They made camp in the bowl of a dry creek, the world around them a confusion of bent trees and frost-burned grass. The stars that night seemed closer, every one a needle pricking the black. Kai gathered sticks for the fire, fingers numb but moving on their own, and Lena arranged stones in a tight ring, her movements precise and deliberate.
When the fire caught—a thumb-sized flame that grew into a bright, steady tongue—Lena sat across from Kai and stared at the blaze like it owed her an answer. She didn't say much as they ate, just tore strips of bread with her teeth and watched the light flicker on his face.
After, when they'd finished the meal and the world had gone quiet, Lena spoke, her voice stripped of the warmth it had held earlier.
"We're two days from Heiying, if we move fast," she said. "We'll stay off the main roads, keep to the old deer tracks. If we're lucky, we won't see anyone until we're close enough to the wards."
Kai nodded, not sure what else to say.
She poked the fire with a stick. "You need to know what you're walking into."
He waited.
"Heiying isn't a sanctuary," she said. "Not really. It's a fortress, and a weapon. It was built to keep people like us from getting wiped out. But it's not safe—not in the way you're thinking."
Kai shifted, feeling the weight of her words settle on his chest. "I never thought it would be."
She glanced up, eyes sharp. "No. I think you did. I think you want it to be like Shenya, but better. Somewhere you can just… belong."
He flushed. "Is that so wrong?"
She shook her head, a quick, frustrated flick. "No. But if you expect it, you'll get hurt. Or worse."
She let the silence grow between them, then leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
"There are three kinds of people in Heiying," Lena said. "First, you've got the Crafts—mages who focus on one thing: fire, wind, healing, illusions, whatever their natural affinity aligns with. They work in teams, back each other up, always trying to be indispensable. Then you have the predators. They don't care about tradition or the war. All they want is to survive, and they'll take down anyone weaker to do it. And the rest… they're just trying to keep their heads down and not get caught in the crossfire."
Kai looked at his hands, remembering the church, the way the Well had threatened to drown him. "Which were you?"
Lena's mouth quirked, a tired half-smile. "Depends on the day."
She stared into the fire for a while, the flames turning her face to a mask of bone and shadow.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You think you'll go in, and someone will see how special you are, and everything will make sense. You'll find your place, your people."
He tried to protest, but she cut him off.
"Don't. I did the same thing. It's a lie." She tossed the stick into the fire, watched it curl and blacken. "The only people who survive Heiying are the ones who figure out what their purpose is. The ones who have a reason, every day, to fight the current."
Kai searched for something to say, but all he had were the old answers: to make his father proud, to prove Maya wrong, to show the world that even a hollow could be enough.
Lena saw it. "Not good enough," she said, voice clipped. "Those reasons will get you killed."
He bristled, felt the old anger rise in his throat. "Then what am I supposed to say?"
She leaned in, eyes bright and hard. "Why does the son of a Lumina Knight want to walk the Sage's path?"
The question hit harder than any blow. For a long moment, Kai couldn't breathe. He thought about the test, the crystal going dark, the way the Knights had looked at him—an experiment, a mistake. He thought about the church, the way the villagers had needed him, the way the power had come when he called it. He thought about Lena, and the feeling of her hand wrapped around his.
He thought about the world he'd never been allowed to touch.
"I want to see what's left," he said, the words a surprise even to himself.
Lena tilted her head.
"I want to see what's left of the world they tried to erase," Kai said, voice steady now. "The stories, the people, the magic. Everything they said was too dangerous, too broken." He swallowed. "I want to see if there's anything worth saving."
Lena's smile was real this time, small and proud. "Better," she said.
She sat back, pulling her cloak tighter. "Caldwell will ask you the same thing, you know. The Headmaster. He doesn't care about Lumen scores or old bloodlines. He cares about what you're willing to do to survive, and what you'll risk to protect what matters."
Kai nodded, letting the words settle.
Lena watched him, her face unreadable in the firelight. "You're going to make it," she said, almost to herself. "But you'll have to learn fast."
They sat in silence, the only sound the pop of resin in the wood.
After a while, Lena stood and stretched. "I'll take first watch," she said.
Kai wanted to protest, but she shook her head. "You need rest. I'll wake you when it's your turn."
He lay down, the cold earth pressing up through his blanket, but he didn't shiver. He listened to the sound of Lena moving beyond the fire, the way her footsteps always seemed to know where they were going.
He thought about the question she'd asked, and the answer he'd given.
He thought about the darkness beyond the light, and the way the Well hummed in his chest, patient and infinite.
He slept, and this time, his dreams were not of drowning.
They were of running—faster and farther than he'd ever dared.
He woke to Lena's hand on his shoulder, gentle but insistent. The fire was out, the sky just a gray smear above the trees.
