Chapter Two — The Man in the Wolf
Everything was a blur.
The streetlights smeared across the windshield like melting stars. Rain tapped a frantic rhythm on the roof of the sleek black car, but Avery barely registered it. Her hands trembled in her lap, her breath shallow and uneven.
She kept replaying the moment — the creature lunging, the man shifting, the wolf with eyes like firelight and fury.
Auron.
He’d said his name like it should mean something. And it did. Somewhere in the back of her mind, behind childhood memories and bedtime stories, there was a flicker. A man with kind eyes who used to bring her strange candies and call her “little moon.”
She hadn’t seen him in years.
Now he was driving her through the city like a storm was chasing them.
“What was that thing?” she asked, voice raw. “And how did you—how did you turn like that?”
Auron didn’t look at her. His jaw was tight, his hands steady on the wheel. “It’s called a shade. A corrupted creature. We’ve been tracking them for months. They weren’t supposed to find you yet.”
“Find me?” Her voice cracked. “Why would they be looking for me? I’m not—I’m not anything.”
He glanced at her then, and the weight of his gaze made her stomach twist. “You are everything, Avery. You just don’t know it yet.”
She pressed her fingers to the mark on her arm. It was still glowing faintly, like starlight trapped under her skin. “This showed up today. On my birthday. I didn’t tell anyone. I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”
Auron’s voice softened. “Your mother saw it. In a vision. That’s how we knew.”
Her heart stuttered. “My mom? Is she okay? Are they safe?”
“They’re fine. They contacted me the moment the mark appeared. We had a plan to bring you to the Academy after graduation, but the timeline changed.”
Avery blinked hard. “Wait. You knew about the Academy? I just agreed to go last week. I got an offer from the dean. How—how did you know?”
Auron hesitated. “Because I helped arrange it.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
The silence stretched.
“I promised your parents I’d protect you,” he said finally. “Even if you didn’t know who I was.”
Her breath caught. “You knew me. When I was little.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you stop coming around?”
He didn’t answer.
The car turned off the main road, winding into a forested stretch she didn’t recognize. The trees were tall and ancient, their branches arching overhead like cathedral ceilings.
Avery’s thoughts spun.
The mark. The shade. The wolf. The Academy.
Her parents. Her memories.
This man who felt like a stranger and a home all at once.
She looked at him again, really looked. There was something in his profile — the curve of his jaw, the way his brow furrowed when he was focused — that tugged at something deep inside her.
“You’re not just some guy who knew my parents,” she said slowly. “Are you?”
Auron’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”
The car passed through a shimmering veil of light, and suddenly the forest opened into a valley that didn’t belong to any map.
Avery gasped.
The Impossible Academy rose from the mist like a dream carved in stone and glass. Towers spiraled into the sky, glowing with soft enchantments. Bridges arched between buildings like veins of light. The air shimmered with magic — not loud, not chaotic, but alive.
She pressed a hand to the window. “What is this place?”
“Aetherion,” Auron said. “The heart of the supernatural world. And your new home.”
Her throat tightened. “Why me?”
He parked the car near a gate guarded by two figures in silver cloaks.
Auron turned to her, his eyes gentler now. “Because you’re not just a girl with a mark. You’re a seer. The first in generations. And you’re meant to change everything.”
Avery’s pulse roared in her ears.
She didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel.
But as the gates opened and the Academy welcomed her in, one thought echoed louder than the rest:
Everyone knew who she was.
Except her.
