Chapter Three #2
She ducked out of his grip and sprinted for the side panel ladder, weaving between panicked first-years and trembling luggage bins.
Her boots slammed against the metal rungs as she climbed, fingers biting into the cold rail.
The wind tore at her coat the moment she reached the maintenance scaffolding, the pressure forcing her body sideways as the ship groaned beneath her.
Bracing herself against the edge, she stared down at the malfunctioning glyph. It flickered in and out of sync, throwing pulses of unstable magic into the air. Reaching it would require crossing an exposed framework—one that was already starting to crack.
She hesitated, hands clenched tight. Her breath came fast now, too fast, her vision tunneling as fear reared its head again.
What was she doing?
She wasn’t a hero. Wasn’t even bonded.
But there was no time to find someone else. If she didn’t act now, if she didn’t do something…
Below her, a student slipped, nearly falling off the deck before a third-year yanked them back.
Cassara grit her teeth, adrenaline surging hot beneath her skin.
No more hesitating.
The wind knifed against her skin as she crept low across the narrow support beam.
Below, the storm-scarred clouds boiled in spirals, broken by bursts of blue magic and black shadow where third-years and beasts clashed in blinding arcs of combat.
The glyph was still several feet away, stuttering in its pattern, a dull flicker where once it had glowed steady.
Cassara crouched low, hands gripping the edge of the beam.
Her knees quivered. She wasn’t afraid of heights, she’d scaled the edge of the Allencourt estate’s watchtower more than once, but this wasn’t polished stone and ornamental railing.
This was jagged metal and rattling pipes, everything groaning beneath the weight of its own failing enchantment.
Her mind screamed at her to turn back. Julian had been right. This was stupid.
She wasn’t trained for this.
If she slipped, if she fell—
But another screech cracked across the sky. A second stabilizer flickered behind her. The ship bucked.
Students shouted in terror. Something toppled on the deck and someone hit the floor hard. Cassara looked down at her hands, pale-knuckled on the beam.
Maybe she didn’t have a bonded beast yet.
But she wasn’t helpless.
She edged forward slowly, one foot after the other, boots slipping once, twice, until her fingertips snagged the next handhold welded to the hull.
The ship shifted again, throwing her sideways. Her shoulder scraped a metal ridge and pain lanced through it, warm and immediate. She hissed through her teeth and pressed on, every inch a fight against the tilt of the ship and the wind clawing to tear her loose.
Almost there.
The glyph pulsed feebly just ahead, its etched runes jittering.
Cassara gritted her teeth and pushed forward, half-crawling the last stretch until she could brace herself against the edge of the stabilizer’s casing. Her fingers scrambled for purchase on the rune housing, slick with condensation, vibrating faintly with misaligned energy.
She had no idea what she was doing.
Her breath came fast.
Now or never.
She drove her palm flat against the seal and shoved the mana orb back into the slot, completing the disrupted circuit path.
The glyph flared once, resisting, before snapping into alignment with a sharp clang that echoed through the struts like a gunshot.
Light blazed along the carved conduits, cascading outward. The ship groaned and began to level.
Cassara had just enough time to realize it was working and not nearly enough to get out of the way.
The stabilizer surged beneath her, shifting with a violent jolt as the enchantments snapped back into balance. The entire structure lurched to one side, overcorrecting.
Her foot slipped and she lost her grip, the sudden movement ripping her from the narrow ledge. She was falling, air tearing past her in a shrieking rush as metal vanished from beneath her boots. She twisted, her arms flailing for something, anything.
An arm caught her hard around the ribs, knocking the breath from her lungs as momentum snapped taut between them.
“Got you.”
The world sharpened back into focus.
Auren’s face hovered inches from hers, jaw tight, eyes dark. They were falling, no, gliding, his body angled just enough to steer them downward with one arm cradling her close and the other adjusting the control glyphs etched into the glider strapped to his back.
Cassara couldn’t speak, she could barely breathe.
He wasn’t looking at her anymore, his gaze already scanning the deck below, calculating descent, angle, trajectory. Cool. Efficient. Entirely unbothered, as though plucking an unbonded first-year from a thirty-foot fall was routine.
They landed hard. Auren absorbed the impact with a practiced bend of his knees, one hand still braced around her. Cassara staggered when he let go, her boots skidding slightly on the deck.
Her heart hadn’t quite caught up to her yet.
He took a step back. Looked her over once. “Are you hurt?”
Cassara shook her head, pulse racing.
“Next time you feel like proving something,” Auren said coldly, “try not to die doing it.”
She felt heat rushing to her cheeks, not from embarrassment but fury. “I wasn’t proving anything.”
His brow lifted a fraction. “Weren’t you?”
The ship was still trembling slightly, but the tilt had stopped. Stabilizers hummed evenly now, the deck no longer at risk of pitching students into the sky.
But here, between them, the tension was quiet.
