Chapter 6
Chapter 6: The Part Where Everything Was Supposed to Get Better and Absolutely Did Not
Anya wakes in the Academy's healing ward three days after rebuilding the wards, learning from Selena that the Academy is in a fragile ceasefire — Kael's hybrid forces remain inside the walls, neither attacking nor retreating, while Lord Drakos and Lady Vespera maneuver to suppress Mara's revelations and reassert Council control. Anya discovers that Korvus, the Council's enforcer, has infiltrated the Academy during the chaos with orders to assassinate Lyrael, whose existence as the son of a vampire and werewolf threatens the Council's narrative. When Korvus strikes during a tense meeting between Academy and hybrid representatives, Anya must draw on her still-unstable dual magic to protect Lyrael and the others, nearly killing herself in the process. The attempt fractures the ceasefire, and Anya realizes the Council will never allow peace — she must find a way to unite both sides against the true enemy before Vespera's deeper plan to wipe out both factions comes to fruition.
Anya woke up in the way people generally wake up after channeling two thousand years of accumulated magical energy through a body that was, by any reasonable metric, not built for it: slowly, painfully, and with the distinct impression that every cell in her body had been taken apart, scrubbed clean, and reassembled by someone who had read the instructions but not particularly cared about them.
She was in the healing ward. She knew this because the ceiling was the particular shade of soft green that the Academy's healers insisted was calming and restorative, and which was, in Anya's private opinion, the color of old soup. The light was dim. The sheets were clean. Someone had put a vase of dried moonflowers on the table beside her bed, which was thoughtful and also slightly ominous, because moonflowers only grew in the Academy's inner gardens, which meant someone with significant access had been in to check on her.
"You're awake," said a voice from her left.
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