Someone's dead

Iris pov

I woke to the sound of girls whispering.

For a moment, I forgot where I was. The ceiling above me was low and vaulted. Four beds lined the walls, each draped in heavy velvet curtains. Sunlight...real, golden sunlight, streamed through a stained-glass window, casting colored shapes across the floor.

Not my tower. Not Aethelgard.

Crestville Academy.

I sat up slowly. The events of last night came back in fragments. 

Why?

The whispers grew louder.

"Look at her hair. It's silver."

"Elves don't have silver hair. They have white hair. That's something else."

"Maybe she's sick."

"Maybe she's cursed."

I threw back the velvet curtains.

Three girls stared at me from across the room. The first was a wolf...I could tell by the golden flecks in her brown eyes and the way she sat with her legs apart, taking up space like she deserved it. Her name, I would later learn, was Mira. She had a scar on her cheek and kind hands.

The second was a fae. She was beautiful in the way all fae were beautiful...sharp cheekbones, too-symmetrical face, eyes the color of new leaves. Her name was Elowen. She looked at me like I was something she had scraped off her shoe.

The third was human. A scholarship student, judging by her plain grey dress and the ink stains on her fingers. Her name was Sasha. She smiled at me. It was the first genuine smile I had received since arriving.

"You're the elf," Mira said. Not a question.

"I'm Iris."

"The star-cursed one," Elowen added, her voice dripping honey and poison. "We've heard about you."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My boots were still on. I had been too tired to take them off. "Good things, I hope."

"No." Elowen smiled. "But that's not your fault, is it? You can't help what you are."

Sasha shifted uncomfortably and Mira crossed her arms.

I stood up. I had survived eleven years of a queen who wanted me dead. A fae noble with a sharp tongue was nothing.

"If you'll excuse me," I said, "I need to find the dining hall."

"I'll show you," Sasha offered quickly.

And just like that, I had my first friend and my first enemy.

The morning passed in a blur of corridors and classrooms.

I learned that Crestville was not just a school...it was a literal hierarchy. The wolves ran the training grounds. The vampires controlled the libraries. The fae managed the gardens and the social calendar. The shadowborn kept to their crypts, emerging only for meals and mandatory assemblies. And the elves...

There were no elves.

Everywhere I went, eyes followed me. Whispers trailed behind me like a second shadow. Elf. Star-cursed. Look at her hair. Look at her eyes. I heard she's the weeping star. I heard she's a curse.

I kept my head down. I did not ask anyone about the cure.

By midday, I had learned two things.

First: Mira, the wolf girl from my dormitory, was not my enemy. She sat next to me in combat theory and corrected my grip on a training blade without being asked. "You hold it like a spoon," she said. "No offense."

Second: Elowen, the fae, was definitely my enemy. She whispered something to a vampire boy during lunch, and he looked at me with cold, hungry eyes. I hurriedly moved my tray to a different table.

Sasha found me in the corner of the library after lunch. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"I dreamt of you," she said. "Last night. You were standing in a field of glowing flowers, and there was a shadow behind you. A man. He had violet eyes."

My heart stopped. "Theron."

"You're a seer?" I said absentmindedly and she nodded.

"I don't know his name. But in the dream, he said something." She swallowed. "He said, 'The weeping star will save us all. But first, she must learn to weep for herself.'"

I stared at her.

"I don't know what it means," Sasha added quickly. "I just... I thought you should know."

Before I could respond, a bell rang. Lunch was over.

***

The dining hall at dusk was a different beast.

Torches blazed along the stone walls. The long tables were packed with students...wolves howling, vampires drinking from crystal glasses, fae trading whispers like currency. I sat at the far end of a bench near the kitchens, hidden in the shadows, picking at a piece of bread.

I should have known I wouldn't stay hidden for long.

Because at that moment the doors burst open and Kaelen Bloodmoor strode in like he owned the place. He was huge...broad shoulders, wild dark curls, golden eyes that glowed like embers in the torchlight. His wolf pack followed behind him, a dozen heirs with hungry smiles.

He stopped at my table and leaned down and inhaled.

Every muscle in my body went rigid.

"She smells like starlight and sorrow," Kaelen announced to the entire hall. His voice carried like thunder. "I'm keeping her."

The room erupted. Wolves howled. Vampires hissed. A fae noble dropped her glass.

I opened my mouth to speak...to tell him I was not a thing to be kept...but before I could, a cold voice cut through the noise.

"How quaint."

