AMaYA

The screeching that had ripped through the dawn wasn't the end of the world. 

It was a failure of the perimeter alarm—a frequency spike caused by the fog and a stray, mangy wolf that had triggered a silver-mesh trap.

We had spent the next three hours in high-alert positions, teeth bared and hearts pounding, only for the sun to rise over a peaceful, empty forest. The "Hollow Ones" were nowhere to be seen.

"A dry run," Alvaro had growled, his eyes finally fading back from gold to brown. "Voss is testing our nerves. He wants us tired."

By the afternoon, the Academy was a strange mix of exhausted and...