The silence that followed the hearing wasn't passive.
It watched.It calculated.It tightened.
In class, no one spoke to me unless required. Not even the professors. My answers were marked, not acknowledged. Whispers bloomed the moment I turned away.
They weren't punishing me with charges.They were punishing me with absence.
By the fourth day, even the air around me felt thinned, like magic itself was withdrawing.
Serena found me in the west garden that evening. The dusk-lilies glowed dimly under the moonlight, their petals curling from a chill not found in the wind.
"They're isolating you," she said. "No open attack. Just… starvation by silence."
"I've lived worse silences," I said, fingers brushing one of the lilies. "But I'm not going to rot quietly this time."
She tilted her head, thoughtful. "Good. Because they just gave us our next move."
She handed me a sealed envelope. "From someone inside the Queen's Office."
My pulse stilled for a beat.
"They're not just watching you anymore."
I broke the wax. A familiar glyph shimmered on the parchment—one I'd seen before in the tribunal archive: circular, thorned, and veiled with faint fire runes.
Below it, three words shimmered into view:
Echoes ascend.