The courtyard of Thalorien Academy blazed with color.

  Banners snapped in the wind. Enchanted lights drifted through the air. Hundreds of students pressed together in excited clusters, voices overlapping in a dizzying hum—laughter, shouting, greetings, spells crackling to life in careless hands.

  Lysara froze on the edge of the crowd.

  Too many people.

  Too much noise.

  Too much color.

  Her glasses slid halfway down her nose again. She shoved them back up with a shaking finger, but the world remained warped—edges bending, faces stretching, the ground tilting slightly beneath her feet.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Not now… please, not now.

  The raw herb she’d chewed that morning churned uneasily. Suppressants worked better than nothing, but eating them unrefined always left her sick. She tried to steady her breathing.

  She had to blend in.

  She had to look normal.

  The crowd pressed closer—heat, scent, voices surrounding her—until her pulse sped up and the familiar sting crept along her veins.

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  Lysara dug her nails into her palms, grounding herself. Forcing it down.

  Not here. Not now.

  A student bumped her shoulder. She stumbled, vision swimming, bangs falling into her eyes. Someone laughed and it struck like a slap.

  “Watch where you’re going,” a sharp voice muttered behind her.

  She swallowed hard, fighting the nausea, the dizziness, the rising burn beneath her skin.

  Then—

  A warm hand steadied her elbow.

  “You okay?” a gentle, low voice asked.

  She turned.

  A tall boy with rich auburn hair and warm amber eyes stood beside her.

  Kayden.

  He repositioned her as if she were fragile, boxing her in between a pillar and himself, cutting off the noisy press of the crowd. “You look pale,” he murmured. “Crowds bothering you?”

  She shook her head too quickly. “N-No. Just… tired.”

  Her glasses slid again.

  Kayden caught them mid-fall and gently set them back on her nose.

  “Those don’t fit you,” he said quietly.

  Heat flushed her cheeks.

  Before she could answer, movement caught her eye.

  A tall, elegant young man in dark navy turned his head slightly. His gaze flicked toward her with cool interest.

  Golden eyes.

  Cold. Sharp. Assessing.

  His expression didn’t change, but she felt weighed and dismissed in the same heartbeat—like she’d been categorized in a single glance.

  Her stomach twisted again.

  The Headmaster began speaking.

  Lysara barely heard a word.

  The stranger turned to Kayden, their exchange brief and practiced.

  She focused on breathing—on not swaying, not betraying the raw-herb sickness curling in her gut, or the fear tightening her chest.

  Orientation Day was supposed to be a new beginning.

  Instead, it felt like drowning.