Alden looked at the Ledger. Then at the Rift hanging over the northern district. Then back at the Ledger, as if the objective might have quietly reconsidered itself in the interim.
Emergency Objective Updated: Enter the Rift.
For a few seconds he genuinely entertained the idea of pretending he couldn't read, on the off chance the system would simply give up and try something more reasonable. It didn't. The ancient artifact fused to his soul apparently had no interest in his objections.
"What are you looking at?" Marcus asked, leaning over.
"Poor life choices."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Alden rubbed his forehead. This was exactly the situation he hated most — not because it was dangerous, though it obviously was, but because it was uncertain. He liked plans. Research. Preparation he could actually control. Diving into an interdimensional tear because a mysterious book told him to sat well outside his comfort zone, and the Rift pulsing over the academy showed no interest in accommodating his preference for proper planning.
Another roar rolled across the grounds, closer than the last, and a ripple of flinches moved through the crowd gathered behind the barrier lines. Hundreds of students stood packed together while instructors and Wardens coordinated defenses around them — runes glowing along every wall, mana thick enough in the air to taste. The whole atmosphere sat pulled tight, like a bowstring one twitch from snapping.
Gareth's voice cut across the courtyard from a raised stone platform, sword still drawn at his side. "All third-years remain behind the barriers! The academy is secure!"
Nobody quite believed that, not with the Rift still visibly hanging over the northern rooftops like an open wound nobody could stitch shut. A squad of senior Wardens moved through the courtyard a few minutes later — Rift-response specialists, armor marked differently from the academy instructors', carrying older scars than any of the teaching staff. One of them approached Gareth for a low, clipped exchange, and whatever passed between them left his expression noticeably darker.
Not encouraging.
The announcement followed shortly after. "Academy leadership confirms the breach remains unstable." A ripple of murmurs. "However, the barriers are currently holding." A small wave of relief moved through the crowd — until Gareth continued. "Students will be escorted to secured dormitories until further notice."
The relief evaporated just as fast. Everyone understood what that actually meant. Not a solution. A delay. The Rift was still there, and whatever waited on the other side of it was still there too.
Elara found her way to Team Seven as the crowd began filing out, looking mentally rather than physically drained.
"Took you long enough," Marcus said, arms crossed.
"I was helping organize defenses."
"I was worried." The words came out of him faster than he clearly intended, and even Marcus looked briefly surprised at himself.
A short silence followed. Then Lena smiled — a genuine one — and Alden made a point of looking anywhere else. He had absolutely not just witnessed character development happening in real time. Definitely not.
"Anyway," Marcus said, clearing his throat.
"Smooth," Alden offered.
"Be quiet."
Elara actually laughed, small and barely audible, and it landed on the group like a minor earthquake. All three of them stared. She blinked, caught off guard by the reaction. "What?"
"Nothing," Marcus said, far too fast.
For a few minutes, despite everything hanging over the academy, the mood among the four of them lightened into something almost ordinary. Alden was grateful for it. Underneath everything, he was scared, and judging by the others, he wasn't carrying that alone.
That night, Team Seven was assigned to a secured classroom along with dozens of other students, the dormitories nearest the northern district deemed too close for comfort. Alden sat by a window overlooking the grounds, sleep feeling like an impossibility. Outside, Warden patrols rotated hourly and barrier specialists reinforced the defensive lines without pause. The whole academy stayed awake with him.
Marcus eventually broke the quiet. "Think they'll cancel the trials?"
Lena glanced up from her notebook. "Probably."
"No," Elara said, and every head turned toward her. "The academy won't cancel them. It exists to prepare Wardens." Nobody argued, because she wasn't wrong. Blackthorn had never been built around comfort or safety. It existed to prepare people for exactly the kind of danger that had just shown up on its doorstep.
Once the others had drifted off, the Ledger opened again, gold pages turning slow in the dark.
"Still want me to walk into the Rift?" he murmured.
Enter the Rift.
"Thought so."
He leaned back and let the moonlight settle over the room, dozens of sleeping students scattered across the floor in an oddly peaceful tableau given the circumstances. Then a second page appeared — not an objective this time, but information, and the Ledger rarely volunteered that without being pushed.
Soul Archive Entry Updated.
Silver text unfurled beneath the header.
Rift Breach: A temporary fracture connecting reality to adjacent dimensions. Classification varies by size and stability. Minor breaches typically produce low to moderate threat levels. Major breaches may result in regional extinction events.
Regional extinction. He read that twice, just to be sure. Considerably worse than "minor inconvenience" had implied.
Observation: The current breach exhibits unusual characteristics. Historical probability mismatch: 97%.
He sat forward. Ninety-seven percent didn't sound like a rounding error. It sounded like the Ledger agreeing with the gut feeling he'd had in the courtyard — that a minor breach shouldn't have produced something twenty feet tall with eyes that watched instead of hunted. Whatever had opened that tear, the numbers themselves were calling it wrong.
He almost pushed for more. Before he could, a new line appeared, and this one made his stomach drop.
Synchronization Increased. Current Synchronization: 3%.
That wasn't right. He hadn't harvested anything. Hadn't completed a single objective since the ceremony. So why was it climbing?
Host Exposure to Rift Energy.
His pulse ticked up. Proximity alone was apparently enough to feed it — no kill required, no conscious choice on his part at all, just standing close enough to a breach for long enough. That sounded less like an ability and more like something with an appetite of its own, and he didn't like how little control that left him.
He pushed for an explanation. The Ledger closed itself without warning, the same way it always did the moment a question actually mattered.
He sighed. Again. Always again. Every answer the thing gave him seemed to generate three new questions in its place.
Whatever the Ledger was drawing on, exposure alone had been enough to feed it tonight — and if that was true here, inside a barrier meant to keep the Rift's energy contained, he had no idea what standing anywhere near an unshielded one might eventually cost him.
That thought followed him down into an uneasy, patchy sleep, and it was still waiting for him when dawn broke over the academy the next morning, the Rift still hanging exactly where it had been the night before.