It had been two weeks since the students left the northern fortress. Spirits were high across most of the caravans—laughter drifting from wagons, tired students daydreaming of warm beds and familiar streets. The frost-bitten journey home always felt lighter when danger was behind them.

  Except for one wagon.

  Suri sat alone inside it, wrapped in a thick fur-lined cloak, staring blankly at the shifting forests beyond the wooden slats. Everyone else was excited to go home. She felt only the hollow ache of absence.

  Zia and the adventurers had already departed the convoy days earlier—heading toward the capital to investigate after rumours that the Empire might have been involved in the northern Dungeon Overflow incident.

  The wagon lurched to a sudden stop. Snow crunched under wheels. Then the coachman voice called from the front:

  “We’re taking a break!”

  Rin glanced at Suri, her worry plain even beneath her scarf and hood. “Suri… come on. You need to eat something.”

  Suri blinked awake from her distant, unfocused stare. She had been switching to different scouting illusions in different locations. Searching for any trace—any feeling—of the girl who wasn’t with them.

  Kana.

  Suri exhaled slowly, her breath a ghostly mist. She nodded, though her expression didn’t change.

  They gathered near a fire pit, where a few assigned senior students stirred a pot of steaming broth. Now that they were outside the dungeon, Toby’s skill wasn’t working anymore. They all feel the mad cold of the north. Still, the heat was a comfort in the winter’s bite.

  Students lined up in thick coats and mismatched scarves, their breaths fogging the air. A second group arrived from the rear convoy. Valdis walked among them, flanked by his usual entourage.

  He spotted Suri.

  And he smirked.

  “Heard Kana’s still not back,” Valdis said loudly, just enough for half the camp to hear. “I’m guessing she’s dead. Good riddance.”

  The effect was instant.

  The pot slipped from Suri’s hands, clattering hard against the frozen ground. Hot broth splashed across the snow, sending up a hiss of steam.

  Her pupils shrank. Something in her snapped.

  Before anyone could react—before Valdis even finished blinking—Suri lunged.

  She moved like a drawn bowstring, released without warning.

  Her hand clamped around Valdis’s throat, fingers locking like iron. She lifted him clean off the ground. His boots kicked uselessly in the air, scraping at her arm. His face flushed red. Then purple.

  A second later, she slammed him down.

  The earth trembled. Snow exploded outward from the impact. The nearby students stumbled back as the shock rippled under their feet.

  Suri leaned over him, eyes bloodshot, breath heavy, voice trembling with fury. “Say that one more time.”

  Valdis clawed at her wrist, veins bulging on his temples. Terror twisted his face—raw, unfiltered. A dark stain spread across his trousers, unnoticed by him but seen by everyone around.

  Frozen silence closed around them.

  Then—

  “Suri! Enough!” Boris grabbed her from behind, trying to pry her hand loose. His boots slid in the snow as he strained to pull her back.

  “You know it’s not true,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Rin rushed to the other side, placing her shaking hands on Suri’s shoulders. “Suri, please. Stop. Kana… Kana wouldn’t want this.”

  For a heartbeat, Suri didn’t move—didn’t hear—didn’t see anything but the face of someone who had insulted her friend.

  Then, slowly, her grip loosened.

  Valdis gasped and scrambled backward on all fours, snow spraying behind him. He didn’t even attempt dignity—he just ran. His group followed, pale-faced and shaken.

  The students who stayed behind watched Suri with a mixture of fear and pity. A dangerous quiet settled over the clearing.

  And Suri’s hands trembled—not from the cold.

  …..

  Professor Wor-en approached Suri, his brown robe whispering against the packed snow beneath their boots. Behind him trailed Fin and Len Griffin—both wearing the unmistakable expression of nobles about to pass judgment.

  “Come with us,” Len said. His voice was calm, but his jaw was rigid. “After you’re done eating.”

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  The cold in the winter air suddenly felt sharper.

  Suri exhaled long and slow. She had been expecting this ever since she put Valdis through the snow. But she had hoped—desperately—that it would wait until they were back inside the academy.

  “Just tell them what that envious bastard said about Kana,” Yuri muttered, her eyes narrowing to slits. Rage flushed her cheeks a bright cherry red. Her spoon trembled in her grip.

  “Uhm… Yuri,” Rin said gently, patting her shoulder before she could explode further. “Tone it down. He’s still a noble.”

  Yuri froze. Her face went pale, then pink again.

  “No one heard me… right?” She whispered, glancing left and right as though expecting an assassin to materialize from the snowdrifts.

  The soup in Suri’s hand had long since gone lukewarm. She took a final bite—more out of obligation than hunger—before setting the half-full cup aside. And the moment she did, everyone around the table stiffened.

  Andel’s expression flickered first—confusion turning into worry.

  Boris leaned forward, brows furrowed.

  Roy paused mid-chew.

  Rin bit her lip.

  Yuri stopped breathing altogether.

  None of them said a word.

  They didn’t need to.

  Suri never left food unfinished. Not even during exams. Not even after a fight. Not even when she was sick.

  “Sorry for worrying you,” Suri said, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear and rising slowly to her feet. The wind nipped at her cloak, stirring it around her legs. “It’s probably just some warnings and nonstop words.”

  She tried for a smile.

  The professors turned, expecting her to follow.

  Suri inhaled once—before following them.

  Behind her, her friends watched in silence.

  …

  They erected a special tent—a shimmer of runes flickering across its canvas before settling into a dull, humming glow. The moment Suri stepped inside, the air shifted. Silence folded over her like a blanket, thick and absolute. No sound would escape. No one outside would hear a single word.

