The Last Witch Academy

The Witch the Five Princes Betrayed

IMANI RAVELLE

Chapter One

The Prince Who Smiled Twice

“Do not turn around,” Tavian said behind me.

His reflection stood in front of me.

It smiled.

Tavian did not.

The polished doors of the eighth tower showed the academy courtyard in perfect detail: black stone wet from the morning rain, spectral rooks perched along the bridges, and five princes gathered beneath the newly raised banners of House Rook.

Four of those reflections matched the men who cast them.

Corven stood with his arms folded, sunlight moving beneath the skin of his hands. Zephan’s broken sword hung at his hip because he refused to replace it until the academy smith admitted the original could not be repaired. Sevrael leaned against the fountain, still pale from the wounds the Mirrorborn had carved into him. Maelor waited apart from the others, silver writing visible above the collar covering his scarred throat.

Tavian stood directly behind me.

His reflection stood directly in front of me.

And it was smiling.

“What happens if I turn around?” I asked.

“You will see me.”

“That is generally how turning works.”

The smile in the glass widened.

Tavian’s voice remained quiet.

“Azenya.”

The warning entered the silver-black thread connecting our hearts.

Fear followed it.

Not mine.

His.

Twelve days had passed since the Crownless King died. Twelve days since I raised the eighth tower, restored House Rook, and claimed Eldervane before five royal armies.

In those twelve days, Tavian had feared exactly three things.

The darkness returning to his blood.

His father reaching the academy.

And something wearing his face.

I kept my attention on the reflection.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“Your back.”

“In the doors?”

“No.”

The answer chilled me.

The reflected Tavian stepped closer to my reflected body.

Its movements made no sound.

“What do the others see?”

“Nothing unusual,” Corven said from the courtyard.

His voice carried through the open archway beside us. None of the princes appeared alarmed. They watched Tavian and me with the careful patience of men who had learned that interrupting witch magic usually made it worse.

Sevrael lifted a hand toward his right ear.

The restored green-glass cuff remained in place.

“Every reflection appears correct from here,” he said.

“Mine doesn’t,” I replied.

Zephan drew his broken sword.

“Which one?”

“Tavian.”

“That hardly narrows the danger.”

The false Tavian placed one reflected hand on my shoulder.

Nothing touched me.

The doors darkened beneath its fingers.

Black roots spread across the silver surface.

Tavian’s fear sharpened through our bond.

“Move away from the glass.”

The thing wearing his reflection leaned toward my ear.

Its lips formed words I could not hear.

I touched the black crown resting against my forehead.

Eldervane opened inside me.

The eighth tower recognized every footstep within its walls. I felt instructors crossing the western bridge, students gathering inside the green tower, and Kezra arguing with someone in the infirmary. Beneath us, Serathis paced the chamber where six chains still bound her magic.

The academy felt Tavian behind me.

It felt the four princes outside.

It felt Headmistress Veyra climbing the tower stairs.

It did not feel the man inside the doors.

“Show me what you are,” I commanded.

The tower answered.

Black fire traveled through the crown and entered the polished metal.

The false Tavian’s smile vanished.

For one instant, its face became a smooth oval of green glass.

Then it became mine.

My reflection stood behind me wearing the black crown.

It smiled with my mouth.

LOOK BENEATH THE WESTERN GATE.

The words appeared across the doors in silver scratches.

Then the reflection drove both hands into my reflected chest.

Pain tore through my body.

I fell backward.

Tavian caught me before I struck the floor. The silver-black thread snapped tight as his arms closed around me.

Zephan reached the doors first.

His broken blade struck the metal.

The reflected woman shattered.

Every door in the eighth tower flew open at once.

A scream traveled through Eldervane.

Not human.

Stone.

The academy bells began ringing.

Nine tolls.

Students stopped across the courtyards.

The spectral rooks launched from the rooftops in a single black wave.

Headmistress Veyra reached the top of the stairs as Tavian helped me stand.

Her cloudy eye moved from the darkened doors to the princes.

“What did you touch?”

Zephan looked offended. “Why do you assume it was me?”

“Experience.”

“The doors attacked her.”

“And you struck them.”

“They were being discourteous.”

Veyra ignored him. “What appeared?”

“My reflection,” Tavian said.

I looked at him.

He looked back.

No smile.

The thread between us carried anger, fear, and the cold discipline he used to contain both.

“It changed into me,” I said. “Then it left a message.”

Veyra examined the silver scratches.

LOOK BENEATH THE WESTERN GATE.

Maelor approached without touching the doors. Since becoming my instructor, he had developed a remarkable ability to study dangerous objects from behind other people.

