I didn't think anything of it at first. The way the couriers whispered. The way parchment rustled louder than it should. Even the way Professor Lysandra Valein looked at me during morning lectures — as though she was trying to trace the shape of my soul through my skull.
Maybe I should've expected it.
The day after the third reprint of A Kingdom in Ink, I heard my name during a breakfast service in the Academy's east wing. Not spoken directly to me — no one ever does that here, not the older nobles. But in half-hushed tones from a pair of fourth-year twins with polished manners and venomous smiles.
"Did you read the fable about the ink-blooded boy?"
"Makes you wonder if Verne here thinks he's ink-born himself."
I kept eating. I was used to it.
But then the courier birds came.
Official ones. Silver-feathered, with the King's seal etched into the talon clasps. They didn't deliver to students. Not normally. They landed directly on the bell tower and were intercepted by the Guild Representative assigned to the Academy. I caught a glimpse of her — Madam Eszra — pacing with the sealed scroll in one hand and a copy of my book in the other, muttering like the pages were whispering back.
It was late that afternoon when Professor Valein summoned both Caelum and me to her office.
Her door never creaks, even though it should. It simply opens — silently, inevitably — like the weight of her expectations. Inside, everything smelled of lavender, ink, and tightly wound discipline. Her walls were lined not with books, but first drafts — framed, annotated, bled dry by red pen. Some were hers. Others belonged to the best writers the Academy had ever produced. Writers who'd become historians, guildmasters, royal secretaries.
And now — gods help me — my name was on her desk.
"Sit," she said simply.
I obeyed. So did Caelum, though he did it with the kind of grace only someone born into legacy can manage. Perfect back. Perfect posture. Not a single strand of hair out of place.
"Do you know where your books are now?" she asked.
I glanced toward Caelum. He stayed silent. Probably thought it was a rhetorical question. Maybe it was. But I answered anyway.
"Distributed across the provinces. Public reading grounds. A few noble houses."
Her eyes locked onto mine. "Wrong. That was yesterday."
She lifted a slip of parchment — not parchment, actually. Velvetbound scroll, royal-pressed. My chest tightened.
"Today," she said, letting the words drip like honey over a blade, "your books arrived at the Court of King Alden Elvarion. Personally requested by His Majesty. Read aloud this morning in the Sapphire Chamber."
My mouth went dry.
"Both of them," she continued. "A Kingdom in Ink, and Throne of Legacy."
Caelum straightened, but said nothing. His fingers, folded neatly in his lap, tensed just slightly. Professor Valein saw it too.
"Do you understand what that means?"
I nodded slowly, though I wasn't sure I did. She elaborated anyway.
"It means you're no longer students competing in a literary bracket. You're writers who have drawn the gaze of the Crown — and more dangerously, the opinion of court factions. There are nobles quoting your metaphors as if they were doctrine. Ministers debating each other with your passages as evidence."
I swallowed hard. They weren't meant for that, I wanted to say. They were just stories.
But Professor Valein didn't give me space to retreat.
"The Chancellor of History has formally cited your chapter on the Eastern Floods — the allegorical one," she added with a tight nod toward me, "as a reference in this season's historiographical debate. And Caelum, your breakdown of dynastic lineage in Chapter III is being studied by the young heirs of Houses Arden, Virellan, and even the Highridge branches outside your own."
Caelum gave a slow, polite nod. I could feel the heat rising behind my ears. Not because of him. Because of the weight of it all pressing down on me like wet cloth.
Valein leaned forward.
"You are both being read by people with armies. With land. With ambition."
She let that hang in the air a moment before continuing.
"And with that comes influence. Dangerous, shaping influence. One of you writes with the heart, the other with the crown. The kingdom reads both. And in reading, they begin to choose."
The room was so quiet I could hear the flutter of a paperweight feather by the window. She stood, walking behind her desk.
"I will not tell you to stop. Nor will I praise you. That's not my role. But I will offer you both this warning — especially you, Ethan."
