CHAPTER ONE — THE LAST PLACE TO HIDE
1406 Words
Lisa woke me up before the sun did.
She didn’t knock. She never knocked when things were bad.
“Elior,” she whispered, but her voice wasn’t soft. It was tight… scared. I sat up right away. Lisa was the strongest person I knew, she didn’t get scared.
“What happened?” I asked. My heartbeat was already running ahead of me.
She stood by the door, with her travel cloak still on, there was dirt on her boots like she had been running all night. Her chest rose and fell like she couldn’t breathe right.
“They found us,” she said.
Everything inside me went cold.
The words I feared my whole life,the words she promised would never come.
No. No, no, no.
“How?” I pushed myself out of bed. “We moved just last year”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But the academy knows a missing heir survived. They sent scouts to the village. They’re close.”
My hands began to shake. She noticed and took them, squeezing fast, like she could push strength into me.
“Listen,” she said. “The only way to keep you alive is to hide you in the last place they’ll ever search.”
I frowned. “Where?”
She hesitated.
That scared me even more.
“Lisa… say it.”
“Arcanis Academy.”
My stomach dropped so fast I felt dizzy.
“No no, I can’t go there,” I said. “It’s an all-boys academy. A military academy. A monster academy. Lisa, they kill people like me.”
“They kill girls like you,” she said. “Not boys. They’ll think you’re a boy. You’re already trained to act like one. You’ve been doing this since you were a child.”
“That’s different,” I snapped. “Hiding in small towns is not the same as living with them, sleeping in their rooms Lisa, I’ll be caught one day!”
She stepped forward and held my shoulders. “Elior. They are here. If you stay, you die. If you run, they will catch you. But if you enter that academy wearing your cousin’s name… you vanish.”
My throat tightened.
My cousin. The boy who died in my place.
“I don’t look like him,” I whispered.
“You don’t need to,” she said. “He died young. You only need his name, his papers, and his story. Everyone in that school is too self absorbed to care. Just keep your head low.”
My eyes burned. “Lisa, please don’t leave me there.”
“I won’t leave you.” Her voice softened. “But this is the only way you stay alive. Your bloodline… if they find out .. ”
I cut her off. “I know.”
I had heard it all my life.
“My bloodline was dangerous.”
“My bloodline was rare.”
“My bloodline was hunted.”
The academy didn’t want girls of my line to exist.
Because without girls like me, their awakening ritual couldn’t work.
Because we were the spark.
The power,
The weapon.
I swallowed hard. “So that’s it? I go there, pretend to be some boy no one remembers, and hope nobody looks too close?”
“Yes.”
“And if they do?”
She held my face gently. “Then we pray you can run faster than their questions.”
I let out a shaky breath. “This is crazy,” I whispered.
“I know.” She touched my cheek. “But you’re strong, Elior. Even when you don’t feel like it.”
“No, I’m not.”
And saying that out loud hurt more than I expected.
Lisa smiled sadly. “Maybe not yet. But you will be.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My chest felt too tight.
She walked toward the desk and picked up a sealed envelope. It was heavy, thick and marked with the silver crest of Arcanis.
“This is your entry letter,” she said. “You leave at dawn.”
I stared at it like it was the end of my life.
Maybe it was.
We packed in silence.
Mostly because if we talked, we would break.
Lisa kept moving around the room, checking bags, checking straps, checking my disguise tools. Binding strips, hair shears, voice training beads. I stared at my reflection in the small cracked mirror.
My brown eyes,
My long hair,
My soft features didn't look enough like a boy’s, not to me.
“Stop frowning,” she said behind me. “You pass.”
“No I don’t.”
“You passed everywhere we lived.”
“That was different,” I muttered. “Those towns weren’t full of boys who fight and train and notice everything.”
“You’ll blend,” she said with a certainty I wished I believed. “You’ll be quiet , careful and invisible.”
“Invisible.”
I had been invisible all my life.
It felt like a curse… and now suddenly it was supposed to save me.
Lisa’s voice softened. “Elior… look at me.”
I turned. Her eyes were wet, and that alone made my chest tighten again.
“You are the bravest child I’ve ever raised,” she said.
“But you’ve never been alone. You won’t be alone now either.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is one boy there,” she said slowly. “Someone who might help you if things get bad.”
“What boy?”
“His name doesn’t matter now. Just know that if someone offers you help, don’t push them away.”
I frowned. “Why would anyone help the new boy? Especially a fake one?”
“You’ll see,” she whispered.
The way she said it made my skin crawl.
“Lisa… what aren’t you telling me?”
Before she could answer, we heard the sound.
A loud sound.
Then another sound outside the window.
We heard footsteps, then followed by voices.
They were here.
Lisa grabbed my bag and shoved it into my hands. “No more time. Go through the back door and run to the carriage. Don’t look behind.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll delay them.”
“No!” I reached for her hand. “Lisa”
“Elior.”
Her voice shook for the first time ever.
“Please.”
My vision blurred. I pulled her into a quick hug, breathing her in like I could store the moment somehow.
“I’ll come back,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said, but her eyes said she wasn’t sure.
Then she pushed me hard towards the door.
The sky was still dark when I reached the carriage. The driver looked half-asleep until he saw me. Then he straightened and opened the door fast, like he had been warned this would happen.
“Elior Ardan?” he asked.
It was supposed to be my cousin’s name.
Now it was mine.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Get in. Quick.”
I climbed inside, my heart punching my ribs. The moment the door shut, the carriage lurched forward.
The wheels hit the dirt road at full speed, and all I could do was sit there, staring back at the shrinking silhouette of the only home I ever had.
Something in my chest cracked open.
I wiped my eyes aggressively. I couldn’t cry, not now.
I needed to think, breathe and plan.
But all I could see… was the academy gate waiting ahead of me.
A cage , a trap, a place where monsters were trained and where a single mistake could get me killed.
I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breath.
But then…
A strange coldness brushed the back of my neck.
Like someone breathing behind me.
I opened my eyes.
The carriage was empty.
But the feeling didn’t leave.
Instead, it got stronger.
And a whisper soft, almost too soft to heart brushed my ear.
“Found you.”
I froze.
My blood turned to ice.
I twisted around, heart slamming into my throat.
No one was there.
But was the whisper just my imagination?
Did Someone sense me, Is someone following me?
I snapped out of my imaginations, whatever that was, I am sure something bigger awaits me at Ascaris Academy.
- Writer