She crouched beside him, her face serious. "We have to move," she said. "I saw something. Someone was watching us."
Kai was up in a heartbeat, rolling his blanket, cinching his boots. "Who?"
She shrugged. "Didn't get close enough to see. But it was human, not Gloomed. Could be a scout, could be a bandit. Could be someone from Heiying, checking the trails."
He nodded, heart racing.
They packed quickly, Lena leading the way. The world was still and cold, the ground hard as iron underfoot.
As they walked, Kai felt the answer she'd pulled from him the night before settle into something solid. It was a strange comfort, knowing that his reasons were real, that he'd chosen them for himself.
He watched Lena, the way she checked the wind, the way she listened to the trees, and tried to match her certainty with his own.
They climbed a ridge, then dropped into a gully, moving fast and quiet.
At the crest, Lena paused, scanning the horizon.
"We're close," she said. "By sunset, we'll be in range of the first ward."
Kai looked at the world below, the sweep of forest and rock, and wondered what kind of place could survive out here, hidden from everything.
He hoped he was ready.
He hoped he'd be enough.
They kept moving, the wind at their backs, the future a question waiting to be answered.
***
It was only two days' walk, but the world changed with every mile. At first, the land was just hills and pines, the same as always—then, somewhere past the broken fence line that marked the edge of the Gloom-burn, things got odd.
Mist settled in the hollows and never burned off, even at noon. It clung to the grass in ropes, and sometimes, when the wind shifted, the whole valley would vanish and reappear, as if someone had blinked the world in and out of existence. Birds grew quiet. Even the trees, so dense before, now stood at strange intervals, their trunks warped into odd patterns, some spiraling up into the fog, others bowed low as if weighed down by secrets.
Kai felt it in his bones—a low thrum, like the pulse of a distant drum. The closer they got, the stronger the sensation became. By the second morning, every step was like walking uphill against a current. The air was thicker, charged with something that set his skin on edge and made his head buzz with static.
Lena didn't seem bothered. If anything, she moved faster, her stride long and sure. Sometimes, the mist would draw up close around them, then abruptly snap open, a tunnel forming just long enough for them to pass. Kai watched the phenomenon, with awe, then with growing unease. He noticed that the fog always parted for Lena, never for him. When he tried to step out alone, the mist pushed back, resisting his movement, urging him to stay on her trail.
The forest was worse. The trees closed in, branches arching together to form living corridors, the path underfoot gone from dirt to something like polished stone, then back to moss and loam. Once, when they stopped to rest, Kai looked behind and saw that the way they'd come was gone—just an unbroken wall of bramble and root where the trail should have been. He shivered, not from cold, but from the uncanny sense that the woods were watching.
On the second night, the magic got into his dreams. He saw flashes of places he'd never been—towers that floated above rivers of cloud, a courtyard where every flower glowed with its own internal light, a library so vast it seemed to stretch into the sky. He woke with the taste of burnt sugar on his tongue, and for a long time couldn't remember where he was, or even who he was.
He found Lena sitting cross-legged at the edge of camp, her face turned up to the sky.
"It's the Well," she said, before he could ask. "The closer we get, the more you'll feel it."
He sat, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "How do you stand it?"
She smiled, eyes silver in the moonlight. "You learn. You adapt."
They packed in silence and moved on, the world tightening around them with every step.
The next afternoon, the air grew so thick with magic Kai felt drunk on it. His head spun, his hands tingled. He could see ripples in the air—waves of heatless blue and green, sometimes sparks that shot across the trail and vanished in the grass.
At one point, the path forked three ways, each direction identical. Lena didn't hesitate; she took the leftmost route, and the forest closed behind them, sealing the other options away.
"How do you know which way to go?" Kai asked, half in awe, half in dread.
Lena touched the pendant at her neck, the one that matched the focus he wore. "The Academy is shrouded by magic to keep away unwanted guests. The path you take depends on who you are, and what you bring with you." She glanced at him, a spark of pride in her eyes. "You're filled with magic. The Academy wants you to find it."
That thought—wanted—hit Kai with a force he couldn't explain. For so long, he'd been the experiment, the mistake. Now, the land itself bent to let him pass.
They walked the rest of the day in the weird blue twilight of the moving woods. The hum in his chest grew to a roar, and Kai realized he could almost hear voices in the sound—distant, layered, hundreds at once, all speaking in languages he didn't know.
By evening, the ground sloped up, the trees thinning to reveal a break in the ridge. Lena stopped at the edge, letting Kai catch his breath.
"Ready?" she asked.
He nodded, breathless, heart pounding.
Lena extended her hand, and Kai took it. Together, they climbed the last few steps to the summit.
The Well's roar was deafening now, but beneath it, Kai felt a steadying presence—Lena's grip, strong and sure.
They crested the ridge, and the world went quiet.
