A S H R I E L

The training yard smells of iron and wet stone. Fog clings to the walls, curling low across the sand pit where Instructor Korran waits, arms folded, jaw hard as the blade strapped to his back.

They call it Rift Defense: Fundamentals. An old Ravenshade tradition, kept in the curriculum long after the world outside forgot why it mattered. To most students, it’s a joke, an eccentric requirement, like candlelit halls or gargoyles on the dorm towers. While their peers in ordinary schools run track or kick footballs, Ravenshade students swing wooden swords under the eye of an ex-soldier.

They laugh about it in the dorms. Cosplay class. Sword camp. Korran’s boot camp for wannabe knights.

But tradition hides truth. Ravenshade remembers what others pretend to forget. The Rift is no myth, no story to scare children into silence. It stirs still, waiting. And when it does, no ball game will save them.

I stand at the edge, hands clasped behind me, as the first-years file in. Their chatter is nervous, brittle, the way mortals always sound when they sense danger but don’t yet know its shape.

Korran’s voice cuts through the fog. “Pair up.”

The scramble begins. Friends latch onto each other, rivals circle like dogs, and those without allies hesitate, eyes darting for safety.

Her.

Elowen Wrenwood stands stiff among the crowd, scarf tight at her throat. She doesn’t move fast enough, and Korran notices. He always notices.

“Wrenwood,” he barks, pointing to the line of boys already squared up. “You’ll spar with Veyra.”

Cassian Veyra smirks, stepping forward like the arena is his stage. “Lucky me.” His gaze rakes over her, cruel amusement curling his mouth. “Hope your scarf doesn’t strangle you when you fall.”

Laughter breaks out, sharp and eager. Cruelty is contagious here.

Elowen’s fingers tighten on the edge of her sleeve, but she lifts her chin. She doesn’t answer him.

Wise. And yet, the silence is fuel for Cassian. He circles her, wooden practice blade loose in his hand, voice pitched to carry. “What’s the matter, curse-girl? Afraid a real fight might expose that mark everyone whispers about?”

The crowd snickers. Korran doesn’t intervene. He won’t. Not yet. Ravenshade teaches through blood before words.

I watch, still and silent. To them, I’m a shadow at the yard’s edge. To me, they are all noise. All but her.

Her pulse beats too loud, a tremor in the air. She isn’t weak, not the way they think. The Rift has already touched her, and the Rift does not choose carelessly.

Cassian lunges forward, blade raised in mock salute. “Let’s see what breaks first. Your bones, or your curse.”

His blade swings too wide, more show than skill. Elowen stiffens, shoulders tight, her feet slow to shift. The strike would land, painful, humiliating, if not for the boy who moves first.

Luke Hart.

He steps into the clash without hesitation, catching Cassian’s wooden blade against his forearm with a sharp crack of splintering wood. His jaw is set, eyes burning, all protective fire.

“Pick on someone who deserves it,” Luke says, his voice carrying clear across the yard.

Cassian jerks his blade free, sneer twisting. “Stay out of this, Hart. No one asked you to play the hero.”

“I’ll stop playing when you stop acting like a coward.” Luke’s tone sharpens, hotter than the fog curling over the sand.

Students shift closer, eager for spectacle. Some snicker, others hush, but no one dares interrupt. Rivalry between Hart and Veyra is legend already on the pitch, in the halls. Now here.

Elowen whispers something, her hand brushing Luke’s sleeve, as if begging him not to. He doesn’t hear, or doesn’t care.

Cassian tilts his head, a cruel smile widening. “Of course you’d run to her. That’s all you ever do, isn’t it? Trail after the witch, hoping she notices.”

Luke’s grip tightens on his practice blade. “Say that again.”

“I said..” Cassian leans closer, words like poison “Maybe she keeps you around because no one else will.”

The sand hisses under Luke’s boots as he lunges, wood slamming against wood. Their blades grind, locked in a test of strength neither wants to lose.

Korran still doesn’t move. His arms stay crossed, expression carved in stone. This is the lesson: let them bleed arrogance out of each other.

The crowd roars now, voices sharp, hungry. Rivalry, gossip, and cruelty.  Mortals feed on it.

