Chapter 19
Two days of mandatory rest felt like a prison sentence.
I wasn't allowed to train, couldn't take stairs without help, and spent most of my time either in bed or hobbling around our small room with increasing frustration. The burns were healing thanks to the healer's salves, but the sprained ankle was slower to recover.
Brooke brought me meals, updates on Academy gossip, and increasingly exasperated looks every time I tried to do something the healers had forbidden.
"You literally crawled through fire," she said on the second day, physically blocking me from attempting the stairs. "You can survive two days of rest without going insane."
"I'm not going insane. I'm going stir-crazy. There's a difference."
"Is there though?" But she helped me back to bed anyway. "Fine. If you need something to occupy your mind, Caleb stopped by while you were napping. Said to tell you that Kairen's been asking about you again."
The sharp feeling from two days ago immediately resurfaced. "Asking what?"
"If you were recovering well. If the burns were serious. When you'd be cleared for activity." Brooke sat on the edge of my bed. "Caleb says Kairen's been weird since the Ember Veil ended. More distracted than usual. His shadows keep slipping his control."
"Not my problem."
"Isn't it though? His shadows literally visit you at night when he's not strong enough to stop them."
"They haven't come since before the Ember Veil."
"Because he's been fighting harder. Doesn't mean he's winning." Brooke studied me. "You're still bothered by seeing him with Elise, aren't you?"
"No."
"Liar." She grinned. "For what it's worth, Caleb says Kairen avoided the courtyard entirely for a full day after that. Apparently seeing you watching them—or watching him, specifically—rattled him."
"Good. He should be rattled."
"So you do care."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." Brooke stood. "Look, I'm not saying you need to go chase after him. You've done enough of that. But maybe don't write off the possibility that his asking about you means something."
"It means his shadows are attached to me and he feels obligated to make sure I didn't die. That's not the same as actually caring."
"If you say so." But her tone suggested she disagreed entirely.
On the third day, I was finally cleared to return to classes—with restrictions. No physical training for another week, limited stairs, and mandatory check-ins with the healers every other day.
"Your burns are healing well," the healer said as she unwrapped my arm to examine it. "The ankle is still weak, but improving. You're lucky you didn't do permanent damage."
"So I keep hearing."
"Because it's true." She rewrapped the arm with fresh bandages. "You have approximately one week until the Bonding Trial. Use that time to build your strength back up—carefully. The Wilderness won't be forgiving of an injured ankle or weak arms."
One week.
The words hit like cold water.
One week until everything I'd been working toward. One week until I'd enter the Wilderness for seven days, alone, hoping some creature would deem me worthy.
One week to figure out if light dragons were real or just impossible hope.
"I will," I said, and meant it.
Creature Taxonomy that afternoon was packed—all forty-seven first-years who'd survived both trials, plus observers from higher years who wanted to hear Professor Veyra's announcement about the Bonding Trial.
I slid into a seat near the back, trying to be inconspicuous. Brooke sat beside me, and Petra waved from a few rows ahead.
Professor Veyra stood at the front, her expression severe as always, waiting for the room to settle.
"Congratulations," she began once we'd quieted. "You've survived the Maze and the Ember Veil. You've proven mental resilience and physical endurance. You've earned the right to attempt the Bonding Trial."
She gestured, and an illusion materialized above her desk—a vast, wild forest stretching to distant mountains. The Wilderness.
"In one week, you will enter the Wilderness. You'll be placed in different sectors to prevent interaction—the trial is individual, and creatures must observe you alone. You'll have minimal supplies: one knife, one flint, basic rations for two days, a bedroll, and a water skin. Nothing else."
The room had gone completely silent.
"You will spend seven days in the Wilderness.
During that time, creatures will observe you.
If one deems you compatible, it will test you.
These tests vary by creature type and individual temperament.
Some are quick—phoenixes make decisions in hours.
Some take days—basilisks watch extensively before committing. "
She paused, letting that sink in.
"If a creature offers a bond and you accept, the bonding will occur in the Wilderness.
You'll feel it—an overwhelming connection that will render you unconscious for several hours.
When you wake, you'll have new instincts guiding you back to the extraction point.
We'll be monitoring and will retrieve you. "
"What if no creature offers?" someone asked.
"Then you return after seven days, unbonded. You'll have two more opportunities to attempt the trial—once next year, once the year after. Fail three times, and you're released from the Academy."
Professor Veyra's eyes swept across us.
"Current statistics: approximately sixty percent of candidates bond on their first attempt. Twenty-five percent bond on their second attempt. Ten percent on their third. Five percent never bond and are released."
Sixty percent. Better odds than I'd expected, but still a significant chance of failure.
"The next week is for final preparations," Professor Veyra continued.
"Physical conditioning—within your limits, Miss Vale—survival skills, mental fortitude.
