GAVRAIL
Control is not the absence of desire—it is merely command over it.
—Vikhrostrum Akademiya Doctrine of Elemental Discipline
Celeste…
She looks like she belongs somewhere warmer, wilder.
Not here—not the fog-choked lakefront of Whittaker. Not in this circus built for performance and control.
What the hell is she even doing here?
Gone is the girl I once knew, the one who used to race barefoot through the forest, the river-dweller who spoke to lakes like they were old friends. That girl was all softness and summer, untouched by cruelty or war.
But the woman standing in that arena…
She moved like moonlight sculpted by tides. Honed into a weapon by the very forces she once worshipped. Dangerous. Devastating.
There is a quiet confidence in her now—captivating in its grace. The dark waves of her hair, her sun-touched skin, eyes the color of autumn. Gods, her eyes. They are still the same piercing hazel, flickering between gold and green, like they can’t decide what part of the world they want to reflect.
And her magick… I felt it in the arena before I even saw her. It ran through my veins like a drug I never stopped craving. Fluid and coiled. I could feel it pulsing beneath her skin like water behind a dam. Waiting. Watching.
My shadows knew the second they touched her. They always did. They always will.
Because her touch has been ingrained in my very soul, as if her water is somehow mixed into the blood currently pumping far too fast through my body.
And when I saw her standing there in front of me… Fuck. I felt everything I’ve spent years trying to bury.
She has always been beautiful, but now she is something else entirely.
The flushed curve of her throat when she said my name. That ridiculous Whittaker uniform that clung to her waist and hips like a challenge. Even the rose-petal color of her lips, catching the last of the sunset like temptation wrapped in defiance.
I wanted to pull her to me—to see if she still tasted like summer and fury. See if I could still make her fall apart the way I used to.
But then he grabbed her—too familiar, too entitled—and turned her away from the arena like he had the right.
He dared to touch Celeste.
My Celeste.
And the way she leaned into him—
I tasted metal. My shadows flexed at my fingertips, vicious, eager for more blood. I could’ve made him disappear into the dark with a single thought. I could’ve—
I clench my fists until nails bite skin.
Fuck. Not. Mine. Not anymore. But the lie lodges in my throat like a knife.
The walk to the dormitory was hell. I wanted nothing more than to rip her away from here, wrap her in shadows, and shut the rest of the world out. But instead, I walked in silence, a lifetime of unsaid words and emotions between us.
And when I heard her stifle that small, aching sob as I walked away, it nearly broke through the armor I’ve spent years perfecting.
I will find her. I will finally tell her the truth—the truth I’ve kept locked behind every silence and shadow.
All the things I should have said that night, before I disappeared from her life.
All the things I’ve wanted to say since then, found in the stacks of unsent letters I keep in a small pile in the bottom of my trunk.
Not to ask for forgiveness—
But because she deserves to know. All of it.
Even if it drowns us both to say it. Even if it doesn’t fix things between us.
Especially if it doesn’t.