I don't just have an ancient water dragon swearing to protect me from danger. Now Raith Hollow, the most terrifying and deadly student at Confluence Academy, just said he's going to become my glorified bodyguard.

14

"Today, we mourn those who passed and celebrate those who did not," Rector Voss announces from a high balcony overlooking the courtyard of Confluence. His voice echoes across the stone as rain patters softly down on all of us. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles, deep and low. "To stand here today alive and tethered to an elemental is a testament to your value, students. Know this. Find pride in this."

The entire school is gathered, with first-years at the front as we're "celebrated" for our elemental tethers.

For our success.

For the luck of living where so many others died violently.

I can still see the empty spaces where students once stood. Students whose names I hardly dared to learn because I knew it would only make their likely deaths harder. The girl with the crooked smile from channeling class who once sent her summoned water sphere to my palm to save me a day of Sestra's lectures. The tall boy who I used to see doing extra push ups and training in the courtyard every evening. The pair of twins who always had smiles on their faces.

Gone.

My chest throbs with a familiar ache—that hollow, gnawing feeling that comes with surviving when others didn't. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

But I know I'm lucky to have an intact group of friends who survived with me.

Mireen and Beck are to my left, while Ambrose is to my right.

"He's handsome," Mireen whispers from beside me. She still bears scrapes and a few bandages, like everyone who made it out of the elemental plane alive.

"Shh," I say, giving her arm a subtle whack. She's not wrong, though. Rector Voss stands well over six feet tall with black hair streaked in gray at the temples. He has elegant features with a long, pleasant-to-look-at face, and his skin is tanned and unmarked, which I find odd. I would've thought the leader of a school for primals would be a primal himself.

Rector Voss is dressed in an immaculate black robe with a circular sigil I’ve seen around the Campus. It bears four marks, one for each of the affinities. Each of the known affinities, at least.

My fingertips idly trace the disguised mark on the back of my left hand.

Voss stands with hands folded behind his back, eyes scanning over us with an intensity that makes my skin crawl—like he's searching for something specific among the survivors. He doesn’t even seem to notice the rain, though most of us are already shivering by now.