Below, shrouded in mist and moonlight, the valley was split open—like a wound, or a doorway. At its heart, impossible architecture hung suspended above the earth. Towers twisted together like threads, their surfaces glowing with shifting color. Walkways arched between them, held aloft by nothing. The air above was alive with movement—lights flickered from window to window, and shadows drifted along the bridges, too distant to see clearly but unmistakably alive.
Kai stared, unable to breathe.
"That's Heiying," Lena said, her voice a soft thunder.
He laughed, amazed and a little afraid. "It's beautiful."
"It's dangerous," Lena said. "But it's the only place in the world where you'll ever matter."
They stood together, the mist parting just for them, the Well's song ringing in their bones.
He grinned, wild with hope.
They started down the slope, the path opening before them.
The descent was steeper than it looked. The air was thin and cold, and the mist, though parted, never quite left them alone—it crept behind their ears and up their sleeves, laying a damp chill on every exposed inch of skin. Lena went first, steady as always, picking a switchback path down the loose stone. Kai followed, his mind still full of the impossible city hanging in the valley.
He caught glimpses of it through the fog—once, a close-up flare of emerald light as some spell detonated far above; another time, a bell-like sound that rippled down the slope and left a taste of iron on his tongue. Even the ground felt different the closer they got: every step sang with energy, his boots buzzing with the static of too much magic packed into too small a space.
By the time they reached the valley floor, the sky had begun to turn. The last of the day's light poured down in bands, breaking the mist into gold and blue. Lena paused at the edge of a creek, waited for Kai to catch up.
"Almost there," she said, voice low.
He nodded, but his breath came short.
They followed the water until it curved back toward the open. And then, all at once, the trees ended and the full sweep of the Academy came into view.
It was bigger than it had looked from the ridge—much bigger. Dozens of towers, each a different shape and height, hung suspended at impossible angles above a broad, grassy bowl. Some of the towers rotated slowly, others shot out arms or spires that linked to neighbors with shimmering bridges of light. Floating walkways moved on their own, reconfiguring as people crossed from one building to the next. Below, at ground level, a cluster of more conventional halls and courtyards sprawled across the meadow, all stitched together by rivers of moving color.
Kai stared, mouth dry. He tried to count the students on the nearest green, but gave up after a few seconds—there were too many, all dressed in different colors and styles, some gliding, others walking, a few just sitting in the grass and tossing bits of fire or air between their hands.
He saw a woman in a red robe hovering a few feet above a bench, a pair of kids racing down a path on what looked like self-propelled sleds. At the far end of the lawn, a group of men in dark coats knelt in a circle, their hands pressed flat to the earth as a line of green shot from their palms and stitched patterns into the sod.
He felt the Well, alive and hungry. The world had never felt so wide.
Lena watched him take it all in. "First time's always a shock," she said, and her voice held something he'd never heard before—pride, maybe, or relief.
He shook his head, grinning. "It's… I don't have words."
She laughed, not unkindly. "You'll need them, soon enough."
They started down, cutting across the grass toward the nearest building. As they walked, Kai realized the magic wasn't just in the air; it was in the stones, the plants, even the water. Every piece of the place pulsed with possibility. The very act of moving through it was enough to set the air trembling.
Lena led him to a broad staircase at the base of a wide, low hall. The doors were open, and students streamed in and out, talking and laughing as if nothing about the scene was even slightly strange.
Kai hesitated at the threshold, the old fear bubbling up. Would anyone here know who he was? Would they care that he was a failure, a hollow, an experiment gone wrong?
Lena saw the hesitation and nudged him forward. "Head up, Kai. The only thing that marks you here is if you act like you don't belong."
He swallowed, then stepped forth.
Inside, the place was even louder—hundreds of voices, the hum of magic, the clang of something metal from a distant workshop. The air smelled of paper and resin, bread and old wool, ozone and flowers he couldn't name.
People glanced up as they entered, some with idle curiosity, others with sharp, appraising looks. A boy with hair dyed blue watched Kai for a moment, then turned back to his book. A girl in a patchwork coat gave Lena a sly wave, which Lena returned with a half-smile.
They walked down a long hall, past doors that opened and closed on their own, past windows that looked out on scenes that changed with every glance—once, a desert at dusk; next, a night sky where moons rolled in slow, bright orbits.
At the end of the hall, Lena stopped. She turned to Kai, expression grave.
"This is where we split," she said. "I need to find the Headmaster. You wait here, don't talk to anyone unless they talk to you."
He nodded, nerves making his hands shake.
She pressed his arm, then was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
Kai stood, feeling more alone than he ever had. He watched the other students pass, watched the windows change, tried to imagine what his life would be like if he stayed.
After a while, the fear faded. What replaced it was stranger—excitement, maybe, or the raw, animal hope that had brought him this far.