It started with footsteps.
Not loud.
Not hurried.
But deliberate—like someone walking through a memory they didn’t belong in.

The classroom door creaked open. Every head turned.

Then came the silence. That pulling kind. Like the world paused—not in fear, but reverence.

He stepped inside.

Tall, but not awkward.
Poised, like he’d fought battles in dreams and remembered every scar.
His uniform hung perfectly—too perfect, like it hadn’t been worn, but conjured.

Black hair, feather-soft, caught the overhead lights in glints of raven sheen.
And his eyes—
Storm-colored.
Not the kind that raged, but the kind that waited.

Like thunder behind the clouds.

Elle forgot to breathe.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t offer awkward hellos or glance around with the usual nervous curiosity.

No.

His gaze moved with purpose. Like a compass drawn toward something ancient, something fated.

And when it landed on her—
It stopped.

Gasps whispered. Voices surged like wind through dry grass.

“Who is that?”
“Transfer student from where?”
“God, he’s gorgeous.”

Then, sharp as a thorn:

“Why’s he looking at her?”

Elle sat frozen. Her spine straightened instinctively under the weight of thirty stares. Heat climbed her neck. She wanted to vanish, fold into her hoodie and disappear.

But she couldn’t look away.

The teacher cleared her throat. “Class, this is Ashriel Duskborne. He’ll be joining us for the semester.”
A pause. “Ashriel, feel free to take any open seat.”

Without hesitation, he moved.

Not to the empty desk by the windows.
Not toward the girls who subtly shifted notebooks, offering smiles like invitations.

No.

He walked—straight to her.

And stopped.

The desk beside Elle’s scraped softly as he pulled out the chair.
He sat with the quiet finality of someone who had always belonged there.

The room exhaled. As if it had been holding its breath since he stepped through the door.

Elle kept her gaze forward, every nerve electric. She could feel the stare on her cheekbones—Luke’s, likely, burning and betrayed.
But Ashriel didn’t look at anyone else.

He placed his hands calmly on the desk. Still. Unmoving.
A storm disguised as silence.

And then—
So soft it was barely sound—
He spoke.

“Elowen.”

He said it not like a name.
But like a vow.

But every time Elle shifted, she could feel it—
A dozen eyes crawling over her back like spiders.

Whispers bloomed behind cupped hands. One girl snorted under her breath. Elle didn’t catch the words, but the laughter cut sharp.

Luke wasn’t laughing.

From two rows back, he stared at the new boy like he was watching a storm roll in—
One that might tear the roof clean off.

He didn’t speak.
Just gripped his pencil too tight—until the graphite snapped with a soft, bitter crack.

Ashriel hadn’t moved.

Still as a statue.
Not bored. Not distracted.
Just… present. Like presence itself was something he chose to possess.

His fingers rested lightly on the desk, unmoving—as if the desk weren’t real. As if none of this quite belonged to him.

Elle tried to focus.

On the teacher’s voice.
On the whiteboard.
On the droning tick of the classroom clock.

But the boy beside her didn’t hum with human energy.
He radiated—not heat, not light—
but gravity.

A kind that pulled at her spine and stitched itself into her skin.

Like sitting beside a doorway that led somewhere ancient.
Somewhere she wasn’t supposed to look.

The bell rang.

Elle jumped.

Ashriel rose in one breathless movement—fluid, silent—his chair barely scraping the floor.

He didn’t look at her.
Didn’t look at anyone.

He walked out, and the world sighed in his wake.

The hallway bloomed with sound the moment he disappeared.

“Did you see him?”
“Where’d he transfer from, Olympus?”
“She has to be dating someone in admin.”
“She probably bribed someone.”

Elle kept her head low, books clutched tight to her chest.

Someone’s shoulder slammed into hers—too sharp, too precise to be accidental.

She didn’t look to see who.

Luke caught up to her near the lockers. “Ignore them,” he muttered.

“I’m not doing anything,” she whispered.

“I know.”

But his jaw said otherwise—set hard, clenched like he wanted to punch someone through the wall.

Then the crowd around them shifted.

The hum dulled to silence.

Ashriel was walking down the hallway—alone, silent, eyes ahead.
Not shouldering past people.
Not demanding space.

But still—everyone moved aside.

No one told them to.
They just did.

Like instinct.
Like animals sensing something they didn’t understand.

He passed them without a glance. And still—Elle felt it.

The weight of his presence. The way it brushed against something hidden inside her ribcage and left it trembling.

Whatever he was…
He didn’t belong to this world.

And now he was in it.