Blood Moon Academy

Chapter Three: The Isolation

The second night at Blood Moon Academy pressed heavier on me than the first. At least when I’d been in the dorm, I could hear the other girls breathing, their tossing and turning reminding me I wasn’t alone in this place. Tonight, silence felt like it was watching me, like it had teeth.

I hadn’t fallen under the blanket when a sharp knock cracked through the door. Everyone groaned.

“What now?” someone muttered into her pillow.

The hinges shrieked as the door swung open. An instructor’s shadow filled the doorway, his cloak trailing that faint, metallic smell I was learning to associate with blood. His gaze scanned the room until it landed on me.

“Gray,” he barked. “Up.”

My heart stuttered. “Me?”

“You heard me. Pack your things. Now.”

The whispers started immediately, curling around me like smoke. What did she do? Is she being expelled? Already?

My cheeks burned hot, but I moved because my body knew better than to hesitate under his stare. I shoved my meagre belongings into my pack, each scrape and rustle too loud in the heavy silence. When I passed into the hall, the hush that followed me was worse than their whispers. It felt like a wall slamming into my back, one that said: she doesn’t belong here.

The instructor didn’t speak as he led me down corridors I hadn’t seen before, deeper into the academy’s belly, where the torches threw long, broken shadows. My boots scuffed over stone steps, the air growing colder with each turn until finally, we stopped at a door carved with a single claw mark.

He shoved it open. Inside: a narrow bed, a desk, a barred window. No other beds.

“This will be your chamber from now on,” he said.

I blinked at him. “Why? What about the dorm?”

His expression didn’t shift. “That is not for you to ask. Orders from above. You will obey.”

The door clicked shut behind me, my stomach twisted.

I stood in the center of the small room for a long time, my pack slipping from my hand. I should’ve been grateful. Privacy. A bed all to myself. No whispers in the dark, no one watching for me to trip over my own feet.

But the truth coiled in my gut like ice. This wasn’t kindness. This was containment.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the barred window. My fingers curled into fists on my knees, grounding me, forcing the wolf inside me to stay still. Don’t panic. Don’t let them smell it on you.

Still, the question haunted me. Did they know?

The next morning, I slipped into training late, stares clinging to me like mud clings to boots.

“Where were you?” one of the girls whispered as I passed. “They moved you. Why?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My chest tightened as I hurried into line, fixing my eyes on the instructor’s blade as he barked orders.

That’s when I noticed her.

She stood slightly apart from the others, as if she’d chosen her shadow as company instead of people. Dark hair spilt in a curtain around her face, and when her eyes flicked up—just for a second—I swore they glimmered, faint and violet, like starlight trapped in glass.

I looked away quickly. Something in my gut warned me not to stare.

But someone else was watching.

Across the yard, Kai Blackthorn leaned against a column, arms folded, his posture lazy but his eyes far too sharp. He wasn’t looking at the sparring rings, instructors, or his usual training partner. He was looking at me.

When the drills began, I forced myself to focus. Strike. Block. Parry. Again and again, until sweat stung my eyes and my arms screamed with each swing. But every nerve in me was hyperaware of him.

By the end, I staggered toward the water trough, desperate to cool the fire in my chest. That’s when his voice cut through the haze.

“You weren’t in the dorm last night.” He had been away.

The words froze me mid-movement. His presence pressed against me, a storm in human form, too close, too heavy. I dipped my hands into the water, letting the cold hide my trembling fingers.

“They moved me,” I said, keeping my voice flat.

His brow furrowed. “Moved you? Where?”

“A single chamber.” The words scraped out of me. I hated the taste of them and the way admitting it made me feel exposed.

His silence stretched, dragging at my nerves until I finally glanced up. His gaze was steady, unreadable, but not cruel. That was somehow worse.

“That’s not normal,” he said finally.

I clenched the edge of the trough, knuckles white. “I don’t know why. They didn’t explain. Just… orders.”

He tilted his head, studying me like a riddle carved into bone.

“Be careful,” he murmured, low enough that only I could hear. “When they separate you, it’s never for a good reason.”

Before I could respond, he pushed off the column and walked away, leaving me rooted to the spot with my pulse hammering in my ears.

That night, silence pressed against me from all sides. The barred window let in only the thinnest sliver of moonlight, just enough to draw long, cruel shadows across the walls. Every creak of the floorboards made me flinch, every gust of wind sounded like footsteps.

The wolf inside me paced, restless. I clenched my teeth and tried to breathe evenly, reminding myself that this was just a room, made of stone, wood, and metal—nothing more.

But deep down, I couldn’t shake it.

Someone wanted me isolated.

Sleep came only in fragments—images of fire, blood, red moons, and shadows with teeth tearing through the dark. I woke with my chest heaving and the phantom taste of ash thick in my mouth.

By dawn, I was exhausted but alert, dragging myself into boots that felt heavier than usual. The bell tolled through the courtyard, summoning us again, vibrating in my bones.

The Trials were coming. I could feel it in the urgency of the drills, in the whispers curling through the halls like smoke.

And worse—I could feel it in the way Kai Blackthorn’s eyes found me, always, like a tether I hadn’t asked for.

But when my gaze flicked once more toward the dark-haired girl with the violet eyes, standing alone at the far edge of the yard, a shiver went through me. She was watching me, too.

And somehow, that was almost as unsettling as Kai.

The training continued, regardless of the unending battles in my head.