The academy's great bell rang only in emergencies a peal so old, so deep, it seemed to shudder through my bones. Today, it woke the dust in the rafters, shooed crows from the upper gardens, and scattered my sleep as surely as a slap.
Unrest had been building for weeks. You could feel it in the way students eyed each other over breakfast, the teachers' forced smiles, the glances sent toward the iron gates. There'd been whispers of rebellion before, but nothing like this. This was louder, sharper, and worryingly far more organized.
I knew before the bell's echo faded that today would end with someone in tears.
I did not, however, expect the day to begin with my mothers, queens of the realm, disguised in matching traveling cloaks, their faces shadowed and boots caked in honest mud, striding through the academy's battered gates like judgment made flesh.
