Chapter 6 Beyond the Gates of Blackthorn
They left at dawn.
Not for symbolism.
For practicality.
If you were going to abandon a place like Blackthorn, you did it while the school still slept, while the world hadn’t yet made up its mind about the day.
Anil stood at the top of the stone steps and looked back once.
The academy loomed behind her—familiar towers, frost-rimmed windows, the sealed east wing that always felt like a breath held too long. Snow clung to the ledges, softening the ancient edges. Smoke drifted from the chimneys; the kitchens were awake.
It could have been any winter morning.
“Don’t make it harder,” Lucien said quietly beside her.
She hadn’t heard him come up. His voice held no sarcasm. He rarely used that tone unless something mattered.
“I’m not,” she said.
“You are.” He gestured toward her face. “You’re doing the long stare. That’s the ‘I’m emotionally attached but pretending I’m fine’ look.”
Cael adjusted the strap of his pack. He carried almost nothing. None of them did. There was no point packing when reality itself occasionally edited things out from under you.
“We’ll come back,” Cael said.
It sounded hopeful.
It didn’t feel true.
Anil turned from the school.
“Let’s go.”
They descended the steps as the sky lifted from black to pale blue, brushed with pink. The cold stung her lungs in a way that felt honest.
The gates stood tall and iron-bound, woven with the old sigils Blackthorn practically married itself to. Once, they had felt like a protection.
Today they felt like a border.
Cael brushed his fingertips across the metal. The wards shimmered faintly beneath his touch.
“Still holding?” Lucien asked.
“For now,” Cael murmured. “But they weren’t built to keep out what he’s becoming.”
“Wonderful,” Lucien said under his breath.
Headmaster Orien had given Cael the carved seal the night before—old runes, older magic. It glowed in Cael’s palm, acknowledging him. The gates opened with a long groan.
Not dramatic.
Just inevitable.
Anil stepped through first.
Nothing cracked or screamed. No magic flared. But something shifted.
Behind her, Blackthorn felt muted—like a book closed firmly.
Ahead, the world felt too sharp.
The road stretched through frost-touched grass toward the town and the wider unknown, but the air itself felt like a question.
Lucien stepped through next. The hair on his arms rose.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Either I walked through a magical spiderweb or someone out there desperately wants us to leave.”
Cael came last. As his foot touched snow beyond the wards, the gate sigils dimmed—like a candle cupped against the wind.
“Did you feel that?” Lucien asked.
Cael nodded. “Blackthorn just stopped claiming us.”
Anil’s stomach tightened.
“We’re really gone,” she whispered.
Lucien’s voice softened. “That’s exactly what he wanted.”
The first hour passed quietly—crunching snow, grey sky, the occasional raven cry.
“Where exactly are we going?” Anil eventually asked.
“As far from stable wards as possible,” Lucien replied. “If Ardan keeps pushing reality around, those wards will overreact. And I don’t want to be there when old magic throws a tantrum.”
“More specifically,” Cael added, “toward the southern passes. Less surveillance. Fewer angelic records.”
“More monsters,” Lucien said cheerfully.
“Comforting,” Anil muttered.
“You brought me,” Lucien reminded her. “You knew what you were signing up for.”
Cael walked beside her, close but quiet. His hybrid markings were hidden beneath his collar, but she could feel the faint static of them whenever his nerves spiked.
“You’re quiet,” she said softly.
“I’m thinking.”
“About him?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “And about us. And what exactly he expects us to walk into.”
Lucien called over his shoulder, “Weather and existential dread. Only one of those is guaranteed.”
They descended a slope, trees gathering closely on either side. Bare branches whispered above them, the sound thin and brittle.
Anil stepped over a patch of ice—and froze.
“There’s no sound,” she whispered.
“We’re talking,” Cael said, confused.
“Not us.” She held her breath. “Listen.”
They did.
No birds.
No distant carts.
No animal movement.
No flutter of wings or rustle of underbrush.
Just the wind.
And beneath it—
Something slow.
Something steady.
A heartbeat buried under the world.
Cael’s eyes darkened.
“You hear it too,” she whispered.
He nodded.
“What?” Lucien demanded.
“The silence,” Cael said.
Lucien rolled his eyes. “I hear silence all the time—”
“No,” Cael said. “You hear absence. Not intent.”
The difference cut through her like cold water.
“Is he doing this?” Anil whispered.
Cael hesitated. “The world is responding to him. Like water responding to gravity.”
“And we’re walking downhill,” Lucien said.
By midday, the road forked.
One path led toward town—safety, noise, eyes, normality.
The other dropped into a narrow valley where the snow lay untouched.
