171 - Heartbeat & Crown

By the time House Six had explored the last of the fifty underground bunkers, Thornecrest Academy had already started changing.

The cold had settled in for real, thickening the air around the buildings like frostbitten silk.

Leaves clung to the last branches in bruised reds and rusted golds, and the duck pond by the greenhouse had half-frozen over, still and sharp like a cracked mirror.

That was where they found the body.

Victor Save. House Valiant. Top of his ethics class, forgettable in a crowd.

Officially? Drowned.

Unofficially?

The Academy bloomed with whispers.

Some said he’d fallen. Others, that he’d been held under. The more dramatic voices insisted the pond was cursed, that every few years, it took someone who looked too closely at their own reflection.

House Six didn’t entertain rumors. They watched. They listened.

And they didn’t buy a word of it.

Fiero stood at the common room window, shoulders rigid, one hand pressed flat against the frosted glass.

His breath fogged fain