Then: “What a dynamic display of elemental power.”
Headmaster Thorne’s voice rings out, cutting the tension like a knife.
He claps a hand on each of their shoulders like nothing has happened. “Extremely impressive, both of you. An excellent first match.” He then turns to address the crowd, his gaze flicking to the Service recording device for a heartbeat. “We have an incredible dinner prepared in the quad tonight to welcome ourguests.” The last word is pointed, his glance sharp as it lands on Noa in veiled reprimand. “I hope to see you all there. A perfect way to begin the elemental duels—with the two top-ranking students of Whittaker and Vikhrostrum Akademiya.”
Applause rings out from the stands. The spell of conflict lifts,and students slowly begin to trickle back toward their dormitories, buzzing with adrenaline and speculation.
“Celeste,” Thorne says, turning back to me with a pleasant smile. “Would you be so kind as to escort our Vikhrostrum guests to their dormitory?”
I glance at Noa. His jaw is clenched hard enough to grind bone. He takes a step forward, muscles coiled, eyes still locked on Gavrail.
“Of course, Headmaster,” I say, then add quickly, “Just… give me a moment?”
Without waiting for a reply, I tug Noa away from the arena, up to where the stone bleachers begin and the noise of the dispersing crowd starts to fade behind us.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Noa snaps, still glaring murderously over my shoulder at the Vikhrostrum students. His voice drops. “I knowexactlywho that is.”
“Noa. Look at me…Look. At. Me.” I reach up and grab his jaw, forcing his fire-lit gaze to drop to mine, breaking his icy staring contest with Gavrail. “I’ll be fine. I need to talk to Gavrail. I promise I’ll come find you the second I’m done if you want.I’ll be fine,” I repeat, and I can’t help it—I brush my thumb across the fresh cut on his lip, just once. A whisper of touch, but enough to make him freeze.
Being this close to him…
The silence between us pulses with everything we haven’t said—anger, heartbreak, longing—and something in him cracks just enough to let it show. He closes his eyes for just a heartbeat. When they open again, they hold that same storm, but it isn’t aimed at me.
He finally softens—just a fraction. Then his arms come around me, pulling me in, turning me away from the arena like he wants to shield me from the weight of every watching eye. “So that’s Gavrail,” he mutters, raising one sharp eyebrow. “TheGavrail?”
I nod.
“Thirty minutes,” he says, voice low but laced with fire. “And if you’re not at the Steps by then, I’m setting the entire Ivy House on fire.”
With that, he casts one final glare in Gavrail’s direction before storming off up the steps, Finn and Ryan trailing close behind like loyal shadows.
I watch him go, trying to center myself.Just breathe,I tell myself.In and out. Out and in. Again.
I finally turn back toward the center of the arena. Gavrail hasn’t moved. His eyes are still on me—part predator, part promise, one hundred percent lethal. But something flickers there, waiting just beneath the surface. His expression reassembles itself into that glacial calm he wears like armor, every line of his face smoothing into disciplined stillness. Only the faintest swallow betrays that he recognizes me at all.
With a curt nod to his peers, he steps forward and cocks his head, extending his arm—wordlessly inviting me to lead the way.
* * *
We walkin silence for the first ten minutes. His peers fan out slightly behind us, taking in the campus, muttering among themselves in Bulgarian and Russian. A few students gawk at the group from across the path, some of the more brazen Whittaker students tossing catcalls their way.
I hate how I still know his gait. The way he keeps slightly ahead, not enough to lose me, just enough to be the first to intercept any danger that might arise. His eyes never stop moving, tracking every student we pass, every whisper half swallowed by the wind—ingrained in him from a lifetime as a general’s son. The others follow like wolves behind an alpha. No words. No orders. Just obedience.
I tell myself to keep walking. To keep breathing. To keep my attention on the path.
But my focus keeps sliding back to him anyway, like a compass needle tugged off course.
I want to grab his hand, to pull him aside. To say the thousand things that are spinning in my mind. Seven years.Seven years.Has it really been that long? I want to hate him, to demand an explanation for all those years he left me aching, but all I can think about is the way his shadows used to curl around me, and the way his mouth tasted of secrets and summer storms.
The boy I loved is long gone. This is not the reckless, shadow-drenched teenager who used to steal my breath and whisper promises into the trees. Gone is the softness and gangliness of youth. In its place is a man so jaw-droppingly beautiful it’s almost disorienting—like stepping off a ledge in the dark and only realizing a second later that you’re falling.
This man is carved from time and sin and something harder. His cheekbones and jaw look chiseled from marble—sharp, a touch severe—yet there’s an elegance that is unmistakablyhim. The cut of his uniform hides nothing; it only frames the control, the hardened polish of his form, as if he were built from the very shadows he wields and trained into submission. He doesn’t speak. He wears silence like a blade—and when his mouth shifts, it isn’t a smile so much as a slight, unreadable curve that makes my stomach dip in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
Where has he been all this time? Why did he not write me? Why did he not come find me like he promised? These questions and more are burning on my tongue when we finally reach the gates of the Ivy House. The three-story manor gleams white and restrained, its columns and clean lines radiating an old, unquestioned authority.
A second-year student is already waiting there, poised andeager to guide the delegation inside. I hang back, waiting—for what, I’m not sure. Maybe for him to say something. Maybe for him toseeme.
But instead, Gavrail turns. He bows slightly, thanks me for the walk in a quiet, even tone, and steps through the gate.
