-Asher-
The North Spire didn't just feel like a building anymore; it felt like a weapon being turned against itself. As we burst through the shattered remains of the ground-floor doors, the air was humming with a localized frequency that made the marrow of my bones ache. It wasn't the "Void" or some distant dimension—it was the school's own defensive magic, twisted and forced into a shape it was never meant to take.
"Stay in the circle!" Soren shouted.
He swung his claymore in a wide arc, the heavy steel biting into the shield of a Silencer who had tried to lunge at me from the shadows of the first landing. The guard crumpled, his dampening pike clattering uselessly against the stone.
I didn't stop. Every beat of my heart was a countdown. I could feel Alexia—not as a ghost, but as a battery being drained to its casing. Thorne wasn't just "cleansing" her; he was using her unique signature as a key. Since the school recognized her as its own, he was using her to "invite" Gideon past the perimeter wards.
He was making her the accomplice to her own home's invasion.
The stairs were narrow, slick with the oily residue of Council dampening spells. We hit the second landing, and the world exploded in violet light. Four Silencers stood there, pikes crossed.
"Jasper, the floor!" I barked.
Jasper dropped to one knee, his fingers finding a hidden seam in the masonry. "Whisperwind, exhale!"
The stones buckled. A blast of pressurized air from the ancient ventilation ducts threw the Silencers off balance. Finn capitalized on the moment, his hands throwing arcs of blue-white lightning that short-circuited their rune-etched armor. We tore past them, our boots thundering on the stone.
"The portal is right behind those doors," Soren panted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as we reached the final landing. "Whatever happens in there, we don't let Gideon step foot on this stone."
I didn't wait for a signal. I channeled the wolf's raw power into my shoulder and slammed into the final set of iron-bound doors.
The lab was a cyclone of gold and violet. The center of the room was dominated by the obsidian chair where Alexia Carter sat, her head back, her skin translucent. Above her, a massive circular archway—the school's primary scrying portal—was glowing with a terrifying, blinding intensity. It wasn't a rift into darkness; it was a clear window into the valley beyond the school's hidden borders.
Through the shimmering heat of the portal, I could see him.
Gideon stood at the edge of the school's invisible ward-line, his staff planted in the dirt. He wasn't a monster; he was a man in elegant, dark robes, but the power rolling off him made the air in the lab vibrate. He was walking toward the archway, each step a deliberate slap in the face to the school's ancient protections.
Thorne stood by the control pedestal, his face twisted in a manic grin. "He is almost through! The wards are recognizing the signature! Alexia is the door, and she has opened it wide!"
The archway began to hum, a high-pitched scream of metal under stress. Gideon's hand reached into the frame of the portal. His fingertips were inches away from crossing into the Spire.
"Alexia!" Finn screamed, lunging toward the chair.
A blast of kinetic energy from Thorne's pedestal threw him back. "Don't touch her! She is the conduit! If you break the flow while his essence is halfway through, the feedback will liquefy her nervous system!"
I froze. My hands were shaking. I was ten feet away from her, and I was watching the man who wanted to destroy her life step into the room.
But then, I saw it. Alexia's eyes flickered open. They weren't brown anymore. They were gold—the same deep, ancient gold as the school's foundations. She looked at me, and through the pain, I felt her reach out.
Asher, her voice echoed in my mind, steady and calm. The fox. It's the ground. Use it.
I didn't question her. I didn't care about Thorne or the man stepping through the frame. I sprinted across the room, dodging a blast of grey energy from Thorne. I leaped over the humming conduits, and with a desperate lunging motion, I placed the silver fox directly onto Alexia Carter's lap.
The moment the fox touched her, the "hacking" stopped.
The fox wasn't just a pet; it was the original core-spirit of Whisperwind, stolen and hidden for years. When it touched Alexia, it completed a circuit that Thorne hadn't accounted for. The school's magic stopped being "channeled" through her and started being claimed by her.
The fox let out a high, resonant note that matched the heartbeat of the school. The violet Council light didn't just fade—it was incinerated by a burst of pure, white-gold energy.
"No!" Thorne shrieked.
The portal flared. Gideon, who had been seconds from stepping onto the Spire floor, was suddenly pushed back. I saw the look on his face—not fear, but a cold, calculating rage as the portal's image began to distort and flicker. The "invitation" had been revoked. The school had recognized its true master, and it was slamming the door.
Soren stepped between Thorne and the chair, his claymore coming down in a strike that shattered the control pedestal into a thousand pieces.
The portal snapped shut with a violent crack that blew out every window in the Spire, showering the room in glass shards that sparkled like diamonds in the moonlight. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of our breathing.
I looked down at Alexia. The fox was nestled against her, its silver fur glowing softly. She was pale and exhausted, but the golden light in her eyes remained.
I ripped the dampening cuffs off her wrists, the anti-magic metal burning my palms, but I didn't care. I caught her as she slumped forward, pulling her against my chest.
"He's gone," I whispered into her hair. "The door is shut."
Alexia took a ragged breath, her fingers clutching my tunic. "He's... he's still out there, Asher. He's at the gates."
"Let him be," I said, looking at Jasper, Finn, and Soren. "He can't get in. And we're not letting him close to you ever again."
I looked up at Thorne, who was cowering against the wall, his power gone, his master locked outside.
"Jasper," I said, my voice cold. "Find some rope. We have a traitor to deliver to the Headmistress."