Chapter 27
The message was still glowing faintly on the wall when Mirel opened his eyes.
Stay where it’s warm. Your mind is your guard when I’m not here.
The letters shone gold for a heartbeat, then dimmed, leaving only the pale outline of heat where Kylix’s hand had written them.
The room was still dim. The air held smoke and metal, the trace of him.
He had been restless last night, answering coded alerts on his slate as reports came in about Attica’s data loops. Even when he paused beside the bed, Mirel had felt the tension rolling off him.
When Kylix left, the slate light faded from the wall and left a blank square behind.
Mirel listened to the quiet for a while before getting up. It felt strange that silence could weigh more than noise.
He drank a mouthful of coffee and watched the city through the glass wall, Zephyr’s skyline half-lit, rain still threatening.
Sleep had been shallow. Each time he closed his eyes, he heard Bekn’s voice in the static, saw the prisoner’s face in the cage, that flash of blue-white light.
He didn’t know why it stayed with him, only that it felt wrong to forget.
He touched two fingers to the glass, trying to summon the frost. Nothing came. Still, he whispered anyway, Hold on.
Maybe whoever was trapped in that feed could hear him. Maybe Kylix could.
A knock broke the stillness. Vandor, punctual as always. His boots clicked once on the marble before he gave a brief nod, steady and reliable, the kind of presence Mirel trusted.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
“Yeah.”
They said nothing more. The quiet between them was its own comfort.
Mirel adjusted the brooch on his uniform, grabbed his bag, and followed Vandor out.
They drove through Zephyr. Sunlight flashed across the car’s glass as the academy towers rose ahead. Clouds gathered over the city, light shifting toward gray, a promise of rain waiting at the edge of the skyline. Gardens and domes blurred past in the light.
Before stepping out, Mirel checked his slate. No new messages. He hesitated, then typed anyway:
Mirel: Are you okay? Did you sleep?
The reply came seconds later, letters fading gold the instant they appeared.
Kylix: Focus on class, little one. Fire doesn’t rest, but you should.
He smiled despite himself.
The academy gates loomed ahead. The air smelled of morning metal and wet stone, the faint scent of coming rain already in the wind. Students’ voices drifted from the open drive.
His slate chimed again.
Cyprian: You okay? What a night.
Mirel: Yeah. You?
Cyprian: Yeah. Sending the picture we took yesterday with Mama.
The image appeared: Mama propped on her hospital pillow, Cyprian’s arm around both of them. A rare softness. Mirel’s chest tightened with love.
Cyprian: Lunch later?
Mirel: Yes.
Cyprian: Cool.
Mirel could already hear his teasing about one-word answers. The thought steadied him.
The classroom waited at the end of a corridor washed in white. A single door. Frost did not touch the handle today. He pushed it open, and calm met him like a hand to the chest.
“Good morning, Mirel.” Professor Kiba already sat by her desk. The chalkboard glowed faintly with a list: syntax patterns, context registers, civic oaths.
Mirel took his seat near the window. The view showed a small courtyard beyond, thin trees, a walkway.
“Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday,” she said. “Remind me what you remember about the founding of Helion, how the city runs, who keeps the peace, and what every citizen should know.”
He read aloud from the first page of the primer. His voice was gravel-soft but steady. It was basic history, covering Helion’s first laws, its districts, the civics every twelve-year-old learned. When he stumbled, she tapped the line with her pen and nodded.
“Good. Try again.”
He did, and the rhythm came cleaner.
“Now context,” she said. “Where does law end and courtesy begin?”
He liked the examples because they made sense. A judge, a shopkeeper, a man on a tram who would not sit. Simple scenes that showed how words worked. Reading made sense when nothing else did. Rules stayed the same. Pages waited.
A single knock sounded, sharp and demanding. The door opened.
Kylix crossed the threshold with a quiet that silenced the room. His black coat was cut to perfection, sharp and formal, every seam pressed into place. The gold at his collar burned low.
“Imperial Kylix,” Professor Kiba began, already half-risen.
“I’ll take it from here.”
“Certainly.” She gathered her pages quickly and left.
Silence remade itself around the two of them.
Kylix came forward and set his long, ringed fingers on the desk, touching the corner of the reader as if to claim the page as much as the man. Heat curled under Mirel’s collar.
“How is it going, darae?”
“Better.”
Kylix looked at the board, at the neat list of registers and oaths. He leaned over Mirel’s shoulder to see the last line written in the margin.
“Civic courtesy defines the boundary between law and respect,” he read under his breath. It sounded dirtier for being so formal.
