Some nights, I dream of him kissing me awake, slow and golden. But more often, I wake to find him already curled around me—his body a furnace, breath soft against my neck,one arm pinning me with sleepy possessiveness—and I kiss him awake instead: mouth hot, hands eager, the kind of kiss that dares him to catch up. His fingers slide beneath the sheets, teasing my body awake with a fire to match his own.
It never lasts long enough—just enough time to burn, to take and be taken, before the world pulls us apart again. But in those stolen moments, between sleep and sunrise—before responsibility claws us back—I’m not a Thalrien. Not a mystery. Not a weapon in training.
I’m justhis.
Gavrail and Teo sometimes join us for meals in the mess hall now—never announced, never invited, just… there, sliding onto the end of our table like they’ve always been there. It’s a strange, unexpected truce, forged somewhere between clenched teeth and shared bruises now that Noa and Gavrail have taken to training me together at the bay—two rival storms learning the shape of each other’s violence, building something grudging and wordless that isn’t friendship, exactly, but also isn’t hatred anymore.
The first time it happens, Rozsen’s gaze cuts between them—wary but faintly amused. “Well… if the fire king says you’re housebroken, I guess I’ll allow it.”
Gavrail’s mouth twitches. “How very generous.”
She casts a glance at me as if to ask,Are you okay with this?
I give the slightest shrug before returning to my meal.
Gavrail doesn’t perform. He doesn’t charm. The rest of my squad, aside from Rozsen, tries not to stare. They fail. Because even when he just sits there—charcoal uniform, quiet posture—the entire hall rearranges itself around the fact that he exists. Like everyone’s instincts know the same thing at once: that he holds the kind of power you don’t provoke unless you’re ready to bleed.
Teo and Rozsen have stopped pretending that their flirting is merely for fun. Rozsen’s boot nudges his under the table like aprivate joke. Teo’s hand lingers at her back a second too long when they stand. Finn, meanwhile, floats from table to table like a social butterfly with a death wish—always laughing with the newest person in his orbit, always leaving behind a trail of smirks and scandalized whispers in his wake.
The duel is scheduled for this Friday. My squad and I walk to the quad together and find seats at the top of the stadium, carved from stone by Whittaker’s earth Magicks.
At the center of the arena below, second-year Jin Feng stands with her chin high, bronze cuffs gleaming in the afternoon light, metallic threads winding up her forearms like living veins. Across from her, Teo flashes a lazy grin, arms loose at his sides, acting like he’s about to hit a beach party instead of a duel.
“Ladies first,” he calls, sweeping into a half-bow.
Jin doesn’t smile. She just nods, then lifts her hands.
At first, it’s clean—calculated. She calls twin daggers of polished steel into the air, spinning them with mindless precision.
Teo responds by lifting a slab of stone from the earth with casual ease, molding it into a curved shield. He makes a show of yawning behind it.
Laughter ripples through the crowd. Rozsen snorts. Finn, standing near the edge, doesn’t react.
Jin’s eyes narrow.
The second round is sharper. Her blades dart in quick succession, slicing the air with a thin, lethal whistle. Teo deflects them with rising columns of rock, sidestepping with a dancer’s grace, and when he grins again, it’s clear he’s enjoying himself.
“You’re quick,” he says, “but not faster than me.”
The third strike comes without warning.
Jin hurls a spear of jagged metal—not steel, but something darker, denser, forged from deep veins of iron beneath the school. It punches through Teo’s shield like paper, nearlycatching his shoulder. He stumbles back, off-balance for the first time.
Gone is the easy grin.
The crowd grows silent.
Jin’s eyes flash, and with a flick of her wrist, a fan of needles bursts from her cuffs in a silver swarm. Teo slams his palms to the ground, raising a wall of obsidian so fast it cracks under the force.
When the dust settles, Jin is already forming another weapon, long and thin—a whip of wire. She sends it into the air as she pulls spikes of iron from the earth, each one shooting up from beneath his feet, caging him in. The distraction is enough to be able to send her lasso of death around his neck like a snake, squeezing it tight with a clench of her fist.
Professors are moving now—Stroud, Kael, even Headmaster Thorne stepping onto the field, magick at the ready.
The wire whip lashes into Teo’s throat, strangling him, blood dripping down as the stone shield he’s called forth to encase his throat desperately tries to stop it.
“Stand down!” Stroud’s voice booms.
But Jin stands over Teo, determined, watching as the wire cuts deeper and deeper into his neck.
