Chapter 9
HARPER
Icannot say when Sebastian cast the dissipation spell that delivered us back to Vireldan.
The moment itself feels fractured in my memory, split into loose fragments that refuse to piece themselves together cleanly.
One second the chill air in Anvaris was compressing around us, the scent of blood clinging to Sebastian’s hands and the last echo of the old man’s groan hanging heavy in the street.
The next, the world twisted, pulling tight like a thread being yanked through fabric, and everything blurred into streaks of color, deep reds, muted blacks, flashes of gold that might have come from lanterns or might have come from the memory of my own eyes shifting into something unfamiliar.
The disorientation should have faded by now, but it lingers, blearing the edges of what happened. The man’s hands on me. The panic clawing up my throat. The shift in my gaze, unnatural and wrong. And then Sebastian,
Sebastian appearing like he had been looking for me long before danger touched me.
Sebastian beating the man until breath left him.
Sebastian holding me when I swayed and whispered for him to get me out.
I don’t know which of those moments unsettles me most.
Now, as the world settles into quiet, the medical wing of Vireldan feels cavernous. Vast. Hollow in a way that amplifies the faint hum of the enchanted sconces on the walls. Daylight pours through the high arched windows, chasing away shadow but not the chill that has burrowed into my bones.
Most students are already drifting toward their morning classes.
The halls outside are muffled with distant chatter and footsteps, but here, the silence is profound.
No healers pacing between beds. No injured students groaning in pain.
No professors waiting to interrogate us about why two first-years, two Vespera, no less, returned to the school by dissipation before sunrise.
If not for the unsteady rhythm of my own breathing, the room would feel almost abandoned.
Sebastian brought me here.
Not Liam.
Not Trevor.
Not Theo.
Sebastian.
He had been silent since the moment the spell released us onto the cold stone floors of the medical wing.
He did not ask if I was hurt again. He did not ask what the man had done.
He did not demand answers to the promise I’d made him in a whisper: “Get me out of here.” But silence does not equal indifference, not with him.
With him, quiet is something sharp, a blade waiting to be turned one way or another.
During the dissipation, he had gripped my waist firmly, his hand spanning far more of me than I expected, fingers hot even through my clothing.
The spell requires stability, requires touch, requires grounding.
But the moment we arrived, he withdrew as though contact burned him.
He stepped back so fast I felt the ghost of his warmth vanish before my mind fully caught up.
Now, he stands several paces away near one of the tall windows.
His back is to me, one hand gripping the stone ledge, the other flexing and curling at his side, his knuckles still raw and torn.
Dried blood stains the ridges of his fingers and the sleeve of his uniform.
The faint tremor in his hand tells me the adrenaline hasn’t worn off.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
My thoughts churn instead.
Did he see my eyes change?
Did he witness that flicker of power I cannot control?
What did he think when he saw me cornered, when he saw me frighten the man with something that wasn’t quite magic?
And why did he come after me?
Of all the students in the pub, of all the people in Anvaris, why him?
The questions coil and uncoil, restless and sharp-edged.
Finally, Sebastian shifts. Slowly. Deliberately.
The kind of movement made by someone trying to keep anger from spilling over the rim.
He draws a breath that tightens the lines of his shoulders, as though the air itself is difficult to swallow.
When he turns toward me, his expression is unreadable, too composed, too calm, too carefully arranged for someone who nearly beat a man unconscious minutes earlier.
For a heartbeat, his gaze flicks to my side, where the torn skin still stings beneath my shirt. A muscle twitches in his jaw before he looks away again.
He does not move closer.
He does not speak.
He simply stands there, rigid and simmering, as though the truth is a beast pacing behind his ribs and he hasn’t decided whether to let it loose.
Sebastian moves through the medical wing like a caged storm, quiet but charged, every step threaded with purpose he refuses to explain.
He stands near one of the tall medicine cabinets built into the stone wall, the wooden doors creaking as he rifles through bottles and tins with impatient hands.
His hair is a mess, curls falling across his forehead in untamed waves.