“The Mirrorborn wants us to find something,” he said.

“Or wants us away from here,” Corven replied.

Sevrael’s expression had lost its usual charm.

“It took my memories. It knows what each of us fears, what we conceal, and what we are most likely to believe.”

Zephan glanced toward the western side of the academy.

“Then we ignore it.”

A second scream moved through Eldervane.

This one was human.

The western gate exploded.

Black iron tore through the courtyard. Students scattered as one of the enormous doors broke from its hinges and struck the stone bridge. Spectral rooks spiraled above the opening.

Someone stumbled through the smoke.

A girl.

She could not have been more than fourteen.

A torn gray dress hung from her thin body. Mud covered her bare feet, and an iron collar circled her throat. Blood ran down both arms from symbols carved into her skin.

She took three steps into Eldervane and collapsed.

Fire erupted around her.

Not Zephan’s red flame.

Not the white royal fire used to burn witches.

Blue fire shaped like wings rose from the girl’s back.

Every royal banner remaining in the courtyard caught fire.

Students screamed.

Instructors raised shields.

The flames passed through both without burning them.

Then every locked door in Eldervane opened.

The academy inhaled.

I felt the girl’s magic enter the mountain.

Old.

Terrified.

Awake.

Veyra went still.

“That is impossible.”

“People have been saying that around me frequently,” I said.

I pulled away from Tavian and ran.

The princes followed.

We crossed the courtyard while blue fire climbed the western tower. It moved like something searching for a name it had forgotten.

The girl lay beneath the ruined gate.

Her breathing came in shallow gasps.

The iron collar around her throat carried the emblem of Solmere.

Corven saw it.

Golden light gathered instinctively around his hands.

The girl opened her eyes.

They were entirely blue.

She saw the black crown on my head and seized my wrist.

“Last witch,” she whispered.

Her magic entered me.

A village appeared inside my mind.

White-and-gold soldiers moved between burning houses. Men and women knelt in the road with iron collars around their throats. Children were dragged from cellars while royal physicians tested their blood.

One child screamed.

Blue wings erupted from her back.

The memory shattered.

I returned to the courtyard with the girl’s fingers locked around me.

“Who did this?” I asked.

Her gaze moved toward Corven.

He lowered his hands.

“My father?” he asked.

The girl flinched at his voice.

Corven’s face changed.

Not guilt.

Recognition.

“She came from Solmere,” he said.

“Where?”

“The northern provinces use collars like this for prisoners convicted of royal treason.”

Zephan knelt beside the girl.

“She crossed half the kingdom barefoot?”

“No,” Tavian said.

He studied the symbols cut into her arms.

“She was brought here.”

Maelor crouched on the opposite side. The silver writing across his throat shifted as he read the wounds.

“These are tracking marks.”

“Can you remove them?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Will it hurt her?”

“Yes.”

The girl tightened her grip.

“Do it.”

Maelor drew one finger across the first symbol.

Silver light lifted it from her skin.

Somewhere beyond the academy, a horn sounded.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

We looked through the broken gate.

The road descending from Eldervane had been empty when the bells began.

Now riders stood along the mountain pass.

White armor.

Golden shields.

Solmere.

Their commander raised a mirrored disk.

King Solmere appeared above the road.

Corven’s father wore the same white-and-gold robes he had worn while ordering his army to attack the academy twelve days earlier. His expression carried none of the defeat.

“Eldervane Academy,” his voice thundered across the mountain, “you are harboring stolen royal property.”

The girl’s blue fire surged.

I placed myself between her and the gate.

“She is a child.”

“She is a weapon.”

“She has a name.”

The king looked at me.

“What is it?”

I glanced down.

The girl’s lips trembled.

“Neris.”

I faced the mirror again.

“Her name is Neris.”

“She belongs to Solmere.”

“No one belongs to Solmere.”

Corven closed his eyes briefly.

His father heard the refusal in my words.

“So the witch chooses war.”

“The witch chooses the child.”

The king smiled.

The expression was wrong.

Corven noticed it too.

His head lifted sharply.

“Father?”

King Solmere turned toward his son.

For one instant, the royal mirror reflected nothing behind him.

No throne room.

No attendants.

No white palace.

Only black water.

A second King Solmere rose from it.

Two identical men occupied the mirror.

One looked at Corven.

The other looked at me.

Only one smiled.

The mirrored disk shattered.

Solmere’s soldiers began advancing toward the gate.

Zephan rose with his broken sword.

Sevrael removed his green coat and placed it beneath Neris’s head. Maelor continued drawing the tracking spells from her skin. Corven stood motionless, staring at the empty space where his father’s image had vanished.

