Chapter 18 #3
“Yes, I did,” he growled. “Now go to bed.” The firelight died behind him, shadows carving his face into something sharp and unforgiving. Anger surged through me, white-hot. I shoved him hard. He barely moved. So, I slapped him.
“I hate you,” I said, my voice shaking.
His jade eyes flashed. “Good. I’m not asking you to like me, Ruin.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why do you hate me so much?”
“Same reason you hate me.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “I don’t hate you the way you hate me. I would help you. I am trying to work with you, but you keep pushing me away. And then you do something like this, and I want to strangle you.”
I crossed my arms, to stop my hands from shaking. “So, tell me. What’s the real reason, Aiden? Why do you hate me enough to do that?”
“No.”
I shoved him again. “Tell me.”
“No.”
“Fine,” I said sharply. “Push me away. But I’m not stopping. With or without your help, I’ll find out what’s going on here.” I turned toward the door, fury burning through me.
“Pushing you away is the only way this works, Ruin,” he stated from behind me. I stopped and glanced back.
“No,” I said firmly. “It’s not. We could work together. But fine, keep telling yourself that.” I stepped into the hall. He could push me away all he wanted. I wasn’t stopping. I wouldn’t stop until I uncovered the truth. Whatever this school was hiding, I would find it.
I stormed to my dorm, fists clenched, jaw tight, vision blurring with heat. Thank the gods Gia was with Jackson tonight because I was a ticking bomb, and I could feel it. The fury. The pressure. The wildfire building beneath my skin.
How dare he dismiss me like that. How dare he look me in the eye, pretend to care, then throw the only real proof we had into the fire like it meant nothing.
That scroll could’ve been the key to understanding this entire mess, this warped lie we’ve been fed.
And he destroyed it as if it were trash.
My skin burned. Not metaphorically, literally.
The air around me shimmered with heat, and I felt it in my veins like molten gold. Like my blood was boiling. I paced the room like a caged animal, fists flexing at my sides, trying, failing, to calm myself.
Tears threatened, but they couldn’t escape. The heat had scorched them dry. The rune on my forearm began to glow. A dull orange at first then blinding gold. The light pulsed in time with my heart, in time with my rage. My thoughts spiraled and tangled, and then—I snapped.
The fire exploded out of me. It shot up the walls like a wave of molten fury, shattering the window in a burst of flame and heat.
The fire that erupted from my body filled the entire dorm, searing, sun-hot and alive.
Books turned to ash. The glass cracked in midair and rained down like shards of starlight.
I dropped to my knees, gasping for breath, chest heaving.
My entire body was slick with sweat, my pulse thundering in my ears.
The walls were still glowing. The air crackled.
A fine layer of soot coated the floor, and embers floated lazily around me like fireflies.
“What the hell just happened?” I whispered.
But I already knew. This wasn’t merely magic.
This was the Sun Goddess’s rage. And it was mine now.
The next morning, when Gia returned to the dorm, she stopped dead in the doorway. “Holy hells,” she breathed, eyes wide as she took in the cracked window frame, scorched curtain edges, and the lingering scent of smoke. “Ryn… what happened?”
I stood near my bed, still in the cloak I’d thrown on hours ago. “My power got a little out of hand.”
Her gaze snapped to me. “A little?” We spent the next hour reporting it to the dorm administrator, who thankfully didn’t ask too many questions. With a little lesser magic and a lot of mumbled apologies, the room was patched up and good as new.
But I didn’t feel good as new. Not even close.
I was still furious. Furious at Aiden for dismissing me, for burning the scroll, for looking me in the eyes like I didn’t matter.
But I didn’t need him. I had my friends.
When I walked into the feeding hall, I spotted Ryan already halfway through his breakfast. I slid into the seat beside him.
“Aiden burned the scroll,” I said flatly, not sure how else to put it.
He froze mid-bite, spoon hovering in the air. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I went to his dorm last night,” I explained, voice low. “Thought maybe he knew more… or that he’d actually help. I showed him the scroll and he just… tossed it into the fire.”
Ryan set down his utensil with a thud, brows furrowing hard. “Why the hell would you show Aiden that scroll?” There was disappointment in his tone, sharp and unexpected. It stung.
