The gate was wide enough for three carts side by side. Soldiers stood on either side of it, watching the traffic pass without stopping anyone. The wagon rolled through and Valmont swallowed them.
Aldric had thought Cresthill was large. Cresthill was a village compared to this.
The streets were paved with flat stone. Buildings rose three and four stories on both sides — stone and timber, with painted signs above doorways and windows that caught the afternoon light. Shops lined the ground floors — a blacksmith with his door open, a tailor with cloth hanging in the window, a bakery that sent the smell of fresh bread into the street. People moved in every direction. Carts and horses and men carrying crates and women with baskets and children weaving between all of it. The noise was constant — voices, wheels, hammers, a dog barking somewhere above them.
Garrett drove without hesitation. He knew the streets. The wagon turned left, then right, then down a wider road where the buildings were set further back and the noise dropped by half.
The wagon left the main square behind. The streets widened and the crowds thinned as they moved toward the edges of the city.
They stopped in front of a wide stone wall that stretched in both directions. Beyond it, Aldric could see buildings, courtyards, open ground — a campus. Letters were carved into the stone above the gate. Terra Hall.
Garrett pulled the canvas aside. "Soren. This is you."
Soren opened his eyes. He looked at the building through the gap in the canvas. Then he picked up his bag, climbed out, and stood in the street.
He looked at Aldric. Then at Kira.
"Good luck," he said.
That was all. He turned and walked through the gate. He did not look back.
Aldric watched him go. They had shared a wagon for three days. He did not know where Soren was from or what his father did or what he wanted from Terra Hall. He knew that Soren folded his arms when he was thinking and closed his eyes when he did not want to talk and said two words when one would do. That was enough to miss him.
The wagon moved on.
* * *
The wagon moved back through the streets. Just Aldric and Kira now.
Neither of them spoke for a while. The city passed around them — noise, stone, the smell of food from somewhere close.
The streets widened. Another campus wall appeared. Another gate. The letters above it read Marina Hall.
Garrett stopped the wagon. "Aldric. This is you."
Aldric picked up his bag. He looked at Kira.
"We're in the same city," he said.
"We are."
"Then we'll see each other again."
Kira looked at him. Something small crossed her face — not a smile, but close. "We will," she said.
Aldric climbed down from the wagon. He stood in the street with his bag on his shoulder and his mother's bundle — lighter now, almost empty — in his hand.
Garrett looked down at him from the driving bench.
"Good luck," he said.
Aldric nodded. "Thank you. For everything."
Garrett gave him a nod — short, final — and drove on. The woman with the bow rode after him. Through the gap in the canvas, Kira was watching him. Then the wagon turned a corner and was gone.
Aldric stood in front of Marina Hall alone.
The campus stretched behind the wall — buildings, courtyards, paths between them. Students moved in the distance.
He looked at the gate. He looked at the letter in his bag — the blue seal from Cresthill, carried across four days of road.
He walked through the gate.
* * *
The main building was at the centre of the campus — stone, wide, with a high ceiling that made voices echo. Students passed through in groups, talking, carrying books. Most wore light blue. A few wore darker shades. Aldric wore the same clothes he had left Ashford in.
A woman sat behind a long desk near the entrance. She looked up when Aldric approached.
"Name?"
"Aldric."
"Letter?"
He pulled the blue-sealed letter from his bag and set it on the desk. She broke the seal, read it, checked something in a ledger, and wrote his name in a column. She did not look at him while she worked.
"Water Elemental. Confirmed at Cresthill." She closed the ledger. "Wait here."
She disappeared through a door behind the desk and came back with a folded bundle — white cloth, a small stack of books, and a key on a string.
"White is your rank colour until you pass the entrance trials and become an Apprentice," she said. "Books are your study materials. Key is to your room — third floor, east wing, room fourteen. You share with one other student."
Aldric took the bundle. The white cloth was plain — a tunic and trousers, simple, no markings. The books were thin and worn at the edges, handed down from whoever had them before.
"Meals are in the hall on the ground floor. Morning and evening. Don't be late for either." She was already looking past him to the next person in line. "Welcome to Marina Hall."
That was it. No ceremony. No tour. He was processed the way the official in Ashford had processed names at the Aether Stone — mark, call, next.
He found the east wing. The stairs were stone and narrow and his footsteps echoed as he climbed. Third floor. A corridor with numbered doors. He stopped at fourteen, turned the key, and pushed the door open.
The room was small. Two beds, two desks, a window that looked out over the campus grounds. One side was lived in — a bag under the bed, books stacked on the desk, a coat draped over the chair. The other side was bare.
A boy sat on the occupied bed with a book open in his lap. He looked up when the door opened. He was around Aldric's age — light brown hair, an easy face, the kind that settled into a grin without much effort.
"You must be the new one," he said. "I'm Len."
"Aldric."
Len closed the book. "Welcome to the smallest room in Marina Hall. The window sticks, the desk wobbles, and the mattress is terrible." He grinned. "You'll get used to it."
Aldric set his bag on the empty bed.