Tavian came beside me.

The thread between us pulsed.

“A choice we can make again tomorrow,” he said quietly.

The words we had spoken after surviving the Crownless.

A promise without ownership.

A bond without a cage.

I looked at the soldiers climbing toward Eldervane.

“Tomorrow arrived quickly.”

“It usually does.”

His hand closed around mine.

Beyond the gate, five more royal mirrors appeared along the mountain road.

One for each king.

All five delivered the same message.

SURRENDER THE AWAKENED.

The girl beneath us began to glow.

Across Eldervane, other students screamed.

Magic erupted from tower after tower.

Blue flame.

Golden feathers.

Green thorns.

Silver shadows.

Black roots.

The Purification had not destroyed the witches.

It had put them to sleep.

And something had just awakened them all.

Chapter Two

The Witches Waking

The first awakened student shattered every window in the western tower.

The second turned the rain into glass.

The third disappeared.

Not gradually.

One moment, a young man wearing the crimson uniform of House Oreth stood in the courtyard with fire gathering around his hands. The next, his clothing collapsed onto the stones.

His scream continued from somewhere no one could see.

Across Eldervane, magic erupted without discipline, warning, or mercy.

A girl floated above the eastern bridge while golden feathers cut through the air around her. Black flowers burst from another student’s mouth. Two brothers became trapped inside the same shadow. A frightened first-year transformed the academy fountain into something with teeth.

The five royal mirrors remained above the mountain road.

SURRENDER THE AWAKENED.

Solmere’s soldiers advanced toward the broken western gate.

I stood over Neris while Eldervane came apart around me.

“Veyra,” I called.

The headmistress raised both hands.

Seven remaining academy towers answered.

Green light descended from one. Gold from another. Red, silver, blue, white, and violet magic crossed above the courtyard, weaving an emergency containment field.

The spells reached the eighth tower.

Black fire joined them.

For one breath, the academy held.

Then hundreds of unfamiliar powers struck the field from inside.

Cracks appeared across the air.

“It will not last,” Veyra said.

“How long?”

“Longer if fewer people continue exploding.”

Zephan looked toward the fountain as it swallowed a marble bench.

“That seems difficult to arrange.”

Another horn sounded beyond the gate.

The Solmere commander raised his sword.

White-and-gold soldiers lowered their spears and charged.

Corven stepped into the gateway.

He wore no armor. His ceremonial sword remained sheathed. Against an advancing royal force, he looked less like a prince than a man who had wandered into the wrong war.

“Stop!” he commanded.

The soldiers continued.

Corven drew his sword.

Golden light crossed the broken gate in a single line.

The first row of soldiers struck it and fell backward. Shields shattered. Horses reared, throwing their riders onto the mountain road.

Corven’s face tightened.

“By authority of the heir to Solmere, you will lower your weapons.”

The commander removed his helmet.

A white scar crossed his dark face from temple to jaw.

“Your authority was suspended when you refused the king’s order.”

“I am still crown prince.”

“You are an academy hostage.”

“I remained by choice.”

“The distinction is no longer recognized.”

Corven’s golden barrier shook beneath another strike.

Zephan moved beside him.

“Do you require assistance?”

“No.”

Zephan drew his broken sword.

“That sounded like pride rather than strategy.”

“It was both.”

“Then you require assistance.”

Red fire flowed along Zephan’s damaged blade. The missing half appeared as flame, extending beyond the broken steel.

Sevrael joined them, one hand still pressed against the wound beneath his shirt.

Green vines erupted through the mountain road. They twisted around spear shafts, shield straps, and armored boots. Soldiers fell without being crushed.

Maelor remained beside Neris, drawing the final tracking symbol from her arm.

“Faster,” I told him.

“I could remove it quickly or remove it without killing her.”

“Do both.”

“Those instructions conflict.”

“Then become more talented.”

A silver symbol rose from Neris’s skin.

She screamed.

The blue wings behind her opened.

A blast of fire threw Maelor across the courtyard.

Tavian caught him by the throat before he landed.

For a moment, the two princes stared at one another.

Maelor’s silver blade had passed through Tavian’s heart twelve days ago. The wound was gone, but neither man had forgotten it.

Tavian released him.

“If you injure the girl again—”

“I am removing the spells that allow an army to find her.”

“She is fourteen.”

“So were many of the Veilkeepers when their commands were carved.”

“That does not improve your position.”

“No,” Maelor said. “It explains my technique.”

Neris rolled onto her side.

Blue fire consumed the iron collar around her neck.

The metal did not melt.

It screamed.

Every Solmere soldier stopped.

The commander looked toward the girl.

“She is activating.”