“Don’t say it,” Anil warned.
Lucien raised both hands. “Say what?”
“That we all know which way he wants us to go.”
Lucien looked at the valley. Then at the town.
“The evolving ex-angel who’s editing reality doesn’t want us in a crowded town,” he said. “Less interference in the valley.”
Cael was already staring at the slope.
Anil exhaled. “So we go to the town.”
Cael didn’t look away. “If we avoid him, he’ll push harder. And that means more distortion. More people caught in the crossfire.”
Lucien’s humor vanished. “He has a point.”
Anil looked between the two paths.
“So if we choose safety, someone else pays,” she whispered.
Cael nodded once. “This is between him and us. And the world knows it.”
Lucien gave a soft, sardonic smile.
“Congratulations,” he said. “We’re officially main characters.”
Anil steeled herself.
“Fine,” she said. “We go his way. But because we choose to. Not because he pulls.”
“Spoken like a protagonist,” Lucien said.
They turned down the valley path.
The moment they did, the air tightened.
Not threatening.
Not hostile.
But attentive.
Like the world was taking notes.
The valley narrowed quickly. Trees pressed close, their branches like ribs arching overhead. The snow here was pristine—too pristine.
“No tracks,” Lucien said.
“It snowed,” Cael replied.
“Exactly. There should be animal tracks. Something.”
There was nothing.
No sign anything living had passed through in weeks.
Anil slowed. “What if… this isn’t a road anymore?”
Cael reached out with his hybrid senses—sight, grace, memory, something deeper—and felt resistance.
The space didn’t like being touched.
“It’s real and not real,” he murmured. “As if the place itself hasn’t decided to exist.”
Lucien grunted. “He’s carving pockets. Making areas where rules don’t hold.”
“So we’re entering a place the world hasn’t accepted yet,” Anil whispered.
“Yes,” Cael said.
“And we’re doing it willingly.”
“Yes.”
Lucien smirked. “Good. He’s not the only one who gets to shape this story.”
But the deeper they walked, the stranger the world grew.
The path blurred at the edges. Shadows didn’t fall exactly where they should. Once, a cluster of rocks appeared ahead, but when Anil blinked, there was only snow.
“Cael…” she said slowly. “We passed that tree before.”
A gnarled trunk twisted like a screaming face.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Lucien studied it. “I’d remember that. It’s hideous.”
They moved on.
Ten minutes later—
Same tree.
“Loop?” Lucien said.
Cael closed his eyes and felt it.
“No. A narrowing. The space ahead is shorter than the distance inside it. We’re being bent back.”
“So he’s curving the road,” Lucien said.
“He’s testing how much he can bend without losing us,” Cael murmured.
Anil’s breath tightened. “So he’s trying to trap us?”
“No,” Cael said. “He’s trying to observe us.”
“Fantastic,” Lucien muttered. “Let’s give him a show.”
“How do we break it?” Anil asked.
“We refuse the curve.”
Cael stepped off the road into deeper snow.
“Cael—” she began.
He lifted a hand and focused.
“Path is expectation,” he murmured. “Road is repetition. You’ve taught the world how you want this to go…”
The air thickened.
“…now teach it something else.”
He walked forward.
Not following the road.
Just forward.
Slowly, the pressure lessened.
The curve dissolved.
Lucien whistled. “Still got it, hybrid. You can negotiate with the universe.”
Anil followed, each step heavy but determined.
We will not be pulled.
We will walk.
The world shifted—clicked—and the loop vanished.
Lucien exhaled. “He felt that.”
“Good,” Cael said.
“Meaning he knows exactly where we are,” Lucien added.
“Yes.”
“Define good,” Lucien muttered.
Cael turned, eyes clearer than they’d been in days.
“It means,” he said, “he knows we’re not waiting for him anymore.”
The wind stirred.
Something watched.
Not a presence.
Not a voice.
Attention.
And for Ardan now, attention was enormous.
Anil lifted her chin.
“If you’re watching,” she whispered, “then watch.”
She took Cael’s hand.
He held it.
Lucien moved beside them, wings shivering once before settling.
Together, they walked deeper.
Beyond Blackthorn.
Into the part of the world that was beginning—slowly, undeniably—to admit it was no longer entirely in control.
🌑 HOOK (as your editor requested):
As they walked, the path ahead shimmered—just once—like heat above stone.
And a single footprint appeared in the snow.
Not theirs.
Fresh.
Too fresh.
And exactly the shape of someone who wasn’t supposed to walk anymore.
Someone who wasn’t supposed to leave a trace.
Cael stopped breathing.
Lucien swore.
Anil whispered what all three of them already knew:
“He’s here.”