Auren exhaled slowly and turned away, his coat flaring. “Heroics make poor habits,” he said over his shoulder. “Especially in first-years.”
Cassara stared after him, fists clenched.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, or chase him down and argue every inch of it.
But somewhere, beneath the bruises and anger and adrenaline still thudding through her veins, something inside her whispered:
You can do this.
And he’d seen it too.
What she didn’t understand was why he’d seemed so angry about it.
Silence reigned on the deck with only the whispering creak of metal and the faint hum of stabilizers filled the void. Students stood scattered, gripping railings, clutching one another, blinking like they’d surfaced from a dream that had turned sideways.
The creature had been driven back into the clouds below, leaving only the memory of its scream and the faint scorch marks clawed into the hull.
A few sobs broke the quiet. Sonia sat flat on the deck, breathing fast, muttering something under her breath like a mantra. Even Julian looked uncharacteristically rattled, his eyes trained warily on the sky.
Cassara stood apart from the others, arms wrapped tight around herself.
She could still feel the pressure of Auren's arms around her, the dizzy weightlessness of the fall, the moment the world snapped sideways and she moved anyway. Not everyone had done the same. Some had frozen. Others had run. But she had climbed.
A hand brushed hers. Evie stood beside her, quiet but present.
"You okay?" she asked.
Cassara nodded. "Yeah."
Her voice cracked on the word.
Evie didn’t comment, but she stayed beside her, a grounded presence she found oddly comforting after what had happened. Not that Cassara would admit it.
Nearby, Auren conferred with the third-years who leapt into the fray.
Several still remained airborne, their beasts circling slowly now, casting long shadows across the deck in wingspan-shaped patches.
One of them, the wyvern, let out a low, rumbling call before banking away, and Cassara watched the way its rider didn’t flinch, awed at how practiced their connection was. How controlled.
They weren’t just tamers, they were fighters, and, someday, she would be one too.
She pushed off from where she’d been standing and made her way to the railing, needing distance from the crowd. Wind tugged at her hair, sharp and cold, but she made no move to tuck the strands away.
Julian found her before the silence could.
“You’re out of your mind,” he said, his voice quiet.
She faced him slowly. His mouth was pressed into a line and a fury she had never seen before lived behind his eyes. Not just anger, but fear, or guilt, maybe even shame.
“You could’ve died,” he said.
She didn’t turn. “But I didn’t.”
“No,” he bit out. “Because someone else caught you.”
That landed harder than she wanted to admit. Her brows lifted and she turned to look at him. “So now I’m not allowed to help?”
“You risked your life,” he snapped, the words sharper than she expected. “For what? For a stabilizer glyph? You think anyone would’ve blamed you for staying safe?”
Cassara’s spine stiffened. “No. They’d just remember I stood there and watched.”
“You shouldn’t have been up there,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “It was reckless and stupid. You think a stunt like that makes you brave? Did you think everyone would be impressed?”
“I didn’t do it to impress anyone.”
“Then why?” His voice dropped low. “To prove you don’t need saving? Because the reality is—” he stepped in close, the words meant only for her, “—you did need saving. And if he hadn’t been there…” He didn’t finish, he didn’t have to.
She looked away, heat flaring in her throat. Not shame, not exactly. She’d done what needed doing, but the truth still stung.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Around them, the crew moved about the deck in tired motions, resetting arcane shields, sweeping wreckage, gathering shattered mana crystals like broken glass.
“I’m not sorry I did it,” Cassara said at last, staring out at the horizon.
Julian’s fist clenched where it rested against the railing, but he didn’t argue. He just stepped back, shook his head, and left her standing there with the burn of his words curling between her ribs.
Before she could linger too long on what had remained unsaid, Auren’s voice rang out, clear, clipped, impossible to ignore.
Cassara turned toward the bow just as he stepped forward, the third-years flanking him in quiet formation.
“You were lucky,” he began, eyes sweeping the deck. His words were met with silence, not a soul moved. “That wasn’t part of your welcome,” he continued, “but it was a taste, a glimpse, of what’s out there.”
He let the words settle.
“If it shook you, good. It should have. There is no shame in fear. Only in denial of it. This was unfortunate, but perhaps also a blessing in disguise. Because now, you don’t have the luxury of pretending.”
He paced between them. “Some of you were brave. Some of you were reckless. And some of you froze.”
Cassara felt the words strike like a heartbeat. He wasn’t looking at her, but it felt like he could’ve been.
“That’s not judgment. That’s clarity. Out there, a moment’s hesitation costs lives. Out there, glory is rare. Death is not. If you came to show off, you should go home now.” The wind stirred his coat. “Because what we teach here isn’t heroics. It’s survival.”
He stopped and let the weight of silence hang.
“Vallemont does not coddle.” His voice was quieter now, but no less sharp. “You are not owed greatness. You will earn every inch of it.”
His eyes swept the deck one last time. “For those who choose to stay…” A slight incline of his head, nothing more. “…welcome to Vallemont.”