“She has a name,” I said.

The man’s attention found me.

“Your Majesty.”

I disliked how easily the title left his mouth.

“I am not a queen.”

“You are wearing a crown.”

“It has been an inconvenient morning.”

He raised his sword toward Neris.

“That creature killed seventeen royal officers.”

Neris flinched.

The fire around her wings darkened.

“She was defending herself,” I said.

“She burned a transport convoy and released thirty-seven contaminated prisoners.”

“Awakened,” Veyra corrected.

The commander’s expression did not change.

“Solmere recognizes no distinction.”

Corven’s barrier brightened.

“I do.”

The commander looked at him.

Regret entered the older man’s face.

“I trained you.”

“Then you know I will not move.”

“I know you once understood duty.”

“I understood obedience.”

“And now?”

Corven glanced toward Neris.

“Now I understand the difference.”

The royal commander lowered his sword.

For one hopeful moment, I thought he might order the soldiers back.

Instead, he drove the blade into his own palm.

Blood covered the white steel.

Every Solmere soldier repeated the motion.

Golden light rose from the road.

Corven went pale.

“Blood formation,” he said.

Zephan’s fire intensified.

“What does it do?”

“Breaks royal defenses.”

“Then yours?”

“Yes.”

The golden barrier cracked.

Behind us, the academy containment field began to fail.

The invisible student screamed above the courtyard. The girl surrounded by feathers crashed through the roof of the dining hall. Black roots tore through the central stairs.

We were trapped between awakening magic and an advancing army.

The five mirrors above the road brightened.

Five kings watched.

Not one ordered the attack to stop.

I reached for Eldervane.

The sixth thread descended from my crown into the mountain. Every hallway, tower, grave, and sealed chamber opened inside me.

The academy was frightened.

I had not known stone could feel fear.

It remembered soldiers crossing its bridges two centuries earlier. It remembered white fire entering the towers. It remembered instructors surrendering children in exchange for promises that no one else would die.

The promises had lasted until the gates closed.

Eldervane wanted to bury itself again.

“No,” I whispered.

Black roots trembled beneath the courtyard.

I felt the old mechanisms preparing to pull the eighth tower below the mountain.

“No more hiding.”

The roots became still.

“Azenya,” Tavian warned.

The bond carried the approaching strain.

The princes felt it too. Five colored threads tightened around my heart as I drew upon the academy.

Corven turned from the weakening barrier.

“What are you doing?”

“Changing the gate.”

“To what?”

“I do not know yet.”

“That answer has become disturbingly common.”

The Solmere blood formation struck.

Corven’s barrier shattered.

Golden force threw him backward.

Zephan caught him with one arm while keeping his burning sword raised with the other. Sevrael’s vines snapped. Soldiers rushed through the opening.

I commanded Eldervane to protect its students.

The western gate obeyed.

The mountain opened.

Not beneath the soldiers.

Around them.

Black stone rose on both sides of the road. It curved overhead and sealed into a tunnel. The advancing soldiers disappeared inside.

Their shouts echoed through the academy.

The commander struck the stone.

His sword left no mark.

“What did you do?” Corven asked.

“I moved the entrance.”

“To where?”

The academy showed me.

The soldiers emerged through an archway three miles below Eldervane, facing away from the mountain.

Zephan laughed.

“You dismissed an army.”

“I redirected it.”

“You should redirect my father next.”

One of the royal mirrors turned toward him.

King Oreth’s scarred face filled the glass.

Zephan looked up.

“Convenient timing.”

His father raised a fist.

The Varkesh mirror became fire.

A red command burned across the sky.

RETURN, OR YOUR YOUNGER BROTHERS WILL ANSWER FOR YOUR TREASON.

Zephan stopped smiling.

The message vanished.

Sevrael’s mirror activated next.

His father appeared behind a jeweled mask.

Ilvareth courtiers surrounded him, their beautiful clothing stained with green blood.

“Return the witch,” the king said, “and I will permit your sisters to retain their names.”

Sevrael’s hand moved toward his restored ear cuff.

“What have you done to them?”

The king removed his mask.

Nothing existed beneath it.

His face had become smooth green glass.

Sevrael stumbled backward.

The Mirrorborn smiled through his father’s stolen shape.

Then the real king’s face returned.

He appeared unaware that anything had changed.

“You have one day,” he said.

The mirror darkened.

Maelor’s father delivered no threat.

The silver-veiled king simply raised a knife and placed it against the throat of a woman kneeling beside his throne.

Kezra.

No.

Not Kezra.

A woman who resembled her.

Older. Silver-haired. The same defiant eyes.

Maelor stopped breathing.

The king spoke one word.

