E L L E

The Combat Hall empties in a rush of whispers, the air still sharp with the bite of frost. No one dares speak directly to me, but their sidelong glances scrape at my skin. They don’t need words, the way they edge away, the way their voices hush when I pass. It says enough.

Cassian storms off first, jaw tight, smirk shattered. His friends trail after him, shooting me looking sharp as daggers. Professor Korran barks an order for the rest of the class to clear out, his voice clipped, too even. He doesn’t look at me directly, but I feel the weight of his suspicion pressing from across the sand.

Luke stays close. His hand brushes mine once, warm and grounding, before he pulls it back like he isn’t sure he should touch me. His chest still heaves from the duel, sweat glinting along his hairline. I want to ask if he’s okay, but the question knots in my throat. He looks at me like he saw something I shouldn’t be able to do. Like he’s afraid to say it out loud.

Around us, the whispers build. A girl hisses to her friend; another boy stares openly before ducking away. I catch fragments, unnatural… frost… dangerous. My stomach twists. I didn’t summon anything. Not on purpose. It answered me before I even knew what I was doing.

Across the hall, the shadowed boy lingers near the far door. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but his eyes find me anyway. Gray, endless, unreadable. I can still feel the frost recoiling from him, with him as if the spiral answered not just him, but me too.

My scarf is damp against my throat, thawed frost soaking the threads. I tug it tighter anyway, as if it can hide me.

Luke shifts, jaw tight, then nods for me to follow. I hurry after him before I can think too hard about it, before I can admit the truth: the duel didn’t end when the frost vanished. Something began.

By the time we step into the courtyard, the sky has dimmed to bruised gray. Mist curls low over the cobblestones, wrapping the old elm tree in a pale shroud. Students cluster beneath its sprawling branches, some laughing, some whispering, knives flashing quick in the fading light.

The Elm Oath.
A tradition as old as Ravenshade itself. Carve your initials into the bark, and rumor claims your fate will be bound. Lovers cling to it. Friends dare each other. Enemies sometimes mark the same spot, just to prove they don’t fear curses.

Luke slows beside me, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His cheeks are still flushed from the duel, his hoodie half unzipped against the cold. For once, he doesn’t crack a joke to fill the silence. His eyes lift to the elm.

“Everyone does it,” he says finally. His voice is steady, but I can hear the weight beneath it. “Even our parents, back when they were students here. Why shouldn’t we?”

My stomach knots. His words are soft, warm, meant to comfort. But all I can see are the scars crowding the bark, names upon names, some bleeding sap as though the tree itself weeps for them.

Luke pulls a pocketknife from his hoodie, flipping it open with practiced ease. He gives me a grin, boyish and hopeful, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s make it official. Hart and Wrenwood.”

His hand hovers near mine, close enough to touch. My pulse skips.

Around us, laughter spikes, Maribel Crane leaning against a friend, whispering behind her hand. I don’t need to hear the words to know they’re about me.

I swallow. “Luke…”

He glances down, expression softening. “Hey. It’s just tradition. Nothing scary.”

But I can’t shake the chill creeping under my scarf. Nan once told me some traditions are older than the school itself, borrowed from sigils no one remembers anymore. Carving initials isn’t harmless, it binds.

Luke doesn’t wait for me to answer. He presses the knife into the bark, carving a small curve: L. Chips fall like pale snow at his feet.

The elm groans, low and shuddering. I tense, but no one else seems to notice.

He looks back at me expectantly. “Your turn.”

I take the knife, its handle warm from his hand. My reflection trembles in the blade, warped. My throat tightens. One wrong letter, and I feel like I’d be locked into something I can’t undo.

Still, I press the point to the bark. A faint curl of frost snakes outward where the blade touches. My chest tightens. The spiral grows, etching itself deeper, branching like veins.

Luke frowns. “Elle?”

I jerk back. The knife clatters to the ground. Frost spirals crawl higher, winding around the L, spiraling wider until they gleam across the bark.

Gasps rise from the crowd.

