Mornings in Ravencrest felt colder than usual.
A thin mist hung between the stone towers as Elara walked through the academy’s main courtyard with Kael, Riven, and Xera.
For the first time since she’d woken up in Ravencrest, Elara was about to see the world beyond the high walls and forest that surrounded Ravencrest.
Those same walls had confined nearly her entire life in this world.
For some reason, Elara was really looking forward to this trip.
From what Xera had told her, Lunareth was nothing like Ravencrest.
No magnificent castles reaching for the sky, no halls full of nobles, no rules dictating a person’s every move based on their race or bloodline.
It was simply a land where the Rhaen clan lived together in peace.
At least, that’s what Xera said.
“Are you planning on staying in Lunareth forever?” Xera asked, eyeing Elara’s bag.
Elara turned her head and followed Xera’s gaze, which was fixed on her big bag.
“I’m just bringing things I might need later,” Elara said, a little embarrassed.
Every so often she adjusted the strap digging into her shoulder.
She really had packed too much, especially next to Xera, who was only carrying a single backpack.
From behind her, a hand lifted the bag off Elara’s shoulder in one swift motion.
Kael, his own backpack already slung over one shoulder, now had Elara’s bag slung over the other.
“Hurry up.
You don’t want to miss the train and get left behind, do you?” Kael said, walking ahead without looking back.
Riven caught up half running.
“You guys didn’t even wait for me to finish showering,” he grumbled, smacking Xera and Kael on the shoulder as he passed them.
Following Riven and Kael, who were already nearing Ravencrest’s main gate, Elara and Xera broke into a run too.
Students they passed kept glancing over, mostly girls from the werewolf clan, eyes trailing after Kael in a way that was anything but hostile.
Elara figured, as usual, people would be shooting her dirty looks, but this time Kael was the one drawing all the attention.
The cynical guy was pretty well known among them.
Of course, the subject of all that attention looked completely unbothered, as always.
Elara glanced back one more time before they passed through Ravencrest’s main gate.
From here, Ravencrest looked far grander than she’d ever seen it.
Warmer, too, than she used to think, no longer just some imposing place that made her feel like she didn’t belong.
Outside the gates, they followed a stone road lined with trees, wide enough for two SUVs side by side, though there wasn’t a single vehicle in sight.
Every so often a horse drawn cart rolled past, loaded with produce Elara had never seen before.
Before her legs even had a chance to tire, the road split.
One path led to a large building, the other disappeared behind the trees.
They turned toward the large building.
A long whistle reached them first, well before the building itself came into view, followed by the rumble of heavy machinery that shook the ground under Elara’s feet.
Elara slowed as she stepped inside.
The air felt different here, warm and thick with the smell of burning coal mixed with steam.
Ahead of her stood a long, glossy black train, its surface catching the light from the chandeliers overhead.
A massive smokestack up front puffed out gray smoke that drifted lazily with the wind, lingering a moment before vanishing into the station’s glass ceiling.
Steam hissed periodically from somewhere near the wheels, like the slow breathing of some enormous iron beast.
People lined up to board the train one after another, footsteps and chatter blending with the clang of metal from somewhere she couldn’t place.
Elara looked around, double checking what her eyes were telling her.
She wasn’t wrong.
No vampires here.
“You look surprised.” Kael was standing beside her.
Elara nodded, agreeing with him.
“Yeah.
No vampires here.”
Kael answered flatly, as always.
Elara stared at the massive iron wheels beneath the train car, their surfaces slick with grease and still hissing faint traces of steam.
She was oddly captivated by this whole station.
“Feels like I’ve gone back in time.”
Kael frowned, not following.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought this world would look more advanced than this.”
Kael huffed.
“You say that like you’re not even from this world.”
Elara froze for half a second, then quickly looked down, pretending to fuss with clothes that didn’t need fussing with.
“Hey, you two, you planning on standing there all day?” Xera called from one of the car’s windows.
Kael pulled Elara along to board, Riven right behind her.
The inside of the car was nothing like she’d pictured.
Instead of one big room full of seats, it was split into a row of small compartments, connected by a narrow aisle lined with dark red carpet that swallowed the sound of footsteps.
Elara made her way down the corridor until she reached an open compartment where Xera was already sitting, one seat facing another.
The compartment was just big enough for two, with a single large window.
“Can I sit with you?” Elara asked.
But before Xera could even answer, Kael’s hand had already closed around Elara’s arm.
“You’re with me.”
Elara shot Xera a pleading look, but Riven had already claimed the empty seat across from her.
Both of them flashed Elara a mocking grin.
“Seriously, how are you supposed to lead a clan being this bossy?” Elara grumbled, forced into the compartment next door to Xera and Riven’s.
Looking completely unbothered, Kael dropped into a seat after tossing their bags onto the overhead rack.
“I’m only bossy with people who don’t know how to behave.”
Elara shot him a glare, but there wasn’t much she could do besides go along with it.
