Chapter 3 #2
I laugh even harder with her, and for a moment, the tightness in my chest loosens. Then the hall changes. I don't need to look to know why. The Aether flames darken at the edges. Conversations dip. A faint warmth moves through the room like smoke.
Valerius Draven enters with Eli and Luc at his sides like always.
Today, he looks even more dangerous than yesterday, though I don't know how that is possible.
His black uniform is immaculate, his formal cloak falling from broad shoulders, the deep red lining catching against the darkness like banked embers.
His short wavy black hair looks like he pushed his fingers through it once and decided the world could adjust.
The bloodline sigils along his wrist are covered by his sleeve, but I remember them anyway.
I look away before he can catch me staring. My body, traitorous thing that it is, remembers him anyway. The brush of his fingers. The gold light. His voice saying, Miss Starling startled easily. His eyes sharpening when the orb flared. I hate him. It should be simple. It should stay simple.
Seren leans closer. "He's looking over here."
My stomach twists. "Don't tell me that."
"He is."
"Seren." I whisper loudly.
I refuse to turn. That refusal lasts exactly three seconds.
Then I look. Valerius isn't at his table yet.
He stands near the entrance, half-turned while Eli says something beside him but his eyes are on me.
Not casually or accidentally. Focused. The hall is full of students desperate for his attention, and he is looking at the one girl in the room with nothing to offer him.
My chest warms. No. I press my hand beneath the table, fingers curling into my skirt. His gaze drops, as if he somehow sees the movement. Then his mouth tightens.
He looked at me like I was nothing. He humiliated me in front of half our class. He made me feel small, then had the nerve to act suspicious when something strange happened between us—as if I had done it on purpose.
If the Eternal Flame has any mercy at all, it will keep him far away from me tonight. The thought has barely formed when the illusion flame above the dining hall flickers. Just once. Gold and sharp. Bright enough that several students glance up.
My heart stops. Valerius's eyes don't move from mine. Then Eli shoves his shoulder lightly, saying something I can't hear, and Valerius looks away.
The warmth in my chest vanishes. I stare down at my untouched plate. Seren is silent beside me. Too silent.
I don't look at her. "Don't," I whisper.
"I didn't say anything." She says.
"You were going to."
"I was going to say I despise him."
"No, you weren't."
She sighs. "Fine. I was going to say that was weird."
"It wasn't." I glare at her.
"Valentina."
"It was the illusion flame. The hall is full of magic today. Things flicker."
"Do they usually flicker when Valerius Draven looks at you like he wants to either interrogate you or throw you off a tower?"
She picks up a strawberry. "Fine. Silence. I am the soul of restraint."
"You once shouted at a professor because his resurrection theory offended your grandmother's ghost." I remind her.
"She was very offended." She states. I breathe out, but my smile fades quickly.
Across the hall, Valerius sits at the Aether table. He doesn't look at me again. That should make me feel better but it doesn't.
The rest of the morning passes in pieces.
Lessons are shortened, but somehow they feel endless.
In advanced magical law, Professor Elian explains the legal history of bonded partnerships while half the class whispers about who the Flame might choose.
In branch integration, we review examples of past pairings who succeeded because their powers balanced each other, and failed pairings who collapsed because one partner refused to trust the other.
Trust.
Everyone keeps saying the word like it belongs in the same room as fear, pride, ambition, and public judgment.
By midday, the academy releases final-years from classes.
The younger students remain in lessons, though everyone knows they will spend the day gossiping instead of studying.
First- and second-years are not allowed inside the old observatory during the Gathering, but they will line the corridors afterward, desperate to see which pairs emerge bonded.
Final-year students scatter to prepare. Seren insists I spend the afternoon in her room instead of pacing holes through mine.
Her room is in the Veil tower, where the air always smells faintly of herbs, rain-soaked earth, and candle smoke.
Unlike my room, hers responds to her without hesitation.
Vines curl lazily around the window frame, blooming tiny white flowers when she waves her fingers.
A small skull on her shelf—ethically sourced, she always insists—chatters its teeth every time someone says the word exam.
I sit on the edge of her bed while she sorts through jewelry. "No skull earrings," I say before she can lift them.
She gasps. "They're elegant."
"They have tiny emerald eyes." I point at them.
