Days at the Silver Star Academy ticked by like the precision bite of interlocking gears, like the hushed murmur of spirit-threads. Outwardly calm, the Academy was in truth a pressurized boiler, its valves hissing with tension that mounted with every passing lesson.
In her Weaver courses, Elara's performance had grown impossible to overlook. Like a rough stone cut and polished until it gleamed with unexpected brilliance, she now drew the steady attention of many eyes—most of all her tutor, Lady Ilise Whisper, a third-tier Heartweaver.
Ilise remained as elegant and patient as ever, yet her gray-blue eyes—keen enough to catch the subtlest ripples of emotion—now lingered longer on Elara. After one advanced lesson on energy control, she called the girl back as the other students filed out.
"Elara Thorne." Her tone was warm as always, but threaded with an unmistakable note of scrutiny. "Your precision has advanced swiftly—especially your grasp of structural stability. You are far beyond your peers. And yet…" She leaned closer, eyes narrowing, "the texture of your threads is unlike any Weaver I have ever taught. More… inward. More condensed. As though they do not echo the starry harmony, but weave a silence of their own frequency."
Elara's heart clenched, but her face showed only a flicker of confusion and the mild unease of a student under authority. "Your meaning, Tutor? I only follow Foundations of Resonance as best I can, trying to smooth the flow. Perhaps—growing up in Slagtown—I developed an instinct against instability. I've simply learned to overcompensate for it."
It was a clever deflection, tying anomaly to origins no one could easily verify.
Ilise did not confirm or deny. Her fingers tapped lightly on her folio, her habitual gesture when lost in thought. "Instinct. An interesting word. Talent does take many forms. But remember, Elara—the Academy, and indeed the kingdom itself, rest upon an orderly lattice of spirit. Excessive… divergence sometimes brushes against borders best not crossed."
Her words hung like smoke from a candle just snuffed. Then she produced a sealed parchment, stamped with the sigil of the Academy.
"The joint practicum begins next month. All second-years will attend—Weavers paired with Vigils—to conduct tactical purges along the outer reaches of Ashen Gorge, Sector Seven. Here is your assignment. Prepare well. This is not merely about your year's standing." Her gaze hardened. "It is about survival."
Elara unrolled the list and her pulse dipped. Her assigned partner: Breck Ironanvil, a hot-blooded second-tier Riftsmasher known for crude power and cruder temper. Worse—he was a loyal hound of Cecilia Frostborne. This was no accident of draw.
Almost as if the fates wished to tighten the vise, Kaelan Blackwood's suffocating "care" grew bolder. No more contrived chance meetings. This time, a silver brooch came delivered straight through Academy channels, its surface set with a minuscule starshard. Kaelan claimed it bore a trace of his Saint's Benediction, to steady her mind against the Gorge's whispers.
Yet when Elara's fingers brushed it, she felt not comfort but a soft, pervasive field—like spider-silk threads weaving around her spirit, tugging with quiet persistence. It did ward off intrusion, yes. But it also monitored, subtly shaping her into reliance, into deference. Each night she was forced to drink her own brewed Barrier Draught just to keep her thoughts her own.
Cecilia, meanwhile, had learned that poison carried further when distilled into whispers. No more open duels or taunts. Instead, she scattered careful rumors at Weaver salons and tea-gatherings: that Elara's victory in the wager had come from "illicit trinkets"; that her bond with "some menial" (a venomous nod at Leon) was inappropriate; that her threads carried a "hint of the unorthodox."
The gossip spread like spores of corruption—silent, invisible, eroding reputations before anyone noticed the rot.
Elara's answer was calm, and invisible in its own right. During a public lesson in the alchemy workshop, as students distilled calming blossoms, she happened to introduce a pinch of shadowmoss—a mild hallucinogen she had "discovered while cleaning" the cloister's damp corners.
The result: a faint haze that left several of Cecilia's gossiping attendants glassy-eyed, tongues tripping over nonsense. Chaos bloomed, harmless but humiliating.
Ilise's attention sharpened further. Rather than punish, she delivered in the following lecture a meticulous account of shadowmoss, its resonances with different wavelengths—then, with apparent carelessness, mentioned how certain rare pairings could yield effects beyond any textbook.
A warning? A probe? Or… tacit indulgence? Elara could not know. But she knew Ilise was far from the gentle mask she wore.
The pressure-valve tightened, but in its weight her thoughts grew crystalline. She could no longer afford delay. She needed strength—real strength, untethered from Kaelan's gifts or Cecilia's scorn.
And her first step would be the boy who had always guarded her from the shadows, who offered loyalty unalloyed. Leon Evans.
A plan—reckless, dangerous, but perhaps the only way—was already unfurling in her mind.