I looked up.
"Stories are not harmless. Once loosed into the world, they stop belonging to you. They become banners. Shields. Swords."
Then, with a flick of her hand, she dismissed us. "Go. The academy tournament continues tomorrow. And while words are winning hearts now…" Her gaze drifted toward the window, toward the spires of the Royal Palace. "…they may yet start a fire."
As we stepped into the corridor, Caelum turned to me. He didn't smirk. He didn't offer a taunt. Just one sentence, spoken not with rivalry, but with something close to respect.
"They read you," he said, quietly. "Even in the throne room. That's not nothing."
I didn't know how to answer. So I didn't.
Because somewhere deep in my chest, I wasn't sure if I was proud.
Or afraid.
A week can stretch or vanish, depending on what you're waiting for.
For me, it folded in on itself like a story without punctuation. Summer break ended, but I barely noticed. Every day since the release of A Kingdom in Ink felt like I was holding my breath underwater, waiting for someone to finally say it — whether I'd won the Golden Quill… or not.
I didn't write a single word during the entire break.
I couldn't.
The Academy opened its gates again today — the first day of the new term — but no one cared about classes. Not really. There was only one thing anyone whispered about: the results of the Golden Quill competition. And the King.
The King. Was. Coming.
It felt unreal until the moment I saw the guards.
They weren't our usual sentries — not the old men with polished spears and sleepy eyes. These wore dark blue livery threaded with silver, with sabers that caught morning light like glass drawn thin. Royal sigils shimmered on their chests: the Crescent Quill atop the Crowned Tower — the seal of the Elvarion line.
They lined the path from the outer gates to the Great Assembly Hall.
I heard two third-year boys near the fountain say they'd seen the King's crest being embroidered on the podium cloths in the Hall — in actual platinum thread. Not silver. Platinum.
That alone should've said everything.
By midmorning, the atmosphere inside the Academy grounds was electric. Tense. Every student was in full formal uniform, even those who never bothered before. Some wore perfume. Others combed their hair so often I was surprised they had any left.
Even the faculty were nervous.
Professor Valein didn't say a word to me when I passed her on the staircase to the library. She just nodded once. Firmly. And her eyes lingered on me a moment too long.
Everyone knew I was one of the two.
Me.
And Caelum Highridge.
The bells chimed the third hour past dawn.
The announcement was scheduled for noon.
The Grand Courtyard, normally half-empty on the first day after summer break, was full. Not loud, but full. The students weren't talking in groups — they were clustering. Divided, somehow. Some around Caelum. Others, less openly, near me.
I didn't speak much.
There wasn't anything left to say.
I was standing near the eastern archway of the Hall when a younger student — maybe ten, maybe eleven — came up to me. She looked hesitant, as if touching the hem of a moment that was too big for her.
She held out a copy of A Kingdom in Ink, worn at the corners and blotched with tea stains.
"I liked the story about the sleeping scribe," she said quietly. "It made me write again. After my brother—after he left for the war."
I blinked.
Then nodded.
"Thank you," I whispered.
She slipped away before I could ask her name.
Inside the Great Assembly Hall, the velvet banners had been lowered — navy and white with golden trim, representing the five provinces of the realm. Two massive scrolls hung from the far wall behind the stage, one bearing the title of A Kingdom in Ink, the other Throne of Legacy.
I'd seen that title so often now, I sometimes dreamed it.
Rows upon rows of chairs were arranged with near-military precision. Faculty sat up front. Behind them, older students. Beyond them, rows for visitors and guildmasters — even a few nobles from Houses I recognized only from coat-of-arms textbooks.
They'd all come for this.
Some, for the literature.
Most, for the spectacle.
Then came the whisper. First one mouth. Then ten. Then everyone.
"The King is arriving."
And the Hall began to quiet.
All I could hear then was the rustling of robes. The nervous breath of a few boys beside me. The distant sound of horses outside the gates.
And the pounding of my own heart.