The storm over Alpha Academy had not passed. It had only changed shape.
Ari stood at the edge of the Temple ruins, the wind pulling strands of hair free from her braid, whispering through the broken stones. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths as the vision played again in her mind: Seraphine, cloaked in darkness, invoking the ancient names in the Silver Passage. The ground had trembled beneath them, and even now, she could still feel the pulse of magic in her bones.
Behind her, the others gathered—Ronan, Luca, Celeste, Calder, and a few surviving professors. The team was smaller now. Too many had been lost in the last skirmish. But what remained burned with fire and fury.
“We can’t go back,” Ari said without turning. “Not to the old ways. Not after this.”
Ronan stepped beside
