Five days later.
Chains cut into Gareth's wrists. A blindfold pressed against his eyes, the smell of damp stone thick in his lungs. The sound of dripping water echoed somewhere in the darkness of the Dawncrest prison. He didn't know if it was day or night anymore. Only that the hours bled together like ink in water.
And yet, Umbrael's whisper never left him.
"Patience, master. Your story isn't ending here."
But Gareth remembered clearly how it had all begun.
That night, Joren himself had stormed into the dormitory. No words, no explanations—just a force of will that drowned the air. With a gesture, he'd slammed Gareth into the floor, pinning him like an insect under glass.
The professor's hawk-like gaze bore into him, sharp with something Gareth had never seen before: disappointment.
"You were my favorite student," Joren said, each syllable dripping like acid. "And yet, you've disgraced me. Disgraced this academy. I am disappointed in you, child."
Gareth had opened his mouth to protest, but the air itself seemed to betray him. Joren's magic pressed down until his chest could not rise. His vision blurred.
Then—darkness.
When he woke, he was no longer in his bed. No longer in his room. But behind the black iron bars of Dawncrest's jail, shackled like a criminal.
The trial was quick. Too quick.
They dragged him into the chamber, where nobles sat above him like vultures on their high seats. He stood in chains before the judge, the murmurs of the courtroom filling his ears like an ocean tide.
The evidence was thin—nothing but whispers, shadows, and the dead body of a girl who had nothing to do with him. But it didn't matter. The decision had been made before Gareth even stepped into the hall.
The judge's gavel slammed.
"Guilty."
The word echoed, final.
And in that single word, Gareth saw the truth in the flicker of coins exchanged between sleeves, in the smug tilt of Kael Draven's lips in the crowd. He wasn't being judged. He was being buried.
In the darkness of his cell, Gareth pressed his head against the cold wall. "Umbrael… the ring. Get it for me."
"As you command."
Minutes—or hours—passed. Then metal slid across the stone floor. The communication ring glimmered faintly in the shadows, pressed against Gareth's bound hand. Relief surged through him. He slipped it on, whispering:
"Lyra."
The silence cracked. A faint light shimmered, and her voice spilled into his ear, strained and trembling.
"Gareth? Is it true? Did they really…?" She cut herself off, then spoke firmer. "No. Don't answer that. I don't believe it. I still believe you."
Something hot pricked Gareth's chest. For the first time in days, his lips curved into a broken smile. "Thank you, Lyra… You don't know how much that means right now."
On her end, he thought he heard her choking back tears. "We'll find a way. I swear it."
The connection dimmed, but the warmth lingered.
Back at the academy, things were far less warm.
Some students wore false smiles, too quick to celebrate the fall of the "boy of the Eclipse, the Sun's pallbearer." Girls whispered in corners, their words cruel: "Of course it was him." "He always was strange."
Others who had once laughed with Gareth now laughed louder in his absence, their relief painted across their smug faces.
But not all.
The one girl Gareth had saved in the past stared down at her desk with hollow eyes, unable to eat. The students who had once rallied to his side sat quietly, guilty gnawing at their hearts. Lyra tried to carry her usual fire, but every word she spoke trembled with weight.
And in the corner, Roran Valis sat with arms folded, his gaze cold and sharp as a blade. He didn't join the chorus of voices. Didn't spit venom. Didn't smile. He only muttered under his breath, unheard by the rest:
"No. Gareth Valven would never."
In the cell, Gareth closed his eyes. Lyra's faith warmed him, but deep down a gnawing truth lingered. He knew the system was rigged, that everything was stacked against him. He felt the faintest flicker of hope—yet also the weight of chains around his wrists.
He wanted to believe the world was still fair. But some part of him whispered otherwise.
This was only the beginning.
Kael Draven leaned back in his chair in the academy's courtyard, a half-smile tugging at his lips as the news spread like wildfire. Gareth Valven—gone, shackled, judged, finished. The whispers of the other students poured into his ears like music, their laughter and cruel jests sharpening his pride.
He should have been satisfied.
And he told himself he was.
Yet when the laughter dimmed and the crowd dispersed, Kael's grin faltered. A hollowness pressed against his chest, heavy and insistent. He remembered Gareth's defiant eyes, the way he'd stood in battle—not a coward, not a liar, not the kind who'd slay a girl in cold blood.
Kael clenched his fist beneath the table, nails digging into his palm. It doesn't matter. He's gone. This is the only way forward.
