Chapter 4
The infirmary nurse applied a cold compress to my cheek and advised me not to speak for two days. However, I spoke within the hour. The instructor's office was located on the second floor of the west building, a small room with stone walls, a desk, two chairs, and a shelf of ledgers. It had no decoration. A narrow window let in a strip of late afternoon light that sliced across the desk like a blade. The scent of ink and old paper filled the air. She was already seated when I entered, her hands flat on the desk. She watched me sit and wince as the back of the chair pressed against the bruise on my spine where the garden wall had caught me.
"You will apologize to Risol," she said. "And to the entire moon faction."
"I did nothing wrong."
Her palm struck the desk with a sharp crack that echoed through the room. A pot of ink jolted, a quill toppled to the edge and fell, while a strip of light on the desk flickered as dust billowed from the impact. "I warned you," she said evenly, though her neck muscles were tense. "I warned you that this is not the palace, and no one here is obliged to care about your status. Yet you entered a public ceremony and killed a moon wolf's pup before everyone at the academy." She leaned forward, eyes fixed on him. "Do you understand what you have just done?"
"The egg was in the griffin nesting ground. It was part of the trial. I had every right to—"
"You had no right to force a bond with an animal you knew nothing about."
"It came to me. It pressed against my knee. It chose me."
"It was an infant seeking shade," she said softly. That was worse than the palm resting on the desk. "You are not special, Lynith. The pup was hot and scared, and you just happened to be the nearest shadow. That is all there was to it." The cloth on my cheek had grown warm. I could feel the swelling beneath it, a slow, thick pulse matching my heartbeat. My lip stung where the split had been sealed with salve. I could taste the bitter and waxy salve every time I opened my mouth.
"Those moon riders," the instructor said, "are more important to this academy than you are. That is not an opinion. It is a fact of how this institution operates. The joint training between factions is the foundation of everything we do here. Risol has cancelled it. Do you understand what that means?"
"They're moon riders," I said. "They ride wolves, they are not—" I stopped, then continued. "They are an inferior race. Everyone knows it. The sun faction has always been the dominant force; the court, the council, and the military are all our people. The moon riders exist because we allow it. They should be grateful for their training here!"
The instructor chuckled briefly, a sharp, cough-like sound that quickly faded. She leaned back in her chair, gazing at me with the surprised look of someone discovering an unexpected flaw. "Yet you attempted to connect with the beast of a so-called inferior race."
I closed my mouth.
She repeated, "You attempted to bond with it. You placed your hands on a moon wolf and infused it with sun magic because you were desperate for any connection, even with a creature you think is beneath you." She paused before asking, "What does that say about you, Lynith?"
I remained silent as the salve on my lip melted from my skin's heat, feelings it sliding into the corner of my mouth. The instructor opened a drawer in her desk, took out a flat wooden case, unlatched it, and turned it toward me. Inside, on a dark velvet bed, lay five metal pins, each no larger than a thumbnail and stamped with an unfamiliar symbol. The first was dull iron, the second copper, the third polished bronze, and the fourth and fifth slots were empty. She asked, "Do you know what these are?"
I did not.
"Solari pins. Every sun rider at this academy wears one," she explained, tapping the iron pin. "Kindling. Rank One. This is awarded when a rider completes their first bond and their power activates. Every first-year student who bonded a griffin during the ceremony will have one within a week." She then indicated the copper pin. "Flare. Rank Two. Most second- and third-year students own these, capable riders who train diligently and bond deeply." Finally, she pointed to the bronze pin. "Blaze. Rank Three. Do you know how many students at this academy possess a Blaze pin?"
"No."
"None." She let the word sit. "The last student to reach Blaze graduated four years ago, and the instructors still talk about her. Blaze is rare, Lynith. It marks a rider who has moved past competence into something the rest of us recognise as exceptional." She closed the case. "The moon faction has a parallel system. The Lunari. Their rankings carry different names but measure the same thing: the depth of the bond between rider and mount, and the degree to which the rider can channel that bond into power."