A ripple of laughter cuts through the courtyard, sharp enough to sting. Maribel Crane leans into Anya Lark, whispering loud enough for everyone to hear. “Look at her, she won’t even carve it. Guess Ravenshade’s ghost-girl doesn’t believe in love.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. I grip the knife tighter, but the weight in my hand feels wrong. Around us, the crowd presses closer, hungry for a show. It isn’t about Luke or me anymore, it’s about what people can whisper later in the dining hall.

Luke’s shoulders tense, his glare cutting toward them, but Maribel only smirks, eyes glittering. She wants me to fail. She wants me to run.

I force my gaze back to the bark. The elm looms taller the longer I stare, scars of names twisting into patterns too strange to be random. Some cuts bleed sap that drips thick and slow, like the tree itself is wounded.

Nan’s voice echoes in my memory, quiet and stern: “The Elm remembers. Don’t offer promises you aren’t ready to keep.”

My stomach flips. This isn’t just a harmless tradition, no matter how much Luke wants it to be. He doesn’t understand, if I carve my name, I’ll be binding myself. Not just to him. To something older. To fate.

Luke leans closer, his voice low, almost pleading. “Elle. Just this once, forget what they say. Do this with me.” His hand hovers near mine, warm, steady, and so achingly familiar.

I want to. I want the warmth, the safety he offers. But the elm’s bark seems to pulse under my stare, waiting. Hungry.

Luke bends, scooping the knife from where it fell. He wipes the blade clean against his sleeve, then offers it back to me with a small, stubborn smile.

“Remember when we were kids?” His voice is soft, but it carries in the hush. “When Cassian and the others cornered you by the railway crossing? You wouldn’t cry, even with blood on your knees. You just stood there, glaring. I was the one who chased them off. I promised I’d always be here, didn’t I?”

The knife trembles between us. I don’t take it. My throat is too tight.

“Things don’t have to be scary if we’re in it together,” he says. “We can make this ours. Not theirs. Not the whispers.” His hand brushes mine again, lingering this time, heat sinking into my skin.

My chest aches. I love him, I do, but not the way he wants. Not with the certainty that carving into living bark demands. His faith in us is steady, unshakable. Mine feels…fragile. Like the frost that keeps rising when I lose control.

The crowd shifts, waiting. Maribel lets out a little laugh, sharp as glass. I flinch, fingers curling against my scarf.

I should take the knife. I should make Luke happy. After everything he’s done for me, after all the times he’s been my anchor when the world tilted. I owe him that much.

But my hand won’t move. The bark looms close, scarred and waiting. The air around it feels colder, heavier, as if the tree itself leans toward me, demanding.

Luke’s smile falters. Just for a second, hurt flickers in his eyes. “Elle?”

The elm groans. A crack splits the air like ice breaking on a river.

The elm shudders, its branches creaking overhead. A low moan runs through the bark, too alive to be the wind.

Frost erupts from the half-carved L, spiraling outward in glowing veins. They race across the trunk in a pattern too precise, too deliberate. Gasps ripple through the students; someone screams.

“Back up!” Luke yells, but no one moves. Their eyes are fixed on the bark, on the spirals that crawl like a living script.

I stumble back, my breath fogging white. The frost answers me, no, it claims me. My scarf burns cold against my skin, threads stiffening with ice.

“Elle,” Luke breathes, but his voice feels far away.

The spirals halt. The bark splits with a sharp crack, and letters carve themselves into the wood as if gouged by an invisible blade.

E L L E.

Each stroke burns bright, then cools into black scars against the pale frost. My name, written clean and final, beside Luke’s trembling L.

The crowd breaks into chaos, -shouts, curses, feet pounding away. Maribel’s voice rises above them all, shrill with triumph: “I told you she’s cursed!”

I can’t breathe. I can’t move. The tree itself seems to lean closer, groaning, as if it has finally claimed me.

Luke grabs my hand, fingers shaking. His warmth barely reaches through the ice crawling up my skin.

The last thing I see before the world tilts is the shadowed boy at the edge of the courtyard, his storm-gray eyes locked on mine.