Master Wren will focus your training on Wilderness-specific challenges.
Professor Kaelith will prepare you for the isolation and fear.
I will teach you how to recognize when a creature is observing versus testing versus offering a bond. "
She waved her hand, and the illusion shifted to show different creatures in the Wilderness—a phoenix perched in a burning tree, a griffin soaring over mountains, a basilisk coiled in a cave entrance.
"Understand this: the Wilderness is not safe.
It's warded against the most dangerous predators, but threats remain.
You can be injured. You can die. Every year, we lose one or two candidates to accidents—falls, exposure, animal attacks.
The creatures we hope will bond with you are not the only inhabitants of the Wilderness. "
The sobering reality of that statement settled over the room.
"You have one week," Professor Veyra said. "Seven days to prepare your bodies, your minds, your spirits. To decide what you're willing to sacrifice for a bond. Because I promise you, the creatures will demand everything you have to give."
She dismissed us, and the room erupted in anxious conversation.
"One week," Brooke said, her voice tight with a mixture of excitement and terror. "Seven days and then we're in the Wilderness for real."
"It's enough," I said, trying to sound confident. "We've survived everything else. We can survive this."
"Can you? With a sprained ankle and burns still healing?"
"I have a week to recover. I'll be fine."
"You better be. Because I'm not going into the Wilderness without my best friend coming back out with a bond." Her voice was fierce. "We're both making it through this."
We filed out with the rest of the students, everyone talking over each other about preparations and fears and which creatures they hoped would choose them.
I was so focused on navigating the crowded corridor without jostling my ankle that I didn't notice him until I nearly walked into him.
Kairen stood against the wall just outside the classroom, clearly waiting. His storm-gray eyes locked onto me the moment I emerged, and everything else—the noise, the crowd, Brooke's hand on my arm—faded into background static.
He looked worse than I'd seen him since before the trials. Dark circles carved beneath eyes that held more emotion than usual—which still wasn't much, but more than the usual void. His shadows were agitated, moving restlessly despite his obvious efforts to control them.
We stared at each other for a long moment.
"You're walking," he said finally, his voice flat but his eyes tracking down to my bandaged ankle.
"Observant."
His jaw tightened at my tone. "The burns—"
"Are healing. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You went through fire and collapsed. That's the opposite of fine."
"Well, I passed. So it worked out." I kept my voice cold, matching his usual temperature. "Was there something you wanted? Or did you just need to verify I hadn't died?"
Something flickered across his face—hurt, maybe, though it was gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
"I—" He stopped, his hands curling into fists at his sides. The shadows surged toward me before he yanked them back with visible effort. "I wanted to make sure you were recovering. That's all."
"Why?"
The question hung between us.
"Because—" He stopped again, clearly struggling. "Because my shadows won't rest until I verify you're safe. It's... disruptive."
"Ah. So this is about your control, not about me." The words came out sharper than I intended. "Good to know where your priorities are."
"That's not—" His voice cracked slightly. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me. Because all I see is someone who pushes me away, rejects every attempt I make to help, stands me up when I ask to talk, and then shows up to 'check on me' because his shadows are being inconvenient.
" I took a step closer despite the pain in my ankle.
"I'm not a problem for you to solve, Kairen.
I'm a person. And I'm tired of being treated like an obligation. "
"You're not an obligation."
"Then what am I?" The question came out more vulnerable than I wanted. "Because from where I'm standing, I'm just the girl whose existence makes your life harder. The weakness in your control. The thing you'd prefer didn't exist."
"That's not true." His voice was low, intense. "You're—"
"I'm what?" I challenged. "Go ahead. Finish that sentence. Tell me what I am to you."
He stared at me, his jaw working, shadows writhing at his feet like snakes. For one moment, I thought he might actually say it. Might actually be honest.
Then his expression shuttered completely, walls slamming back into place.
"You should rest," he said, his voice returning to its usual cold flatness. "Your ankle needs time to heal before the Bonding Trial."
He turned and walked away before I could respond, his stride quick, almost desperate.
Leaving me standing in the corridor, shaking with anger and hurt and the sharp realization that nothing had changed.
He still couldn't—or wouldn't—let himself be honest about whatever this was between us.
"Serenya?" Brooke's voice cut through the fog. "You okay?"
"No," I said honestly. "But I will be."
I watched Kairen's retreating figure disappear around the corner, his shadows trailing behind him like dark regrets.
One week until the Bonding Trial.
Seven days to prepare for the Wilderness, to strengthen my body, to steel my mind.
Seven days to stop hoping that Kairen Draxen would ever let himself want what his shadows wanted.
To accept that some connections, no matter how strong, were too frightening for the people involved to ever acknowledge.
And to focus on what I could control: surviving the Wilderness, finding a creature that might choose me, proving once and for all that I belonged here.
Even if the boy whose shadows reached for me never would.