But even as he repeated those words, over and over, the weight didn't lift. His triumph tasted bitter, and in the silence between heartbeats, Kael knew—deep down—that what he had done was wrong.
Still, he buried the thought, smothered it beneath layers of pride and ambition. Better to live with guilt than to lose everything he'd built.For now, he wore his smile.For now.
Kael walked through the empty halls and found Lyra standing near the tall windows, her face softened by the moonlight. She looked lost, her fingers tracing patterns along the stone sill.
"What's with the sad face, Lyra?" Kael asked slowly, his voice carrying that familiar mix of curiosity and mockery.
"I'm just… thinking about Gareth." Her reply came quietly, but there was weight in every syllable. "He's going through so much. Even I have never been treated as badly as they treat him. I feel sorry for him—he's my friend."
For a moment, Kael's smirk faltered.
"Friend?" he echoed, tilting his head. "Strange choice of company, considering he's sitting in a cell while the rest of us are free."
Lyra's eyes flicked to him, sharp. "You don't believe it, do you? That he killed that girl. Not Gareth."
Kael shrugged, forcing a laugh. "Belief doesn't matter. Proof does. And the court already gave its verdict."
But inside, her words gnawed at him. Each time she defended Gareth, his chest tightened, and for the first time in a long while, Kael found it difficult to meet someone's gaze.
Lyra turned back to the window, voice low. "Proof can be bought. Truth cannot. You should remember that, Kael."
Her words hung heavy in the empty hall, and Kael stood there, silent, the shadow of guilt creeping closer despite all his efforts to bury it.
The marble hall of Dawncrest's upper keep echoed faintly as two figures stepped forward, dropping to one knee before the raised dais.
Talia Nyx and Darius Quell. Before them, torches hissed against the cold air, casting long shadows across the chamber floor.
"My lord," Talia began, her voice steady but her heart racing, "we bring report of Gareth Valven's situation. He has been convicted by the court, found guilty of the crime laid upon him." She swallowed hard, her throat dry. But why does saying it aloud feel so wrong?
Beside her, Darius Quell spoke next, his tone deeper, almost rehearsed. "The academy believes justice has been served. Students are divided—some mourn his name, others curse it." He forced himself to look up at Lord Berrnar, but inside his chest a knot had formed. Gareth saved me once. If he hadn't… would I even be alive to kneel here today?
Finally, Talia continued and finished the report with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Order has been preserved. There will be no riots. The Dawncrest name remains untarnished."
On the dais, Lord Berrnar inclined his head ever so slightly, a gesture of approval.
The two exchanged glances as they rose.
Talia felt her chest ache—loyalty to her House demanded pride in her words, yet her heart whispered betrayal.
Darius clenched his fists behind his back, guilt creeping into his thoughts. I gave them the report they wanted. But was it the truth I should have given?.
The chamber darkened as though the torches themselves bent away from the figure on the dais.
Lord Berrnar Dawncrest sat upon his high-backed chair, his hands resting loosely on the arms carved with talons. His eyes—cold, obsidian pits—slid across the kneeling two, stripping them bare, weighing them like butchered meat on scales.
A smile crept slowly across his lips, but it was no sign of warmth. It was the grin of a wolf who had cornered its quarry.
"Convicted…" he repeated, his voice little more than a whisper. Yet that whisper seemed to fill every corner of the hall, pressing against their ears until it rattled in their skulls. "Justice has been served."
The air itself grew heavier. Talia's breath hitched—her body screamed to look away, but her knees felt frozen to the marble. Darius clenched his jaw, the urge to bow lower warring with his pride.
Berrnar leaned forward, the torchlight warping his features into a monstrous silhouette. "Do you know what pleases me most?" His tone was calm, too calm, as though he were speaking of wine or weather. "The boy who thought himself untouchable… shackled, broken, awaiting his end."
A chuckle rose from his chest, soft at first, then curling into a low laugh that dripped with malice. It was not joy—it was hunger.
And as the sound echoed, each of them felt it: that beneath his noble robes and sharp mind, Lord Berrnar of Dawncrest was not merely a man, but something darker. Something that fed on ruin.
The torches hissed louder, shadows stretching long and clawed across the floor.
For the briefest heartbeat, it seemed as though the walls themselves leaned inward, listening to his laughter.
The news spread like wildfire, carried on sealed letters, whispered by messengers who dared not meet the eyes of those who read.
