Chapter 39: Chapter 40: I was going to die in Morvalis
Nyx
I didn’t care what they were saying anymore.
They could scream, insult me, curse my name until their throats bled...it wouldn’t change a single damn thing. I still stood by every word I had spoken. I shouldn’t be going to Morvalis. I had done nothing wrong. Nothing that deserved this kind of punishment, this kind of exile into whatever fresh nightmare waited behind those cursed walls.
And Thorne...
I had never asked him to fight for me. Not once.
We weren’t friends. We had never been friends. If anything, we should barely tolerated each other on our best days.... two sharp edges constantly scraping against one another, sparking irritation more often than understanding. So why did he keep throwing himself headfirst into trouble because of me? Why did he keep stepping between me and the world like some reckless, self-appointed shield I never requested?
I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of this tangled mess.
The moment I got the chance, I would find him and demand a rejection. Clean. Final. Absolute. No lingering bond, no invisible connection, no expectations tying us together like invisible chains.
Then maybe... just maybe... everything could go back to the fragile, bitter normal I had barely begun to carve out for myself.
"How dare you call her a bitch...."
Thorne’s voice sliced through the chaos behind me, sharp and dangerous as a drawn blade. I didn’t need to turn around to know the exact look carved into his face. I could already picture it in vivid detail, the raw anger burning in his eyes, the clenched fists trembling with barely contained fury, the reckless fire that made him look both magnificent and utterly stupid at the same time.
Kaden didn’t back down either. Of course he didn’t. He stood his ground like always, shoulders squared, jaw set, equally ready to throw the first punch or the last. The tension between them crackled like live lightning in a storm about to break, thick enough to taste on the air.... metallic, volatile, ready to explode into violence at the slightest spark.
They were going to fight.
And I refused to be dragged into it.
Not again. Not ever.
With a quiet, steadying breath that did little to calm the storm inside my chest, I bent down, picked up my torn bag from the floor, and slung it over my shoulder. The rough, ripped fabric scratched harshly against my skin, a stinging reminder of the mess that had already been made in my name.
Then I walked out.
Straight through the noise. Through the swirling chaos that threatened to swallow everyone whole.
I wasn’t going to stand there like a willing sacrifice and get punished for something I had never asked for. Not this time. Not anymore.
The moment I stepped outside, the air shifted, cooler, quieter, heavier with the damp promise of evening... but it brought no real calm. If anything, the sudden stillness only amplified the frantic pounding of my heart.
Liora was there.
She was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, her movements sharp, restless, and frantic, as if the ground itself might open up and swallow her if she stopped moving. The second she saw me emerge, she froze mid-step.
"Liora," I called softly, my voice barely carrying over the distant echoes of conflict still spilling from the building.
She ran to me immediately, closing the distance in a rush and grabbing both of my hands in hers like she needed physical proof that I was real, solid, still breathing. Her fingers were cold, trembling slightly against my skin.
"I heard you guys were going to Morvalis," she said, her voice tight and strained, cracking at the edges with barely suppressed fear.
I nodded once, the motion feeling heavy. "Yeah. That’s the punishment. Fighting in the dorm. Breaking things. Apparently that’s enough to earn a one-way ticket to hell on the very first day."
The words tasted bitter on my tongue, like ash and regret mixed together.
By then, my so-called teammates had begun to file out behind me, all at once, spilling into the open space like a reluctant wave. Elion was at the front, calm, composed, and infuriatingly unruffled, as though none of the shouting, none of the violence, none of the looming disaster had phased him in the slightest.
"Let’s go," he said quietly, extending one hand toward me with that effortless, almost lazy confidence of his.
"I’m coming," I replied, but I made no move to take his hand.
Liora still hadn’t let go of me, and something in her expression stopped me cold. She looked... wrong. Not just worried, deeply, bone-chillingly terrified. Her eyes were wide, haunted, carrying shadows that hadn’t been there this morning. Like she knew something the rest of us didn’t. Like she had already glimpsed the ending and found it unbearable.
And, of course, Elion... shameless and unmovable as ever...didn’t leave. He simply stood there beside us, close enough to hear every word, while the others began to walk off with Thorne somewhere in their midst, his angry energy still radiating like heat from a forge.
"It’s just the first day of choosing a dorm and the Red Dorm is already heading to Morvalis?" a girl’s voice rang out nearby, sharp with mocking disbelief.
I glanced over briefly. I didn’t know her name yet, but I recognized her face all too well. She was one of the girls from earlier... the ones who had baptized me with water like it was some harmless, hilarious joke.
"That’s how you spot a group that won’t last long," another girl added, her tone dripping with smug certainty.
This one was different. Striking. Her grey hair shimmered under the fading light, though little streaks of black still ran through it like stubborn shadows refusing to be erased. It might have been dyed, but it suited her perfectly, elegant, dangerous, memorable. She carried herself like a natural leader, just as she had earlier when she stood by and watched my humiliation without lifting a finger.
The same leader who had done nothing while others laughed.... Kaelara Varyn.
For a fleeting moment, hot irritation flared bright and sharp inside my chest.
But I let it go, forcing it down with practiced ease.
We had already gotten ourselves into more than enough trouble today. The last thing any of us needed was more unwanted attention or fresh enemies.
Still... there was a bitter, reluctant kind of comfort in not being alone in this misfortune.
Not that I planned to drag any of them down with me into whatever darkness waited.
...Even if a small, darker, quieter part of me whispered that I could. That maybe they deserved a taste of what they had helped create.
"Nyx..."
Liora’s voice pulled me sharply back to the present, soft but urgent.
"I had a vision."
That single sentence was enough to make the entire world snap into razor-sharp focus.
Her face had gone deathly pale, her eyes distant yet unnervingly sharp at the same time. Fear clung to her like a living shadow, heavy, suffocating, and impossible to shake off.
And I knew, whatever she had seen... it wasn’t just bad.
It was worse. Much worse.
"What did you see?" Elion asked, his tone suddenly deadly serious, all traces of his usual playful arrogance stripped away.
Liora swallowed hard, her throat working visibly before the words finally came.
"You were all there... in a place I’m sure was Morvalis," she began slowly, her voice trembling with the weight of the memory. "There were eight when you went in..."
She hesitated, the pause stretching like a blade pressed against skin.
My heart started to pound violently against my ribs, a frantic, painful rhythm.
"But only seven came back."
Silence fell like a heavy, suffocating weight, pressing down on all of us.
"What does that mean?" I asked, even though the answer already sat cold and sharp in my gut.
I just needed to hear her say it out loud. To make it real.
"It means..." Liora tightened her grip on my hands until her knuckles whitened, her voice cracking with raw urgency. "One of you might not be coming back, Nyx."
Her words hit harder than anything else that had happened today...harder than the insults, harder than the fight, or the looming punishment.
My breath caught painfully in my throat.
The world around me seemed to tilt on its axis, colors blurring at the edges.
And in that moment... it became painfully, inescapably clear.
I was going to die in Morvalis.
A bitter, hollow laugh almost escaped me, but I swallowed it down, forcing it into the tight knot already lodged in my chest.
What the hell did I do to deserve this?
What crime had I committed against the universe for it to decide that my life should end on my very first trip to Morvalis?
Not after I had lived a little, fought a little, or even had a chance to matter to someone... to something.
But now.
Before anything had even truly begun.
