The silence in the dorm room was heavy. Kael had just left for the evening, another abrupt departure with a mumbled excuse about the library.
Lira broke the quiet, her voice firm. "He's lying. The library's been closed for deep-cleaning since yesterday. I saw the notice."
Wren stopped fidgeting with his dagger. "So where's he going every night? He comes back looking... empty."
Raven leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Confronting him directly has not worked. He shuts down. We need to understand what he is involved in before we can help him."
Adam spoke up. "Then I'll sneak after him. Tonight. See where he goes."
Raven gave a slow nod. "Just observation. Do not engage."
That night, Adam positioned himself in a shadowed alcove with a view of their dorm door. When Kael slipped out, moving with a quiet, purposeful speed, Adam followed.
He trailed him across the moon-silvered practice yards, staying far back, using the shadows of equipment sheds and arches. His heart hammered against his ribs. This felt like a betrayal, but the fear for his friend was stronger.
He watched from behind a thick training post as Kael reached the high perimeter fence. Kael didn't hesitate. He found fingerholds in the ornate ironwork and scaled it with a silent, practiced ease that stole Adam's breath. He dropped into the dark forest beyond and was gone.
Adam crept forward. He had to know. He reached for the cold iron, preparing to haul himself up.
"Student!"
The voice was sharp, authoritative. A guardsman stepped from the archway of a nearby building, his lantern casting a sweeping beam. "Curfew is in effect. Explain yourself."
Adam's mind went blank. "I... I thought I heard something. Out there."
"Your ears are playing tricks. Nothing out there but trees and things that bite. Back to your dormitory. Now."
Defeated, Adam retreated. He didn't go back to the room. Instead, he waited in a deserted side hallway that led to a little-used servant's entrance. He pressed himself into a doorway, his eyes fixed on the heavy oak door.
Thirty minutes passed. The academy was a tomb around him.
Then, the door opened without a sound. Kael slipped back inside. This time, a bulky, clinking satchel was strapped across his back. It looked heavy.
Adam stepped out of the doorway. "Kael."
Kael froze. His eyes, wide in the dim light, met Adam's. For a second, Adam saw sheer, unguarded panic there. Then a wall slammed down. Kael didn't speak. He simply turned and moved, not toward the main halls, but down a narrow, pitch-black service corridor Adam had never noticed. He was gone in seconds, swallowed by the academy's hidden veins.
A week of tense, fragmented watching followed. They compared notes in hushed tones.
"He's not meeting someone outside," Adam told the others. "He's going out, getting something, and bringing it back in. He's running supplies. For someone inside these walls."
The dread in the room was palpable.
Before they could decide what to do next, the dorm room door opened. Kael walked in.
He stopped just inside the threshold. His eyes, shadowed and tired, took in their positions. Adam and Wren were standing near the door. Raven was up from his desk. Lira stood by the window. It was an unplanned perimeter.
Raven gestured to a chair. "Sit with us, Kael."
Kael looked at the chair, then at their faces. He sat, stiff and tense, on the very edge of the seat.
The silence stretched, unbearable.
Adam couldn't take it. "Where were you just now? Garrick's tactical review was today. You weren't there."
Kael's gaze fixed on a crack in the floor. "I had something else to do."
"What, another errand?" Wren's voice was strained, his worry twisting into frustration. "You're never here anymore! You look like death, you jump at every noise, and you're sneaking around like a... a courier for criminals!"
"Wren, that is not helpful," Raven said, but his voice lacked its usual conviction. He turned his full attention to Kael. "This is destroying you. We see it. Let us in. Let us carry it with you."
Kael shook his head, a tight, frantic motion. "No. You don't understand. If you knew... if you got involved... it would put a target on you. All of you."
"Protect us, you mean?" Adam asked quietly. The pieces clicked. "That's what this is about. You think you're shielding us."
The words broke something in Kael. His head snapped up, his composure fracturing. "Yes! Is that so hard to understand? This... you all, this team... it's the only good thing I have ever had. The only clean thing. So yes, I will do whatever it takes to keep that poison away from you. Even if it means lying. Even if it means this."
His raw, pained confession left the room utterly still.
Lira spoke from the window, her voice soft. "What poison, Kael? What are they making you carry?"
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Instead, a new sound tore through the academy, violent and deafening.
BRRRRRRRNNNNNGGGGG! BRRRRRRRNNNNNGGGGG!
The emergency bell clanged incessantly, a physical vibration in the air. It was followed by a booming, amplified voice that thundered through every stone corridor.
"ALL STUDENTS TO DESIGNATED SAFETY ZONES! THIS IS A CATEGORICAL BREACH! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOVE NOW!"
The voice crackled with urgency and fear.
They all jolted, the confrontation forgotten. From outside came the sounds that turned their blood to ice: real screams of terror, and roars that were deep, wild, and hungry.
They burst into the hallway, joining a tidal wave of panicked students. Shoving their way to a heavy exterior doorway, they stared out at the nightmare.
Chaos. The central grounds were a storm of movement and noise.
In the distance, the large, domed Portal Building was erupting. Beasts were not just appearing; they were flooding out, a raging torrent of fur, scale, and claw pouring from its shattered main doors and blown-out side windows. It was a stampede of E-rank creatures, but among them, larger, more terrifying shapes shouldered their way through. A C-rank Ironhide Boar gored a stone wall. A pack of sleek, C-rank Shadowjaws flowed like liquid darkness from a window, immediately scattering.
Instructors and guards were a desperate, scrambling line, forming defensive positions and using their abilities and defensive devices, trying to stem the tide and cut the stronger beasts off from the student dormitories. But the flood was too great. Isolated monsters were already breaking through, chasing down fleeing students.
Kael stood in the doorway, staring.
The realization hit him.
The clinking satchel. The night-time climbs. Tobey's cold, precise instructions. He hadn't just been gathering information for some future crime.
He had been smuggling in the tools to make this happen. This catastrophe was the diversion. And he had built it.
A wave of pure horror washed over him. He turned and shoved back through the crowd, not toward safety, but into the heart of the chaos, sprinting down a side corridor that led toward the Administrative building.
"Kael!" Adam yelled.
"Where is he going?!"Wren shouted.
But Kael was already gone, a solitary figure racing against the current of fear, driven by a desperate need to fix what he had helped break.