Chapter 12 Kael I stood in the orientation hall, my hands clasped behind my back as I faced the figure across from me. He was a representative of my master. The man’s back was turned, and a black hood was pulled up to obscure his features completely. Even in the
Chapter 11 Charis I came awake slowly. My eyelids felt heavy as lead, but gradually I became aware of the warmth around me, unlike the biting cold I had been exposed to since I arrived here. The comfort reminded me of home, and for a moment, I panicked. The minute
Chapter 10 Charis [Warning: Trigger scene] “Please,” I begged, trying to swallow back the tears at the back of my throat. “Can’t we at least inform Kael? He’s supposed to oversee first-year placements. This has to be documented properly p> “The Student President outranks the First-Year Coordinator,” he replied coldly,
Chapter 9 Charis I ended up in Dormitory Block C. Top floor. Room B. I knocked tentatively on the door before using my key. The room was larger than I’d expected, with six beds arranged along the walls and a central common area that had a long sofa and a
Chapter 8 Charis After we walked away from Slater, Kael suddenly stopped and tilted his head slightly, turning to me. “You were supposed to report for dormitory assignment and orientation briefing. You’re approximately seventeen minutes late p> Any hope that Kael might be a genuinely nice person died immediately. I
Chapter 7 Present (After the Assembly) Slater I stood at the entrance of the assembly hall, watching her. It was Charis, alright. This was the first time I was seeing her, a year after our painful breakup. Painful was a milder word compared to the emotional trauma I had to
Chapter 6 Slater I sat stiffly in the Admission Office, staring past the frosted window to the inner courtyard of Ravenshore Academy. I was looking at the group of fresh-faced, newly admitted students hanging outside the Assembly Hall. Despite the biting winter cold, they all had bright faces, and the
Chapter 5 Charis I managed to pull myself together, and though it was unnecessary at this point since I was standing on the stage, I still raised my hand. “I’m…Eamon Riggs,” I murmured. The hall rippled with gasps. I could feel all the eyes in the hall on me, but
Chapter 4 Charis A tall and regal woman with grey-streaked black hair pulled into a severe bun swept in. Her eyes surveyed the hall as she continued to the podium. Beside her was a small, ferrety man in wire-rimmed glasses, clutching a clipboard to his chest like a shield. He
Chapter 3 Charis Twenty-four hours. That’s how long it had been since I became Eamon Riggs, since I stepped off that train and since I arrived at Ravenshore Academy. Twenty-four hours of itchy clothes, dry bread and the kind of cold that sank into your bones and clawed at your
Chapter 2 Charis I lay on my side, with my eyes wide open, the blankets tangled around my legs, until the pack house grew silent. Every creak of the stairs sent my heart racing, convinced that my father was coming to finish what he’d started. My cheek still throbbed from
Chapter 1 Charis The day I knew I’d had enough was the day I didn’t cry. My father’s belt lashed across my body countless times—my ribs, my face, the soft places that wouldn’t show when I am presented to Darian Blackmoor like a prize mare at auction. I’d learned to
Chapter 70 Chapter 70: (END) Callum was busy. Declan was recovering. The phone calls that had once been daily became weekly, then biweekly, then monthly, then — not never, but close to never: the occasional text, the birthday acknowledgment, the Christmas message that took three days to compose and said
Chapter 69 Chapter 69: He could do nothing but give up. The sentence existed in his mind as a fact rather than a decision — the way gravity is a fact, the way the earth’s rotation is a fact. He didn’t accept it. He simply stopped resisting it, the way
Chapter 68 Chapter 68: He got out of the car. Stood in the hospital garage. His face was white — the color of paper, the color of absence — and his shirt was soaked, and his hands were shaking, and the man who had once driven at three hundred kilometers
Chapter 67 Chapter 67: When Declan woke up in Halcombe General Hospital, the first thing he noticed was that he couldn’t feel his legs. The second thing he noticed was that Callum was sitting beside the bed — not sleeping, not reading, not looking at his phone, just sitting, with
Chapter 66 Chapter 66: She walked between them. Looked at Callum — at the stubble, the bloodshot eyes, the suit, the desperation — with an expression that held pain and pity and something harder than either. “I trust Edmund.” Her voice was steady. “If you want to prove he was
Chapter 65 Chapter 65: “Edmund.” His voice was ice over fire — the Hargrove composure, cracked, revealing the heat beneath. “Isn’t it enough that you took Lara? Now you send someone to run Declan off the road p> He wrenched free of Edmund’s grip. Staggered. Steadied himself against the doorframe.
Chapter 64 Chapter 64: The morning after the wedding, the Blackwell estate was quiet in the way that expensive houses are quiet: deliberately, architecturally, with double-paned windows and thick walls and the particular insulation that money provides against the noise of the outside world. Sunlight came through the bedroom curtains
Chapter 63 Chapter 63: “Declan p> His voice was calm. This was the worst sign. Callum’s calm was not peace — it was the absence of everything else, the blank that remained when fear and anger and grief had all been burned away simultaneously, leaving nothing but function. “I’m here