Lahat ng Kabanata ng Ember Academy : Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

"Ember rank trials will proceed in three parts." Renna's voice rang crisp and clear across the assembled candidates, the practice yard transformed for the occasion with raised viewing stands along every wall, students and instructors alike gathered to watch. "Compound control, sustained output, and written theory. Fail any section, and you remain at Spark rank until the next trial season."Sera stood in line beside Mira, both of them tense with nerves despite weeks of preparation, and further down the row, Ilara stood alone, pale and composed, having spoken to Renna privately two days earlier exactly as promised. Whatever consequence had followed that conversation, Sera hadn't heard, but Ilara's presence here, permitted to compete rather than removed entirely, suggested the confession had been received with more understanding than punishment."Compound control first," Renna announced. "Three simultaneous demands, sustained for a full sixty seconds. Kessler, you're first."Kessler step

"They're not supposed to be here for two weeks." Mira's voice was tight with panic as the two of them shoved through a crowd of students all rushing toward the same courtyard, everyone straining to see over everyone else. "Sera, what if they came early on purpose, to catch the academy off guard?""Then we go find out." Sera pushed forward, heart hammering, and broke through the crowd just as the first carriage rolled through the main gate, black and gold, a crest she didn't recognize gleaming on its door.More followed behind it, a dozen carriages at least, each bearing a different house's colors, and the courtyard that had barely settled from Lord Corvane's last visit now filled entirely with liveried guards, noble students craning from carriage windows, servants unloading trunks with rushed, anxious efficiency."Sera." Oren's voice cut through the chaos, urgent, and he caught her arm before she could push any further into the crowd. "The Headmaster's called an emergency staff meetin

"Unanimously." Lord Corvane paused, then corrected himself, expression tightening. "Nearly unanimously. This council has voted, by a narrower margin than I would have preferred, to place you under formal summit protection, effective immediately." Sera blinked, the words not quite landing. "Protection?" "Not the leash you're imagining, girl." A voice spoke from further down the row, an older woman Sera didn't recognize, house colors deep green and silver. "Formal protection. Recognition. Whatever you are, whatever that vision proved you to be, thirty one houses just watched it happen in broad daylight. We cannot pretend otherwise now, however much some of us might prefer to." "What does that mean." Sera's voice came out unsteady. "Practically. What does that actually mean for me." "It means," the Headmaster said, stepping forward from where he'd been standing quietly at the chamber's edge, "that no single house, including House Corvane, may act against you individually without full

"Did you see it too. Tell me I'm not imagining things." Sera gripped Dorian's arm the moment the council procession had thinned enough to speak privately, voice low and urgent. "The clasp. At the figure's throat. It was Vell's.""I saw something silver." Dorian's brow furrowed, careful. "I can't swear it was hers specifically, Sera, not from that distance.""It was." She was certain, the image burned clear behind her eyes. "Which means either Vell's alive and hiding from us for some reason, or.""Or someone else has taken it from her." Oren's voice, grim, joining them as the last of the noble houses filed back toward the guest quarters. "Neither possibility sits well with me."They found Mira waiting anxiously in the dormitory common room, and the full account of the morning, the sealed chamber, Lord Corvane's shaken composure, the cloaked figure, spilled out between them in urgent, overlapping bursts."We have to find her." Mira's hands twisted together. "If Vell's alive, if she's hu

"Remove her." The visiting lord's voice rang harsh across the council chamber, cutting through the tense midnight air. "That is what I am proposing, and I would ask this council to vote on it tonight, before another hour passes."Sera stood at the chamber's center, Dorian and Oren flanking her, the summit guard's earlier warning having proven entirely accurate. House Thessaly's representative, a broad shouldered man with cold grey eyes, had wasted no time laying out his accusation the moment the council reconvened."Explain your reasoning," the Headmaster said carefully, "before this council entertains a vote of that magnitude.""My reasoning is simple." Lord Thessaly's eyes swept the room. "Earlier tonight, my own household mage attempted, at this council's direction, to open the chamber beneath the chapel. He failed. We were told the girl alone could open it. Yet within hours of that failure, my scouts report unauthorized figures moving near the chapel grounds after curfew, evading