The toll was unlike anything Eli had ever felt before. Not a sound, not even a vibration, but a rupture that seemed to reach into his chest and squeeze his heart until it skipped a beat. It rolled through the Crest with such weight that the air itself buckled. Windows burst from their frames, glass raining down in glittering cascades. Stone pillars groaned and toppled, and every tree across the grounds bent as if bowing to a force it could not withstand.The sky answered the toll with fury. Clouds swirled into tight spirals, pulling streaks of crimson and violet into their depths, a vast whirlpool painted overhead. Lightning split across the vortex in jagged arcs, each strike exploding in eerie silence before thunder arrived several seconds too late, rolling over them like the voice of a giant.The fissures across the Crest widened into jagged wounds. Entire lawns and walkways were devoured by flame, the once-green quads reduced to glowing abysses. Smoke belched from the earth, acrid

The chamber felt alive. The spiral carved into the stone floor glowed faintly, each etched line pulsing like veins carrying light instead of blood. The walls hummed, the air thrummed, and the sense of being watched pressed down on Eli until his chest ached with the weight of it. He had thought he understood what fear was. He had thought he had faced it before—standing before his father’s wrath, kneeling to the Council’s judgment, even staring into the abyss of his own mistakes. But this was different. This was older, vaster. The Eye was awake.Its gaze was everywhere, impossible and crushing. It didn’t look at him so much as through him, prying apart the walls of his mind, peeling away each layer he had built. He clenched his fists, nails digging crescents into his palms. He had been strong before, arrogant enough to think he could outmaneuver fate, but nothing about this was a game. This was the kind of battle that left no victor—only the memory of what had been consumed.The Eye pul

The night above the Crest was colder than Eli remembered. When they emerged from the inner corridors into the courtyard, the air hit him like a blade, sharp enough to make him suck in a breath. The moon hung low, veiled by a thin film of clouds, and its light poured silver over the shattered stones. The silence stretched wider here, too wide, as though every bird, every insect, every trace of ordinary life had been driven off.Eli stood still for a moment, staring at the spires that rose jagged against the night sky. The Crest had always been an oppressive place, but now it looked alive. The walls seemed to breathe, the shadows stretching longer than they should, the carvings in the stone twisting when he tried to look at them straight on. It was as if the Eye’s reach had spread beyond the chamber below, seeping into every corner of the campus.Lena moved first, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered. Her voice carried despite its softness. “It fe

The Crest had always loomed like a monument—timeless, impervious, a citadel that stood outside the rules of ordinary decay. But on that night, as the bell’s unnatural tolling faded into silence, Eli felt it breathe. The stone itself shifted, walls groaning as if the foundations were no longer sure of themselves. The corridors no longer obeyed their maps. Arches sagged, staircases bent where they had once stood straight, and new shadows moved where there should have been none. The Crest was alive, and its pulse matched the rhythm hammering in Eli’s chest. He ran down the corridor, Lena at his side, Callum a step behind. Their footsteps echoed too loudly, as though the stone was eager to swallow their sounds. Every hallway they turned down bent into shapes Eli swore hadn’t existed yesterday. Murals bled onto the walls—figures painted centuries ago now moving as if freed from their confinement. Eyes followed them, whole frescoes leaning forward as if hungry for the trespassers running be

The Crest had gone quiet after the Watcher’s defeat, but it was not a silence of peace. It was the kind of hush that settles before a storm breaks, when the air grows heavy and every breath feels borrowed. Eli could not shake the weight of what had happened in the refectory. The look on the students’ faces haunted him, their awe cut through with fear. They hadn’t just seen him resist a monster—they had seen him command it, even if only for a moment. That truth was spreading faster than fire through dry grass.He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that the whispers were just noise, but he could feel the shift everywhere he went. Doors stayed open for him a second longer. Conversations cut off as he walked by. Students who had once mocked him with sneers and behind-the-back laughter now stepped aside, eyes lowered, as though unsure if he was a savior or the next curse. And somewhere inside, that attention stirred something dangerous, something old and cold, like a crown lo