Chapter 11 #2
I almost smile. Seren squeezes my hand, then leaves the gallery with visible reluctance, glancing back twice before disappearing through the black doors.
The moment they close, silence falls. Different silence. Heavier. I become aware of being alone with Valerius in a restricted dueling gallery full of black torches and cracked mirrors that have just shown me a version of myself I can't understand.
He turns toward me. I look at the floor. A mistake because the polished black stone reflects us too. His boots. My boots. The space between them.
"Valentina." I hate how my name pulls my eyes up. His expression is hard again, but not cruel. Not exactly. There is something beneath it now, something strained and furious and too close to worry. "You can't be alone tonight."
My spine stiffens. There it is. The command. The decision. The ownership I have been waiting to resent. "I can take care of myself."
"I know." He says. That stops me. He steps closer, slower this time. "That isn't what I said."
The bond mark warms. I fold my arms, hiding my wrist beneath my hand. "Then what are you saying?"
"I'm saying whatever is happening around you is escalating. Voss noticed your mark. The council wants to examine you. Your mother is hiding answers. The wards rejected something in us. The mirrors just reacted to you by showing..." His jaw tightens. "Whatever that was."
My stomach twists. "And?"
"And the bond responds when I'm near you." The words settle between us. I look at him. He doesn't look away. "The mark calms when I touch it," he says, voice lower now. "My Shadowflame can shield you without burning you. When the ward broke, the bond pulled you into me before the fire hit."
A shiver travels through me. I remember it exactly. Not him pulling me first. The bond. The terrible, impossible pull. Then his arm around my waist. His voice in my ear.
Valerius's eyes darken, as if he is remembering too. "I'm not saying this because I want it," he says.
"Of course not." The words come out sharper than I intend.
His gaze narrows. Hurt flashes through me—stupid, unwanted hurt.
I should be relieved he doesn't want this.
I don't want this. Neither of us should want any part of a bond neither of us chose but hearing him say it still cuts.
Maybe because my entire life has been people not wanting pieces of me.
My magic. My place at Arcana. My father's belief.
My own reflection in the mirror tonight.
Valerius notices the shift in my face before I can hide it. His expression changes. "Valentina—"
"No, it's fine," I say quickly. "You're making practical points. I understand."
His mouth tightens. "Do you?"
"Yes. I'm your liability. You've been painfully clear."
The word hangs between us. Then he exhales through his nose and looks away, jaw hard. "I shouldn't have said that."
The apology is not clean. Not pretty. Not even fully spoken but from Valerius Draven, it feels like watching stone bleed. My anger falters. I don't know what to do with it.
He looks back at me. "You are not a liability."
The bond warms. My throat tightens. "What am I, then?" The question is too quiet.
Too close to the one I asked him before. Threat or prey. He stares at me for so long I start to regret asking. Then he says, "Something they're going to try to take away from me."
Cold spreads through my chest. In this exact moment something flips inside me. "What do you want me to do?" I ask.
His eyes hold mine. "I want you near enough that if something happens, I can reach you."
My pulse stumbles. The gallery seems smaller. The torches crackle softly. One of the repaired mirrors gives a faint tremble, and Valerius immediately shifts his body toward it. Toward danger. Away from me. Always between.
My chest aches. "Near enough how?" I ask, though some part of me already knows.
His jaw flexes. For once, he looks almost uncomfortable. Then he says, "Tonight. You either sleep in my room, or I sleep in yours."
The world goes silent. Even the torches seem to stop moving. I stare at him. "What?"
His expression hardens like he expected exactly that reaction. "You heard me."
"I absolutely didn't hear you correctly."
"You did." He says.
I laugh once, sharp and breathless. "You are insane."
"Possibly." He admits.
"Valerius." The mark pulses when I say his name.
His eyes darken, but he doesn't move closer. "I am not leaving you alone tonight," he says.
Heat rushes into my face. "You don't get to decide that."
"No," he says. The word is quieter than I expect.
I blink. He takes a breath, slow and controlled, like the next words cost him something.
"No," he repeats. "I don't get to decide. You do."
My anger stills. His voice drops. "You choose. My room or yours. Door locked. Wards sealed. I stay in a chair. Nothing else happens."
My heart is beating too hard. The thought of sleeping in his room sends panic and something much worse through me.
The thought of him sleeping in mine is not easier.
