CHAPTER 336: FOLLOWED

They didn’t linger in the courtyard. Once the wards dissolved, the group split off with the kind of casualness that fooled no one, not even themselves.

Merlin walked with Elara and Nathan down the long hallway toward the dorms. They talked about nothing—assignments, dinner, the weather—because talking about something would make the whole thing too real. As soon as they reached the stairwell, Elara touched Merlin’s arm once, brief and grounding, then headed for her own floor without a word.

Nathan lingered a moment.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

Merlin nodded.

Nathan didn’t believe it, but he let it go.

"Wake me if something’s wrong," he said, voice light, like he wasn’t offering something heavy. Then he thumped Merlin’s shoulder and left.

Merlin went inside his room.

Closed the door.

Let the silence settle.

He didn’t sit. Didn’t relax. He just let the tension unspool into something sharper. The envelope was still warm in his pocket, as though the magic inside hadn’t finished settling.

He set it on his desk and started moving.

Not rushed.

But deliberate.

He packed lightly: a flare crystal, a compressed mana patch, a spare cloak. Nothing flashy. Nothing traceable. Nothing that would draw Morgana’s attention if she bothered to check.

His hands didn’t shake.

But they weren’t steady either.

He paused, staring at the pack.

Three affinities wasn’t the problem.

Morgana wasn’t even the problem.

The problem was that she was calling him out alone.

Not publicly.

Not through the school.

In the dark, off the books, in a boundary zone that shouldn’t have disturbances unless something was wrong.

He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled slowly.

He needed to be sharper.

He needed his mind quiet.

He stepped into the center of the room and dropped into a stance, grounding his mana through his core.

Lightning first—just enough to wake up the pathways, crackling beneath his skin in a muted hum.

Wind followed.

A controlled swirl, gentle and coaxing, threading between the sparks.

Water last—a thin, cool layer closing around the other two, regulating their heat, sharpening their flow until it all snapped together into something clean and stable.

Breathing evened out.

Thoughts lined themselves up.

But he didn’t stop.

He pushed deeper, letting his mana sink to the bottom of his core, where the other affinities hid under layers he built for protection rather than secrecy.

Fire.

Earth.

The deeper resonance.

He didn’t summon them fully—he only touched their edges, just enough to remind himself they were there, just enough to keep them obedient.

Cold sweat prickled the back of his neck.

Even now, even this lightly, they pressed like they wanted out.

He pulled back before they answered.

A quiet knock tapped his door.

Merlin froze.

"...Yeah?" he called, tone carefully normal.

The door cracked open.

Liliana peeked her head inside, holding something wrapped in cloth. "I, um—this is for later."

He blinked. "...Later when?"

She stepped in just far enough to place it on his desk.

"I don’t know what you’re going into," she whispered, "so I made you a charm. It repels corrupted mana. Not fully, but it might buy you a second or two if things get... bad."

Merlin stared at the small cloth-wrapped charm.

"...Thank you."

She nodded quickly, backing toward the door. "If you die I’m haunting you."

"That’s not how haunting—"

She shut the door before he finished.

He breathed out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh.

One by one, the others found excuses to stop by.

Ethan appeared next with a protein bar "for mana stamina."

Adrian with a matchbox full of "non-lethal incendiaries" that were absolutely lethal.

Dorian didn’t bring anything—he just stepped inside, studied Merlin for three seconds, then said, "Don’t use your full core unless you want half the eastern forest to evaporate," and walked out.

Elara didn’t come.

Of course she didn’t.

She wasn’t the type to knock.

She’d see him later.

When it mattered.

Merlin sat on his bed once the room finally stilled. His pack was ready. His mana was steady. The charm lay on the desk, faintly glowing.

Outside his window, the sky was already dimming to deep blue.

Two hours before dawn.

He had maybe six hours before Morgana expected him.

He lay back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, letting his breathing slow again.

No panic.

No fear.

Just the quiet awareness that whatever waited beyond the boundary wasn’t simple.

Morgana never wasted her time on simple.

When the first hints of exhaustion tugged at him, Merlin let his eyes drift shut.

He’d need whatever sleep he could get.

The forest would be waiting long before the sun even thought about rising.

And Morgana would be waiting inside it.

Night passed in pieces, not in sleep.

