Mr. Collins' voice drones on, a low hum against the flickering fluorescent lights of World Civilization II. He's deep into a lecture on ancient Druidic societies, but his words blur together, stretched thin by monotony. I stare at the chalkboard, but my mind slips sideways.
All I want is to teach art. Why I need to memorize the burial rites of Celtic priests is beyond me.
Daydreaming has always been my escape hatch. No matter where I am—classroom, bus, dinner table—my imagination creeps in like fog. I drift into stories of daring escapes, secret identities, and emissaries from forgotten kingdoms. Sometimes, I swear I've lived those lives before.
My dad used to hate it. "Keep your head out of the clouds," he'd say, like imagination was a disease. But Mom was different. She encouraged it. Said my best designs came from the worlds I built in my head. She was right. My sketches are modern silhouettes wrapped in echoes of the past.
Freshman year, I designed my spring formal dress to look like something a forest nymph might wear if she lived in Manhattan. Hunter green halter gown, keyhole bodice, slits up both legs, gossamer trim that shimmered like dew. It had a small train that whispered secrets when I walked. People still talk about it. For a moment, I was the next big thing.
But daydreaming wasn't just for fun. It was survival. My parents' marriage collapsed under the weight of their silence. When my father cheated, Mom finally ended it. That was four years ago. Since then, I've lived in two worlds: the one I walk through, and the one I imagine.
The Pagan Academy was Mom's idea. She enrolled me when I was ten. Said it would help me "connect with my roots." I've been studying ancient civilizations ever since—Mayan, Greek, Druidic, and Babylonian. It's not Hogwarts, despite what Shelby likes to joke. No wands. No flying brooms. Just long hours, dusty scrolls, and the occasional herb-induced rash.
Still, I love the herbalism classes. There's something satisfying about mixing old-world remedies with modern intuition. I once brewed a sleeping potion based on a centuries-old recipe. I tweaked it—added a few things, left a few out. The result? I slept for seven days straight.
Mom nearly had a heart attack. My teachers were furious. But I woke up feeling incredible—rested, clear, like I'd been rebooted. I called it Snow White Glamour. The name needs work. I never used it again. Just in case.
There's only one rule at the academy: no casting outside school grounds unless supervised. We're not of age yet, not trained enough to control the power. But Mom signed a waiver allowing me to practice alone. She's busy. Always has been.
The strangest part of the academy isn't the spells or the rituals—it's The Umbra Ascension.
It sounds like a myth. A divine tournament where gods choose mortal and immortal champions to compete in brutal trials. The chosen are taken—no warning, no consent—and trained through physical and emotional torment. The games begin on the summer solstice and end on the winter solstice. Every hundred years. Always the same.
No one talks about them openly. But the scrolls in the restricted section whisper truths no one wants to hear. The gods walk among us, hidden in plain sight. Immortal. Powerless. Waiting.
When the games begin, they regain their strength. And they choose.
Three witches are always taken. Experienced ones. The scrolls say they must be able to give life, take life, and decide when life ends. No one volunteers. They just vanish. A note left for the headmistress. A promise to return.
But no one ever does.
There's no shrine, no memorial. Just silence. The school is afraid to acknowledge the truth. Like speaking it aloud might summon the gods themselves.
Warlocks don't have the same restrictions. They roam freely, casting as they please. The double standard is infuriating. But no one questions it. Not out loud.
I never thought I'd be chosen. My teachers never mentioned the skills required. I'm not even sure I have them.
While snooping in the Pagan library one rainy afternoon, I found it—
a scroll sealed in silver wax, hidden behind a false panel in the oldest shelf, where the dust was thick enough to choke memory itself.
The moment I touched it, the air shifted. The lights flickered. A low hum filled the room, like the breath of something ancient stirring awake.
The seal bore a symbol I've only ever seen once—an ouroboros coiled around a crescent moon, its eye a burning star. My fingers tingled as I broke the enchantment. The spell was old, layered, and clever. But I was cleverer.
Inside was a prophecy. Not written in ink, but in shimmering glyphs that danced across the parchment like fireflies caught in moonlight. I didn't read it so much as feel it—like the words were being sung directly into my bones.
It spoke of the Evermore Keeper.
Born of thread and thunder,
Daughter of fate and flame,
She is the child of Clotho, the spinner of life,
And a goddess whose name has been struck from time.
She is the balance between what was written and what may yet be.
Her breath stirs the winds of destiny.
Her blood carries the weight of choice.
When The Umbra Ascension begins,
And the gods walk once more beneath mortal skies,
The Evermore Keeper shall rise—not to serve, but to judge.
She alone may offer the gods a final thread:
To weave themselves into the mortal world,
Or be unraveled by their hubris.
The scroll pulsed with power. I could barely breathe. I could feel it in my bones, in the space behind my eyes. The words wrapped around me like a spell, like a memory I'd forgotten I owned.
The Evermore Keeper wasn't just a myth. She was a reckoning.
According to the scroll, the gods had once imprisoned her—hidden her away in a temple carved from obsidian and silence. Protected by a veil of forgetfulness, even from herself. The gods feared her not because she was violent, but because she could endthem with a choice. A single word. A severing of a thread.
She was guarded by their fiercest warrior, a being forged from war and bound by oath. A divine god, sculpted from starlight and steel, whose only purpose was to watch her. Contain her. Ensure she never remembers who she was.
But fate, it seems, has a sense of irony.
They say he watched her for hundreds of years. And in that time, something impossible happened.
He fell in love.
Not the fleeting kind sung by mortals, but the deep, ancient kind that rewrites the stars. He saw her not as a threat, but as a soul, lonely, radiant, and aching to be free. And she, in turn, saw through the armor and the silence. She saw the man beneath the god-forged mask.
Their love was a secret hymn, sung in stolen glances and whispered dreams. And when the time came, he did the unthinkable.
He let her go.
Some say she outwitted him. Others say he turned a blind eye. But the truth, buried in the folds of the prophecy, is far more dangerous:
He chose her over the gods.
He helped her escape the prison built by Olympus itself. Helped her vanish into the world of mortals, where even the gods could not follow. And for that betrayal, his name was erased from minds, from lips. His memory, scattered like ash across the stars.
But the Evermore Keeper remembers.
And now, as The Umbra Ascension stirs once more, the prophecy whispers that she will return—not as a prisoner, but as a reckoning.
That was nearly a century ago.
Since then, the gods have searched in secret, terrified of the one being who could end their reign. The prophecy says she will return when The Umbra Ascension begins again—when the sun rises on the summer solstice and the first name is called.
And now, the signs are aligning.
The nightmares. The whispers. The invitation.
The Masquerade Ball is more than a tradition. It's a threshold. A veil. A choice.
And I've been invited.
The envelope was black as midnight, sealed with the same ouroboros sigil. No return address. No explanation. Just my name, written in silver ink that shimmered like stardust.
I haven't told anyone. Not even Shelby.
But I can feel it. Something is coming.
And it's looking for me.