His hands look even worse. The dried blood, the split knuckles, the way he flexes his fingers as if they still ache from each blow he delivered…
it all paints a picture he is too proud or too furious to hide.
He stripped off his robe not long after we arrived.
Now he stands in a black shirt that clings to him in the soft morning light, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top buttons undone to reveal a broad stretch of chest dusted with faint curls of dark hair.
His tie hangs loose around his neck, crooked enough to suggest he either put it on in a hurry or abandoned the attempt altogether.
The image is disarmingly raw, intimate in a way that feels almost intrusive to look at.
My own vulnerability feels equally exposed.
I ditched my robe minutes after he did; it was too heavy, too suffocating, and far too stained with splinters and blood.
Now only my white blouse remains, its fabric torn along one side, smeared with streaks of dirt and faint traces of my own blood.
My arms feel cold, my breathing uneven, and the tattoo that marks the length of my spine, twisting up like a serpent guarding my scars, peeks faintly over my shoulder where the blouse has slipped.
Sebastian noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Not just the skin, not just the shape of me, but the ink, something most people will never see.
He looked at it not with disgust or mockery, but with a kind of slow, quiet intrigue that unsettles me more than his usual taunts.
For someone like him, someone who thrives on fracturing others’ composure, having access to this much of me must feel like a gift he didn’t earn but intends to pocket anyway.
He finally stops rummaging long enough to tug a small brown bottle from the cabinet. He holds a clean rag between his teeth and a jar of ointment in his hand. When he steps toward me, his movements are controlled but not gentle.
He sits beside me, lowering himself into one of the healers’ rolling chairs. The way he settles into it, leaning forward until the distance between our bodies is narrowed to only a whisper of space, makes my pulse thrum with a rhythm both anxious and embarrassingly aware.
I sit on the edge of the medical bed, palms pressed behind me for support, trying to appear steadier than I feel.
The mattress dips slightly under my weight, the sheets cool against the backs of my legs.
Sebastian drops the rag into his lap, uncorking the bottle.
The scent that wafts out, alcohol and herbs, burns faintly in my nostrils.
His silence stretches.
Finally, I crack beneath it.
“Are you going to speak to me at all,” I ask quietly, “or are you planning to keep pretending I’m not sitting right here?”
His eyes lift at that, dark and unreadable, and for several seconds he simply studies me, searching my face as if weighing which part of me is most likely to shatter if he says the wrong thing. But whatever answer he might have considered, he buries.
“I need you to lift your shirt,” he says, keeping his voice even. “I have to clean the cuts.”
It is not the response I want, but it is the one he insists on giving.
I don’t argue.
I gather the torn edge of my blouse and lift it enough to reveal the long, jagged claw marks raked along my side.
They redden as the cold air hits them. Some slice dangerously close to the tattoo curling up my ribs.
Sebastian’s eyes flick down, lingering on the marks, on the skin beneath them, on the faint ripple of muscle along my waist where I try not to flinch.
“That fat bastard really clung on like you were his prey,” he murmurs.
His jaw tightens as if he can still feel the impact of his fists against the man’s face.
“Isn’t that how it always goes?” I say, the words bitter as I bite my lip to brace myself.
The moment the soaked rag touches my skin, pain blooms in a ruthless sting.
Heat surges up my ribs, pulsing like fire licking along the cuts.
My hand reacts before I can think, shooting out, gripping Sebastian’s forearm with a strength born from shock.
His muscles tense beneath my fingers, solid and warm.
I squeeze harder than I mean to, trying to mask the thin thread of sound that curls up my throat.
He does not pull away.
He does not chastise me.
He merely looks at my hand wrapped around him, breath catching in a way that is noticeable only because everything else in the room has fallen silent.
“You think all men see you as prey?” he asks quietly.
A hollow laugh escapes me. “Don’t you?” I murmur. “Trevor called it your scorecard, didn’t he?”
His eyes flick up to mine slowly, too slowly, darkening in a way that sends a shiver through my ribs sharper than the sting of the ointment.