Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Academy of The Ascendant - Book 1 Marked by Starlight: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

(Lyra’s POV)The Void was quieter the morning after.Not silent.Not gone.Just… watching.Riven had already left by the time I stirred. I’d woken to cold stone beneath me, the seal on the wall still pulsing faintly with the energy we’d unleashed hours before.I didn’t cry.Didn’t blush.Didn’t regret.I stood slowly, my body aching in places that felt earned, and walked back into the academy like I belonged there.And the strange thing was?No one stopped me.But they looked.Gods, they looked.Some with fear. Some with awe. Some with disgust.And the worst part?I didn’t care.Let them see.Let them wonder what I’d become.Talon was waiting in the archives.Of course he was.His face was unreadable when I stepped into the chamber.“You feel different,” he said without looking up.“I am.”He closed the book. “You bonded.”“Not fully.”“But enough.”I nodded.He watched me a moment longer, then said, “Your eyes are different.”“Do you hate me for it?”His throat bobbed. “I think I hat

(Lyra’s POV)The coin pulsed faintly in my palm, warm with magic that didn’t belong to the academy.I turned it over again and again, tracing the five-pointed star with my thumb as the minutes ticked toward midnight. My window was cracked just slightly to let the night air in. It carried with it a different kind of stillness tonight—a hush that felt older than silence, as though the mountain was holding its breath.The message had been clear: Come to the atrium after midnight. Alone.I slipped out without a sound, wrapping myself in my dark cloak, the hood pulled low. The castle walls had cooled with the hour, shadows stretched long and soft. Wards hummed gently beneath the stone, acknowledging me but offering no resistance.Either they no longer recognized me as a threat. Or they finally did.The path to the atrium twisted through unused halls, places I hadn’t explored even in my darkest wanderings. Old banners sagged on the walls, most of them faded or blank—the colors leached by ti

(Riven’s POV)I felt it before I saw her.The thread of fire curling under my skin, the pressure behind my eyes.The bond between her and Cassian had formed. Not complete. Not sealed like prophecy said it would be. But it was enough to light up the ley lines like a warning bell only I could hear.It wasn’t jealousy.It was the knowing.Knowing that everything was shifting. That she had stepped into the fire and walked out wanting more.I leaned against the rail at the top of the west wing overlook, watching the ring below where Lyra stood in the early light. She didn’t look broken. Not like she had after the Trial. No, this time, she looked… sharpened. Like a blade finished on the whetstone of someone else’s hands.And the mark on her wrist was still glowing faintly, even in daylight.Part of me wanted to go to her.Another part of me wanted to turn away.Because the closer I let myself get, the more of me she seemed to see.By midday, she had vanished.But I knew where she would go.

(Talon’s POV)I knew she’d come here.She moved like she thought the shadows obeyed her.They didn’t.But they tolerated her more than most.I stood between the stacks of the restricted archive, half-shrouded behind a shelf of runes I hadn’t read in years. The candles cast long, low glows on the stone, just enough to reveal the curve of her shoulder as she slipped past the locked gate.No hesitation.No fear.Just quiet, deliberate rebellion.She reached the central podium and scanned the glyph-etched rings, fingers hovering just above the surface.She didn’t touch it.Yet.“You’re two breaths away from triggering a ten-layer lockdown,” I said.She spun around.Not startled.Not exactly.“You followed me.”I stepped forward. “You’re in a forbidden sector.”“So are you.”“I have clearance.”She folded her arms. “Then why wait until I crossed the line?”“Because I wanted to see if you’d hesitate.”I took another step. Her mark pulsed faintly in the torchlight.“You didn’t.”She didn’t b

(Lyra’s POV)It began with a summons.A sealed scroll left at the foot of my bed. No crest. No wax. No warning. Just a single line of ink scrawled across the parchment:“Come to the Starlight Records before the final bell.”No signature. No explanation.But I felt it.In my bones.In my blood.Something was coming.And it had my name.The Starlight Records was the oldest wing of the academy — a place older than any House crest, older than the first Trial of Convergence. It was said that the stones themselves remembered.No magic passed through its doors without permission. No spellwork could shield what it held. Not even the Triad dared disturb its walls lightly.I walked the halls in silence.The air was colder here, as if the breath of ancient bloodlines still lingered. The stone floors had been worn smooth by centuries of footsteps — heirs, traitors, queens.When I arrived, the door creaked open on its own.No guards.No escort.Inside stood one figure: the Archivist.I had seen he