“You’re improving.” His thumb moved once over the paper and lingered on the dot where Mirel had marked a correction. “Let’s continue class.”
“What?”
“With me.”
The kiss he gave was deep, tongue sliding against Mirel’s until it drew a shocked moan from his throat.
Kylix’s mouth was hot, breath laced with smoke, his jeweled tooth catching the soft skin of Mirel’s lip hard enough to make him shiver.
He bit again, slower this time, coaxing the sound he wanted before pulling back with a small grin.
Mirel was still breathing unevenly, arousal tightening low in his stomach.
Kylix smoothed a hand down his neck, eyes dark with amusement. “Again. From the beginning,” he said, as if the kiss had only been part of the lesson.
Mirel read with growing confidence. Kylix stood behind him, one hand at the back of his neck, thumb tracing the line of hair.
His touch marked small cues, a press for a pause, a slow drag when a vowel should open.
When he reached the end, he set the stylus down but didn’t move, keeping Kylix’s hand where it was.
Kylix’s slate vibrated once inside his coat. He ignored it. “I needed to see you before the summons tonight.”
“For the Aureate?”
“Observation duty. Nothing that should worry you.”
Mirel hesitated, then spoke the truth quietly. “I froze some of your crime scenes once.”
Kylix’s brow arched. “I know.”
“You knew?”
“I knew someone was trying to help me. The frost left patterns no one else could replicate.”
Mirel’s throat tightened. “I wanted you to notice me. But I was terrified you would.”
Kylix’s grin softened into something near reverence. He brushed a lock of pale hair from Mirel’s forehead and kissed him once. “I’m glad you did.”
They left the classroom together. The corridor returned to its usual hush, white walls swallowing sound. Kylix walked at an easy pace and Mirel matched him, the ghost of the kiss still hot on his mouth.
“There you are.” Cyprian greeted him with a hug and a smile.
“Class ran late.”
“I can see that.”
Moargan smirked. Kylix gave his usual stoic nod, but Mirel caught the brightness in his eyes, the hint of humor he rarely showed in public. They sat down. Helianth and Archer were already there, still arguing about some technical device Mirel didn’t follow.
“Who would fund such an organization?” Yure asked suddenly.
The air thickened. Even the low hum of conversation seemed to hush. Mirel’s fork froze mid-air.
Kylix wiped his hands on a napkin. “We’re checking every channel. Attica’s network is layered, money, drugs, trafficking, coded auctions. We’re tracing the accounts. But we think the prisoners are being used for something far worse.”
Helianth looked up sharply. “How worse?”
Kylix’s jaw tightened. “We don’t know yet. But we’re working on it.”
Helianth’s amethyst eyes met his, quiet awareness flickering behind them. He understood there was more Kylix couldn’t say.
Kylix’s slate buzzed again. He glanced down, light cutting across his cheekbone. “Then let’s go. The summons won’t wait.”
“Wait,” Yure said, half-rising. “I want to come.”
“No,” Kylix answered. “Finish here, then check in with the Luminary after class. Vandor finishes at two, perhaps you can go together.”
He stood, smoothing his sleeve, the gold at his collar catching the light. “Ceremonial duty,” he said, words meant to sound casual. He bent and pressed his mouth once to Mirel’s temple. “Read the next page. I’ll test you when I’m back tonight.”
“Yes.”
Then they left. Kylix first, Helianth falling in at his side, a senior guard a step behind. Beyond the windows the light had darkened, clouds thickening over the academy, promising rain before nightfall.
The door of the canteen sighed shut. The garden glass held their reflections a moment, then let them go.
He waited a few minutes before moving. Chairs scraped, people talked again, and the noise filled the space Kylix had left behind. Outside, the first drops hit the glass. He watched them run until they blurred together.
Other students came and went, but Kylix had gone.
His palm thrummed, the bond feeling raw and sad.
A thread of frost walked along the inner edge of the pane, faint as breath, curving in the direction Kylix had gone.
Only he could see it. It held for a moment, then cleared as if it had never been there at all.
When the hum under his skin steadied, he picked up his reader. “I should get back,” he said to no one in particular.
“Go,” Cyprian said, smiling without humor. “We’ll find you after.”
Mirel nodded. He pressed two fingers to the glass where the frost had been, felt nothing, and left for class with the page he owed Kylix waiting in his hands.
Outside, the heavens opened and rain began to fall in sudden sheets, drumming against the academy’s glass corridors as if the sky itself had broken.