"Risol," I said. The name came out flat.
Risol is a Half Moon, ranked Three in the Lunari system. He is the top student at this academy, whether sun or moon, a position he's held for two years. She observed my expression carefully as she spoke, seemingly measuring me. His three Cup victories are not due to technique or luck; they stem from operating a full rank above the next best rider here. He can manipulate gravity through his bond with his wolf, reducing their combined weight during flight. This capability makes his aerial maneuvers impossible for others to imitate. He can also deliver strikes with concentrated gravitational force, capable of creating craters in stone. She paused before concluding, "That is who you insulted in a public courtyard. That is whose pup you killed."
The pins sat in their case on the desk between us. Iron, copper, bronze. Three ranks with empty slots above them, implying a scale that continued beyond what the academy typically produced.
She accompanied me to the moon side, but I didn't want to go. I made that obvious through my hurried steps, the rigid set of my shoulders, and the way I kept my eyes fixed ahead, my jaw clenched so tightly I could feel the bruise pulsing beneath the pressure. The instructor paid no attention; she walked half a step ahead without glancing back. The moon side of the academy was quite different from the sun side. Its corridors were narrower, and the stone was darker, a grey so deep it appeared almost blue in the low light. The torches burned more faintly, and the air felt different: damp, heavy, infused with the perpetual scent of wolf musk and oiled leather. The floor had been polished smooth over the years by heavy paws.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
We discovered Risol in a courtyard on the remote side of the moon dormitories. He was alone with his wolf, which was lying on the ground with its head between its paws, wings pressed flat against its sides. The wolf was not asleep; its eyes were open, staring into nothing. Risol sat nearby, his back against the wall, a hand resting on the wolf's neck. He looked up as we entered, his face composed. His eyes shifted from the instructor to me and lingered there. The instructor paused at the courtyard's edge and looked at me. I understood what she meant.
I walked forward. My boots scraped on the stone. The wolf's ear twitched at the sound, but the animal did not lift its head. I stopped three paces from Risol. He did not stand.
"I came to apologize," I said.
He watched me. "What happened in the garden was." I paused. The words felt like stones in my mouth. "I did not intend for the pup to die. I did not know what would happen when I tried to bond with it. I understand that you are angry, and I am sorry for your loss." The words came out flat and rehearsed because they were. I had been assembling them since we left the office, fitting them together like tiles, smooth on the surface.
He said nothing.
I had to do it; I needed to become a rider. I had to prove to my father and the court that I was worthy of the throne. The pup was the only creature that approached me—the only one. I couldn’t let you take it. If you were in my position, if your claim to everything you built depended on a single bond, you would have done the same. I expected him to understand. He was ambitious, a three-time Cup winner and a Rank three rider. He knew what it meant to fight for something the world refuses to give. Surely, he could see that my desperation and his discipline came from the same place.
He stood. His wolf stayed on the ground. "What do you know about the sun and moon riders?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it, aware of their valued status. I understood that the sun riders were the dominant faction, with moon riders training wolves and sun riders training griffins. I knew the Riders Cup was prestigious, and Risol had won it three times. I was aware that the barrier divided the factions within most of the academy, and now I realize it also involves ranks. Risol perceived my silence. His face stayed unchanged, but something in his eyes grew more guarded.
"You think being a rider is just an easy way to gain power," he said quietly. "You believe you can walk in here untrained, without knowledge, and with no respect for what we do, bond with the first creature that crosses your path, win a Cup, and then return home to boast about it at your father's court." He stepped closer. "You're a bigot who knows nothing about the beasts she tries to bond with. Your disdain for the moon race is written all over your face, yet you desperately sought a bond with a moon wolf." His tone softened. "You will never become a rider."
I clenched my fist. How dare he say that to me? He doesn’t know anything about me or my struggles.
