The moment I stepped through the iron gates of St. Virell Academy, the weight of the mission pressed down like a shroud I couldn't shake. The security, the sheer openness of the campus, the idle chatter of students—all of it felt alien. Too soft. Too loud.
I was Noah now. A transfer student from some private academy overseas. Excellent grades, introverted, polite. Normal. Everything Blaze was not. Blaze didn't wear uniforms. Blaze didn't carry a student ID. Blaze didn't sit in classrooms under flickering white lights. But Noah? Noah had to.
I adjusted the tie on my uniform—navy blue and silver, too pristine—and looked around. Everything was bright. Cheerful. Flowers lined the walkways, and students laughed in little groups. The world I came from didn't laugh. It whispered. It obeyed. It bled.
Riven had handed me the file last night. A simple manila envelope, sealed with the clan's crimson mark. Inside, the photo of a girl. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Alina Rowe. Eighteen. Heiress to RoweTech Industries, one of the largest AI security firms in the country. A threat to the clan's interests, they said. A target.
But those eyes…
They weren't just blue. They were Serena's blue.
Not identical, no. But close enough to twist something inside me. It had been thirteen years since I last saw Serena—since we were ripped apart. I was five. She was six. My only real friend. The only real warmth. Sometimes I wondered if she had been real at all. Or just something my mind clung to when the world turned black.
Now here I was, seventeen years later, walking into a world I'd never known, wearing someone else's name, and looking for a girl who reminded me too much of a ghost.
The admin building was easy to find. Polished floors, glass walls, artificial calm. The receptionist smiled too brightly when I handed her the forged papers. "Welcome to St. Virell, Noah," she said.
Noah. That name still felt like an itch beneath my skin.
A few more checks and I had a schedule, a locker key, and a campus map. My first class was History. Of course. The irony wasn't lost on me.
I moved through the halls silently, avoiding eye contact, listening more than I spoke. Names, voices, faces. I memorized everything. My mind ran tactical overlays without trying. Exit routes. Blind corners. Student body rhythms. Who walked with who. Who carried what. Who watched others too much. Who didn't watch enough.
Classrooms were smaller than I expected. Intimate. Vulnerable.
When I stepped into my first class, the teacher glanced at the list on her desk. "You must be Noah. Take a seat anywhere."
Eyes turned. A dozen expressions flickered—curiosity, boredom, mild interest. None of them knew what I was. Who I was.
Except her.
Alina sat near the window, second row from the back. Brown waves fell gently over her shoulder, and her eyes—Serena's eyes—lifted when I entered. Something flashed through them. Recognition? Instinct? I couldn't tell.
I sat one row behind her, off to the side. Not too close. Not too far.
The lesson began. Some ancient war or another. I heard none of it.
I watched Alina. Not openly. Not carelessly. Just enough.
She took notes quickly, confidently. Her posture was precise but not rigid. She asked a question. Her voice was soft, but clear. Calm. The other students didn't react much—like they were used to her being right. Respected.
I wondered if she had bodyguards. If she was aware of the threats to her life. If she knew how close death walked beside her.
I didn't want to think about Serena. About how similar they looked. About how this mission felt different.
But I did.
Lunch came. I didn't eat. I walked the campus instead. Memorized the layout. Watched Alina from a distance as she sat with a small group of friends near the fountain. She laughed. That laugh didn't sound like Serena's. Good.
Someone threw a ball, and it rolled to my feet. A guy—tall, probably on the soccer team—waved at me. "Hey, new guy! Toss it back!"
I kicked it lightly. It arced perfectly into his hands. He grinned. "Nice!"
Normal. Harmless.
By the time my final class ended, I had a list of names and faces. Teachers, classmates, staff. Potential obstacles. Possible allies. Surveillance cameras were few but placed cleverly. Security was relaxed, but present. Enough to act fast if something went wrong. Not enough to stop me.
I returned to the small apartment the clan had arranged nearby. Sparsely furnished. Clean. Clinical. Not home.
It never was.
I dropped the bag and stared out the window. The city lights in the distance blurred in the glass.
This was it.
The mission had begun.
But the more I saw of Alina Rowe, the more the old fire stirred. Not hatred. Not rage. Just… defiance.
The night had fallen quiet, a heavy stillness that clung to the edges of the campus like an unspoken secret. The moonlight spilled through the gaps in the clouds, casting long shadows across the dormitory buildings. Blaze—or Noah, as he was known here—moved through the dark with practiced ease. His movements were fluid, as natural as breathing, a silent predator in the night. He knew this world of shadows and silence too well, knew how to remain unseen, how to slip into places that others would never even consider.
His target was just one floor up, in a small room in the girls' dormitory. It wasn't supposed to be a challenge; the college was merely the beginning. But tonight... tonight felt different. A strange weight in his chest, an unease that gnawed at the edges of his focus. Maybe it was the mission itself, or maybe it was something else. He hadn't figured it out yet.
He reached the window of Alina Rowe's room. The soft hum of the campus, the faint sounds of other students in the distance, felt like an echo to him now. He could see her through the curtains—she was asleep, curled up on her bed, her chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. A slight, almost imperceptible tension held his muscles as he watched her. The room was quiet, the soft glow from the desk lamp the only thing illuminating the scene.he was here for her, but something else caught his attention. The table near her bed was cluttered with papers, books, and miscellaneous items—just like any college student's. But as Blaze's eyes scanned over the mess, something stopped him.
A photo.
His heart skipped a beat as he took in the image before him. It was a photo of two children, frozen in time. A young boy with messy black hair, a bright smile, and eyes that looked almost too wise for his age. And next to him, a girl—her features delicate, her brown hair tied back in a simple ponytail. The picture was worn at the edges, faded by time, but the image was unmistakable.
It was him. And it was her.
Serena.
Blaze felt his breath catch in his throat. His mind raced, confusion and shock flooding his senses. He couldn't have been more than five years old in that picture, the same age as she had been. The image was so familiar, yet so out of place. How could it be here? How could Alina—this girl, this stranger—have a photo of him and Serena?
The photo was an exact replica of one he remembered from his childhood, one that had been tucked away in the corner of his memories, buried under layers of pain, loss, and the silence of the Veil. It had been a photograph of him and Serena, laughing, playing by the river near their home. It was before everything had changed,
before his world had become a web of shadows and silence.
Blaze's pulse quickened, his fingers twitching with an almost uncontrollable urge to grab the photo, to study it, to understand how it ended up here. He had to get closer. His movements were so quiet, so deliberate, that he was already across the room before he realized what he was doing. He leaned in, the faint scent of her perfume lingering in the air as he reached out with trembling fingers.
The photo was real. It was here. In her room. And somehow, it had made its way into her hands. His heart hammered against his chest as his mind raced.
How is this here? , who is she really?
Alina stirred in her sleep, the slightest motion. Blaze froze, his body going still as the seconds ticked by. His eyes darted to the bed, watching her closely, waiting for any sign that she was waking up. But she remained asleep, her face serene in the moonlight. For now, she was unaware.