Chapter 9 #3
I hate the way my body feels awake near him, like every nerve has been waiting years for a storm and doesn't care that it comes wearing his face.
"Describe," Thorne says.
Neither of us answers because the answer is impossible. The answer is: too much. The answer is: him. The answer is: I can feel his anger like heat behind my ribs, but beneath it, something else beats harder. Concern, maybe. Fear, maybe. Something he would deny if I named it.
"Miss Starling," Thorne says.
I swallow. "It's... heavier." Valerius's jaw flexes.
Thorne's quill moves. "Heavier how?"
"Like..." I search for words that don't make me sound insane. "Like the bond is pulling."
"Toward Mr. Draven?"
I look at Valerius. He looks back. "Yes," I whisper.
The gold light beneath my sleeve brightens. Valerius's sigils shift along his forearm.
Thorne's voice lowers. "Mr. Draven?"
"Yes," he says.
My stomach drops. He feels it too. The pull. The same invisible thread tightening between us.
Thorne sets the slate down. "Touch palms."
"No," Valerius says. My heart jolts.
Thorne's expression hardens. "Mr. Draven."
"No." I stare at Valerius. His eyes do not leave Thorne. "The bond reacted to skin contact yesterday strongly enough to break a relic and trigger a Shadowflame attachment. We aren't doing that again without knowing what it is."
Something warm and dangerous unfolds in my chest. He is refusing because of me. No because of the reaction, because he doesn't want to lose control, because he doesn't want the bond documented, because I'm his liability. I repeat the word in my head until the dangerous warmth dims.
Thorne steps closer to the ward. "This chamber can contain your magic."
"It isn't my magic I'm worried about." The words hit the room hard. I stop breathing. Valerius seems to realize what he said a second too late. His face closes.
Thorne becomes very still.
My chest tightens around a feeling I don't want.
He is worried about me. Not in a way that belongs in stories where boys become soft because a girl smiles at them.
Valerius is not soft. His worry has teeth.
It looks like refusal. Like anger. Like standing between me and questions.
Like showing up in corridors before dawn because a council woman is too close.
Thorne's gaze moves to me. "Miss Starling?"
I don't understand why he is asking me. Then I do. He is giving me the choice. Valerius looks at me sharply, as if he realizes it too. For once, he doesn't command me. He waits. The bond hums between us. My hands feel cold. My wrist feels hot.
I think of Magistra Voss asking how the bond feels.
I think of her eyes dropping when my mark warmed.
I think of her saying we will speak again.
I think of Valerius stepping beside me without needing to be asked.
I think of him calling me a liability. I think of him saying 'It isn't my magic I'm worried about.'
I lift my hand slowly. Valerius's eyes darken. "Valentina."
The warning in my name wraps around my spine but beneath it, there is something else. Panic. His, Small and hidden.
"I want to know," I say.
His mouth tightens. "You don't."
"I do." I nod.
"You think you do." He says.
"And you think you can decide that for me?"
His eyes flash. Good. Anger is safer. Anger keeps us from looking too closely at the fear under it. I raise my hand between us, palm facing him. It trembles once before I force it still. "Touch my hand, Draven."
A muscle moves in his jaw. "Don't order me around," he says.
I almost smile. "Annoying, isn't it?"
For a second, something flickers in his eyes. Not amusement but close enough to make the air feel thinner.
Then he lifts his hand. Slowly. The space between our palms narrows. I hear my heartbeat. I hear his breathing. I hear the ward circle hum beneath our feet, readying itself for something it might not understand.
His palm touches mine. The bond erupts.
Gold light flares between our hands, bright enough to throw our shadows against the ward. Heat rushes up my arm, through my chest, down my spine. I gasp, but I don't pull away because the shock isn't pain. It's recognition.
The word rises inside me without permission. Recognition.
Valerius's hand is warm against mine, calloused, steady, larger than mine by enough to make me feel small in a way that has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with danger. His fingers flex, almost closing, then stop before they can.
The restraint makes the moment worse. More intimate.
His eyes hold mine through the gold light.
The bond pulls. Hard. I stumble forward.
Valerius catches my other wrist before I hit him.
The contact sends a second flash through the room.
The lamps flare. The ward screams. A high, sharp sound that tears through the chamber as symbols ignite beneath our feet.
White flame shoots around the circle. Professor Thorne shouts something I can't understand.
