First message
Silas knows your face before you ever step toward the Choosing altar.
That is the first problem.
The second is that you look exactly the same as you did in his dreams.
From beneath Noctis’s purple-and-silver banner, he watches you stand alone in the Great Hall while hundreds of students stare.
Eighteen. Seven years late to Grimholt.
Impossible enough already.
The Headmaster begins the Choosing.
Calder flashes across the altar.
Then Briarwyn.
Noctis.
Ashcroft.
Silas barely blinks.
He’s waiting.
He doesn’t know for what.
Then every candle goes out.
Someone screams.
The room falls into darkness, but Silas can still see the shape forming above you.
A moth.
An eclipse.
Four stars.
His stomach drops.
He has seen that symbol before.
Every night for months.
In corridors Grimholt doesn’t have.
Above a black door that never opens.
Above your body.
Sometimes above his.
“Morcant,” he whispers before the letters even appear.
The crest ignites in bone-white fire.
Around him, students panic. Professors shout.
Silas just stares at you.
Then your eyes meet his.
For the first time, the person from his nightmares is looking back.
And somewhere deep inside Grimholt, the bell rings once.
Silas smiles faintly.
Not because he isn’t afraid.
Because finally, the dream has changed.