He passed by me before I could say anything. His shoulder didn't brush against mine, but the gap he maintained was intentional, about an inch. It was just enough for me to sense the warmth of his body and the scent of wolf fur on his clothes. The distance made the dismissal feel tangible.
His wolf stood up and followed him without glancing at me. They then vanished through an archway at the far end of the courtyard, and their footsteps gradually faded into the stone.
In the office, she approached the shelf behind her desk and took a book from the bottom row. It was thick, with a dark leather cover, a cracked spine, and yellow edges. She turned, then threw it at me. I caught it against my chest, and its weight made me step back. The leather felt cold and had a dust-like smell.
"The history of the riders," she began, "details every sacrifice the moon faction has made to keep the sun side alive, every war fought for you, every border secured while your court debated policies, and every rider who died so that individuals like you could sit on a throne and call them inferior." She gestured toward the book. "It also contains the earliest records of the ranking system, how the Solari and Lunari scales were first created, the skills discovered by the first riders, and the old traditions that existed before this academy was established." Her gaze fixed on mine. "You need to understand what true power is before you're entrusted with any of your own." I pressed the book to my chest, feeling the leather against the bruise on my sternum. The pain was dull.
The instructor sat behind her desk, her hands flat on the surface, mirroring her initial posture when I entered. "The Pit," she announced.
I did not know what the Pit was. Something in her voice told me I did not want to.
"You will be put into the Pit. Five days. If you come out alive, your actions are forgiven." She paused. "People have died in the Pit, Lynith. It is not a metaphor."
"What is it?"
A cave system lies beneath the northern cliff face, existing since before the earliest structures of this academy. The stones at its entrance bear marks older than any faction or ranking system. She leaned back and said, "The academy claims it as a punishment, five days in darkness, survive, and you're forgiven. But the Pit is ancient; the marks on its walls predate everything we teach. Its tunnels extend beyond current maps, and the creatures dwelling in its depths are not there by coincidence."
I looked at her. The strip of light had disappeared. The room was growing dim. "You are sending me in as punishment," I said.
"I hope you learn something from this," she said.
“I am not going!”
“You don’t have any options here unless you want to be expelled.”
Two senior instructors walked me out of the west building and across the academy grounds to a section I had never seen. Past the main complex, past the training fields, past the stables where the griffins roosted. The path narrowed and the buildings fell away and the ground turned rough. We walked for ten minutes in silence. The Pit was in a clearing at the base of the northern cliff face. It was a hole in the ground. Circular, fifteen paces across, ringed by stones that were older than anything else at the academy. The stones were dark and smooth and covered with marks I did not recognise. They looked like the carvings at the base of the old tree in the rider garden, but deeper. More deliberate. Cut with intent. Some ran in long, flowing lines that followed the curve of the stones. Others were compact and angular, clustered in groups of five or seven. They did not look like letters or pictures. They looked like something carved into stone by someone who wanted the stone to remember.
The opening darkened as I stepped closer and looked down. Rough stone walls sloped inward, with faint light reaching about twenty feet before fading away. Below, there was nothing, just empty darkness. The rising air was cold and damp, carrying a mineral scent that felt ancient and profound. I recalled what the instructor had mentioned: this place was a testing ground, not a punishment. It bore marks older than any faction, inhabited by creatures in the lower depths. The environment was designed to compel raw power to emerge.
I was Rank Zero. No bond, no skills, no way to defend myself. They were basically asking me to go die!
The senior instructors stood behind me as I clutched the book against my ribs. My jaw ached, my palms remained red, and my lip, which was split, now sealed with tacky salve as the air cooled. One instructor stepped forward and said, "Five days. The cave is vast. There's water if you locate it. There is nothing else." He looked at me impassively. "Find your way out, or don't."
He put his hand on my back and pushed.
The Ranking System is here!
Iron, Copper, Bronze... and Lynith is currently sitting at a big fat zero. Do you think she can ever reach the level of a Rank 3 like Risol?
