The dreams had changed.
They came every night now—vivid flashes of fire and blood, howling winds and a crown made of bone. I woke with sweat on my skin and Lucian’s pain echoing in my ribs like a second heartbeat.
We were unraveling. Or maybe… being rewoven.
By the time I found the hidden library, I was desperate.
I’d memorized every shortcut and broken corridor Warborn tried to bury. I’d heard the whispers—rumors of a forbidden wing buried beneath the west tower, where cursed scrolls and outlawed histories were sealed away.
So I followed the dark, lantern in hand, down past the academy’s iron spine and into the stone womb of the earth.
The temperature dropped sharply as I descended, and the air grew still. Not silent—but watchful. The magic here was ancient, feral, and it knew I didn’t belong.
The hallway narrowed until I reached a rusted gate of thorns.
A single charm undid the lock. A spell I wasn’t supposed to know. One I learned as a child, hidden in the back of a witch-thief’s t