“Because I believed the mate bond meant something,” I admitted, picking up my coffee.
“I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d help us figure out what’s really going on.
But he shot me down so fast, it was as if I never mattered at all.
He would rather put his hate for me first than actually work with me. ”
Ryan was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “So… what now?”
Before I could answer, Luna plopped down across from us with a tray of fruit and toast. “Hey, what’s going on? You both look like someone stepped on your grave.” I filled her in quickly, about the scroll, the confrontation, the fire. By the end, her jaw was slack.
“Wow. What a jerk,” she muttered. “Okay, I’m officially on board with your whole ‘break-the-mate-bond’ plan.”
“Yeah, well…” I stirred my coffee. “That part’s going horribly. But it’s kind of on the back burner now. The Eastern Encampment, the black magic, the mountain, it’s all more important.” That’s when Jackson and Gia joined us, taking the open seats next to me.
“Ryn,” Jackson grinned, “I heard you, uh… lit your dorm on fire last night.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
I winced. “It was… a moment. A heated one.”
“How bad was it?” Ryan asked, finally resuming his breakfast like this was just another Tuesday.
“Shattered the window,” I muttered. “Scorched the walls. The rune on my arm started glowing, and I couldn’t stop it. One second, I was angry, the next…” I exhaled slowly. “I wasn’t in control anymore.”
“Damn,” Luna said, shaking her head. “The godmark definitely isn’t easy.”
“No kidding,” I murmured. “Professor Quinnell wasn’t wrong, my emotions fuel my power, and last night I was nuclear.” They all went quiet for a beat.
“Sounds like you need a plan,” Jackson finally said, his tone more serious now. “For the bond. For the power. For all of it.” I nodded, setting down my coffee.
“I don’t know exactly what the plan is yet. But I do know this: I’m done being dismissed. If Aiden won’t help, that’s on him. But I’m not giving up. There’s something buried in that mountain. Something no one wants us to find.”
Ryan raised his mug in mock salute. “Guess we’re back to being the reckless truth-seekers again.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I replied, a small, determined smile forming on my lips. Even if the scroll was gone… the fire was just beginning.
I was back in the library. I wasn’t giving up, not just because Aiden told me to drop it. He could shove his warnings where the sun didn’t shine. I wandered the aisles aimlessly, not sure what I was even looking for. Maybe another scroll, a book explaining more about what that warning meant.
I was hoping, praying, something would reach out to me and that’s when I saw it. The tome was enormous, its spine thick, the pages rough and yellowed with age. Gold filigree lined the edges, and across the front, in faded ink, was a single title: Celetian Mountain.
Curiosity stirred in my chest as I carried it to one of the long tables near the back of the library. The wood groaned under its weight as I set it down. Dust rose into the air, catching the dim light streaming through the stained-glass window.
The first few pages were written in the elegant script of the old language, but the translation followed beneath.
Celetian Mountain, it said, had existed since the age when gods still walked the mortal plane.
It was a living symbol of divine power, a sacred vessel where the gods stored fragments of their essence.
Mortals once made pilgrimages there, offering prayers and gifts to draw favor from its light.
But as the book went on, the tone darkened.
When the gods sealed their power within the mountain, darkness began to seep across the world.
Crops withered. People grew sick. The land itself turned hollow.
The cause was unknown, some claimed it was punishment, others said it was balance being restored.
Whatever it was, it spread like a plague, unstoppable and cruel.
It lasted for years. Until miners discovered the god-marked runes carved deep within Celetian’s heart.
When they harnessed the light that bled from those runes, the sickness began to fade.
The famine ended. The land healed. But even still, darkness lingered.
The book claimed that was when the first Blood Assassins rose from the shadows of Goetia, another mountain far to the south.
They drew their strength from the dark veins of magic running beneath it, feeding off what Celetian had purged.
Light and dark, two halves of the same power, forever at odds.
Celetian’s light continued to grow, sustaining the central encampments and empowering the rune networks that protected our borders.
Until… thirty years ago. The next passage made my stomach tighten.
For two years, the mountain died. No light.
No energy. No connection. It was as if the gods themselves had gone silent.
The high king, desperate and reckless, ordered deeper excavation into Celetian’s core.
The magic returned but the mountain was never the same again.
Even the author admitted something had changed.