Todos os capítulos de Ember Academy : Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

Sera ran faster than she'd ever run in her life, Dorian close behind her, the cry from the east dormitory still ringing in her ears as they cut across the darkened courtyard. By the time they reached the entrance, a knot of students had already gathered outside, faces pale in the torchlight, and thin curls of smoke were rising visible against the night sky from somewhere on the upper floor."Mira!" Sera's voice tore out of her before she'd even fully processed the smoke, the panic, the crowd of frightened students spilling out of the building's main doors. "Where's Mira!""She's still inside." A younger student, tears streaking her face, pointed a shaking hand back toward the doorway. "Second floor, the fire started in the storage room next to your room, everyone else got out but she went back for something—"Sera didn't wait to hear the rest. She was through the doors before Dorian could stop her, taking the stairs two at a time, smoke thickening around her with every step, the acrid

"Kessler." Sera's voice was flat with disbelief as the pieces clicked together in her exhausted mind. "Kessler's affinity is wind, not frost.""No," Renna said, arriving just in time to catch the tail end of the conversation, her expression grim. "But his sister's is."The name landed like a stone dropped into still water. Sera had never met Kessler's sister, had barely known he had one, but the implication settled over the small gathered group with immediate, uncomfortable weight."Are you certain?" Oren's voice was careful, unwilling to accuse without solid ground beneath it."I taught her myself, two years ago, before she graduated." Renna's jaw was tight. "Elyse Halden. Exceptional frost control, precise, methodical. Exactly the kind of skill required to disguise an ignition point this cleanly." She paused, something heavier settling into her expression. "She left the academy shortly after graduation to take a position within House Corvane's household staff."Sera felt the fire in

"Instructor Renna." Sera's voice came out barely above a whisper, disbelief and horror tangled together in equal measure. "You're the one who was in that stairwell." Renna's face, illuminated fully now by pale moonlight through the chapel's broken roof, looked older than Sera had ever seen it, lined with something that might have been guilt, might have been exhaustion, might have been both combined into something she'd been carrying silently for far too long. "I did not set that fire." Her voice had lost its usual clipped authority, gone quiet, almost pleading. "I want you to understand that first, before anything else." "Then what were you doing there?" "Trying to stop it." Renna's shoulders sagged, some enormous weight finally settling visibly across them. "I received word, too late, that something was being planned against you. I arrived in time to see Elyse Halden already mid-cast, already committed to what she'd been ordered to do, and I made a choice I have regretted eve

The council chamber felt different by torchlight, the long table ringed with faces Sera had only glimpsed in passing before now, senior instructors and house representatives gathered in tense, uneasy silence as the Headmaster laid the damning document flat upon the table before them."This is Lord Corvane's own hand." The Headmaster's voice carried grave authority across the chamber. "Ordering a former student, now employed within his household, to, and I quote directly, discourage further defiance through means that leave no clear trail back to House Corvane."Murmurs broke out immediately, sharp and disbelieving, several council members leaning forward to examine the parchment themselves."This proves nothing conclusively." An older man near the head of the table, robes marked with a crest Sera didn't recognize, spoke first, voice skeptical. "Documents can be forged. Accusations against a house as powerful as Corvane require far more than a single letter of uncertain origin.""It is

The council chamber fell into tense, prolonged silence following Sera's words, and Cassia's careful composure had visibly thinned, something colder and more calculating moving behind her eyes now."You overstep, little fire." Her voice had lost its earlier warmth entirely. "Accusing a house of guilt simply because it seeks to resolve a costly disruption efficiently.""I'm not accusing anyone of anything," Sera said carefully. "I'm simply asking a question I think this entire council deserves an honest answer to."The Headmaster cleared his throat, drawing every eye back to himself, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of careful, deliberate decision."This council will vote," he said. "Now, before further pressure can be applied from any direction. Those in favor of accepting House Corvane's offer, closing the investigation in exchange for restored sponsorship, raise your hand."Three hands rose slowly from around the long table, the skeptical council member among them, exp