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Chapter Twenty Three – The Hunters’ Arrival
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2025-10-28 05:48:53
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ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Epilogue — After the Red Moon
Blackthorne Academy slept.Not with fear tucked beneath beds or claws dragging along stone, but with the soft hush of a world finally allowed to rest. The old halls—once stretched tight with tension, once echoing with footsteps that fled from shadows—now exhaled in slow, steady silence.Lyra stood on the highest tower balcony, her cloak catching the cold Frostlands wind. Below her, lanterns flickered low as students drifted back to their dorms, weary but alive. Laughter thinned into murmurs; murmurs softened into nothing, swallowed by the quiet settling through the stone.The courtyard beneath her—where the Gate had once split open, where the earth shook with war—looked almost gentle now.Snow had begun to fall in feathery flakes again, covering the scars of battle like a white balm.Lyra closed her eyes and breathed.For the first time since she’d stepped through Blackthorne’s iron gates, her shoulders didn’t tense. Her heartbeat didn’t race. Her mark didn’t pull or ache or burn.The
ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Chapter Hundred — The Night the Academy Bowed
Blackthorne Academy had never been quiet. Not truly. It whispered. It hunted. It waited. Every stone carried a memory. Every tower held a secret. Every Red Moon sharpened teeth. But tonight— The Academy exhaled. Silence settled over the grounds—not the tense silence before violence, but the calm that follows survival. The war was over. The Gate was sealed. The dead finally slept. And for the first time since stepping through the iron gates with a suitcase and a terrified heartbeat, Lyra Hawthorne didn’t feel like prey. She felt alive. *** The Couryard Dawn unfolded across the Frostlands in pale gold sheets, melting the last trail of blood into clean stone. Cracks were mended. Ruins swept. Runes that once glowed with war hummed quietly, at peace. Wolves walked the paths—not as warriors waiting for orders, but as students relearning how to breathe. How to exist without expecting a scream, a command, or a crown. Conversations hushed when Lyra passed—not out
ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Chapter Ninety Nine— The Final Command
The pulse came again. Low. Ancient. Inevitable. The Gate, half-formed in the stone wall, flickered like a dying star—then surged with a breath that did not belong to the living. Frost cracked beneath Lyra’s boots, spreading like veins across the chamber floor. Malachai’s head snapped up. “It’s accelerating.” Cassian backed toward Lyra, blades drawn. “Fantastic. The giant death-door has a heartbeat.” Vale stepped in front of all three of them, his voice calm—but his stance braced, ready. “No sudden movements.” Ronan didn’t move at all. He just stared at the Gate, shoulders taut with something beyond grief—something like resolve carved from bone. Lyra felt her pulse sync with the Gate’s rhythm—heavy, echoing, wrong. The mark under her glove flared painfully, a rush of heat that drove her to her knees. “Lyra!” Vale caught her before she hit the floor. She clutched his coat, breath shallow, vision blurring. “It’s calling…” Malachai’s face went white. “The Oath recognizes the
ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Chapter Ninety Eight — The Things That Break Us
The chamber was too quiet. Not the heavy, supernatural silence of the Gate— but the kind that follows a death that was not supposed to happen. Aric’s body lay still in Ronan’s arms, head resting against his shoulder like he’d just fallen asleep. But his chest didn’t rise. His pulse didn’t flutter. There was no almost. He was gone. Ronan didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe. He just held his brother like he could anchor him back into the world by touch alone. Cassian stood several steps away, hands on his knees, head bowed—like he couldn’t look directly at grief without breaking under it. Malachai’s jaw was tight, eyes fixed on the floor, as if calculating every possible outcome and hating that this one had no solution. Vale’s hand hovered near Lyra’s shoulder—steady, protective—but he didn’t touch her. Not yet. Not when she was shaking. Because it wasn’t just Ronan who’d lost something. It was all of them. The Gate dimmed to a dull, pulsing bruise in the far wall—ha
ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Chapter Ninety Seven — The One Already Falling
For a moment, no one breathed. The chamber felt smaller—like the walls had crept inward, like the air had thickened into ice. The sigil-glow pulsed once, twice, syncing with a heartbeat that didn’t belong to the living world. Ronan’s hand tightened on his sword. “Who is it?” No answer. Just the echo of that heartbeat—slow, weakening, distant. A rhythm slipping out of time. Cassian’s voice came out strangled. “Tell us who the hell is dying.” Lyra stood frozen, every nerve stretched tight. Her pulse hammered against her glove—her mark burning, reacting to something she didn’t yet understand. Malachai’s brows drew together, eyes darting from one Alpha to the next. “Check your pulse. All of you.” Cassian blinked. “What?” “NOW,” Malachai snapped. Cassian pressed fingers to his neck. Ronan touched his wrist. Vale lifted trembling fingers to his throat. Malachai did the same. Four heartbeats answered. Strong. Steady. Alive. Cassian exhaled hard, shaky relief spilling out of hi
ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR Chapter Ninety Six — The Last Door
The stone split with the sound of a heartbeat breaking. Not loud. Not explosive. Just a single, heavy thud that echoed through the catacombs like the pulse of something waking. Lyra flinched as the floor beneath them shuddered. Cracks spidered outward from the circular sigil at the chamber’s center—thin at first, then deepening until she could see the glow beneath. Not fire. Not magic. Something older. Ronan stepped instinctively in front of her, blade raised. “Back away from the circle.” Cassian stared at the growing fissures. “Back away? I vote we sprint, hide, and pretend none of this is happening.” Malachai didn’t move. His eyes were locked on the widening glow. “We can’t run. The Gate is anchoring itself to her. Wherever Lyra goes—it follows.” Vale tightened his hold on her, muscles rigid. “Then we sever the anchor.” Lyra shook her head, breath trembling. “No. I’m the only thing keeping it from breaking through.” The cracks stopped. Silence stretched t
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