My room is private. Mine. The only place in this entire academy where I can fall apart without witnesses.
Imagining Valerius Draven inside it—his shadow near my bed, his black fire close to my candles, his eyes seeing the lavender sachets my mother leaves in my drawers and the books stacked by my pillow—feels too intimate. Too revealing.
"No," I say.
I expect him to argue. Instead, he nods once. "Fine."
The quickness of it unsettles me. "You're not going to argue?"
"You said no." The words strike something deep.
I look away. The mirrors reflect me looking away.
Coward. Not because I said no because part of me wants to say yes.
Not because I want him. Not because I trust him.
Not because the thought of him in my room makes my heart race in a way I refuse to name...
But because when the mirrors shattered, he was there before the glass could touch me.
Because his Shadowflame doesn't burn me.
Because Magistra Voss scares me more than I want to admit.
Because my own mother said words that still echo like a crack through my bones and because, for reasons that I don't understand, the bond settles when he is near.
I hate that. I hate it so much my eyes burn. Valerius notices.
His voice is lower when he speaks again. "I can stand outside your door."
My throat tightens. I look at him. "You would do that?"
His expression shutters. "It's the most practical option if you refuse the others."
"Practical." I repeat.
"Yes." He nods.
"You keep using that word when you mean protective." I tell him.
His jaw tightens. The bond pulses. For one second, his mask slips. Anger. Fear. Denial. Want, maybe, though I can't tell what kind.
Then he looks away. "You hear what you want to hear."
"No," I say softly. "I think I'm finally hearing what you don't want to say."
His gaze snaps back to mine. The air catches fire.
A thick, electric silence stretches between us, charged enough to make my skin prickle.
I can feel the pull again, faint but insistent, like the bond is listening.
Waiting. Trying to draw truth out of both of us before either one is ready to survive it.
Valerius steps closer. His eyes stay on mine. "If I wanted to protect you," he says, voice dangerously quiet, "you would know."
My breath catches. "Would I?" I whisper.
His gaze drops to my mouth. This time, he doesn't hide it quickly enough. The bond flares. We both feel it. A sharp gold pulse beneath my skin. A dark flicker along his wrist. The torches bend toward us again, black flames leaning, listening.
Valerius's hand curls into a fist at his side. He forces himself still. "You should go," he says.
The words are rough. I almost laugh because he's the one who said I should stay near him.
He's the one who offered rooms and locked doors and standing guard outside mine.
He's the one who stepped too close, looked at my mouth, and turned the air between us into something that feels impossible to breathe.
"You just said I shouldn't be alone." I remind him.
"I'll walk you back." He says.
"To my room?" I ask.
"Yes." He nods.
"And then?"
His jaw shifts. "I stand outside."
My chest tightens. That should be ridiculous.
It should feel dramatic and unnecessary.
It should make me roll my eyes, tell him he is being arrogant, remind him again that he isn't in charge of me.
Instead, I picture him there. A dark figure in the corridor outside my door.
Guarding. Not because he has to because he refuses to leave.
The thought lands too softly. Too deeply.
So I make my voice sharp before it can expose me. "And if I choose to let you sit inside?"
His eyes darken. "Then I sit inside."
"In the chair." I state.
"Yes." He nods.
"All night." I ask.
"Yes." He nods.
"No looming." I tease.
His mouth almost moves. "I'll try to survive the restriction."
"No staring while I sleep." I shake my head.
His expression goes colder, but the tips of his ears—barely visible beneath the dark wave of his hair—blush. I stare. Did Valerius Draven just blush? No. Impossible. The idea is so absurd that a laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.
His eyes narrow instantly. "What?"
"Nothing." I smile.
"What?" He asks his narrowing still.
"Nothing." I lie with a huge smile.
"Valentina." My smile fades at the sound of my name. It used to sound like a weapon. Now it sounds like something that might be the death of me. The realization frightens me so much I take a step back. He notices. The faint warmth in his expression, barely there to begin with, disappears.
"My room," I say quickly.
His face stills. "What?"
"If..." I swallow, hating how my voice trembles. "If you're going to stand guard or sit in a chair like an overdramatic gargoyle, and I'm going to sleep then my room. I don't want to sleep in yours."
"Fine," he says.
"And you don't tell me when to sleep."
His mouth curves faintly. "Can I suggest it when you look half-dead?"
"No." I say.