Drystan Vane rose from the vampire table. He moved like liquid shadow, his black hair falling over one crimson eye, his silver eye gleaming with ancient boredom.

"The wolf marks his territory with his mouth instead of his brain," Drystan said. "How predictable."

Kaelen's claws extended. "You want to say that closer, bloodsucker?"

"I want to say it closer to her." Drystan's gaze slid to me. He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he wanted to solve. "Your heartbeat," he said softly. "I can hear it from across the room. It makes me feel... something." His lips curled. "I haven't felt anything in three centuries. I think I'll keep you too."

My hands shook. Two alphas. Two declarations. And I had not asked for either.

I looked for Theron without realizing it and he was standing by the door.

He had not spoken. He had not announced anything. He simply stood there, his violet eyes watching me, his shadows curling quietly around his wrists. He did not look at Kaelen or Drystan. He looked only at me.

I stood up and walked past Kaelen who growled and past Drystan who laughed, and went straight to Theron.

"Walk me out," I whispered.

He nodded. He did not take my arm. He did not declare ownership. He simply turned and walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed, and led me out of the dining hall while the heirs of five bloodlines watched in stunned silence.

The cold night air hit my face and I exhaled.

"You didn't claim me," I said.

"No."

"Why not?"

Theron stopped walking. He turned to face me, and in the moonlight, his shadow markings looked like constellations.

"Because you are not a thing to be claimed," he said.

My throat tightened.

Before I could answer, a servant appeared. Grey robes and a silver tray. On the tray: a single black scroll sealed with a crescent moon.

"Iris Lamenthiel," the servant said. "Lord Caldor requests your presence. Immediately."

***

Lord Caldor's office was at the top of the headmaster's tower...a circular room lined with books and bones and things I did not want to name. He sat behind a desk of black oak, his ancient eyes watching me with something that looked almost like pity.

The servant closed the door behind me and we were alone.

"You want the cure for your sister," he said. Not a question.

I nodded. "She's dying."

"The Stillness is not a disease, Iris. It is a curse. Old magic. The kind that feeds on bloodlines." He gestured to a chair. "Sit."

I sat.

"The cure requires five things." He held up his fingers one by one. "The blood of a wolf. Freely given. The blood of a vampire. Freely given. The blood of a fae. Freely given. The blood of a shadowborn. Freely given. And the blood of a starborn elf...your own. Freely given."

I nodded. Difficult and Dangerous. But still very much possible.

"And one more thing." His voice dropped. "A single tear shed from true love."

And with that one word the room went silent. 

"The tear must fall freely," Caldor continued. "Not from manipulation. Not from duty. Not from sacrifice born of obligation. It must be a tear of genuine, aching, selfless love. The kind that asks for nothing and gives everything. The kind that weeps not because it is forced, but because it cannot help itself."

I stared at him. "I don't understand."

"You will." He leaned back in his chair. "The question is not whether you can find someone to cry for you, Iris Lamenthiel. The question is whether you can let yourself be loved enough to deserve that tear."

My throat tightened. "I have never been loved. Not truly. My mother died. My aunt declared me a curse. The servants avoid me. The only person who has ever held me without flinching is my sister, and she is dying." My voice cracked. "How am I supposed to make someone weep for me when I do not even know what love feels like?"

Caldor was quiet for a long moment.

"Love," he said finally, "is not something you make. It is something you allow. You cannot force a tear of true love any more than you can force the sun to rise. But you can open your heart. You can let yourself be seen. You can stop running from the people who are trying to reach you."

He stood and I knew the audience was over.

"Three alphas have already claimed you, Iris. One of them will love you truly. The question is whether you will let him."

I left his office in a daze.

I walked back toward the dormitory in silence.

True love.

The words echoed in my head. Let yourself be loved. Stop running.

But I had been running my whole life. Running from the queen's cruelty. Running from the whispers. Running from the grief I had never allowed myself to feel.

How did you stop running when you had never learned how to stand still?

I reached the common dormitory. The door was open. Girls were laughing inside...Mira telling a story, Sasha giggling, even Elowen smirking at something. 

And I stepped inside.

And then...

BRRRRRRRR.

A sound like the world splitting open.

It came from everywhere and nowhere...from the walls, from the floor, from the air itself. Loud. Shrill. Relentless. It drilled into my skull and made my teeth ache.

The girls around me froze. Their lau

ghter died and their faces went pale.

"What is that?" I shouted over the noise.

Mira grabbed my arm. Her claws were out and her golden eyes were wide.

"The silencing alarm," she said. "Someone's dead."