“Choose.”

The Morvane mirror vanished.

Tavian’s father appeared last.

No attendants stood around the Draevor throne.

Black ice covered the chamber. The king sat with both hands resting on the arms of his chair.

The Crownless no longer lived inside him.

That should have made him less dangerous.

It had not.

“Son.”

Tavian’s body became rigid.

“Father.”

“You destroyed our inheritance.”

“I ended a parasite.”

“You ended the power that held Draevor together.”

“It consumed our bloodline.”

“It made our bloodline feared.”

The king’s gaze moved to me.

“You replaced it with her.”

The bond reacted.

Silver-black light appeared between Tavian’s hand and mine.

His father saw it.

Something hungry entered his expression.

“Return to Draevor,” he said. “Bring the bond.”

“No.”

“You carry no crown, no army, and no inheritance. What do you believe remains of you?”

Tavian’s hand closed around mine.

“Enough.”

The mirror cracked.

His father leaned closer.

“Then I will take it.”

Darkness filled the glass.

All five royal mirrors disappeared.

No one spoke.

The threat of armies had been simple.

The kings had made the conflict personal.

Brothers.

Sisters.

Mothers.

Kingdoms.

Every prince had been given someone to lose.

Neris began shaking beneath Sevrael’s coat.

Maelor returned to her side.

“One tracking mark remains.”

“Remove it,” I said.

His fingers hovered above the symbol carved near her heart.

Silver light appeared.

Neris grabbed his wrist.

“Not that one.”

“It is how they found you.”

“No.”

Her blue eyes fixed on Corven.

“He needs to see.”

Corven approached slowly.

“What?”

Neris tore the ruined fabric away from her shoulder.

The remaining symbol was not a tracking mark.

It was a royal seal.

A golden sun divided by a black line.

Corven stared at it.

“I have seen that emblem,” he said.

“Where?” I asked.

“On restricted military orders.”

The girl’s voice trembled.

“They put it on everyone who woke.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dozens?”

She shook her head.

“Hundreds?”

Neris looked toward the academy towers where uncontrolled magic continued erupting.

“Thousands.”

Silence descended around us.

The Purification had not ended two centuries ago.

It had changed.

The Five Crowns had tracked the surviving bloodlines, generation after generation, waiting for their magic to return.

“And now they are collecting you,” I said.

Neris nodded.

“Where?”

Her gaze moved to the royal seal.

“We called it the Hollow School.”

Veyra’s cloudy eye sharpened.

“There is no academy by that name.”

“It isn’t an academy.”

Neris looked at the broken collar beside her.

“It is where they teach us how to die without releasing our magic.”

The blue fire dimmed behind her.

Tavian crouched near us.

“How did you escape?”

“A prince opened my cell.”

All five men became still.

“Which prince?” I asked.

Neris lifted one burned hand.

She pointed at Corven.

“He did.”

Corven’s face emptied.

“I have never seen you before.”

“You came three nights ago.”

“I have not left Eldervane.”

“You wore his face,” Neris whispered.

She reached into the remains of her dress and removed a golden button.

The crest of Solmere covered its surface.

Black water moved beneath it.

Corven did not touch the object.

“What did the man wearing my face say?”

Neris looked at me.

“He said the last witch would open her gates if we gave her someone to blame.”

The golden button smiled.

A tiny version of Corven’s face appeared in its polished surface.

Then the Mirrorborn spoke.

“Five princes surround you, Azenya Rook.”

Its voice emerged from the button, the broken gate, and every reflective surface in Eldervane.

“Ask yourself how many remain.”

The academy windows turned black.

Inside each one stood a prince.

Corven.

Zephan.

Sevrael.

Maelor.

Tavian.

Five men waited in the courtyard beside me.

Five more watched from the glass.

Then one reflection stepped away from its prince.

And bowed.

Chapter Three

THE COVENANT OF CROWNS

The prince inside the window bowed.

The prince beside me drew his sword.

Tavian’s black blade moved first. Zephan’s broken weapon ignited a heartbeat later. Corven raised a golden shield, Sevrael summoned a wall of thorns, and silver words spread across Maelor’s skin.

Five reflections watched them prepare for war.

Only one continued bowing.

Maelor’s.

The real Maelor turned toward the black window.

His reflected double straightened.

Silver symbols covered its face, but the words were wrong. They twisted backward across its skin, commands written for a creature that had learned obedience by watching it from the other side.

KILL THE HEIR.

The false Maelor smiled.

The real Maelor did not.

“I dislike it,” Zephan said.

“That must be devastating for the creature,” Sevrael replied.

The false prince raised one hand.

Every reflective surface…