Chapter 23 The Confrontation
POV: Mina
The pounding on the door didn't stop.
"Sterling!" Jax's voice again, harder this time. "I can smell you in there. And someone else. Open this door or I'll break it down."
I looked at Lyro, who'd gone pale but was already moving. He grabbed my notepad and scribbled something quickly, then shoved it into my hands.
Follow my lead. Trust me.
Before I could respond, he walked to the door and opened it.
All three members of the Elite Trio stood in the hallway, radiating aggression and barely controlled violence. Jax's ice-blue eyes immediately found me standing by my bed, then swept the room looking for evidence of what they'd felt.
"What the hell was that power surge?" Logan demanded, pushing past Lyro into the room. "We felt it from three floors away."
Lyro stepped between Logan and me, his posture non-threatening but deliberate. "Power surge? I think you guys have been hitting the training too hard. There's nothing here except two students trying to sleep."
Asher's dark eyes narrowed. "We know what we felt. Oracle magic. Silver light. Coming from this room."
"Oracle magic?" Lyro laughed, and it sounded genuinely amused. "You mean the stuff from fairy tales? Come on, you're supposed to be the smart one, Blackwood."
I watched the exchange, my heart pounding, my hands behind my back where they were still faintly glowing silver. Lyro was buying me time to get control.
Jax's gaze locked onto mine. "Sterling. What happened in this room?"
I pulled out my notepad with hands that had finally stopped glowing.
Bad dream. Woke up panicked. Maybe my distress traveled through whatever weird bond you think exists.
It wasn't entirely a lie. The bond did exist, even if they didn't fully understand it yet.
"Bullshit," Logan snarled, moving closer. "This wasn't just emotional bleed. This was active power. Magic."
"Okay, let's say for a second that magic is real and Sterling here is some kind of wizard," Lyro said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "What exactly are you going to do about it? Report him to the headmaster? 'Sir, we think our classmate might have forbidden powers because we felt a weird tingle'? They'll laugh you out of the office."
Asher's expression shifted, calculating. "Unless we have proof."
He started moving toward my bed, clearly intending to search my belongings. I tensed, ready to use magic if I had to, consequences be damned.
But Lyro stepped in front of him.
"You don't have permission to search our room," he said calmly. "Academy rules. You need a faculty member present or probable cause of a rule violation. Having bad dreams isn't against Academy policy."
"Get out of my way," Asher said quietly, dangerously.
"No."
The word hung in the air. A non-Alpha directly defying an Elite member. It should have been suicide.
Logan grabbed Lyro by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. "You want to be a hero for your freak roommate? Fine. Let's see how heroic you feel after—"
"Stop."
The word came from my mouth before I could stop it. My voice, rough and unused, but definitely there. Definitely real.
All four of them froze.
I'd spoken. The mute Sterling heir had just spoken.
Through the bond, I felt the Trio's shock slam into me like a physical force. They'd known something was wrong, but this confirmed it. Mutes didn't suddenly develop voices.
"Holy shit," Logan breathed, releasing Lyro. "You can talk."
I grabbed my notepad desperately.
Sometimes. When stressed. Doesn't last.
Another lie. But they didn't know that.
Jax was staring at me with an expression I couldn't read. "You've been able to speak this whole time and chose not to?"
It's complicated.
"Uncomplicate it," Jax ordered, using his Alpha voice. The command rippled through the room, making even Lyro flinch.
But I felt my Oracle power rise up in response, pushing back against his dominance. The two forces clashed in the air between us, and Jax actually took a step back, his eyes widening.
"What are you?" he whispered.
Before I could respond, alarms started blaring throughout the Academy. Red lights flashed in the hallway, and an announcement echoed through the building.
"All students to your dormitories immediately. Lockdown in effect. Council forces approaching the Academy gates."
The Trio exchanged glances.
"Council?" Asher said. "Why would they—"
"Someone reported the forbidden magic," Lyro said quietly, looking at me with worry. "The Academy wards must have alerted them automatically."
My blood ran cold. The Council was here. The same people who'd killed my mother, who'd hunted Oracle bloodlines for centuries, who'd murdered Rafe.
They were here for me.
"You need to hide," Jax said abruptly, surprising everyone including himself. Through the bond, I felt his confusion at his own protectiveness. "If the Council is coming and they're looking for forbidden magic, you can't be found."
"Why do you care?" I wrote quickly.
"I don't," Jax said, but the lie was obvious through the bond. "I just don't want Council interference in Academy business. You're our problem to deal with, not theirs."
"How touching," Logan muttered. "Where exactly is he supposed to hide? Council agents will search every room."
"The old dueling arena," Lyro said suddenly. "In the basement level. It's been abandoned for decades. The Academy wards are weak down there. Might mask his presence."
Asher looked at Lyro with new assessment. "How do you know about that?"
"I know a lot of things. Comes from being invisible." Lyro grabbed my arm. "Come on. We need to move before they seal the building."
I expected the Trio to stop us, to demand more answers, to prevent me from escaping.
Instead, Jax stepped aside.
"You have until they finish searching the upper floors," he said coldly. "After that, you're on your own."
Through the bond, I felt what he wasn't saying. He was buying me time. Buying me a chance to escape. Even though he didn't understand why, his wolf was compelling him to protect me.
The mate bond was forming faster than any of us had anticipated.
"Go," Asher added, his dark eyes unreadable. "Before we change our minds."
Lyro didn't wait. He pulled me out of the room and down the hallway, moving fast but not running. Running would draw attention.
Behind us, I heard Logan's voice. "Why are we letting him go?"
"Because something about this whole situation is wrong," Jax replied. "And I want to know what before the Council gets their hands on him."
We made it to the stairwell and started descending. The alarms were still blaring, students were locked in their rooms, and somewhere above us, Council agents were entering the Academy.
"This is insane," Lyro muttered as we reached the basement level. "I can't believe I'm helping you hide from the literal government."
You don't have to. This isn't your fight.
"The magic chose me, remember? I had that vision. I'm in this whether I want to be or not." He led me through dark corridors I'd never explored. "Besides, my grandmother would disown me if I let an Oracle get caught by Council bastards."
We reached a heavy door marked with faded warnings about structural instability. Lyro pushed it open, and we entered what had once been a grand dueling arena.
Now it was just ruins. Broken seating, cracked floors, walls covered in old scorch marks from long-ago battles. But Lyro was right—the magic here felt different. Weaker. The Academy's wards didn't extend this far down.
"This should mask your presence for a while," Lyro said. "The wards can't detect what they don't reach."
How long do I have?
"Hours, maybe. Depends on how thorough the Council search is." Lyro hesitated. "What are you going to do?"
I looked around the abandoned arena and felt something click into place. This was perfect. Not just for hiding, but for training.
Learn to fight back, I wrote. I'm done running.
Lyro grinned. "Now you're talking. What do you need?"
Time. Space. And someone to keep watch.
"I can do that." He moved toward the door. "I'll stay up top, warn you if anyone's coming. You do... whatever Oracle training montage thing you need to do."
After he left, I stood alone in the ruined arena and looked down at my arms.
The scars were still there. The ones I'd always assumed were from childhood injuries or accidents. But now, looking at them with Oracle sight, I saw they weren't random.
They were runes. A map. Training instructions encoded directly into my skin.
My mother's final gift.