  A table stood in the center, a small lanternlight at the center of the table. Professor Fin and Len Griffin sat opposite her. Professor Wor-en stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Fin lifted a parchment—standard academy paper, yet it looked absurdly small in his massive hand.

  “Valdis has filed a formal complaint,” Fin said, reading it aloud. His voice reverberated through the tent, heavy and slow. “He claims you attacked him. That you nearly…” He hesitated, the parchment dipping slightly. “…killed him.”

  The last word seemed to hang in the air, refusing to fade.

  Fin lowered the letter. “We want to hear your side first. Why did you do that?”

  Before Suri could form a reply, Professor Len leaned forward, her red lips pulling into a curious line.

  “I heard,” Len said, almost gleefully, “that you lifted him with one hand. No skill. No aid. Just raw physical strength.” Her eyes shimmered with intrigue. “How? We’re of similar classes, and even I’m not confident I could hoist a full-grown man like that.”

  “Professor Len,” Wor-en interjected sharply, clearing his throat. “This meeting is about the complaint.”

  Len raised her hands in mock surrender and made a zipping motion across her lips. “Right. Yes.”

  Suri inhaled slowly.

  She didn’t want to say it again.

  But she had to.

  “He said…” Her throat tightened. “…that Kana died.”

  A tremor flickered through her fingers, so she clasped her hands behind her back. “I don’t know what happened. One moment I was holding soup, the next—my mind just… went blank. I only wanted to—”

  She stopped.

  Murder was the word that almost escaped.

  She swallowed it down like poison.

  “…hurt him,” she finished.

  Fin exchanged a look with Wor-en, then added, “Valdis didn’t mention anything like that.” His brow furrowed. “Meaning he said something that triggered your action.”

  Suri’s jaw tightened.

  Fin continued, voice steady but firm, “Given the circumstances, we are instructing both parties to avoid each other until further notice.”

  “If violated,” he added, “you will receive a demerit and further disciplinary action.”

  “The final verdict,” Wor-en said, stepping forward, “will be determined by Principal Light once we return to the academy.”

  The words settled over Suri like a winter cloak—heavy and suffocating.

  She nodded once, eyes lowered.

  “Very well,” Fin said. “You may go.”

  Suri bowed slightly out of habit and stepped out of the tent. The moment she crossed the boundary, sound flooded back in—the distant chatter of students, the crunch of boots on snow, the wind tugging at her cloak.

  But her heartbeat was loudest of all.

  It echoed in her ears like the start of a storm.

  She promised to herself.

  She would kill Valdis one day.

  …..

  What weighed heavier than the reprimand was everything else. It’s part of her routine—every morning before the campfires were lit, Suri checked her illusion scouts—threads of magic she left drifting around the orphanage like little invisible watchers. She needed to know the children and everyone were safe. She needed something to hold onto.

  She didn’t expect the world to change in the space of a heartbeat.

  Her illusion blinked into being—showing the small courtyard of the orphanage, snow dusting the ground, the old wooden fence creaking in the winter wind. At first everything was normal.

  Then Kana walked into the vision.

  Suri froze.

  At first her mind refused to process the image. She leaned closer, squinting as if her spell was malfunctioning… then she grabbed the illusion and manually adjusted the angle, pulling it closer.

  “Kana…?”

  Kana was smiling. Grinning as her illusion moved like waves.

  Her mother stood beside her, speaking animatedly—her hands waving gently as she scolded or fussed or perhaps told her a story. Kana’s cheeks were red from the cold, her breath misting the air. Her hair was tied back in that familiar messy way. She looked healthy. Whole. Alive.

  More alive than she had any right to be after the nightmare in the dungeon.

  And then—Kana turned directly toward the illusion scout.

  And waved.

  Suri jerked back as if struck. Her breath hitched. She stared wide-eyed, unable to blink. Kana reached into her cloak and produced a folded letter—her movements casual, almost playful—and held it out, placing it gently into the waiting hands of Suri’s illusion.

  As if she had known Suri was watching.

  As if she had been waiting for this moment.

  The wagon lurched over a bump in the road. Suri didn’t notice until she sprang up so fast she hit her head on the ceiling—hard.

  Thud.

  “Aaah—!”

  She grabbed her skull, wincing.

  Yuri scrambled to her side. “Suri! Are you alright? That sounded… painful.”

  Suri’s eyes were wide, shining with sudden life. “I—yeah—ow—yes. But— I found Kana!”

  Rin nearly spilled her food. “What?! Where!? Where is she?!” She grabbed Suri by both shoulders and shook her with enough force to rattle teeth.

  “In the orphanage,” Suri said, breathless—still half stunned.

  Silence fell over the group.

  The fire crackled. Wind brushed past the canvas walls. For a moment, the only sound was the wagon drivers calling out to each other outside.

  The orphanage… was a month’s travel away. Far—too far. The realization settled heavily among them.

  Boris let out a slow, relieved breath. A small smile crept over his lips—the kind he rarely showed. “I told you. Kana’s alive.”

  His voice held something warm. Something proud.

  Leo slapped his knee, eyes widening. “We need to tell the professors. And the prince. Now.”

  Rin wiped her eyes, pretending she wasn’t. “I… I knew she’d make it,” she whispered, though the crack in her voice betrayed her.

  Suri didn’t speak. She was staring at the letter held tight in her trembling hands—fresh ink, warm from Kana’s touch.