Tears sting the corners of my eyes.
I start to collapse between them.
Both men reach for me. Tension still rides their frames like a second skin, but once Noa’s arms are around me, holding me up, Gavrail steps back. His eyes shift between concern for me and violence toward the arms that are daring to touch me.
It’s Gavrail who speaks first. His eyes flick to Noa for a heartbeat. “If he betrays you, if he puts you in danger?—”
“He won’t,” I interrupt.
“I won’t,” Noa echoes, quiet but steady. “Celeste isn’t just someone I care about—she’severythingto me. Why would I ever hurt her or betray her trust?” His arm curls around me protectively, drawing me close. His body is still taut with tension. He doesn’t look away from Gavrail. “If you ask me,” he says, voice rising, “it’s you who’s betrayed her from the beginning.”
Gavrail stiffens.
“This kind of power… Gods, do you even understand what she is?” Noa’s voice shakes—not with fear, but with awe. “Becoming water itself. Not just bending it. Not just wielding it. Invisible. Unstoppable. No one’s ever seen anything like it. It’s…fucking extraordinary.”
“And dangerous,” Gavrail snaps, voice low and gritted.
“Butyouhave been the voice in her ear, in her mind, from the start. Telling her to hide it. To hideher. Stifleher—” Noa’s accusations are sharp, his disdain bitter.
Gavrail interrupts, his voice laced with ice so cold it could freeze the very room. “What do you think her professors would say? What would someone like my father do if he knew what she was capable of? Someone who could go through any door. Any wall. Vanish. Shape light itself.”
He looks at me then, his gaze heavy with the truth.
“They’d turn her into a weapon. A spy. Something loyalonlyto them. She’d be taken fromeverythingshe loves.” His jaw clenches. “You think I just disappeared? That I left without a word for no reason? I’ve seen what my father does to Magicks he thinks he owns. Why the fuck do you think I stayed away?”
“Gavrail…” His name breaks from my lips before I can stop it—fragile, exposed. I step toward him.
The truth hits all at once, jagged and fast, like shrapnel finding its mark.
“You… That’s—that’s why you never wrote.” It comes out strangled, more breath than words. My thoughts scatter like rain on glass, everything I thought I once knew.
He nods once, eyes still locked on Noa. “I was trying to protect you,” he says finally, voice cracking—just barely. “I’malwaystrying to protect you.” He’s shaking—hands curled into fists at his sides, jaw locked. The calm mask he wears so well is gone. “I left so no one could use me to get to you.” He steps closer, and I hate how the air between us bends, like it belongs to him. He draws in a breath, stealing my own.
I can see him, trying to pull it all back—the years of fear, of worry, of walking a line too fine to hold. Torn between keeping my secrets and keeping me safe.
His shoulders slump finally, as if the weight of his choices is pressing down like a physical burden. “I thought distance would shield you. That silence would be enough. But it just built walls between us—walls I can’t seem to fully tear down.” His eyes meet mine—anger, bitterness, grief, all radiating so deep it’s impossible to look away. So rare in its exposure that my breath freezes in my chest. “I was trying to protect you… but maybe all I did was leave you alone in the dark.”
A silence drops, thick and absolute.
Then—
“Your father, Cel… He knew. He knew everything. He was a water-wielder, like you. He made me promise to protect you—from people like my father. People who would twist your power with promises of love and purpose, only to use you.” He flicks his gaze to Noa for just a second, the implication sharp.
My thoughts stumble. My heart pounds.
“My father?” I breathe.
“His real name wasn’t Thomas Farris,” Gavrail says. “It was Selric Thalrien.”
The name slams into me like a cold wave.
Thalrien.
Professor Straits’s voice echoes in my memory:The Thalriens were an ancient, powerful water family—possibly the oldest known—famous for a rare form of magick… coveted…
Hunted to extinction.
“His parents, your grandparents, were murdered when he was just a kid,” Gavrail continues quietly. “He was sent into hiding. Homeschooled. Years later, he met a woman—Valarie Normandy—and they had a son. Orren.”
