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Chapter 5 – The Night of Fire (Part A)
The first arrow struck the wall beside Greg's head. The second carried a screaming student through a window. For one terrible heartbeat, Greg couldn't move.Glass rained across the courtyard. Beyond the shattered window, flames crawled up the academy's eastern tower, devouring curtains and wooden beams. Students stumbled through the smoke, some calling for friends, others shouting names that received no answer.Then the bells began to ring. Not the measured chimes announcing lessons or the evening curfew.These were deeper, harsher, and relentless—the ancient alarm bells reserved for an attack on the capital itself.Greg tightened his grip on his practice sword. Find the boy. Kill anyone who protects him.The masked commander's words still echoed in his mind.Beside him, Mira stared at the ruined courtyard, her face drained of color. "Greg, we have to leave!"An explosion interrupted her.The ground buckled. A wave of heat swept across the courtyard, knocking Greg sideways into a ston
Chapter 5 – The Noble's Challenge Part 2
The roar rolled across the academy a second time. This time, Greg knew it wasn't his imagination. It was too deep, too vast.The sound seemed to pass through the stone beneath his boots rather than through the air, vibrating in his bones and rattling his teeth. The crowd had gone completely silent.Even Roland lowered his wand. A plume of black smoke rose beyond the northern wall, twisting into the afternoon sky. Then came screaming not the excited screams of spectators, real screams.People were running. "Get inside!" someone shouted."Seal the gates!""There's been an attack!"The arena erupted into chaos.Students pushed toward the exits, trampling over dropped weapons and shattered pieces of stone. Instructors shouted orders, trying to impose discipline on a crowd that had suddenly remembered it was mortal.Greg remained still. His hand pressed against his chest. The dragon pendant was burning. Not warm. Burning. He grabbed it through his tunic. For one strange instant, he thought
Chapter 5 – The Noble's Challenge Part A
The challenge came before breakfast Greg had barely stepped into the eastern training courtyard when a wooden practice sword slammed into the ground inches from his boot.The crack echoed across the stone. Students turned. Some smiled. Others immediately began whispering.Greg stopped.Across the courtyard, Roland Ashcombe stood surrounded by six noble apprentices, his immaculate academy uniform untouched by yesterday's humiliation. A thin scar marked the edge of his jaw—the only visible reminder that an orphan had managed to strike him during their previous examination.Roland's eyes were fixed on Greg. "You're late."Greg glanced toward the academy clock tower. "I'm early."A few students laughed Roland didn't He walked forward slowly, his polished boots clicking against the stone. "I challenge you."The courtyard went quiet.Greg's expression hardened. "To what?"Roland stopped three paces away. "A formal duel."A murmur swept through the gathered apprentices.Formal duels at the R
Chapter 4: The Greatest Danger (Part B)
Greg found his thoughts involuntarily returning to the inexplicable warmth of the pendant against his chest, the impossible roar that had echoed through the depths of Blackstone Well, and the old stories his mother had whispered to him beside their meager fireplace.He lowered his voice to barely a whisper, as if the words themselves were forbidden, dangerous. "If dragons truly existed as living creatures..."Aldric's pale eyes sharpened with sudden intensity."...then why would someone bother to erase them from history?" Greg finished.For several long, agonizing seconds, the old librarian said absolutely nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, barely audible above the eternal silence of the library."Because history is written by survivors," he said slowly, his gaze drifting toward the towering shelves that surrounded them, "not by the truth."A terrible chill crawled slowly across Greg's skin, raising the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck
Chapter 4: The Greatest Danger (Part A)
The unnatural warmth faded as suddenly and inexplicably as it had come. Greg discreetly slipped a hand beneath his academy tunic while Chief Mage Varis continued his monotonous lecture about the rise and fall of the First Arcane Empire,his elaborate historical theories droning on interminably. His trembling fingers brushed carefully against the dragon-shaped pendant, expecting to find it radiating heat. Instead, he discovered only cold, ordinary silver—nothing more, nothing less.He frowned deeply, his mind churning with confusion and doubt. Had he simply imagined the warmth? Had his anxiety and emotional turmoil caused him to hallucinate a sensation that never actually existed?The unsettling question lingered persistently throughout the remainder of the lesson, gnawing at his concentration like a constant, irritating itch.When the dismissal bell finally echoed shrilly through the academy corridors, the mage apprentices streamed enthusiastically from the classroom in a lively hum o
Chapter 3 – The Forgotten Legend (Part B)
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the attentive classroom. Greg, however, felt his fingers curl tightly around the wooden edge of his desk, his knuckles whitening from the pressure.Varis continued his lecture with practiced precision. "Thousands of years ago, the primitive tribes of our world lacked any scientific understanding of natural disasters or geological phenomena."He began pacing across the front of the classroom again, gesturing theatrically. "When volcanoes erupted without warning,"He flicked his staff, causing orange and red illusions of flowing lava to appear, "they imagined fire-breathing beasts living within the mountains."Another flick of his staff produced a new image. "When devastating earthquakes struck without explanation,"He caused the entire classroom floor to tremble slightly through sophisticated illusion magic: "They invented stories of sleeping dragons thrashing beneath the earth itself."Many students nodded thoughtfully, finding the explanation logi
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