Bound to nothingness

Chapter 2:"Veylcrest."

Veylcrest didn't look like a school. It looked like an old, sprawling fortress that had survived five different wars and forgotten how to crumble.

Black stone towers stretched into the cloud cover, their tops lost in a heavy grey mist. The iron gates at the entrance stood wide open, flanked by floating glass lanterns that hovered three feet off the ground without ropes or posts, casting a pale, cold light over the arriving crowd. Carriages jammed the cobblestone approach some drawn by heavy horses, others moving entirely on their own,while a few students simply materialized out of thin air on the landing steps.

Nyla pressed her cheek against the cool carriage glass, watching a boy step out of a shimmering circle of blue light, straighten his collar, and grab his trunk.

"So... is this normal here?" Emily asked from the bench opposite her, wringing her gloves.

"Is what normal?"

"People stepping out of thin air!" Emily pointed toward the steps. "Tell me you saw that."

"I saw it," Nyla said, pulling back from the window.

"Good. Because I was starting to think I was the only person on this coach who finds this place unsettling."

"You've been complaining since we crossed the county line, Em."

"That's because I have common sense," Emily replied, though a quick, nervous smile cut through her worry.

The carriage ground to a halt under the main archway. Despite her father’s warnings, Nyla felt a sudden, sharp spike of nerves in her chest. She had pictured Veylcrest a hundred times over the three-day journey, but standing under the shadow of its walls made her feel tiny.

As she stepped down onto the damp cobblestones, a strange sensation prickled across her skin. It wasn't painful, but the hairs on her arms stood straight up, a faint, hummed warmth brushing past her, like standing too close to an iron stove that had just been snuffed.

Nyla stopped, rubbing her forearm through her sleeve. "Did you feel that?"

Emily blinked, pulling her cloak tight against the damp wind. "Feel what? The draft?"

"Never mind."

She looked up at the main keep. For a fraction of a second, every window on the highest spire flared with a bright, harsh light, and then went pitch black.

Emily nudged her elbow. "You're staring, Nyla."

"I know."

"Can we get inside before my toes go numb?"

They joined the stream of students moving up the broad stone steps toward the double doors. Neither of them looked up toward the high balcony overlooking the courtyard.

A young man stood against the stone railing, his dark coat pinned around his shoulders against the wind. He wasn't watching the crowd or the carriages. His eyes were fixed on Nyla.

Beside him, another student shifted on the damp stone, checking over his shoulder. "Is that her? The new one?"

The young man didn't answer. He just watched the dark-haired girl navigate the steps.

The student swallowed, leaning closer. "Word from the registrar's desk is that she's dead weight. Not a single spark in her."

That made the young man turn his head. He looked at his companion with a flat, quiet intensity that made the boy instinctively take a step back. "Who told you that?"

"People in the office... it's already going around."

He looked back down at the yard. Nyla had stopped at the top of the stairs, laughing at something the girl beside her said, completely oblivious to the balcony above.

"Interesting," he said softly.

The other boy waited a beat. "Do you want me to get her name?"

"No," he said, turning on his heel. His coat snapped around his boots as he walked back into the corridor. "Find out where she came from."

Nyla had been inside the Great Hall for less than twenty minutes when she realized nearly everyone near the center tables was looking at her.

The whispers weren't even particularly quiet.

"That's her, right?"

"The one without a spark?"

"How'd she get past the gate board if she can't even light a candle?"

"Family must have bought a chair."

Emily stopped dead in the middle of the aisle, her hands balling into fists. "I can go over there right now and drop my trunk on his foot."

Nyla caught her sleeve, pulling her along. "No, Em. Don't."

"They're talking about you like you're a stray dog that walked in!"

"I have ears, Emily. I can hear them," Nyla said under her breath, looking up at the high stone vaults and the heavy silk banners hanging overhead. "I just don't know what you expect me to do about it."

A girl in a dark green coat passed them, gave Nyla a brief, pitying glance, and hurried off toward the far tables.

Emily let out a long breath, leaning close. "I hate it here already. Nobody wants us in this room."

"Not us," Nyla said with a dry, quiet bite. "Just me."

Before Emily could answer, a iron bell chimed high above the hall. The sound was low and heavy, vibrating right through the flagstones beneath their boots. The chatter died down instantly.

A woman in dark robes walked out onto the raised stone platform at the front. Her grey hair was pulled back tightly, and her eyes scanned the crowd without a trace of warmth.

"First years," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the silence effortlessly. "You are here because you possess gifts the outside world cannot manage."

She took two steps forward, her hands folded inside her broad sleeves.

"Some of you carry names that are written in the founding ledgers," she said, and a few boys in the front row straightened their shoulders. "Some of you blew out a wall at home by accident. And some of you will spend your time here trying to force things that were never meant for you."

Nyla felt her pulse quicken.

"Veylcrest does not care about your family's estate, your coin, or your excuses," the woman continued, her voice flat and measured. "In these halls, your control is the only currency that matters. And those who cannot build it will not remain long here bn."

A fresh stir ran through the hall. Emily turned to Nyla, her eyes wide. "Nyla... she knows."

"Knows what?" Nyla murmured, her stomach knotting.

"She knows you don't have magic."

Before Nyla could answer, the woman's sharp voice cut across the room again.

"Miss Vale."

The heads around them turned in unison. Dozens of eyes locked onto the middle aisle.

Nyla swallowed, forcing herself to take a small step out from behind Emily. "Yes, Professor?"

"With me," the woman said, turning toward the archway behind the dais.

Nyla gave Emily a brief, tight nod to stay put, picked up her satchel, and walked down the center aisle toward the side entrance.

As she passed under the low stone archway, a faint, dusty carving caught the torchlight on the lintel above her head. It was an old mark cut into the granite—a heavy circle split by three diagonal lines.

Nyla was looking at the stairs ahead, so she missed it entirely.

Down in the lower vaults beneath the foundations, a heavy iron mechanism clicked once, shifting in the dark. High above the courtyard, behind a padlocked oak door that hadn't moved in a century, the dust on the floorboards stirred.