All Chapters of ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR: Chapter 101

Blackthorne Academy slept.Not with fear tucked beneath beds or claws dragging along stone, but with the soft hush of a world finally allowed to rest. The old halls—once stretched tight with tension, once echoing with footsteps that fled from shadows—now exhaled in slow, steady silence.Lyra stood on the highest tower balcony, her cloak catching the cold Frostlands wind. Below her, lanterns flickered low as students drifted back to their dorms, weary but alive. Laughter thinned into murmurs; murmurs softened into nothing, swallowed by the quiet settling through the stone.The courtyard beneath her—where the Gate had once split open, where the earth shook with war—looked almost gentle now.Snow had begun to fall in feathery flakes again, covering the scars of battle like a white balm.Lyra closed her eyes and breathed.For the first time since she’d stepped through Blackthorne’s iron gates, her shoulders didn’t tense. Her heartbeat didn’t race. Her mark didn’t pull or ache or burn.The