Chapter 16 #3
My eyes burn. Anger for every year I spent hating myself for an emptiness someone else created. Valerius feels it. The bond carries it before I can stop it. His face goes cold in a way that has nothing to do with me.
"Whoever sealed her," he says, "will answer for it."
Thorne's gaze sharpens. "Be very careful where you place blame, Mr. Draven."
"I'm careful." He says with an expression as cold as stone.
"No," Thorne says. "You are loyal now. It is not the same thing."
The room goes silent. Loyal. Valerius looks away but the bond flares. He doesn't deny it. My chest aches.
Thorne dismisses us soon after, though it feels less like dismissal and more like releasing a spark into dry woods. The corridor outside is empty. Seren is nowhere in sight, likely removed by Professor Vale or dragged to class by Eli. I stand beside Valerius, unable to move.
Sealed.
The word echoes over and over. My entire life reshapes itself around it.
Valerius doesn't speak. He simply offers his hand.
I look at it, then take it. The moment our fingers touch, the bond settles.
Not fixed, not healed but held. We walk without deciding where, past classrooms, past branch banners, past students who whisper and stare.
I don't hear them. I hear only one thing.
Sealed.
Eventually, Valerius leads me to a narrow balcony overlooking the north cliffs.
The air outside is cold and sharp, and the wind pulls at my hair the second we step out.
Below, black pines stretch toward the mountains.
The academy rises behind us, ancient and beautiful and full of lies.
I grip the stone railing. Valerius stands beside me.
I stare at the horizon until my eyes blur.
"My mother did it," I say. The wind takes the words and throws them back at me.
Valerius says nothing. "She had to," I whisper.
"Who else could? Who else would have access to me as a child? Who else would know?"
His silence is careful. I turn to him, anger cracking through the grief. "Don't defend her."
"I wasn't going to." He says softly.
"Good." I say firmly.
"I also won't condemn her without knowing why." He states.
The anger finds him easily. It is safer than everything else.
I sigh. "Of course because powerful people always have reasons."
His jaw tightens. "Yes." The answer is so blunt it steals my next words. "Yes," he repeats, voice low. "They do. Sometimes those reasons are selfish. Sometimes they're cruel. Sometimes they're the only way to keep someone breathing."
I stare at him. The wind moves between us. He looks out over the cliffs, face hard and distant. "Is that what happened to you?" I ask before I can stop myself.
His expression closes. Instantly. The bond catches a flash.
A room. Dark wood. A young boy that looks like Valerius. A man's voice is like ice. Black fire burning through small hands. Pain. Then the wall slams down so hard I almost flinch.
Valerius turns to me. His eyes are cold. "Stay out of my head."
The words hit. I step back. "I didn't mean to."
"I said stay out." He says louder this time.
"I can't control it!" I whisper.
"Then learn." He says harshly.
Pain flashes through me. His face changes immediately, but the damage is done. I look away, blinking hard. "Right," I whisper. "Sorry my sealed magic and unstable soul bond are inconvenient for you."
He looks down. "Valentina—"
I cut him off. "No." I pull my hand from his. "You don't get to be the only one with wounds."
His jaw locks. I see the regret. I feel it too. "I know," he says.
I laugh once, bitter and shaking. "You keep knowing after you hurt me."
The words land hard. He goes very still. The wind lifts strands of hair across my face. I don't brush them away. For one long moment, I think he's going to retreat. Put the mask back on. Say something sharp enough to make me hate him again.
Instead, he steps closer. Slowly. "Then I'll learn faster."
The words are quiet and rough. My breath catches.
He looks at me like he doesn't know how to be gentle but is willing to stand there and bleed trying.
"I don't know how to do this," he says. Neither do I, the bond answers for me. His eyes soften. "I know," he murmurs.
I look down at our hands, separated now by inches and fear and too many secrets.
I reach for him, he meets me halfway. Our fingers link.
The bond warms. Below us, wind moves through the black pines.
Above us, Arcana Academy watches with all its windows, all its wards, all its hidden history.
For the first time, I wonder if the academy has always known what I am or if it is waking with me. That thought slips through the bond.
Valerius's gaze lifts to the towers. His face darkens. "We find out before it tells anyone else," he says.
By supper, the rumor of the glasshouse has spread. Valerius Draven burned through containment vines. Valentina Starling froze in the center. The glasshouse produced a shadow illusion. The token flashed white. The councilwoman left smiling.
Mira watches me from the Aether table with hatred sharpened by humiliation.
She doesn't speak to me. Not after the kiss but her silence feels temporary.
Seren sits beside me, talking too much because she can tell I'm hollowed out.
Eli sits across from her, quieter than usual.
Even he seems to understand something is wrong.
Valerius stays close. His thigh brushes mine beneath the table once accidentally. The bond steadies. He doesn't move away. I eat because he silently nudges my plate. I drink because Seren glares. I survive supper because both of them make it impossible to disappear inside my own head.
The second we get into my room, there is no discussion, no question, no chair. We straight into my room together after Seren hugs me tightly and whispers, "Whatever it is, you are still you."
I nearly break at that. Valerius doesn't touch me until we are inside. He wards the door, the window, the corners. Then he turns to me. I am standing near the bed, still in my uniform, staring at nothing.
"Valentina." He sighs.
I close my eyes. "I was sealed."
His voice is quiet. "Yes."
"She let me think I was nothing." I let a tear fall from my eye.
"We don't know why." He wipes the tears from my face.
"I know how it felt." I lean away from his touch.
He says nothing... Good. I don't need answers right now. I need the truth to be allowed to hurt.
I change behind the screen. When I step out, he's already on the bed, on top of the blanket, waiting. I climb in beside him. The moment I lie down, his arm comes around me. No hesitation because we are past pretending space makes either of us safer.
I turn toward him this time instead of away.
His eyes find mine in the candlelight. For a second, he looks surprised, then his expression softens in the smallest, most devastating way.
I tuck myself against his chest. His arms close around me.
The bond hums low and warm. My cheek rests over his heart. It beats steadily beneath me.
I listen to it until my own breathing slows. "Valerius?"
His hand moves once over my hair. "Yes?"
"Do you think she did it to protect me?" I ask in a whisper.
His silence lasts long enough to be honest. "I think," he says, "that people can protect you and still hurt you."
My eyes burn. I close them. That answer feels truer than anything else today.
His hand settles against my back, warm and firm.
Only Valerius holding me while everything I thought I knew about myself breaks quietly open and somewhere deep beneath the grief, beneath the betrayal, beneath the fear of what the sealed thing inside me might become, a small impossible truth begins to glow.
I'm not nothing. I never was. Someone made me believe I was and tomorrow, one way or another, I will begin learning why.