Chapter 4 Catching Their Attention

The hand over Sephyra’s mouth was bone-cold, smelling faintly of crushed velvet and dried iron.

"Shhh," a smooth voice whispered near her ear. "Unless you want those old fools to find out you were listening."

The two professors' footsteps drifted away down the hall, their muffled conversation dying into the walls. Once the corridor fell completely silent, the grip loosened, and the stranger stepped back into the light streaming through a window.

Sephyra turned around quickly, her hand dropping to the brass pitcher.

The young man standing before her had dark hair falling over sharp, aristocratic features and pale skin that seemed to absorb the shadows. His eyes were a startling violet. He wore the black uniform of the upper tier, his collar unbuttoned, lazy and careless.

"I recognize you. You are Rank Two," Sephyra said, keeping her voice low. "Morwen."

Morwen smiled, his white teeth catching the silver light. "Famous already, aren't I? Though I believe you’re the one everyone is talking about tonight, white-haired human."

"Sorry. I was about to fetch water," Sephyra said, stepping around him. "Excuse me."

"Wait," Morwen said softly.

He didn't reach out to grab her. Instead, he simply tilted his head, his violet eyes locking onto hers. A subtle wave of invisible force rolled off him that seeped through the air, seeking the open pathways of her mind. Vampire compulsion. A gentle pry to force her to stand still, drop her guard, and reveal whatever secrets she kept hidden behind her calm eyes.

Sephyra stopped, feeling a faint chill brush against her temples. It felt like a thin breeze passing through an empty hallway. It found nothing to grip, sliding away like water off smooth ice.

Morwen’s smile faltered. His brow furrowed slightly as he pushed harder, his magic flaring in the dark.

Silence. Absolute, total silence met his mental reach. There was no barrier to break, no spell to deflect, just a void where a human's vulnerable mind ought to be.

Morwen took a step back, his smile disappearing. "That’s impossible. No human should be immune."

"What? I am a human who needs to fill a pitcher for her lord. I am clearly not immune," Sephyra rolled her eyes after the response, tired of the stares people gave her.

Morwen stepped closer, his chest heaving as his pulse spiked. The sudden rush of adrenaline in his veins brought another sense alive. It was the strong, overpowering scent of her blood. It hit him like a physical blow, rich and entirely wrong, bearing a subtle sweetness that no human blood had ever possessed.

His eyes flared a brilliant, hungry red and his fangs pulled out slightly over his lower lip. Taking another eager step toward her, his fingers twitched as instinct took over.

Sephyra didn't shrink back. She lifted the pitcher, her grip tight around the handle, ready to drive the solid base straight into his jaw if he moved another inch. “Don’t come any closer!”

Somehow, the sound of footsteps reached his ears from the lower stairwell and it immediately broke the tension.

He knew what would happen if anyone saw him with Sephyra. He couldn’t afford it for her.

Morwen blinked, the blood red fading from his violet eyes as he forced his composure back. He took two quick steps backward into the shadows, his hands trembling slightly as he pulled his coat tight around his shoulders.

"This isn't over, white hair," he whispered, his voice uneven before he turned and vanished down the dark hallway like a drift of smoke.

By morning, the incident in the upper corridor had already mutated into a dozen different versions across the student body.

Two junior cadets who had been returning from the late-night training yards claimed to have seen Rank Two cornering Tharion’s new servant in the dark. By the time the morning bells rang, the Dominion Nexus was buzzing with fresh posts and wild speculations.

“Is Morwen trying to provoke Rank One?”

“Rank Two was seen talking to the white-haired human servant near the high spire.”

“Is every highborn cadet starting to get obsessed with that human girl?”

In the courtyard below, students gathered around the glowing bulletin boards, ignoring their morning schedules to discuss the latest rumors.

Stepping off a dusty glass-panelled carriage at the main gates was Aeryn.

He moved with a fluid grace, his long silver-trimmed navy coat brushing against his boots. As Rank Three of the academy, his late arrival from the northern front drew immediate whispers from the surrounding crowd, but he ignored them all. He ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair, exhausted from days of travel.

A crowd of students moved past him, holding up glowing glass tablets to show each other the latest trending posts on the Nexus feed.

"Look at this photo from yesterday's selection," a girl said, tapping her screen. "She doesn't even look real."

Aeryn glanced over casually as he passed.

His feet froze to the cobblestones. His fingers went numb. The noise around him faded until all he could hear was the pounding of his own heartbeat.

The tablet screen displayed a blurred, candid shot of a girl standing in the middle of the courtyard, her hood pulled back by the wind, her thick silver-white hair flowing over her shoulders, her eyes looking straight ahead.

For unknown reasons, his breath hitched. 

For seven years, he had been having one recurring dream of a girl with silver hair standing in a field of ash, holding a broken iron key, calling his name before the sky tore open. He had drawn her face a thousand times on scraps of parchment in his private quarters, convinced she was nothing more than a ghost born from his own mind.

He reached out, his hand shaking slightly as he grabbed the cadet’s wrist, pulling the tablet closer to his face.

"Who is she?" Aeryn asked, his voice low, raspy from travel.

The cadet blinked in surprise. "Lord Aeryn! That's... that's the human girl from yesterday's draft. The one Lord Tharion claimed."

Aeryn stared at the screen, his chest tightening until it hurt to breathe. He looked up toward the towers of the central keep, his eyes wide with a mix of shock and total disbelief.

"I finally found you," Aeryn whispered. “You are real.”