.
“Maintain separation.”
“I am.”
“Turn the water clockwise.”
She did.
“Reverse the air.”
The leaf changed direction.
At the faculty wall, Rafael pushed away from the stone.
Cassian leaned forward.
Aurelia kept her eyes on Voss.
“Three steps,” the professor said.
She took the first.
Then the second.
Beneath her feet, something shifted.
Aurelia stopped.
A wrong vibration traveled through the platform. Beneath its rim, a hooked silver mark flashed and disappeared into the chalkwork.
Not her earth magic.
Something underneath it.
The basin cracked.
For an instant, she saw everything.
The fracture spreading through stone.
The ward beneath it flaring too brightly.
A sharp fragment lifting toward the front row.
Azalea sitting directly in its path.
Aurelia extinguished the flame.
Air struck outward. Her twists lifted from her shoulders, their small gold cuffs chiming once as wind tore past her. The sound was absurdly delicate beneath the crack of stone.
The smallest fragments changed direction, but the largest spun through the edge of the ward and accelerated.
Someone screamed.
Aurelia pulled the water flat.
Stone struck the suspended sheet with a sound like a fist hitting flesh.
Pain flashed behind her eyes.
Too much force.
She widened her stance, caught the heavier fragments with earth magic, and felt their weight drag through her arms.
One broke through.
It sliced her palm.
Warm blood ran over her fingers. The sight brought a brief, animal surge of fear. Her skin could break; her body could fail. None of the power gathering around her changed that.
Her concentration faltered.
The water shuddered.
Beyond it, she saw Azalea rising.
“No,” Aurelia breathed.
She could not protect her sister and let her run into the same danger.
Aurelia drove the fragments downward.
They struck the empty strip of floor before the first row.
Stone cracked.
The water dropped into the drainage channels with a heavy splash.
Silence followed.
Aurelia stood alone on the platform.
Her hand throbbed.
Her knees had begun to tremble.
She could taste metal.
Thorne’s staff struck the ward boundary.
The light went out.
Voss was beside her immediately.
“Look at me.”
Aurelia did.
“Any loss of vision?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“A little.”
“Where is the pain?”
“My hand.”
Voss took it gently.
The cut was deeper than Aurelia had realized.
Without thinking, she drew healing warmth through it.
The bleeding stopped.
Torn skin closed beneath the professor’s fingers. The healing light lay gold along Aurelia’s palm, illuminating damaged tissue until the edges drew together. Isadora had always made her name what needed repair before she attempted it. Tendon intact. Vessel sealed. Skin restored. Aurelia clung to those familiar steps while the watching room seemed to tilt.
Voss went still.
Aurelia stared at their joined hands.
She had meant to save that for the healing assessment.
Across the room, no one spoke.
Then Azalea reached the platform.
Her eyes searched Aurelia’s face.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“My head aches.”
Voss looked pleased by the admission.
“Then she’s sitting down.”
Thorne turned toward the instructors.
“Clear the hall. Nobody touches that basin.”
Rafael stepped forward.
“What did you do?”
Aurelia looked at him.
For a moment, she could not find words.
Azalea did.
“She stopped it hitting us.”
“We need to establish—”
“You can establish it after she’s been treated.”
Matteo approached, eyes fixed on the shattered stone.
“All four?”
Aurelia’s burned, aching hand rested in Voss’s.
She thought of the birthdays they had missed.
The lessons they had never asked about.
The child who had learned extraordinary things in a garden while waiting for someone to come.
“Yes,” she said.
Matteo looked at her then.
Really looked.
It did not feel as good as she had once imagined.
* * *
Cassian waited outside the treatment room.
Aurelia saw him through the open doorway while Voss wrapped her hand.
The wound had healed, but the professor insisted the damaged tissue needed support.
“No more demonstrations today.”
“I understand.”
“Food. Water. Rest.”
“I understand that too.”
“Excellent. A promising start to our professional relationship.”
Despite everything, Aurelia smiled.
When she emerged, Azalea stood at once.
So did Cassian.
“Aurelia.”
His voice caught the bond beneath her ribs.
It answered him.
She wished it hadn’t.
“You could have told me.”
She looked at his face.
“What?”
“About your abilities.”
Azalea went still beside her.
Aurelia waited.
Cassian glanced toward the corridor, where students were pretending not to watch.
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“You knew my name.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know.”
He drew a breath.
“I spoke without understanding the situation.”
“You understood enough to decide I wanted something from you.”
His expression tightened.
“I was wrong.”
The admission should have mattered.
Perhaps later it would.
At that moment, her hand hurt, her head ached, and she could still see Azalea behind a wall of breaking stone.
She had no strength left to make his regret easier for him.
“Would you be saying that if the crystal had shown nothing?”
Cassian did not answer.
Aurelia nodded.
That silence settled something.
At the far end of the corridor, Seraphine appeared.
She slowed when she saw them.
“Cassian. Professor Bell—”
“In a moment,” he said, without looking at her.
Seraphine’s expression changed.
Aurelia noticed.
So did Azalea.
Cassian stepped closer.
“Can we begin again?”
The bond pulled warmly toward him.
For one brief, humiliating instant, she wanted to say yes.
She wanted the morning back.
The first look.
The possibility of being chosen before anyone knew what she could offer.
But that moment had happened.
She could remember every second of it.
“No,” she said.
His face fell.
“Aurelia—”
“I need lunch.”
Azalea took her satchel.
This time, Aurelia let her.
They walked toward the dining hall together.
Behind them, Cassian said her name once more.
She kept going, although every step hurt.
At the turn in the corridor, Azalea glanced at her.
“Soup?”
“And bread.”
“Grandmother will ask.”
“She already has.”
Her sister’s smile was small and relieved.
Aurelia took out her phone.
There were three messages waiting.
She opened her grandmother’s conversation.
AURELIA: I’m registered. The assessment was complicated.
A pause.
Then:
AURELIA: Azalea is with me. We’re going to eat.
She looked through the tall windows at Blackhawk’s rain-dark towers.
She had wanted to arrive quietly.
To learn. To become a healer. To discover who she might be somewhere beyond the boundaries of her family’s neglect.
Instead, half the academy had watched her bleed, and a boy who had dismissed her now wanted another chance to be heard.
Her phone vibrated.
GRANDMOTHER: Good. Start there.
Aurelia put it away.
Beside her, Azalea matched her pace.
Together, they went to find their table.