All Chapters of THE AUREUM TRIAL: BLOOD OATH: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

For one perfect moment, I thought he was going to speak.His lips parted just slightly—enough to draw breath, enough to prepare a word. Something hovered there, unspoken, as if it had been waiting for the exact weight of silence between us to slip into. I froze, not with fear this time, but with a kind of morbid anticipation, the kind that blooms only when you know the person in front of you holds a question you’ve buried in your chest for too long.And then—“Atlas,” a voice called. Not mine. Not soft.It was male, clipped, confident—the kind of voice that belonged to someone used to summoning princes and expecting them to come.Atlas’s mouth shut with a quiet finality. His eyes flicked—once—to the edge of the corridor beyond the stairwell. Not annoyed. Not even surprised. Just… resigned. Like he already knew he wouldn’t get the chance to say whatever had been balanced on the tip of his tongue.A pause passed between us like a breath we had both been holding too long.He looked at me

Three days had passed since I’d cornered Ingrid in our dormitory and spilled the truth in fits and stammers, expecting anger and bracing for abandonment. But she hadn’t stormed out. Not then. Not entirely. Since that night, things had grown quieter between us—but not cold. She still curled her legs beneath her on the common room sofa, still stole my hairpins, still rolled her eyes when I refused to add sugar to my tea. But there was a space between us now, soft-edged and unspoken, like the dent left behind when a picture is taken off the wall.Now, we sat across from one another in the grand dining hall, trays resting between us, our plates half-picked through. The towering windows were trimmed in frost, the light outside painted in that strange hour of gold that felt like both afternoon and early evening. The hearths crackled lazily along the walls, perfuming the room with firewood and just a hint of old stone.Ingrid’s spoon clinked against her bowl as she leaned forward, eyes brigh

It was the day of the Moonlit Ball.The sun had not yet disappeared, but its golden light had already begun to thin, casting long, fragile shadows across the dormitory walls. The air outside my window felt unusually still, like the world was holding its breath for something — some ancient ritual reborn beneath silk and silver. Inside, the air carried the scent of jasmine water, pressed rose petals, and the faintest hint of starch clinging to formal wear. A strange calm sat heavy on my shoulders, though it trembled slightly around the edges — like a ripple caught beneath a sheet of glass.I stood before the mirror, still as the moon itself, and stared. And I was staring at a stranger in the mirror.Not a complete stranger—not someone unrecognizable—but a version of myself I’d never seen before. A version that had been hidden somewhere deep beneath woolen sweaters and crumpled parchment, beneath bruised pride and soft-spoken apologies. She stared back at me now through the silvery haze

The girl arrived not like a guest, but like a finale.It was the hush that came first—not immediate, but gradual. Like the ballroom itself was a living thing, and it had caught wind of something worth pausing for. The music didn’t stop, but it softened. Conversations dimmed. Heads turned as if compelled by some spell woven into the air itself. And then the crowd parted—not brusquely, not with panic, but with precision. Like a tide pulling back from a shoreline it had once dared to claim.That was when I saw her.She descended the staircase alone but with such deliberateness that it felt orchestrated—every step measured like a note in a performance only she had the score to. Her gown trailed behind her like an echo, black velvet with a deep violet undertone that shimmered with every curve of the light, the hem embroidered in a delicate pattern of gold filigree that looked like constellations collapsing inward. No enchantment animated her dress, and it didn’t need one. It moved because

The sound that followed was not thunder.And yet it rolled through the ballroom like a stormfront gathering at the edge of something sacred—hollow and sharp and utterly final. A breath had not yet finished crossing the lips of a hundred wide-eyed students when the gilded double doors at the far end of the ballroom groaned open, slower than seemed necessary, revealing nothing but shadow for a heartbeat too long.Then he stepped through it.Atlas Blackwood.He did not hurry. He did not smile. He did not pause.He walked with the kind of silence that made noise irrelevant, like the entire room had forgotten its song simply to watch him cross a threshold. He was dressed in deep maroon—not red, not burgundy, but a blood-rich shade so dark it swallowed light and returned only consequence. The suit was tailored so perfectly it looked as though it had been sewn onto him by a seamstress who had never touched anything but royalty. The fabric clung to him like allegiance, marked by subtle embroi