Chapter 3 Secrets From Within

The guards led Sephyra up three flights of winding spiral stairs and down a broad stone corridor lined with arched windows.

They stopped before a set of doors reinforced with silver bands. One of the guards knocked twice before pushing the door open, shoving Sephyra inside hard enough to make her stumble forward onto the floor.

"Go to your Alpha," the guard barked, pulling the door shut behind her. 

Sephyra straightened her posture and looked around the room.

The chamber was big. High bookshelves lined two sides of the room, filled with leather-bound volumes. A wide desk sat near the window, littered with rolled maps and official academy ledgers.

Her eyes moved to the hearth on the far end and she almost jumped when she saw a figure whose back faced her. 

"You don't bow when you enter a noble's private quarters?" His voice rose without turning around. 

"No. Not when I was pushed in like a slave," Sephyra replied, stepping further into the room. “What do you want from me?”

Tharion turned slowly, his sharp golden-brown eyes tracking her as she walked around the center table. He had discarded his high-collared jacket, leaving him in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“For a human, you have a dangerous tongue. Out there, in front of the headmaster, I let it slide because it amused me. In here, there are no spectators. Watch yourself."

He set his glass down on the mantelpiece with a dull clack. "You are my pet now and that means you live by my rules, which are: when I enter a room, you stand by the wall with your hands behind your back. You speak only when asked a direct question. You fetch my meals, keep my quarters spotless, and tend to my armor before morning drills."

Sephyra stopped a few feet away from him. "And if I decline?"

Tharion’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Decline?” A scoff followed. “You are my property, claimed under academy law. You don't have choices."

"I have the choice to refuse to play servant to someone who needs a title to feel superior," Sephyra said, her voice completely calm.

Tharion moved so fast his shadow barely registered. In half a second, he closed the distance between them, his hand coming up to grip her chin, forcing her head back. His grip was tight, his strength far beyond anything a normal human possessed.

"Listen to me carefully," he purred, his voice dark and close to her ear. "I took you because you dared to embarrass me. Now I am going to break that pride piece by piece until you beg to clean my boots."

Sephyra didn't pull away. She looked directly into his eyes, her expression devoid of fear. "Do what you want. Break as many bones as it pleases you. But you can't force me to respect you."

Tharion stared at her, his jaw tightening. For a long moment, neither of them moved. He expected tears, trembling, or pleading, the standard reactions of humans brought into the upper keep. Instead, he found something different. A person with a personality he wasn’t sure bordered on pride or stubbornness.

He let go of her chin with a harsh shove, stepping back. "Let’s see how long this attitude of yours lasts after a week of torture."

By nightfall, news of Sephyra's placement had spread through the lower servant barracks.

In the central dining hall for low-ranking human staff, six girls sat around a long wooden bench, whispering furiously.

"She's going to get us all punished," a girl with red hair muttered, stabbing her spoon into a bowl of thin broth. "Did you see how she talked to Lord Tharion? He could have executed her right there."

"She got claimed by Rank One," another girl said, her tone thick with jealousy. "I wanted to be the one. Now that foolish girl gets private quarters in the high wing, real food, and protection from the upper-class cadets. None of us will ever get near the main keep."

"You think?" the red-haired girl scoffed. "Lord Tharion hates her. He’s probably going to torture her endlessly till she dies. She won't last a month."

High above the dining halls, in a private balcony room overlooking the central courtyard, Morwen leaned against a stone pillar.

He held a small glass tablet in his hand, the blue light illuminating his pale face and dark hair. The Nexus feed was flooded with blurred photos of the white-haired girl from the morning orientation, accompanied by hundreds of theoretical posts debating her origin.

"Silver hair..." Morwen murmured to himself, his lips curving into a subtle, curious smile. "No human bloodline bears that color."

He slid the tablet into his coat, stepped back into the shadows of the hallway, and vanished.

In the administrative wing of the central library, Headmaster Vance sat behind his desk, a dim mage-light hovering above his head.

He dragged a finger down the official regional birth registry from the border territories. He had been searching for her name, but the entry was completely blank beside her birth date. No father listed. No mother listed. No village record prior to seven years ago.

Vance frowned, tapping his quill against the parchment. "Nothing… feels like she never existed until now."

Late into the night, the upper corridors of the high keep were dark and still.

Sephyra stepped quietly out of Tharion’s outer chamber, carrying a brass pitcher to fetch fresh water from the central stone fountain down the hall.

As she walked along the narrow stone passage, two deep voices echoed from around the corner. She paused, pulling back into a corner to hide.

"...can't be a coincidence," a raspy voice said softly.

"Keep your voice down," another professor snapped. "If the Council hears you repeating the silver-hair prophecy, you'll be stripped of your rank before sunrise."

"The old texts said the white hair would return when the true—"

The raspy voice cut off abruptly. The sound of footsteps stopped right outside Sephyra’s shadow.

Before Sephyra could step back into the corridor, a cold, firm hand suddenly reached out from behind her and covered her mouth.