"Exactly." She holds them up with pride.
"Seren." I smile.
"Fine." She tosses them aside and picks up silver drops shaped like leaves. "These?"
"Beautiful." I nod.
"Boring, but beautiful." She adds.
"You asked for my opinion." I actually find them beautiful.
"I asked hoping you'd develop taste under pressure." She puts them down. The skull on the shelf chatters. Seren points at it. "No one asked you."
I watch her magic move around the room with the comfort of a friend who has never made me feel like an intruder.
The flowers bloom when she is happy. The candles dim when she is worried.
The old books stacked along her desk shift aside to make room for her teacup before she even reaches for it.
Her room knows her. Mine only tolerates me because my mother's wards tell it to.
The thought slips in before I can stop it.
Seren notices my silence. "You're thinking sad things," she says.
"I am thinking practical things." I correct her.
"Same face."
I run my fingers over the hem of my cloak. "What happens if the Flame doesn't choose me?"
"It will." She says right away.
"You don't know that." I keep looking at my fingers.
"Yes, I do."
"How?" I ask.
"Because you're eligible." She says and I finally look up at her.
"That is not the same thing as wanted." I say. Seren's expression softens.
I hate that I said it. I hate that the word wanted sits between us now, delicate and bruised.
She comes to sit beside me, her shoulder touching mine. "The Flame doesn't want people the way students do. It doesn't care who's popular. It doesn't care who can summon lightning or heal bones or make pretty fire birds in the dining hall."
I glance at her. "You liked the fire birds."
"They were very pretty," she admits. "That's not the point."
"What is the point?" I ask.
"The point is maybe the Flame sees differently." She looks at me with a faint smile.
"Everyone says that when they're trying to make me feel better."
"Maybe everyone is occasionally right."
I look toward the window. Outside, afternoon light spills over the academy grounds.
Staff members cross the courtyard carrying lanterns toward the old observatory path.
The observatory sits behind the north wing, built into the cliffside, its domed roof visible above the black pines.
It hasn't been used for astronomy in over a century.
"I don't want to be chosen out of pity," I say.
Seren's voice goes quiet. "Ancient fire does not pity." The words send a shiver through me. I don't know if they comfort me or frighten me. Maybe both.
By sunset, Arcana Academy no longer feels like a school.
It feels like a temple. The corridors are lit by floating candles that burn blue, green, and red.
Branch banners hang from the walls in long, heavy sweeps of fabric.
The air smells of smoke, winter roses, and the metallic scent of old magic being stirred awake.
Every carved rune above the doorways glows softly, as if the building itself has opened its eyes.
Final-year students gather in the Hall of Branches before the procession. No one sits. No one laughs too loudly now. The Gathering has stolen the carelessness from everyone.
Tempest students stand in navy-lined cloaks, their magic restless enough to make the air crackle. Veil students cluster in green, quieter, watching everything with solemn eyes. Aether students wear red, some glowing faintly with excitement, others trying and failing to look unbothered.
Then there is me. Plain black cloak. No color. No branch. A blank space among three living banners. I stand beside Seren, twisting my fingers together until she reaches over and stills them with her own.
"Breathe," she murmurs.
"I am breathing." I lie.
"You are doing a haunted impression of breathing." She says. I inhale slowly.
Across the hall, the main doors open. My father enters first.
Alaric Starling wears formal black and silver, his expression cold enough to cut through the warmth of the candles. Several parents and council observers follow behind him, all dressed in ceremonial robes, all carrying the quiet arrogance of bloodlines that have never had to beg for belonging.
Then my mother enters. Every student straightens.
Dean Amara Vale Starling walks beneath the branch banners with Magistra Voss at her side.
My mother's face is calm, but her eyes find me immediately.
For one second, she is only my mother and she looks afraid.
The expression is gone before anyone else could notice. My stomach sinks.
The bells begin. Not the usual academy bells.
These are older and deeper sounding. They toll from somewhere beneath the school, vibrating through stone and bone.
The Hall of Branches doors swing open behind us, revealing the corridor that leads toward the old observatory.
The procession forms without instruction.
Professors first. Council representatives.
Parents and bloodline guests. Then final-year students in two lines, branch colors flickering in candlelight.
I walk with Seren. The corridor seems longer tonight.