Wind shrieked among the broken arches of the West Tower while the sky above Arcanis Academy deepened to a purple as night hastily arrived. Yet within the trashed hall, silence: naught but Elira's rush breathing and the flash of magic still lingering within the air like smoke after storm.
She stood in the center of the smoldering dueling circle, fists clenched, her body trembling from the residue of what had just happened.
She had burned him.
Kael Valen.
Not figuratively.
Not with words or a glance or the cold shoulder.
But with light—raw, burning, and unadulterated. Her strength had exploded like a supernova in the practice duel. The moment her opponent, a self-satisfied nobleman named Lorian Crestvale, had hurled a firebolt at her neck, her fear had broken something open inside her.
And Kael had been too close.
She hadn't meant to retaliate.
She hadn't even known she could.
But she'd seen it in all their faces the moment light burst from her chest in a searing blast: horror. Awe. Fear.
Even Kael's.
He now stood before her, a cut running deep along his side where light had sliced his shield in two. Blood trickled down his arm, but his expression was unreadable. Not frowning. Not stunned.
Just… regarding her.
"Elira," he finally spoke, his voice flat but with the edge of a razor, "what have you done?"
"I don't know," she panted. Her knees nearly buckled. "I didn't mean to. It just—he was going to kill me—"
Kael's eyes cut to Lorian, who was being hauled out of the ring by two professors, unconscious, his once so perfectly golden hair now singed to black.
"Lorian was never going to kill you. The professors wouldn't allow it. That was a staged match."
"I don't care!" she spat, shocking herself at the venom in her voice. "I—I didn't mean to, but I'm not sorry. He's been bothering me ever since I arrived."
Kael said nothing. But his silence hurt more than any reprimand.
The other students who had been gathered around her had moved away, most still whispering in little groups at the edges of the tower ruins. She caught pieces of their whispers.
"She's dangerous…"
"Did you see that light? What is she?"
"She's going to be expelled for sure."
And worse.
"She doesn't belong here. She never did."
Elira wrapped her arms around herself. The cold had finally seeped into her bones.
Kael went on, blackness wrapping narrow around his form—his null magic moving, instinctively aggressive. But it retreated again at once, anticipating her inner explosion still uncertain.
"Come on," he said to her without looking back.
"Where to?"
"Some where we won't be overheard."
---
They walked in silence.
Down winding hallways and twisting stairways, through windows with broken glass that cast scarlet sunset light across the floor. Elira asked no questions, said nothing. Her mind ran back over the duel in circular flashes—her scream, the light, Lorian stepping backward, Kael's bleeding arm.
It had been like a dam bursting. Like something deep inside her had stirred from slumber.
He led her to part of the academy she'd never visited—a rundown greenhouse, vines and glowing moss covering it. The air hung with a hint of old magic, and Kael placed a ward on the door before turning to her.
"Show me your mark," he told her.
She stood still.
"Elira."
She slowly opened the collar of her uniform one button at a time, carefully pulling it to the side to reveal the spot above her heart where the Soul-Bond brand had burned its way into her flesh.
Something was different now.
The mark, which had been a simple circle of arcane text, now shone with filaments of light intertwined with darkness. They entwined about each other in an endless dance—Void and Aether, Night and Day.
Kael's eyebrows fell slightly. "It's changing."
It started tingling prior to the duel. I didn't know what it was."
He exhaled slowly, clamping his hand on his side, where his wound was already healing. "You've drawn upon your Aether magic again."
"So that's what it is?"
He nodded. "The bloodline of Aetherion. Thought extinct. But you—you invoked light that burns void. My magic shied away from it.".
"Is that why it hurt you?" She spoke in a cracked voice. "I didn't mean to."
"I know," he said, softer now. "The bond won't let you hurt me on purpose. That means this was instinct. Your powers are breaking loose without bounds."
Her breath hitched. "Am I a danger to everyone now?"
"To everyone but me," Kael said. "And even that is starting to change."
She caught his eyes then, and something in her chest turned over. Because behind the usual chill, behind the armor of steel and smoke, there was something that resembled. fear.
But not of her.
For her.
"Why are you really doing this for me?" she demanded, the words tumbling out before she could catch them. "You could have walked away. Let the bond fade away. Let them kick me out. But you didn't."
Kael's eyes held hers, unwavering.
"Because you're not a mistake," he replied. "You're the prophecy in flesh. And if you fall… everything else falls with you."
The greenhouse was still.
There was only the drips of water and the vibration of old spells in the air.
Finally, she sat on a bench thick with ivy. "The prophecy. What does it say?"
Kael did not respond at once.
Then he leaned in, his voice barely audible: "That when Void and Light entwine with soul and flame, the world will tremble. One will end the cycle, or bind it for all eternity. The Bound Soul will open the door to salvation—or doom."
She swallowed hard. "And the council knows?"
"They have their suspicions. But they are afraid of me as well to move against us openly. Yet."
"And when they stop being afraid?"
"They'll try to sever the bond. Or kill us both."
---
Night had fallen when they exited the greenhouse. Stars pierced the black velvet sky like pieces of glass, and the moon hung low—swollen and orange—like it, too, looked with worry.
Elira stopped at the end of the dorm wing. "Kael?"
He lingered.
"Why does the prophecy say one will open the gate? Why not both?"
He looked back over his shoulder. "Because only one of us survives."
And then he was gone, engulfed in darkness.
Leaving Elira staring up at the heavens, heart burdened with a truth she was not yet ready to bear.
Not yet.
But she would.
Because the bond was no longer a chain.
It was a fire—and she was done being afraid to burn.