Night draped the Academy in silence. The towers stood like watchful sentinels against the pale silver of the moon, their banners stirring faintly in the wind. Most students were in their dorms, reading or already asleep.
Yegr wasn't.
He sat on his bed, boots laced, a small dagger hidden beneath his pillow. Every sound in the hallway made him tense. He kept thinking about Serra's voice in the Archives — that promise of a coming storm.
The storm arrived sooner than expected.
A scream split the night.
Yegr was on his feet before he even thought about it, shoving open the door. Darin stumbled into the hall, half-dressed, eyes wide. "South courtyard! Someone's—"
Another scream cut him off, this one choked mid-breath.
They ran.
The south courtyard was chaos. A faint mist coiled along the flagstones, unnaturally cold. Three students lay sprawled on the ground, gasping as if their lungs were being crushed. The air smelled faintly of bitterroot — a paralytic poison Yegr remembered from the war.
And at the center of it all stood a cloaked figure, mask hiding their face, one gloved hand extended over a struggling boy on his knees.
Yegr's blood froze. The stance. The stillness. It was Serra's height, Serra's build.
He drew his dagger and stepped forward.
"Let him go."
The masked figure turned slowly. Their gaze — or at least the mask's blank eyeholes — fixed on him. Then, without a word, they dropped a small glass vial onto the stones. It shattered, releasing a burst of smoke that stung Yegr's eyes.
By the time he could see again, the figure was gone.
Darin was already kneeling by the victims, shaking one's shoulder. "They're breathing, but… Yegr, they're poisoned. We need the healers."
Yegr's eyes darted to the ground. There — a scrap of cloth snagged on a cracked stone. Black, with faint silver embroidery curling along the edge.
The sigil of the Shadowed Path.
And his gut told him exactly whose sleeve it had torn from.