Merlin drifted in and out—never fully unconscious, never fully awake. His mind was too alert, senses stretched thin, listening to the quiet shifting of mana outside his window as the academy settled into its nocturnal rhythms. Every few minutes he would check the envelope, as if the words might have changed.

They didn’t.

He rose before his alarm.

Before dawn.

Before anyone in the dorms had begun to stir.

He dressed in silence, movements deliberate. Dark clothes, reinforced cloak, boots that wouldn’t crunch on forest debris. The charm Liliana made went into the inner pocket of his jacket; the rest of the gear settled into the small pack he kept tight against his back.

When he opened the door, he found Elara leaning against the wall opposite his room.

She didn’t knock.

Of course she didn’t.

She’d been waiting.

Her eyes flicked up from her crossed arms. "You really thought you were slipping out alone?"

"Yes," Merlin said.

"Wrong," she replied immediately.

They walked without another word. She didn’t ask where he was going, didn’t ask why Morgana chose the forest of all places, didn’t ask what the note meant. Elara had grown up hunting monsters with her clan; she knew how to read silence. His was the heavy kind—the kind that said something sharp was waiting for him.

They stepped outside into the crisp pre-dawn air. The academy grounds felt different at this hour: colder, quieter, sharper around the edges. Lights flickered softly in the distance, enchantments cycling through maintenance runs, but no students were up yet.

Merlin and Elara walked until the academy buildings loomed far behind them.

Only then did she stop.

"Here," she said, pulling something from her pocket. A small leather wrist-guard, reinforced with earth-hardened threads. "Dorian left this with me. He said if he handed it over himself you’d pretend you didn’t need it."

Merlin sighed. "...He’s right."

Elara stepped closer, sliding the guard onto his wrist in one smooth motion. Her hands were steady, warm despite the cold.

"Just in case," she murmured.

He looked at her. "Elara. I’m coming back."

"Obviously," she said, tone flat. Her eyes betrayed her: they were too focused, too sharp, too full of everything she wasn’t saying. "If you don’t, Nathan’s going to drag your ghost back and yell at it."

He huffed a quiet laugh. She didn’t.

Then she caught his sleeve, gently but firmly.

"Merlin," she said, voice lowered. "Don’t go all the way in. Whatever’s in that forest—Morgana included—doesn’t act normal. Boundary zones twist mana. People disappear there."

"I know."

"I’m serious." Her grip tightened. "If something feels wrong, you step out. You don’t push deeper alone. Promise me."

"I can handle it."

"That’s not a promise."

Merlin hesitated—just a fraction—but she saw it.

"Elara," he said softly, "I’m stronger than I look."

She stared at him for a long, silent heartbeat.

"I know," she whispered. "That’s the problem."

She released his sleeve.

Merlin exhaled slowly and started toward the tree line.

He expected her to leave then—go back to the dorms, wait with the others, pretend she wasn’t listening for the first sign of a fight breaking out.

Instead, she spoke quietly behind him.

"Merlin."

He turned.

She stepped up to him, closer than before, shadows from the trees brushing across her features.

"When you get back," she said, "tell me what she really asked you. All of it. No deflecting."

He didn’t look away.

"...Alright."

She nodded once, satisfied, and finally stepped back.

He slipped into the forest.

No light.

No sound.

Just the weight of Morgana’s summons pulling him deeper.

The moment the academy vanished behind the treeline, the air shifted.

A low hum vibrated beneath the soil, faint but unmistakable, like distant mana thrumming through veins of stone and old roots.

Good.

He’d found the boundary line.

He continued forward until the hum sharpened into something colder—something deliberate, constructed, alive.

Then he saw it.

A narrow strip of runes carved into the ground, glowing faint silver in the half-dark. A ward. A barrier. A marker.

Morgana’s magic.

And she was already on the other side.

Merlin stepped over the threshold, the air cracking softly as it let him through.

Wind shifted.

Mana pressed around him.

And a voice—soft, calm, entirely in control—spoke from deeper inside the forest.

"You’re early."

His pulse steadied.

Morgana stepped into view between the trees, her cloak brushing the ground like living shadow, silver eyes catching what little light the forest offered.

"Good," she said. "We have much to discuss."

Her gaze swept him once.

"And something is following us."