Chapter 1 #2
She places both hands on my shoulders. In the mirror, she looks powerful enough to command kingdoms and tired enough to break when no one is watching.
"You are my daughter," she says.
I nod.
She leans closer, her voice dropping. "And you belong here."
My eyes burn. I want to believe her. I want to believe it so badly that the wanting feels pathetic. Instead, I look at the candles she lit with less effort than breathing. "Then why does this place keep proving I don't?"
Her hands tighten slightly on my shoulders.
For a second, I think she might say something else.
Something real. Something sharp enough to cut through years of careful comfort, but then the second academy bell tolls.
The sound saves her. Or saves me. She steps back.
"Dress quickly. Breakfast begins in twenty minutes."
"Yes, Dean."
Her mouth softens again, but she does not correct me. She leaves with the quiet grace of someone who has spent years carrying secrets through crowded rooms. The door closes behind her. The candles stay lit.
I sit very still for a moment, listening to the magic in the walls and the echo of what she did not say.
Then I dress. The academy uniform is beautiful in the way all cruel things can be beautiful.
A fitted black dress with a high collar, long sleeves, and silver buttons down the front.
Soft leather boots polished until they reflect light.
The final-year cloak, heavy over my shoulders, plain black lining brushing against my wrists. No branch color. No proof of magic.
I pin my hair half back with a silver clip shaped like a starling bird, then immediately consider taking it out. Too obvious. Too family proud. Too easy for someone to notice. I leave it anyway... Let them look. They always do anyways.
By the time I step into the corridor, the tower is fully awake. Students spill out of rooms in waves of color and noise. Cloaks snap. Boots strike stone. Laughter bounces against vaulted ceilings. Magic sparks everywhere, casual and thoughtless.
A Tempest girl sends a ribbon of wind down the corridor to tug her friend's braid. A Veil boy cups a dying flower in his palm and watches it bloom silver. Two Aether students argue near the staircase, and the air between them flickers with red heat.
I keep my hands folded in front of me as I walk. Small and controlled.
"Careful," someone mutters as I pass. "Wouldn't want Starling to trip over all that magic."
A few students laugh. I don't look. Looking gives them something to enjoy.
My boots carry me down the spiral staircase of the east tower, past portraits that track movement with painted eyes, past windows that show different weather depending on which branch walks by.
When Tempest students pass, the glass fills with storm clouds.
When Veil students pass, green light moves like vines across the panes.
When Aether students pass, colors ripple through the glass like trapped emotion. When I pass, the windows stay clear.
The main hall opens beneath the tower in a sweep of black stone, silver banners, and floating chandeliers.
The ceiling is enchanted to reflect the sky outside, though the sky inside always seems more dramatic.
This morning, clouds bruise purple above us, threaded with faint gold where dawn fights through.
Students move in clusters toward the dining hall. Branches gather with branches. Bloodlines gather with bloodlines. Power always knows where to sit. I descend the last step and almost make it across the entrance hall unnoticed. Almost.
"Valentina!" My shoulders loosen before I even turn.
Seren Ashwick rushes toward me with her auburn curls bouncing around her face, her green Veil-lined cloak flying open behind her.
She is breathless, bright-eyed, and carrying three books she absolutely does not need before breakfast.
Seren has been my best friend since first year, which means she either has terrible survival instincts or the strongest heart in the academy. Possibly both.
"You're late," she says, linking her arm through mine without asking. "And before you say you're not late, you're emotionally late. I can sense it."
"You cannot sense lateness." I argue.
"I'm Veil. I sense everything." She corrects me.
"You sense death." I remind her.
"And lateness is the death of punctuality." She laughs. Despite myself, I smile.
Seren beams like she has won something. She is one of the few people at Arcana who never looks at me like I am missing a piece. Or if she does notice the missing piece, she has the decency to act like she would fight anyone who points at the hole.
Her gaze drops to my cloak, and her smile dims for half a second. Only half. Then she squeezes my arm. "Council representatives today."
"I know." I sigh.
"Everyone is panicking." She says looking front.
"Good." I say.
"That was almost cruel. I'm proud." She smiles.
We move with the crowd toward the dining hall. The massive double doors are open, carved with the three accepted branch symbols: a storm cloud split by lightning, a veil draped over a blooming skull, and a flame held inside an open hand.
Three branches. Three paths. Three places to belong.
The dining hall stretches long and grand, filled with dark wooden tables, branch banners, and hundreds of students. Enchanted flames float above each table, changing color based on the strongest magic nearby. Blue over Tempest. Green over Veil. Red over Aether.
At the front of the hall, the professors' table sits raised on a black stone platform. My mother is already there, speaking quietly to Professor Thorne, who teaches advanced warding and has never once smiled at me without looking like it cost him physically.
Beside my mother stands my father. Alaric Starling does not need magic to make a room feel colder.
He is tall, sharp-featured, and dressed in black formal robes lined with silver, the Starling crest fastened over his heart like a threat.
His dark blond hair is touched with grey at the temples, his posture perfect, his expression unreadable.
He looks like nobility carved from ice and he is looking directly at me.
My steps slow. Seren notices. "Do you want me to spill porridge on him?"
A startled sound almost escapes me. "No."
"I could make it look accidental." She lifts her eyebrows.
"You would get expelled." I tell her.
"For you? Worth it." She nudges me.
My eyes sting again, but this time it feels less awful. "I'm fine," I whisper. Seren doesn't believe me, but she lets me go.
I cross the dining hall alone because there are some humiliations no one can walk beside you for. The conversations nearest the front dim as I approach. Not silent. Never obvious enough to be called cruel. Just softer, thinner, sharpened around the edges.
My mother sees me first. Something flickers in her eyes, but she remains dean-still. My father's gaze travels over my face, my hair, my cloak. The blank lining.
His mouth tightens. "Valentina," he says.
"Father." The word feels formal enough to survive.
He leans down and presses a cool kiss to my forehead. To anyone watching, it is affectionate. Proper. A father greeting his daughter at the beginning of term. To me, it feels like a performance.
"You look well," he says.
"Thank you." I fake a smile.
His eyes stay on mine too long, searching. Always searching. I wonder what he hopes to find. A stranger's features. A lie in my bone structure. Some human weakness stamped plainly enough across my face that he can finally stop pretending.
"You'll conduct yourself carefully today," he says.
Not a question. "Yes."
"The council will be observing final-year students. Your mother's position does not protect you from scrutiny."
Heat crawls up my neck. Behind him, my mother's expression sharpens. "Alaric."
"What?" His voice stays smooth. "It is better she hears it from me than from them."
Them. The council. The professors. The students. The entire magical world that already knows my name for the wrong reasons.
I fold my hands tighter. "I know what people think."
"Do you?" His words land softly. That makes them worse.
For one dangerous second, I want to say yes.
I want to tell him I know exactly what they think because he thought it first, because every rumor about my blood began in the cold silence between him and my mother, because children do not question whether a daughter belongs to her father unless the father teaches them how...
but I don't say any of that. Powerless girls learn early which battles will only make them bleed and I am not ready to fight that battle today.
"I understand," I say.
My father studies me. Then his gaze flicks to my mother. "See that she does." He walks away before either of us can answer.
I stand there with my heart beating too hard against my ribs and my skin hot beneath my collar.
My mother turns toward me. "Valentina—"
I stop her. "Please don't."