All Chapters of ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The first strike of thunder didn’t come from the sky. It came from her. Lyra felt it before anyone else — a pressure deep inside her chest, pulsing with the rhythm of hundreds of heartbeats that weren’t her own. The world around her vibrated faintly, every sound too sharp, every scent too alive.It felt like her senses had been rewired overnight. She stumbled to the edge of the ridge, fingers digging into the cold stone. Below, the packs filled the valley—thousands of them, moving beneath the dawn mist. Their howls rose and fell together, echoing through the mountains like an ancient song. The bond is moving again, she realized. It’s growing. Vale appeared beside her, silent as ever. His coat was damp with rain, his expression unreadable. Cassian stood a few paces away, arguing with one of the scouts. “They’re restless,” Vale said quietly. Lyra nodded. “I can feel it.” “Can you control it?” She hesitated. “Maybe. If I stop fighting it.” Vale turned to her sharply. “You can’t s

The storm hadn’t ended. It had only changed shape. By dawn, the Vale no longer resembled the land they knew. The trees had bowed, their roots glowing with faint veins of gold. Rivers of mist cut through the forest floor, whispering in a language that made Lyra’s mark ache. The Gate’s pulse had not faded—it had moved, sinking deeper into the earth, threading its heartbeat through every living thing. Lyra walked between Vale and Cassian in silence, her cloak heavy with ash. The air hummed, charged with a rhythm that followed her footsteps. She could still hear the faint chorus of the packs somewhere beyond the horizon. They weren’t attacking or running—they were waiting. “They’re not moving because you’re not,” Cassian said finally, his voice low, half in awe, half in fear. “It’s like the entire world’s holding its breath.” Lyra didn’t answer. The mark beneath her gloves had stopped glowing, but she still felt it—like heat under her skin, coiled and restless. Vale led the way throu

The world after the Gate’s fall didn’t breathe—it watched. Ash drifted where air should have been, and the Vale had turned to glass in places where Lyra’s power had touched the earth. The sky above was the wrong color—somewhere between dusk and dawn, as though time itself hesitated to continue. Lyra woke to that silence. Her pulse echoed in her skull like a drum. Her throat was dry, her body aching. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure if she’d woken at all. Vale was there beside her, coat torn, face streaked with soot and blood. The moment her fingers twitched, his head snapped up. Relief broke through the exhaustion in his eyes. “You’re awake.” Her voice cracked. “How long?” “Two days,” Cassian answered before Vale could. He sat nearby, sharpening a blade that probably didn’t need it, his grin dimmer than usual. “I was starting to think we’d have to build you a shrine.” Lyra pushed herself up. Pain sliced through her ribs, but she ignored it. “The King—” “Gone,” Vale sa

The world folded inward. Light — red and gold — twisted around Lyra until sound itself seemed to bend. For a heartbeat she felt weightless, suspended in a moment that wasn’t entirely real. Then gravity returned, slow and deliberate, dragging her down to a place that breathed. The ground beneath her wasn’t stone. It pulsed faintly under her boots, warm as skin and veined with light, like the heartbeat of a giant buried beneath the world. Vale’s hand was still locked around hers. His other hand gripped his sword, the edge glinting in the crimson haze. His gaze swept the shimmering emptiness ahead. “Where are we?” Lyra’s voice came out hoarse, almost reverent. “The Gate,” she whispered. “Or what’s left of it.” The air shimmered. In the distance, pieces of the Vale hung suspended in midair — fragments of trees, shards of sky, splintered towers from the battlefield all drifting weightlessly in a sea of light. The silence was vast, yet not empty. It hummed, alive with echoes that crawl

Snow fell in whispers. The Frostlands stretched endlessly beneath a bruised sky, its horizon glowing faintly blue. The air here was thin and sharp, the kind that turned every breath into a memory. It had taken them three days of silent travel to reach the edge of the northern border — far from the Council’s reach, far from the Gate’s lingering shadow. Lyra had never seen such emptiness. The world felt hollowed out, like it was holding its breath. Vale walked ahead, his cloak sweeping over snow that swallowed sound. Cassian trailed behind with a bow slung over his shoulder, muttering about frostbite. Malachai kept to Lyra’s side, silent but alert — the kind of quiet that said he was listening to more than the wind. They stopped at the mouth of a frozen gorge. Shards of ice jutted from the cliffs like jagged glass, and beneath them, faint light glowed — veins of silver frozen in stone. “This is it,” Vale said. “Frostveil Keep.” Cassian squinted. “That’s a fancy name for a hole in