But not her.

Elowen doesn’t cheer, doesn’t flinch away. Her scarf hangs loose, eyes wide, fixed on the fight like something inside her already knows how it ends.

The Rift hums, low and eager, a tremor threading through the air. I taste it in the fog, bitter and cold.

Luke Hart burns bright, reckless fire. Cassian Veyra sneers, cruelty for its own sake. And between them, she waits, unmoving, unyielding.

The Rift has chosen its stage.

And it listens.

Cassian feints right, then slams his blade low, aiming for Luke’s ribs. It’s not a sparring strike because  it’s meant to bruise and  to humiliate. Luke braces, but his weight is wrong, his guard too high. The blow will land.

I move.

One step forward, and the yard shifts with me. Fog curls tighter, candlelight from the high windows flickering as if a draft swept through. Before Cassian’s blade can connect, my hand closes around the wood.

The strike halts mid-arc, frozen in the air. Gasps ripple through the circle of students.

Cassian stares at me, startled, then angry. “What the..!” He yanks the blade, but my grip does not falter. “Let go.”

I don’t.

The wooden sword creaks against my hold, but my voice is calm, even. “If you crave an opponent, choose one worthy.”

The yard hushes. Even Korran’s arms unfold, eyes narrowing as though weighing what, exactly, I am.

Cassian bares his teeth. “This isn’t your fight.”

“Correct.” My gaze doesn’t leave him. “And yet, you will stop before you forget it’s a lesson and not a blood sport.”

I release the blade. He stumbles back half a step, a mask of arrogance cracking under the weight of silence.

Students murmur, whispers snapping through the air like sparks.
Did you see that?
He stopped Cassian like nothing.
Who even is he?

Luke steadies himself, sweat dampening his collar, still glaring at Cassian. He doesn’t thank me, but his shoulders drop, relief buried under stubborn pride.

Elowen.

She hasn’t moved, not since I stepped in. Her scarf hangs loose, breath clouding faintly in the cold air. She looks at me, really looking as though I’ve unsettled something inside her she didn’t want touched.

The Rift stirs under her skin, faint as frost crawling beneath glass.

Korran clears his throat, breaking the moment. “Enough.” His voice is iron, meant to end it. “Hart. Veyra. Take your places before I make examples of you both.”

Cassian smirks, but it’s thinner now, his pride bruised. Luke doesn’t move until Elowen tugs at his sleeve. Only then does he step back, still seething.

The yard exhales, tension shifting. But the whispers remain, and eyes follow me longer than they should.

It doesn’t matter. Let them wonder.

Because while they waste themselves on rivalry and cruelty, I see the truth.

Elowen Wrenwood is no ordinary student.

And the Rift is already watching her.

The class resumes, blades clashing in the fog, but the air doesn’t settle. A tremor lingers, faint as an aftershock, threading through the yard.

Elowen wipes her palms against her skirt as if to ground herself. But I see it, the way her fingers curl, stiff, deliberate.

She bends to collect her practice blade from the sand. When her hand closes around the hilt, frost blossoms beneath her palm.

A thin spiral of white creeps over the wood, delicate as lacework, glinting pale in the half-light.

She jerks back instantly, eyes wide. The frost fades almost as soon as it forms, vanishing like it was never there.

The sand remembers. Damp grains cling in a rimed outline where her hand touched.

Her breathing quickens, chest rising too fast. She presses the scarf tight to her throat, as if it can hide what just happened. As if fabric can keep the Rift from showing its mark.

No one else notices. Their eyes are still on the duels, on Cassian’s swagger, on Luke’s anger simmering under his skin.

But I noticed.

Her gaze flicks to me across the yard. For a moment, the world narrows to that line between us, her fear, my certainty.

The Rift hums through her veins. She doesn’t know it yet, not fully, but I do.

She is the lock.

And whether she wills it or not, I am the hand that will turn the key.

The bell tolls above, ending the lesson. Korran’s voice bellows orders, blades away, form up, dismissal, but his commands are distant noise.

Because as the students scatter, Elowen still stares at her hand, like it belongs to someone else.

And the frost clings to my memory, sharp and certain, a promise etched in ice.