All Chapters of Impersonating My Brother At The Alpha Academy: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

LYRA’S POVMy legs felt like they were made of lead as I hopped down from the back of the wagon. The ground felt unsteady beneath my boots, a strange sensation after being rattled and bounced around in that wooden box for hours. I pulled the wool shawl tighter around my shoulders, trying to hide the curve of my frame. The dress Silas had given me was scratchy and smelled like old lavender and dust, but it felt like a second skin compared to that suffocating binder. For the first time in months, I could take a full, deep breath without feeling like my ribs were going to snap.Oakhaven wasn’t like the Academy. It didn’t have the clean, sharp lines of stone or the smell of pine and training sweat. It smelled like fish, salt, and too many people living in too small a space. People moved past me in a rush, pushing carts full of barrels or carrying crates on their shoulders. No one looked at me. To them, I was just another farm girl who had probably come to the city to sell her eggs and fin

KILLIAN’S POVThe stone floor was freezing, but I couldn't feel my toes anymore. My arms were pulled high above my head, held by heavy silver chains bolted into the ceiling of the "Penitence Chamber"...a windowless box deep beneath the Academy's main hall. Every time I shifted my weight, the silver links bit into my wrists, sending a searing, acidic heat through my veins. Silver nitrate. The Council didn't just want to hold me; they wanted to dissolve my strength from the inside out.I hung there, stripped to my trousers, my chest a roadmap of fresh welts and dark bruises. Blood dripped steadily from a jagged cut over my eye, splashing onto the gray stone between my bare feet.The heavy iron door groaned open.Elder Vane walked in, his gray robes sweeping the floor. He didn't look like a holy man today. He looked like a butcher. Behind him followed two Council Enforcers, their faces hidden behind steel visors. One of them carried a bucket of salted water; the other held a heavy, braid

LYRA’S POVThe heat from the burning stables was at our backs, pushing us toward the heavy iron gates. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and wet fur. All around us, the Academy was a madhouse. Students were fighting guards, and the Marsh Pack warriors were moving like shadows through the chaos, their painted skin flashing in the firelight.Killian’s hand was a heavy, warm weight in mine. He was walking with a limp, his breath coming in ragged gasps, but he didn't let go. Every few steps, his fingers would tighten around mine, like he was making sure I hadn't turned back into a ghost."The North Gate!" Silas yelled, waving his torch. He had a deep cut over his eye, but he looked happier than I’d ever seen him. "The horses are waiting in the tree line! Move!"We scrambled over the rubble of the fallen gate. The snow outside was deep and blue in the moonlight. I looked back one last time. The place that had been my prison, the place where I had pretended to be a boy just to survi

LYRA'S POV. "He’s actually checking his watch, Silas. He’s worried the ship will be late."I stood behind a stack of rotting wooden crates at the edge of the Oakhaven docks. The salt air was thick, sticking to the mud on my face. A few yards away, my father, Loran, was pacing the length of the pier. He wore his finest heavy coat, the one with the fur collar that used to make me feel safe when he hugged me as a child. Now, seeing him pull it tight against the chill made my stomach turn. He looked like a man waiting for a business partner, not a daughter he had sold into a life of misery.Silas stayed low beside me, his hand on the hilt of his short sword. "He has four Council Enforcers with him, Lyra. They aren't the Academy guards. These are the ones who do the Council’s dirty work in the cities. They won't hesitate.""I don't need them to hesitate," I said.I looked back at Killian. He was leaning against a stone pillar, his face still pale under the grime, but his eyes were sharp.

LYRA'S POV. "You’re going to wear a hole in that parchment, Lyra. The debts of a dead man don’t grow eyes and stare back at you."I didn't look up from the heavy oak desk. My fingers were stained with ink, and my eyes were burning from hours of reading through the ledgers my father had left behind. The study smelled of old wax, dried paper, and the faint, lingering scent of my father’s expensive tobacco...a scent I was slowly scrubbing away with the smell of fresh cedar and the cold mountain air that Killian brought with him.Killian was leaning against the stone hearth, his dark hair messy from the wind outside. He held a ceramic mug of hot cider, looking far too comfortable for a man who had spent most of his life in the pits. His sleeves were rolled up, showing the thick, corded muscle of his forearms and the faint white lines of scars that told the story of his survival. He looked like a king who had finally found his throne, even if that throne was just a rug in front of my fire