Chapter 3 Riley's POV

The morning I left the trailer didn’t feel real.

My backpack, with its frayed strap and stubborn zipper, sat open on the floor, the same one I’d dragged through too many dead-end shifts.

I packed the few clothes I owned, my secondhand notebook, my cracked phone, the scholarship letter, and one photograph I couldn’t leave behind.

Its edges were curled from years of being touched: six-year-old me, missing teeth and grinning anyway, and my dad sober enough to hold me steady.

He hadn’t come home the night before.

Maybe he’d drunk himself into forgetting, or maybe disappearing was easier than saying goodbye.

A small, selfish part of me wished he’d slammed the door and cursed me out. At least then I would’ve heard his voice one last time.

Instead, I left a note on the counter and walked out into silence thick with beer and old cigarettes. I shut the door for good.

The bus Silverwood sent looked like it belonged to another universe, with leather seats instead of cracked vinyl, bottled water waiting in each cupholder, and air-conditioning that actually worked. Even the driver wore pressed gloves.

It whispered the same thing with every detail: This wasn’t made for you.

Town blurred past the window, rusted signs, sun-faded storefronts, and gas stations where everyone knew my name because nobody ever left.

Each mile peeled away pieces of the girl I’d been. Some labels felt etched deep enough to follow me no matter how far I ran, but still, I ran.

By the time Silverwood’s gates rose ahead, towering iron laced with silver crests, I was sweating through my palms.

Beyond them, manicured lawns stretched wide, stone towers cut into the sky, and banners snapped in a disciplined rhythm. Silverwood didn’t just look powerful. It knew it was powerful.

Students moved through the courtyard in crisp uniforms and polished shoes. Their laughter carried like a private language. They belonged here.

I tightened my grip on my backpack and reminded myself I didn’t. That’s when I felt it.

A stare. Sharp enough to prickle down my spine.

Across the courtyard stood… him.

He stood like the axis tilted toward him. Dark hair, just tousled enough to look careless. Jaw cut sharp, posture loose but coiled like a predator seconds from lunging.

But it was his eyes that rooted me in place: cold gray, endless, unreadable, and they were locked on mine.

The crowd faded. No uniforms. No banners. Just those eyes.

Instinct said look away. Survive. Bow your head like everyone else probably did. I didn’t.

Maybe I was reckless. Maybe stupid. Maybe tired of shrinking, but I held his gaze, pulse thundering.

Something flickered across his expression, quick as a blade. Surprise. Curiosity. Then the faintest curl at his mouth. Not a smile. A warning.

The headmistress’s voice sliced through the courtyard, dragging me out of whatever that was. Students shifted, the moment breaking. I dropped my gaze and let the current of bodies swallow me.

What the hell was that? I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Just a stare. Just a boy, but I knew better.

Inside the great hall, marble gleamed so bright it showed my reflection, wide-eyed, overwhelmed, pretending I didn’t feel like an intruder walking on polished glass.

Constellations painted across the ceiling shimmered faintly, almost moving. Silver banners draped down like the academy was watching us from above.

I slipped into the back, half-hidden by a pillar. No one smiled. Their eyes cut over me like blades, measuring, dismissing, deciding I wasn’t worth the air.

Headmistress Selene Aldrich stepped onto the stage, tall and severe, her silver-blonde hair twisted into a chignon sharp enough to hurt.

“Welcome to Silverwood Academy,” she said. “Here, you will be tested. The weak will rise, or they will break.”

The room straightened as if pulled by puppet strings. My stomach tightened. Rise or break wasn’t a motto. It was a threat.

She introduced some of the professors, each more intimidating than the last. Professor Marcellus, whose stare could skin a person alive.

Professor Liora, elegant and knife-edged, and Mr. Nathaniel Cross…the only one who looked human enough to trust, but somehow the most unreadable.

Then the headmistress paused, and the room shifted.

“And lastly,” she said, voice ringing out like a bell, “we welcome a new student this term, Riley Walker, recipient of the Silverwood Scholarship.”

Heat shot up my throat. Hundreds of heads turned. Curiosity. Judgment. Open hostility.

If the floor had opened beneath me, I would’ve thanked it.

I forced myself not to flinch. Not here. Not now. That’s when I felt it again. That stare.

He was at the front this time, sitting with three other boys who looked carved from old money and old power, but he didn’t smirk now. Didn’t taunt.

He just watched me like he already knew something about me I didn’t.

My heart stumbled.

The assembly ended to thunderous applause. Students spilled outside, their whispers sharper than the sunlight.

“She won’t last a week,” a girl hissed as she shoved past.

Maybe she was right, but as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and stepped into the courtyard, I thought about the letter folded in my bag, the years I’d clawed my way through, and the nights I’d survived alone.

I hadn’t come this far to break. I wasn’t here to blend in. I was here to fight.

The hairs on my arms rose. It felt like someone was watching me again. I turned.

The courtyard was empty, but the feeling lingered, and this time, it didn’t feel like him.

It felt older. Darker. Like Silverwood itself had noticed me, and for the first time, I wondered if coming here had been a choice… or a summons.