It had been almost a month since Aylinor joined the academy, and for reasons he refused to admit even to himself, Selene’s irritated whisper kept replaying in Ardion’s head.

  “She’s always there.”

  He hadn’t cared when Selene said it.

  He rarely cared about anything she said.

  Yet in the quiet between training sessions, in the lull of lectures, in the space where his thoughts usually drifted unbothered, the words lingered like a grain of sand he couldn’t blink away.

  Once he began noticing, he couldn’t stop.

  Not in obvious ways.

  Nothing he could point at and name.

  He felt it surface, the familiar tension that came when the wolf in him rose and was held back.

  A reflection slipping across a window as he turned.

  A soft presence at the edge of a crowd.

  The faintest shift of someone moving the instant he looked away.

  Except for Ardion, no one else seemed to notice. He didn’t tell anyone either. It was too swift, too subtle. Only his growing focus and careful attention revealed her presence.

  Aylinor never approached him.

  Never hovered.

  Never intruded.

  But she was there.

  Not close.

  Not distant.

  Present enough that he could no longer ignore it.

  And somehow, that quiet presence irritated him more than any confrontation ever could.

  He found himself glancing over his shoulder more often than he liked. His focus betrayed him.

  During combat drills, he would sweep the room as always, and there she was on the upper balcony, speaking with Calden, posture calm.

  In study hall, she crossed the far aisle, absorbed in a book Daelira had shoved into her hands.

  At lunch, Lorcan’s laughter announced their group before he even saw them, and Aylinor slid into a seat beside him without a glance.

  She behaved like a normal student.

  Except when she did not.

  Like the forgotten gallery, rarely used except by professors and lost first-years. One late afternoon, on his way to the west wing, he passed through it. Beyond the dim hush and dusted canvases, a faint outline appeared in the tall window.

  Her outline.

  Just for a heartbeat.

  When he looked again, the space was empty, quietly sunlit.

  The sense of being watched clung to him like a restless echo.

  A few days later, something shifted.

  Not with Ardion, but with Aylinor.

  She felt it first.

  A presence trailing her that was not Ardion’s attention.

  Not the harmless glances of curious students.

  Something else, thin, cold, and watchful.

  She did not tell Calden.

  He noticed anyway.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You’re tense,” he murmured as they walked across the courtyard.

  “I’m fine,” she said, the least convincing thing she had said since arriving.

  Calden slowed, eyes narrowing. He felt the air change before he saw anything, an instinct honed through years of vigilance. His fingers twitched, ready to draw something only he and his siblings could summon.

  Aylinor raised a hand slightly, not looking at him.

  A silent command. Stand down.

  Calden exhaled through his nose, jaw tight, but obeyed. He shifted to the background, watching her even more sharply than the presence watching her.

  Aylinor followed the invisible tug threading through her senses. It led her across the academy grounds, past practice fields, through older stone corridors. Each step sharpened the air, the world narrowing into something quiet and unnatural.

  It led her to the abandoned greenhouse at the outer ring.

  Moonlight filtered through cracked glass and leaning vines, turning the air pale and ghostlike.

  She stepped inside.

  The temperature dropped.

  The air pulsed wrong, like water disturbed by a deep ripple.

  Beside a wilted planter tilted unnaturally on its side, the space was distorted. Not alive, not creature-like. Subtle but undeniable, like something had pressed through it and moved on.

  She approached slowly.

  Calden stayed at the doorway, body coiled, hand hovering near an invisible hilt only he could summon.

  The warped patch shivered.

  It was aware of her.

  Watching her.

  Aylinor’s breath steadied. She lifted her hand, palm open, sensing rather than touching.

  The distortion rippled.

  Twisted.

  Bled away into nothing, like mist evaporating under unseen light.

  The world snapped back into place.

  Leaving only silence.

  Calden moved instantly, crossing the distance in a few strides.

  Aylinor turned to him, calm but sharper than before.

  “That,” she said quietly, “seems like a mistake, but that is also a cue for us to be prepared.”

  Calden’s eyes sharpened as he understood the depth of her words.

  “………”

  A few days later, the events of the greenhouse still lingered in the minds of a few.

  Ardion walked through the quiet corridors, replaying Aylinor’s calm, unreadable expression.

  Somewhere, someone else was also thinking about her.

  Selene was already scheming.

  Her certainty that Aylinor was “obsessed with Ardion” had fermented into something sharp and petty.

  She rallied her two closest friends, whispering plans with a gleam that made even them uneasy.

  “She thinks she’s subtle,” Selene hissed. “Just wait. I’ll corner her. I’ll make her admit it.”

  That evening, they followed Aylinor.

  Not stealthily.

  Not intelligently.

  Just with the confidence of people who had never been wrong enough times to learn caution.

  Aylinor stepped out of the greenhouse, eyes still distant with thought, when Selene jumped in front of her.

  “Aylinor!” she snapped. “We need to talk.”

  Her voice rang too loud.

  Her friends formed a loose, awkward triangle around Aylinor.

  Aylinor blinked once.

  That was all.

  Selene moved forward exactly as a heavy vine loosened above her from the greenhouse roof.

  Aylinor stepped aside, not dramatically, not even quickly, just precisely enough.

  Selene’s foot landed on the unstable stone border of the old planter.

  Her balance went.

  Her pride went with it.

  She windmilled, shrieked, and tumbled backwards into a pile of dry foliage.

  Her friends gasped.

  Aylinor didn’t touch her.

  Didn’t try to catch her.

  Just observed the fall she hadn’t caused.

  Selene scrambled up, leaves in her hair, face flushed with humiliation and fury.

  “You—what did you do?!”

  “Nothing,” Aylinor said softly.

  Which only made Selene angrier.

  Before the shouting could escalate, footsteps approached.

  Ardion rounded the corner, drawn by the noise.

  He stopped at the sight.

  “Selene,” he said, exasperation thickening his voice. “What are you doing?”

  She clutched Ardion’s arm as she tried to steady herself.

  “She—she’s been following you! She’s dangerous! Look what she did to me!”

  Ardion dragged a hand down his face. “Stop. Just stop. You can’t do this to people.”

  Selene froze, eyes wide.

  He never scolded her in public.

  But tonight, he didn’t even hesitate.

  He turned toward Aylinor.

  “Come with me,” he said, not unkindly but firm enough to leave no room for refusal.

  She followed him away from the greenhouse, down the quiet stone path toward an open courtyard where the academy lights dimmed into soft gold.

  He stopped when they were alone.

  Ardion faced her fully, the confusion he’d been carrying for weeks finally boiling to the surface.

  “You,” he said quietly.

  His sapphire-blue eyes narrowed, not hostile but searching.

  “Why are you following me? What exactly are you doing?”

  Aylinor lifted her chin, calm as ever.

  For the first time… she answered him.

  They held each other’s gaze, nothing but a pair of eyes staring deep into the other’s, and for a fleeting moment, the air between them seemed to crackle.