The bell kept ringing — once, twice, three times, then again, the deep metallic tone rolling across Blackthorn like slow thunder. Alden stood frozen in the library, heart hammering, the Ledger still open in front of him with two words burning steady in gold.
Emergency Objective Issued. Survive.
Not defeat. Not investigate. Not protect. Survive, plain and unqualified, and that single word told him more than a paragraph of explanation could have.
Across the table, Vale had already changed. The calm, faintly amused instructor from a minute ago was simply gone, replaced by something sharper, focused in a way that made the air around her feel different.
"Professor—"
"Stay close to the main academy grounds." Her voice cut clean through his question. "Do not wander."
"What's happening?"
Her eyes flicked toward the windows, toward the dark beyond them, something unreadable crossing her face before she answered. "A Rift."
"Inside the academy?"
"Yes." Her expression hardened further. "And that should not be possible."
Those four words frightened him more than the bell had. She rose without another word, and the air rippled once around the space she'd occupied — a gust of displaced wind sweeping through the stacks in her wake, gone before he could ask anything else.
Alden stood there a moment. "Right," he said, to the empty room. "That's definitely normal." Then he grabbed his bag and went to find out how bad this actually was.
The courtyard outside was chaos — students everywhere, instructors shouting directions, Wardens sprinting toward the northern edge of campus in tight formation. Overhead, the sky had gone wrong in a way he felt before he consciously registered it — clouds gathering too fast, purple lightning flickering deep inside them like something alive was pacing back there.
A cluster of third-years rushed past, one of them clipping his shoulder. "Sorry!"
"No problem," Alden called after him, already moving the other direction.
Three years at this academy, and nothing had ever happened. Now, apparently, the world intended to make up for lost time all at once.
He was halfway across the courtyard when the Ledger surfaced again, this time with something almost reasonable.
Team Objective Updated: Find Team Seven.
That, at least, made sense. If a Rift had genuinely opened inside academy grounds, scattering alone was the last thing any of them should be doing. He changed direction toward the third-year dormitories.
He found Marcus first, planted by the courtyard fountain, mid-argument with two visibly exhausted instructors.
"—I'm telling you, my team members are still out there!"
"Student Ironwood—"
"Marcus." Alden called out before the argument escalated further.
Marcus turned, and for one unguarded second something like relief crossed his face before it snapped back into its usual composure. "Blackwood."
"Nice to see you're still alive."
"You sound disappointed."
"A little."
Marcus looked genuinely offended, which somehow made Alden feel steadier than anything else had all night. The instructors gestured them toward the academy center. "Head for the gathering point, both of you."
"We're still missing Lena and Elara."
The instructor's expression softened slightly. "We know." He said nothing further, and when neither of them moved to comply, he simply looked away — officially unable to approve, unofficially not stopping them either.
They found Lena fifteen minutes later, sitting calmly under an academy archway surrounded by a small fortress of books. Reading. During an active emergency. Alden had to fight down a laugh.
Marcus stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Lena. The academy is having a Rift emergency."
"I know."
"Then why are you reading?"
"I'm researching Rifts." She adjusted her glasses, entirely unbothered.
"That's fair, actually," Alden said.
Marcus rounded on him. "You're just accepting that?"
"She has a point."
Marcus groaned and dragged a hand down his face. "You're both impossible."
The moment didn't last. An explosion rocked the ground hard enough to knock a nearby student off their feet, screams rising as every head turned toward the northern district at once. A pillar of violet light tore into the sky, and Alden's stomach dropped as he got a clear look at what had opened up over there — reality itself visibly cracked apart, dark energy pouring through jagged seams in the air.
The Ledger flared. Rift Confirmed. Classification: Minor Breach.
Minor. He filed that word away with a strange, uneasy weight he couldn't yet explain. It felt like a number that was supposed to reassure him and hadn't managed it.
Instructors began herding students toward the shelters built into the academy's older wings, and silver runes ignited across the outer walls as Blackthorn's defensive barriers roared to life. For the first time, Alden understood exactly why this academy had a reputation as one of the safest places in the kingdom.
Then something stepped out of the Rift, and the courtyard went dead silent.
It stood at least twenty feet tall — a wolf shape built from shadow and jagged crystal, purple light bleeding from cracks across its hide, golden eyes sweeping the grounds with an intelligence that felt uncomfortably deliberate. Alden's stomach turned over before his mind caught up to why. Whatever a minor breach was supposed to produce, it wasn't supposed to look like that.
A dozen combat instructors moved as one, mana igniting around them in a wall of flame, ice, lightning, and steel that lit the courtyard brighter than the storm overhead. The wolf roared and charged straight into it.
The fight lasted less than thirty seconds — not because the creature was weak, but because the instructors defending Blackthorn were, Alden realized with something close to awe, genuinely terrifying in their own right. Stone shattered in every direction. Not one attack got anywhere near the sheltering students.
Gareth ended it, his blade tracing a single brilliant arc through the dark that dropped the creature where it stood. It dissolved into smoke before it hit the ground, and the courtyard erupted into ragged, relieved cheering.
Alden exhaled, only then realizing he'd been holding his breath the entire fight.
Something still didn't sit right. The Ledger stayed open, still uneasy, still flickering with something unresolved even with the creature dead.
Threat Not Eliminated. Primary Threat Remains Within Rift.
The wolf hadn't been the actual danger. It had only been the first thing to walk out — and a minor breach had no business producing something that size in the first place. Whatever had opened that tear in the sky, Alden had a growing suspicion nothing about it had happened by accident.
He was still staring up at the Rift, still pulsing above the northern rooftops in slow, deliberate waves, when the Ledger's pages began turning faster and faster on their own. A new objective settled into place — short, simple, and enough to make his pulse spike on sight.
Emergency Objective Updated: Enter the Rift.
He blinked. Blinked again.
"No," he said, flatly, to no one in particular.
The Ledger remained exactly as open as before, entirely unbothered by his opinion on the matter.
"No."
The objective didn't budge. Somewhere deeper inside the academy, a second roar rolled out of the darkness.