Before long, the final whistle sounded, long and steady, followed by a soft jolt as the iron wheels started turning, then a screech of metal that slowly settled into a steady rhythm.
The train pulled out of the station.
Through the window, Elara watched Ravencrest shrink into the distance.
The academy’s towers slowly disappeared behind the mist, while a cold draft slipped in through the gap in the window, carrying the damp smell of morning leaves.
The first few hours passed quietly, filled only with the clatter of wheels against the tracks, a steady rhythm like some giant heartbeat.
Kael looked like he’d dozed off, and Elara had no intention of waking him.
She kept her eyes on the scenery outside instead.
Since leaving the station, the view had kept shifting.
First came mountains stretching as far as she could see, their peaks still wrapped in thin mist, then wide fields of dazzling yellow crops, swaying gently in the wind like a slow rolling sea.
Scattered among them were a few small villages, their brown roofs lined up in neat rows with thin trails of smoke curling from the chimneys.
Then the view slipped into a bustling village, the noise of a small market drifting faintly through the closed windows, before giving way to a city full of multistory stone buildings, packed streets, and the smell of road dust mixed with smoke.
It caught her off guard.
Ordovia was nothing like she’d imagined.
This world wasn’t just vampires, werewolves, and racial conflict.
There was ordinary life here too.
People going about their day, some working the fields, everyone just living like anyone else would.
“What’s up?” Kael’s voice startled her.
“I thought you were asleep.”
Kael followed her gaze out the window, to a street packed with buildings and people going about their business.
“Here, every race lives together,” Elara said.
She watched a vampire walking among people of other races, none of them as pale as him.
They seemed to keep to themselves a bit, but at least on that one street, nobody was avoiding anyone else.
Elara’s eyes landed on a vegetable seller outside one of the small shops, his voice calling out to passersby faintly audible before the train pulled them further away.
Someone handed over a coin, and the seller handed back a bundle of vegetables.
Life in Ordovia was far more complicated than Elara had pictured.
“Are those werewolves?
Or humans?” Elara asked, pointing at another shop as it went by.
“Mostly werewolves. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
A few humans too.”
Elara turned to him.
“Just a few?”
Kael glanced out the window, then nodded.
“Humans are getting rarer.”
The scenery shifted again as the train left the busy city behind, the view opening into a wide green valley, a small river glinting alongside the tracks.
Even the sound of the wheels changed, carrying further now without the echo of buildings around them.
Elara twisted the edge of her jacket before asking again, hesitant.
“Is it because vampires hunt humans for their blood?”
Kael shook his head.
“Every race is protected under the truce.
No hunting allowed.” He paused, eyes still fixed on the valley rolling outside.
“Even back then, humans were never more numerous than the other races.
But the real reason now is that there’s almost no pure human blood left in Ordovia.”
Elara’s brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of everything she’d learned about Ordovia today.
“So you’re saying humans intermarried with other races, and that’s why there’s basically no pure blood left?”
Kael smiled, leaning back in his seat.
“Gotta admit, you catch on fast.
Though I still don’t get why you’re asking, like this is the first time you’ve ever seen the world outside Ravencrest.”
Elara could feel Kael’s eyes on her, even with her own gaze fixed somewhere out the window.
“Did you really lose your memory?” Kael asked.
Even he sounded unsure of his own question.
Something in Elara’s chest sank.
The question landed too close to a truth she wasn’t ready to say out loud, close enough that she forgot to breathe for a second.
She’d figured Kael was suspicious of how surprised she’d been by the outside world, just not that he’d come out and say it so plainly.
After weighing it for a long moment, Elara finally leaned in, closing the distance between them.
Kael flinched, jerking his face back and nearly shoving her away, like he hadn’t expected her to move that fast.
“I just wanted to whisper, idiot,” Elara scolded, watching his overblown reaction.
“Fine.
What?” This time it was Kael leaning in toward her.
“Can I trust you?” Elara asked, their faces way too close.
She could feel his breath against her skin as he answered.
“Your life is in my hands.
Is that not clear enough?” Every word hit her face with a fresh, minty scent, like he’d just popped a mint.
Elara stared into his eyes from this close.
The bright silver of his irises stood out against his tan skin, and somehow that was exactly what drew her in.
Even though those eyes usually looked at her like she was something to be tolerated.
Doubt crept in right as she was about to speak.
She pressed her lips together, then pulled back.
Her heart was pounding faster than it should, and she wasn’t sure if it was the motion of the train or something else entirely.
“Later.
I’ll tell you when the time’s right,” Elara finally said.
She still wasn’t ready to tell him her secret, not even Kael.
But it seemed like Kael wasn’t in the mood to wait any longer.
Before she could pull back any further, his hand was already there, landing on the back of her neck and dragging her in.
Elara froze completely, breath catching in her throat.
That same fresh scent washed over her face again as Kael asked, one eyebrow raised.
“You’re not messing with a werewolf’s patience on purpose, are you?”