Maya
The days after the ceremony are a new kind of quiet. Not the comfortable silence I used to live in, but a loud, suffocating one. It follows me down the corridors, a vacuum that sucks all the normal chatter away as I pass. Whispers sprout in my wake like weeds. Her. The rejected one. Did you see his face? I feel their stares like little pinpricks on my skin.
Lena and Finn form a wall around me. They walk me to classes. They sit with me in the dining hall, trying to fill the silence with pointless chatter.
“The stew is extra watery today,” Lena says, pushing the brown liquid around in her bowl. “It’s an insult to stews everywhere.”
Finn nods, his eyes scanning the room. “The caloric value is likely suboptimal.”
I don’t answer. My food is untouched. I can’t eat. It’s hard to do anything when a hollow cavern has opened up in my chest. Across the hall, he laughs. Kael. It’s a sound that used to make my heart soar. Now it just makes the cavern ache.
He’s with Seraphina, of course. They are never not together. She has her hand on his arm, her head tilted just so, a picture of adoration. He leans in and whispers something in her ear, and her answering smile is blinding. It’s all for show. A performance for the entire academy, and I am the unwilling audience for every single act.
Seraphina’s eyes find mine across the room. She gives me a tiny, pitying smile before turning her attention back to Kael. The performance continues.
“Don’t look at them,” Lena hisses, her voice a low growl. “They’re not worth your energy.”
I pick up my water goblet. My hand is trembling. “I can’t help it.”
Suddenly, they’re standing up. Walking. And they’re coming our way. Lena straightens her back, ready for a fight. Finn just watches, his expression unreadable.
“Maya,” Seraphina says, her voice like sweet, sticky poison. They stop right at our table. Kael stands slightly behind her, his arms crossed, his face a mask of indifference. He won’t even look at me. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. We’ve all been so worried.”
The lie is so blatant it’s almost funny. “I’m fine, Seraphina.”
“Are you sure?” She leans in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “You just look so… fragile. It’s understandable. A rejection like that. So public. I told Kael he should have been more gentle, but you know how he is. He just can’t abide weakness.”
My grip tightens on my goblet. A deep, unfamiliar anger, hot and sharp, surges through me. The thick glass groans under the pressure.
Crack.
The goblet shatters in my hand. Water and shards of glass spill across the table. A few drops of blood well up on my palm where a piece cut me.
Lena jumps to her feet. “Look what you did, you viper!”
Seraphina takes a delicate step back, her hand flying to her chest in mock horror. “Oh my. How clumsy. You see, Kael? Utterly falling apart.”
Kael finally looks at me. Not with concern, but with something that looks like disgust. He shakes his head slightly and turns away, leading a smirking Seraphina from the hall. The whispers around us explode into a roar.
Later, the buzz in the academy changes. The news of my humiliation is replaced by something new. A transfer student.
“From the Northern Clans,” I overhear a girl say by the armory. “They say his family is ancient. Powerful.”
“I heard he challenged his own Alpha and didn’t even get a scratch,” her friend replies.
The stories get wilder with each telling. He’s a monster. He’s a prince. He’s here because he was exiled. He’s here on a secret mission. It’s a welcome distraction from my own pathetic story.
I’m in the training hall, trying to lose myself in the familiar motions of combat practice. I need to hit something. The rough material of the training dummy scrapes against my knuckles. I ignore the pain, pouring all my frustration, all my shame, into each strike.
“You’ll break your hands before you break that dummy.”
I freeze. Seraphina’s voice. I turn slowly. She’s leaning against the doorway, flanked by Kael. They look like a king and queen surveying their domain.
“What do you want, Seraphina?”
“I just came to watch the show.” She saunters into the hall, her footsteps echoing in the large space. “It’s just so fascinating. Watching you try so hard. All that effort. All that training. And for what? To end up alone and rejected.”
I clench my fists. My mother’s voice is in my head. Don’t make waves.
“It’s no wonder he rejected you,” she continues, circling me like a predator. “You’re nothing. A quiet, little mouse from a worthless bloodline. You never stood a chance.”
Every word is a deliberate cut. I can feel that hot, terrifying thing building inside me again. The floor beneath my feet seems to hum.
Kael steps forward, his voice bored and dismissive. “Seraphina, let’s go. She’s not worth the effort.”
That’s it. That’s the final push. The dam of control I’ve been desperately holding together doesn’t just crack. It explodes.
My anguish and rage boil over. It’s not a scream. It’s a force. A raw, uncontrolled wave of power erupts from my body, shaking the very air in the hall. A low groan comes from the ground beneath me, and a spiderweb of cracks spreads across the thick stone floor, radiating out from where I stand.
Seraphina stumbles back, her face finally losing its smugness, replaced by genuine shock. Kael’s eyes widen, his casual disdain gone, replaced by disbelief.
At that exact moment, the heavy wooden doors at the far end of the hall swing open.
A tall figure stands silhouetted against the light. He moves with a quiet, dangerous grace, his presence instantly commanding the attention of the room. The transfer student. He has to be. His piercing eyes bypass a stunned Kael and a fearful Seraphina. They bypass everyone and everything else.
They lock onto me. And in their depths, I don’t see pity or curiosity. I see an expression of pure, stunned recognition.