Lord Alaric Dawncrest sat in his study, candlelight flickering across stacks of parchment. His scarred fingers tapped the desk as he read the sealed decree. His eyes did not widen, his breath did not falter. Cold, sharp, unyielding—that was Alaric. He folded the letter with mechanical precision and set it aside. No joy. No sorrow. Only silence, and a gaze that drifted toward the window, where the city slept beneath the moon.
Ser Kael Thorne, the knight in blackened plate, stood at the training yard, sweat steaming from his armor. When the messenger recited the verdict, Kael only grunted, his helm shadowing his face. His gauntleted hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, then relaxed. Neutral, detached—yet in the stillness of his stance, one could not tell if he was pleased or disappointed.
Saphrina Melsis received the message at her war table, maps scattered before her. Her raven-dark hair slipped over her shoulder as her hand froze mid-stroke on a quill. Her lips parted, whispering the name like a prayer: "Gareth…" For the first time in years, the hardened commander felt her chest sink. Her quill snapped in her grip. A child caught in the coils of treachery… the thought lingered, bitter, unwelcome.
Commander Lysandra Vey heard it amid laughter, her silver hair catching torchlight as she toyed with a goblet of wine. "Guilty?" Her voice lilted with mocking sweetness, like a dagger coated in honey. "How fitting. Even the brightest sparks burn out when pressed under boot." She raised her glass as though to toast the boy's downfall, her smirk sharp as steel. Beneath her words, malice slithered.
Lady Serenya Vale accepted the sealed scroll in her dim tower chamber. Without a flicker of emotion, she broke the wax, scanned the words, and let the parchment drop onto her desk. Her eyes were unfocused, distant, as though her mind were already elsewhere, unraveling threads of magic and mysteries far beyond the fate of one boy. Uninterested, detached—Gareth's plight was but a ripple in an ocean she alone could read.
And so the lords knew. Each response—a shard of the fractured whole—wove together into a tapestry of silence, doubt, malice, and hidden grief.
Deep within the Trembling Canyon, where jagged cliffs split the sky and the echoes of marching boots trembled through the stone, Captain Ryn reclined beneath a canvas tent. A platter of roasted venison lay half-eaten before him, his cup of spiced ale frothing over as he laughed at some crude jest from a soldier. For once, life felt simple.
Then the messenger arrived, pale, breathless, and clutching the sealed decree.
Ryn's laughter died. He read the words once. Then twice. His eyes widened—not in disbelief, but in fury. The veins in his forearm bulged as the parchment crumpled in his fist. He rose, his towering frame casting the tent into shadow.
The canyon itself seemed to tremble as his fist slammed into the cliff beside him. Stone shattered, an entire slab of the mountain wall cracking and collapsing into dust. The soldiers froze, silence gripping them. Even the winds stilled.
Ryn's voice, low and thunderous, broke the silence.
"Gareth Valven… guilty?" His words carried like rolling thunder. "Do they think me blind? Do they think me deaf?"
He turned, his eyes burning like molten suns. With a sweep of his arm, he tore parchment from his scribe's hands and began to dictate, his voice shaking the very air:
"To the judge who dares soil the word truth with coin,
By the sword of light, by the truth of the sun, I swear this:
Call off this mockery. Release the boy. Or I shall ride from the canyon and stand in your court myself, and then you will know what judgment means."
The cell was silent, save for the distant clank of iron and the occasional echo of guards' boots. Gareth lay slumped against the cold stone wall, his stomach growling, his body aching from days of confinement. Hunger gnawed at him, but exhaustion was stronger.
Umbrael's voice, soft and melodic, threaded through his mind, weaving a gentle lullaby that seemed to cradle Gareth's frayed thoughts.
Slowly, the shadows in the corner of the cell deepened and shifted, coalescing into the form of an older woman, curves defined, hair cascading like midnight silk. Her eyes—ancient, compassionate, and tinged with sorrow—rested on the boy.
She knelt beside him, lifting him carefully into her arms as though he weighed nothing at all. Her presence radiated warmth, a stark contrast to the cold stone around them.
"I am sorry, young one," she murmured, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "I cannot stay… but you are not forgotten."
Gareth's eyelids fluttered, heavy as the world pressed on him. Umbrael's form hummed the lullaby one last time, rocking him gently.
Then, as dawn's first light threatened to pierce the stone, she dissolved into shadows, leaving only the lingering warmth of her embrace.
And in that quiet, a figure lingered outside the iron bars of the cell, a shadow stretching unnaturally long. Something—or someone—watched, silent, waiting, a faint whisper of intent brushing the stone.
Gareth's stomach growled again, the echo of solitude sharp—but now threaded with a shiver of something coming.