Valerius moves instantly.
He releases my palm but keeps hold of my wrist, turning his body between me and the exploding ward light. His arm comes around my waist, pulling me back against him as the outer ring bursts upward in a wall of white fire.
I am pressed to him completely. My back against his chest.
His arm locked around my waist. His hand gripping my wrist.
His breath hot near my ear. His body solid and unmoving behind mine.
The bond roars. Not out oud. Inside me. The gold mark burns so bright beneath my sleeve that light spills over his fingers.
Shadows curl from his hand in response, black flame threading around the gold, not attacking, not claiming.
Shielding. The ward fire crashes against his Shadowflame and splits around us.
I stop breathing. Valerius's voice is low against my ear. "Don't move."
This time, I don't argue. I can't. His arm tightens slightly, holding me there as the chamber shakes.
The white ward fire lashes around the circle, wild and bright, but none of it touches me.
His Shadowflame rises in a dark arc before us, absorbing the light, swallowing the heat, becoming a barrier made of night.
He's protecting me.
The ward breaks, and Valerius Draven pulls me into his shadow like the world itself is not allowed to touch me.
Professor Thorne's voice cuts through the roar. "Draven! Release the flame!"
Valerius doesn't. The black fire thickens. His heartbeat hammers against my back. I feel it. Fast. Furious. Afraid... For me. The realization hits harder than the ward explosion.
"Valerius," I whisper. His body goes still behind mine. The bond pulses at the sound of his name. The Shadowflame lowers slightly.
Professor Thorne slams both hands against the outer ward and speaks a command so old the words scrape through my bones. The white fire collapses inward, extinguishing in a violent rush of air.
Silence falls.
Valerius's arm is still around me. My hand is still trapped beneath his.
Neither of us moves. I'm afraid to breathe because if I breathe, I will feel too much.
The warmth of his chest. The strength in the arm holding my waist.
The way his fingers tremble once against my wrist before stilling.
Valerius Draven's hand trembles once more.
Then he releases me. Cold air rushes between us as he steps back. I almost sway from the absence.
Professor Thorne enters the ruined circle, face pale with fury or fear. Maybe both. "What did you feel?" he demands.
I stare at the blackened ward lines beneath my boots. My body still remembers Valerius behind me. His arm. His breath. His flame.
"Miss Starling." Thorne snaps. I look up. Thorne's eyes are fixed on my face. Then my wrist. Then Valerius. "What did you feel?"
I don't answer immediately. Because how do I say it? The truth is too big. Too revealing. Too impossible. I felt the bond pull me toward him. I felt the ward break. I felt his fear. I felt safe. That last one is the most terrifying.
Valerius steps beside me again, not touching this time, but close enough that the bond settles. Close enough that my shaking eases. He notices.
His jaw tightens. "I felt the ward fail," he says.
Thorne's eyes cut to him. "I asked Miss Starling."
"She doesn't know." He answers.
Anger snaps through me. I turn on him. "Stop answering for me."
"Then answer." He challenges me.
"I will." I confirm.
"Then do it." He welcomes my answer.
The room crackles. Thorne looks like he is debating whether to seal us in opposite towers. Good luck to him.
I face the professor. "I felt the bond pull."
Thorne's expression sharpens. "Toward him?"
"Yes." I say quickly.
"And when the ward destabilized?" Thorne asks.
"I don't know." I answer honestly. Valerius makes a low sound. I glare at him. "I don't. I felt light. Heat. The mark burned. Then the ward reacted."
Thorne's gaze narrows. "The ward did not simply react. It rejected."
A chill slides through me. "Rejected what?" I ask. Thorne doesn't answer. Valerius goes very still. I look between them. "Rejected what?"
Professor Thorne bends, brushing ash from one of the carved symbols. The silver dust has turned black. "That," he says quietly, "is what I intend to find out."
The answer isn't enough. It's not even close but before I can demand more, the chamber door opens.
My mother steps inside. Everything in me drops.
Dean Amara Vale Starling takes in the room in one glance—the scorched circle, the blackened ward, Professor Thorne kneeling beside ruined symbols, Valerius standing too close, me pale and shaken in the center of it all.
Her face changes with fear. Real fear. For me. "Valentina," she says. I hate the way my name sounds in her mouth. Like she has been expecting this. Like whatever just happened confirms something she has been dreading.
"I'm fine," I say quickly.