Chapter 14
By the time we leave, I feel less like a student and more like a sealed jar of unstable magic everyone is afraid to drop. Valerius is quiet beside me. Not cold quiet, thinking quiet. I feel pieces of it brush the bond, muffled behind whatever wall he's trying to build.
Anger.
At himself? At Thorne? At Mira? At me, maybe? No. Not at me, I feel the distinction before I understand it. His anger moves around me, not toward me. A storm circling a house it refuses to strike. The thought slips through the bond before I can stop it. Valerius looks at me.
"What?" I ask.
His eyes are dark with something almost unbearable. "Nothing."
Liar.
His mouth tightens. I smile despite myself, a tiny smile. He sees it, his gaze drops to my mouth. The air changes immediately. I stop smiling. The memory is there between us again, his kiss, my hand in his shirt.
Valerius looks away with visible effort. "Stop doing that," he says.
"What?" I ask.
"Thinking of me in that way."
"I'm not." I lie.
"You are." He open his eyes wide.
"You survived training." I say.
"I barely survived lunch." Heat flashes in his eyes.
"You kissed me at lunch. That was your fault."
He looks at me then. Really looks. The corridor is empty, thank every ancient flame.
His voice drops. "You said yes."
My breath catches. The bond warms. "I know," I whisper.
For a second, neither of us moves. The truth sits between us, simple and dangerous. I said yes. He asked... I answered and now everything is different. Not solved. Not gentle. Not easy. Different.
The rest of the day passes in a haze. Classes.
Whispers. Seren demanding details and then regretting getting them.
Eli grinning every time he sees Valerius until Valerius threatens to remove his ability to smile.
Luc watching me from across the corridor like he knows the ending to a story I haven't finished reading.
Mira doesn't come near me. That should feel like victory but it doesn't, because every time someone whispers kiss, my bond mark warms.
Every time Valerius's gaze finds mine, the memory opens again and every time I try to build the glass wall Thorne taught me, the wall cracks under the weight of something neither of us knows how to stop.
By evening, I am exhausted down to the bone.
We don't discuss sleeping arrangements. We don't need to.
That might be the most dangerous change of all.
After supper, which Valerius makes sure I actually eat, though he does it by silently placing food on my plate until I threaten to stab his hand with a fork, we walk to my room together.
Seren trails us until the east tower stairs, then stops.
Her gaze moves from me to Valerius. "You're staying again?"
Valerius and I say, "Yes." At the same time.
Seren's eyebrows lift. My face heats. Valerius looks away.
Seren, for once, doesn't tease. Maybe she sees how tired I am.
Maybe she sees how Valerius stands a little too close, his attention already on the dark corners of the tower.
Maybe she understands that after a shadow stood at my bed, safety matters more than propriety.
She hugs me. Then points at Valerius. "If anything happens, you get me."
He nods once.
Seren's expression softens despite herself. "Good." She leaves.
Valerius and I continue to my room. The silence between us is not awkward tonight. He wards the door without asking. Checks the window. Tests the corners of the room. Looks beneath the bed, which should be ridiculous, but neither of us laughs. The candles burn steady, no shadows move.
I change behind the privacy screen. When I step out in my nightdress, he's by the window again, giving me the dignity of not watching. My chest tightens at the smallness of that care.
"You can turn around," I say.
He does. Slowly. His eyes land on my face and stay there.
Careful. Always careful now, in the places that matter.
I pull back the blankets. He stands near the chair.
For one moment, we look at it. The chair...
The bed... The choice. Then, without a word, Valerius walks to the bed.
As if some decision has already been made by the night before, by the shadow, by the kiss, by the word safe, by the fact that neither of us wants space for darkness to fit between us anymore.
He lies on top of the blankets at first. I climb under them. The room is quiet. The bond hums softly. I turn onto my side, facing away from him. A second later, his arm slides around my waist, slowly giving me time. I place my hand over his.
Yes. The answer passes through my palm, my skin, the bond.
He exhales behind me. His body settles around mine, warm and solid, his chest against my back, his knees behind mine but not trapping.
Close enough that my fear quiets. Close enough that my thoughts soften at the edges.
It should feel shocking but it doesn't. It feels like returning to the only place in the academy where the world can't reach me. That thought scares me.
So I whisper into the dark before silence makes it bigger. "Valerius?"
His voice comes low behind me. "Yes?"
I stare at the candlelight trembling across the wall. "Did you feel it too?"
He goes still. I don't have to explain. The kiss lives between us, too bright to name. His hand flexes under mine. For a long moment, he doesn't answer.
Then, softly, rougher than I have ever heard him, he says, "Yes."
My heart pounds. I turn slightly, not enough to face him fully, just enough that I can feel his breath near my temple. "What was it?" I ask.
His silence stretches. The bond trembles. When he answers, his voice is barely above a whisper. "I don't know."
The familiar words should frustrate me but tonight, they don't because this time, I hear what comes after them. Inside. I don't know yet. My breath catches. He feels it happen. His arm tightens around me.
I close my eyes. "I know," I whisper. The feeling inside me are getting harder to control and the intensity is growing.
His forehead rests lightly against the back of my head. For one impossible moment, he lets himself. "Sleep, Valentina." The words brush through my hair, through the dark, through the bond.
I settle back against him. His hand remains beneath mine and as I fall asleep wrapped in the warmth of the boy who kissed me in front of everyone and called me his without saying it out loud, I understand one thing with terrifying clarity.
Whatever we felt when we kissed, whatever this bond is becoming, whatever fated souls truly means— It's no longer only pulling us together. It's teaching us how impossible it will be to let go.