The dueling corridor is still smoldering. A practice dummy slumps against the far wall, half its straw guts burned out, and the air smells like ozone and burnt hemp. I roll my wrist, shaking off the last spark, and that's when it hits: the floor hums under my boots, a deep old vibration climbing through stone and bone. The wards just shifted. Not a flicker, not a hiccup, a real shift, and every dueling instinct I have fires at once.

By the time I reach the corridor where the pulse threads thickest, he's already there. Aaron Blacklake. I've seen him in classes and around the grounds, but the castle hasn't, not like this. The stones near him are breathing, faint silver threads knitting and reknitting along the mortar.

The dueling corridor is still smoldering. A practice dummy slumps against the far wall, half its straw guts burned out, and the air smells like ozone and burnt hemp. I roll my wrist, shaking off the last spark, and that's when it hits: the floor hums under my boots, a deep old vibration climbing through stone and bone. The wards just shifted. Not a flicker, not a hiccup, a real shift, and every dueling instinct I have fires at once.

By the time I reach the corridor where the pulse threads thickest, he's already there. Aaron Blacklake. I've seen him in classes and around the grounds, but the castle hasn't, not like this. The stones near him are breathing, faint silver threads knitting and reknitting along the mortar.