That night, Elara spent most of her time unpacking in her new room at Rhaen Dorm.
Unlike her old room at the end of the second-floor hallway, tucked away from everyone else, Rhaen Dorm felt far more open.
Eight rooms circled a round common room, their doors facing the center like petals of a flower.
Only five of the rooms were occupied so far.
Kael, Xera, and Riven’s rooms sat side by side on one wall, while the other two belonged to Rhaen seniors currently away on missions outside Ravencrest.
“They’ll be back in a few months,” Riven said when Elara asked about the empty rooms.
“It’ll get busier around here once they do.”
Elara’s room sat across from Kael’s, Xera’s, and Riven’s, the farthest one from the dorm’s main entrance.
It made her feel a little safer; every time she opened her door, she had a clear view of the common room and everyone else’s.
Kael, though, wasn’t happy with her choice.
There was still an empty room right beside his, but Elara had picked the one directly across from it instead, as far from him as she could get.
“Your room’s too far from mine,” he said the moment they walked into her new room.
“If something happens, I’d have to cross the whole common room to get to you.”
Elara, halfway through putting her clothes away in the closet, glanced up immediately.
“So?” Kael shrugged, like the answer was obvious.
“I’m sleeping here.”
Without so much as asking, Kael flopped down onto the small bed in her room, a bed she hadn’t even touched yet.
Elara shook her head immediately, like she didn’t even need to think about it.
“No.
Absolutely not.”
Kael raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, you haven’t even considered it yet.”
Elara shoved the last pile of clothes into her closet.
“I already considered it.
The answer’s still no.”
After putting her clothes away, Elara turned and walked over to her bed.
She turned to Kael.
“I get that you have to protect me all day, but you are not sleeping in my room just because yours is a few extra steps away.”
Kael stared at her for a few seconds, like he was searching for some argument that actually made sense, but finally let out a long sigh and got up from her bed.
Strangely, Kael didn’t push it, and he skipped his usual sarcastic remarks too.
He just gathered a few of his things, the ones he’d brought over from Elara’s old room, and went back to his own.
Elara didn’t know whether to feel relieved or surprised, because for the first time, Kael had actually accepted her refusal without a fight.
The first night at Rhaen Dorm felt calmer than Elara expected.
After the hallway lights dimmed and the murmur of Xera, Riven, and Kael’s conversation in the common room faded away, Elara lay in her new bed, her mind still full of everything that had happened over the past few days.
That thought didn’t linger long.
Within a few minutes, Elara had already drifted off.
The walls of Rhaen Dorm slowly dissolved, replaced by something so familiar it made her chest tighten.
Elara stared down at her feet for a few seconds before looking up.
She was standing in front of her house in Queens.
Cars passed by occasionally on the street out front, and bright sunlight glinted off the living room window.
Beside it, standing right in the doorway, Mom was watching her with a worried look on her face.
Mom called out, “Elara?”
“Mom?
Is that really you?” Elara rushed forward, nearly running up the porch steps, Mom’s expression still unchanged.
Elara hugged her as tightly as she could, soaking in the warmth of her mom’s embrace, a feeling she hadn’t felt in so, so long.
“I’m finally back,” Elara whispered into her shoulder.
“There you are, you little troublemaker.
Where have you been?” Mom asked.
The simple question caught her off guard.
For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.
She wanted to tell her she’d been somewhere far away, somewhere she couldn’t even place on a map.
She didn’t even know how she’d gotten back.
But before a single word could leave her mouth, everything changed.
Elara woke with a gasp, her heart pounding.
The sky outside the window was still dark.
She sat up slowly, looking around at the unfamiliar room.
But the stone walls made it clear she was back at Ravencrest.
She pressed a palm to her chest, as if to make sure she was really awake.
As her breathing slowed, Elara closed her eyes.
If that was the dream, she thought, then is this, right here, right now, the reality?
The dream had felt too real, not just because Mom’s embrace had felt so tangible, but because, for the first time, Elara found herself questioning something she’d always taken for granted. Find the original chapter at novelping(.)com.
What if Ordovia wasn’t just a world she visited in her dreams?
What if she’d been wrong all along, thinking everything that happened there would end the moment she woke up?
Elara covered her face with both hands.
She could barely tell dream from reality anymore.
The thought made it even harder to fall back asleep, so she finally got up and walked out to the balcony, letting the cool night air wash over her face.
From there, she could see part of the Ravencrest grounds, still under heavy guard.
Several guards moved between the buildings, and the lights along the walls threw shifting shadows across the stone.
Elara watched, more alert than usual.
She found herself wondering how an academy this large could still feel so busy in the middle of the night.
Her gaze drifted downward.
In one of the hallways some distance from her room, someone was standing there, tall and thin, their face hidden in shadow behind a stone pillar.
What caught Elara’s attention was that, out of all the guards moving through the grounds, this person alone hadn’t moved an inch.
She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but one thing sent a chill down her spine: a pair of eyes staring straight back at her.
Elara glanced at the other balconies around hers.
Every door was closed except her own.
She looked back at the figure.
It wasn’t just looking toward the balconies in general; its gaze was fixed on hers.
Elara swallowed hard, then, without meaning to, whispered a name under her breath.
“Kael.” She didn’t think her voice would carry all the way to his room, but within seconds, her door swung open.
Kael appeared, his hair still a mess and his expression sharp with alertness, he headed straight for the balcony.
“What’s going on?” Kael asked quickly.
Elara pointed toward the hallway, her hand not quite steady.
“Over there.
I saw someone.”
Kael followed the line of her finger, but when Elara looked back, the spot was empty.
No shadow.
No footsteps.
No sign anyone had ever been there at all.
Elara lowered her hand slowly, while Kael kept staring down the walkway, his gaze sharper than before.
The fact that the figure had vanished only made Elara more certain that she was being watched, by whoever, or whatever, that had been.