Chapter 175. Something Ancient and Hungry Breaking Free Into the Light
Several agonizing hours later, long after the golden morning light had curdled into a bruised, ominous twilight, William would finally come to understand the true, horrific shape of what awaited him back at the academy grounds.
When he finally stood amidst the aftermath, surveying the twisted metal, the blood-soaked earth, and the broken bodies that would become his new reality, Tomas’s offhand comment about Kaela’s inability to relax would echo back to him.
It would echo with a hollow, devastating weight that neither student had intended it to carry, a prophecy spoken in ignorance that would later feel like a curse.
But that realization was still hours away.
For now, the forest remained deceptively alive, though the sounds were shifting. The peaceful chirping of birds had been replaced by the wet, rhythmic sounds of slaughter echoing through the trees.
Somewhere deeper in the undergrowth, the occasional satisfied, feral whoop of a princess rang out, a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph.
"Six!" Kaela’s voice drifted through the trees, followed immediately by the sickening crunch of vertebrae being severed. "Six and counting!"
"Come on, you cowards! Show me something that actually requires me to break a sweat!"
Tomas stumbled through a thicket, his face pale and streaked with dried blood that wasn’t his own.
"Princess, please," he wheezed, clutching his side where a claw had grazed him. "I think we’ve met our quota... I think the forest itself is tired of you."
"Nonsense, Tomas!" Kaela shouted back, her laughter cutting through the humid air like a blade. "The forest isn’t tired; it’s just being shy!"
"Elara, tell him that he’s being a coward even though a man should not need to feel like that, or else he’s just a little boy!"
Elara didn’t answer immediately. She was staring at a cluster of disturbed earth where something massive was beginning to stir.
Her fingers trembled as she gripped her dagger, her inner monologue a frantic loop of Run, run, run, run.
"Kaela," she whispered, her voice cracking with genuine terror. "I don’t think... that’s a shy forest creature."
"Then it’s an angry one!" Kaela’s voice rose in pitch, dripping with excitement. "Finally! Something with some fucking backbone!"
The ground beneath them groaned. A low, guttural vibration started in the earth itself, traveling up through their boots and settling in their teeth.
The trees began to sway, not from wind, but from something massive moving beneath the root systems.
"Oh, sweet merciful gods," Tomas whimpered, dropping to one knee as the first tremor hit. "This is exactly what I meant about the mental health implications."
"Shut up and draw your steel, Tomas," Kaela commanded, though even her voice held a new edge of something between exhilaration and genuine alertness.
She stepped forward, her blade gleaming crimson in the fading light, her eyes locked on the spot where the earth was beginning to split open. "Whatever this is, it’s going to be the best goddamn day off I’ve ever had."
As the first massive, chitinous limb burst through the soil with the force of an explosion, sending chunks of dirt and stone flying like shrapnel, the forest fell silent. The only sound left was the ragged breathing of three students and the wet, grinding noise of something ancient and hungry breaking free into the light.
...
The academy’s smaller kitchen, a cramped, stone-walled space tucked away near the instructor housing, was designed for efficiency, quick meals, and quiet mornings. It was never designed for the tactical catastrophe currently unfolding within its confines.
Flour coated every available surface like a fresh snowfall; the air was thick with the sweet, cloying scent of vanilla and something vaguely burnt, and the tension between the two girls was higher than the temperature of the oven.
Catherine, who could transform a handful of random herbs and a cut of questionable meat into a five-star banquet that would make a duke weep, was currently staring down at a battered, flour-dusted recipe card with the same grim, tactical intensity she usually reserved for analyzing enemy battle formations.
Her brow was furrowed so deeply it looked painful. "Hmmmm..."
"This is unacceptable," Catherine declared, her voice dropping into that dangerous register she used when a sauce was breaking. "The terminology in this text is fundamentally flawed..."
"It lacks precision, and... It also lacks discipline."
She stabbed a finger at the faded ink on the parchment. "It says here: ’Add one measure of flour. ’What is a ’measure,’ Ellie?"
"Is this a standardized Imperial unit? Is it measured by volume, weight, or some archaic ritual involving the palm of one’s hand?"
"Is it a specific unit or merely a vague, philosophical suggestion?"
Ellie, who had been attempting to maintain some semblance of order by wiping down a counter, though she was mostly just spreading flour around, peered over Catherine’s shoulder. She offered a nervous, lopsided smile, trying to inject some levity into the brewing kitchen war.
"I think it’s just a cup, vice headmaster," Ellie said gently, reaching out to pat Catherine’s arm. "Probably..."
"You know how these old handwritten recipes are." Ellie sighed. "They’re more like... poetry."
Catherine turned to her, eyes wide with genuine horror. "Poetry? Ellie, we are attempting to create a sponge cake, not compose an epic ballad."
"This requires chemistry... and this also requires exactitude!"
"If I miscalculate the ratio of leavening agent to flour by even a fraction, the entire structural integrity of the cake will collapse!" Catherine said with a panicked look. "It will be a culinary failure! A disgrace to my reputation."
"Well, uh... I mean... it’s bread, and well... cake’s not a magical explosive," Ellie pointed out with a quiet laugh, leaning against the table. "If we get it a little wrong, it won’t detonate."
"It’ll just taste... different. Maybe a little dense."
"A little dense?" Catherine repeated, horrified. "I do not do ’different,’ Ellie."
"I do ’perfect.’ When I make a stew, it is a symphony."
"When I roast a chicken, it is a masterpiece. But this..." She gestured helplessly at the bowl of sticky, uncooperative batter. "This baking nonsense is witchcraft!"
"Why does the oven need to be precisely three hundred and fifty degrees?!"
"Why does the flour need to be sifted three times?!"
"Why must the eggs be at room temperature?!"
"What is wrong with cold eggs?! They’re perfectly functional eggs!"
Ellie couldn’t help it; she burst into a genuine laugh, the sound echoing off the copper pots hanging from the ceiling. "Because baking is science, vice headmaster!"
"You can’t just throw ingredients in a pot and let them fight it out until they taste good like you do with your cooking."
Catherine huffed, though the corner of her mouth twitched upward despite herself. "Cooking is an art of intuition."
"You taste, you adjust, and you adapt just like the way you fight in battles. But baking is... it’s submission to a set of arbitrary rules... It’s undignified."
"Admit it," Ellie teased, stepping closer and wrapping an arm around Catherine’s shoulders. "You’re just frustrated because you can’t intimidate the flour into behaving."
Catherine sighed, leaning into Ellie’s touch for a moment. The stress of the ’measure’ seemed to drain slightly from her shoulders.
"Perhaps... But if this cake comes out looking like a brick, I am blaming the author of this recipe, and I am never touching an oven again."
"Deal," Ellie grinned, picking up a spoon. "Now, let’s try ’one cup’ and see if we can survive the consequences without burning the academy down."
Catherine gave the battered recipe card one final, long, suspicious look, the kind of piercing, analytical stare she usually reserved for assessing a compromised battle plan with an unclear objective.
Her jaw was set tight. To anyone else, she was the formidable vice headmaster, a woman whose authority could silence a room of unruly students with a single glance.
But here, surrounded by flour and sticky bowls, she looked like a general facing an enemy she couldn’t intimidate into submission.