Chapter 22
“It’s easier for me to say I want you physically than admit what you really do to me.”
Airis looked at me with complete seriousness.
But there was something new in his eyes.
Something unfamiliar.
I didn’t know where we were.
I didn’t know how we’d ended up here.
But somehow...
It no longer seemed important.
“So... you like me?” I asked, feeling the air between us tighten until it seemed smoke might appear at any moment.
Airis took a slow step toward me.
There was resistance in every movement.
As though one part of him longed for closeness while the other kept building walls.
“You want me to say it out loud, Fireling?”
A crooked smile tugged at his lips.
“So this is your little revenge?”
The smile was confident.
Almost cocky.
But his eyes betrayed him.
And so did his hands.
A barely noticeable tremor.
As though he were afraid.
I took a step toward him.
It felt like stepping off the edge of a cliff.
But for some reason...
I wanted him to understand the risk was worth taking.
And somehow...
That single step eased something inside me.
“I’ve already told you,” he murmured softly.
“You just weren’t listening.”
A gentle smile.
Whenever he was close, the game disappeared.
Only honesty remained.
“I just like hearing you say it again.”
A brief silence followed.
One that had somehow become familiar between us.
“And I like it when you stop pushing me away just to protect yourself.”
Our eyes met.
Sparks flared between us instantly.
A light breeze brushed against my skin.
Then my gaze dropped to his lips.
Suddenly...
Breathing felt less necessary than closing the distance between us.
I woke with a gasp.
My body jerked forward, as though it had tried to follow him.
My gaze swept across the room.
Searching for Airis.
But there was nothing there.
Only his quiet room.
And the lingering feeling that he had been there only moments ago.
It had all been a dream.
A product of my own imagination.
So unreal...
And somehow...
It had felt terrifyingly right.
The clock read 7:30.
Time to get ready.
******
As we headed toward the training wing after breakfast, I couldn’t stop thinking about that strange dream involving Airis.
Why was I even dreaming about things like that?
It didn’t feel like the beginning of something.
It felt old.
Familiar.
It was madness.
“Sleep well?”
Stasia’s question felt almost too precise.
As though she somehow knew exactly what was bothering me.
“Not bad,” I replied with a nod. “You?”
“I had strange dreams.”
She shrugged.
I froze, studying her carefully.
She was watching me, too.
I wanted to ask whether they had been ordinary dreams...
Or visions.
But Tarven was standing right beside us.
He pushed open the door, and the scrape of metal pulled us both out of whatever strange silence had settled between us.
We stepped inside and didn’t immediately notice the unfamiliar figure standing in the center of the training hall.
Tall.
Lean.
His skin was unnaturally pale.
Almost unreal.
As though he had stepped out of ice itself, with traces of frost still clinging to him.
“Mil, thanks again for agreeing to this,” Tarven said warmly as he walked toward him.
Then, as though only just remembering we were there, he glanced back at us.
“This is Miloran.”
My entire body went taut.
Stasia, meanwhile, looked completely relaxed.
Or at least she made it look that way.
“You already know Stasia,” Tarven continued, gesturing toward me.
“And this is Illariana—Airis’s protégé.”
“He’s also one of the Strongest Twelve, and today he’ll be helping you develop your abilities.”
“Develop?” I echoed immediately.
“Airis thinks I should focus on control and suppressing my magic as much as possible.”
“Airis’s methods have always been...” Miloran said softly.
He paused for the briefest moment.
“Intense.”
His pale eyes, framed by white lashes, studied me with quiet curiosity.
He was strikingly beautiful.
And yet...
Something deep inside me warned me to stay on my guard.
“But today,” he continued, his thin lips curling into a smile that promised absolutely nothing good, “we’ll be doing things differently.”
“What exactly is your magic?” I asked after a brief hesitation.
What kind of power could possibly counter both fire magic and plant biochemistry?
“I’m a giver of life,” he replied.
Silence hung between us for a heartbeat.
Then, instead of explaining further, both he and Tarven flicked their wrists.
Statues rose around us instantly.
Human-sized.
Each carved from a different material.
“Your first fight begins now,” Miloran said.
Before either of us could react, he closed his fist.
Every statue came to life.
******
It took only seconds to understand the real danger.
And it wasn’t the statues themselves.
It was their powers.
Miloran hadn’t simply brought them to life.
He had awakened their magic as well.
That was why every step the iron statue took struck the air itself.
And the air answered with crushing shockwaves.
Every movement of the wooden statue sent clouds of razor-sharp splinters flying toward us.
My skin burned beneath thousands of needle-like stings.
As though countless splinters were piercing it all at once.
The moment the wooden statue moved again, I reacted instinctively and raised a wall of fire in front of us.
It stopped the splinters.
But not the iron statue’s attack.
One step.
The shockwave tore straight through my flames and slammed into me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for unbearable heat.
But surprisingly...
It barely burned.
Maybe my flames weren’t as destructive as I’d always believed.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Stasia shouted from behind me.
“My magic is useless here!”
“Maybe yours alone is,” Miloran replied calmly from somewhere across the hall.
“But together, your powers can achieve something neither of you can alone.”
The men stood far away.
Yet their voices sounded unnervingly clear.
As though they were standing right beside us.
“You need to think ahead,” Tarven called.
“You need a thousand possibilities ready.”
The more he talked...
The more irritated we became.
None of those statues were attacking him.
“You know how to create shields,” he added, clearly directing the words at Stasia.
“If I put up that damn barrier, the poison will spread toward Ria!” she shouted back.
At first, I’d thought the iron statue was our greatest threat.
But the figure made of clouds hit the hardest.
Massive torrents of water crashed into us.
So powerful that even my flames recoiled from them.
My shield was weak.
Far too weak.
“You know,” Stasia began through gritted teeth, “we could just make them stop.”
She was stronger than I was.
She managed to hold her ground.
Without the fire bracing my back, though, I would’ve been thrown clear across the room.
Another blast of water slammed into us.
My flames sputtered out, though they absorbed enough of the impact to keep me on my feet.
Barely.
Even so, my boots skidded across the floor.
“But I really don’t want to embarrass myself in front of them.”
Stasia spat out the water that had gotten into her mouth.
“What are we supposed to do?” I shouted.
“Do you even know how to combine our powers?”
“I think this is more about physics than magic!” Stasia shot back.
A shield of green mist burst from her hands, swallowing the next wave before it could reach us.
I forced myself to think.
How were fire, plants, and biochemistry supposed to work together?
“Wouldn’t my flames just burn the plants?” I asked, stumbling backward as another shockwave from the iron statue hit me.
Once again, it tried to knock the air from my lungs.
“My plants aren’t that weak,” Stasia scoffed.
With a sharp sweep of her hand, a massive tree erupted from the ground in front of us.
Its trunk was thick enough to shield us both.
“Damn it.”
“Why didn’t I think of this sooner?” she muttered.
“Because you panicked,” Tarven called.
“Shut up before you die faster than those statues do,” Stasia hissed, struggling to stay on her feet after another strike from the iron statue.
Moving quickly, I leaned out from behind the tree and hurled a burst of fire at the cloud figure.
It faltered.
But it didn’t stop.
“I still don’t understand the physics behind this,” I muttered.
“They’re just stronger than we are,” Stasia replied.
Another impact from the iron statue.
The trunk split with a deafening crack.
We threw ourselves aside just seconds before the tree crashed to the ground.
Damn it.
My breathing grew faster and faster.
But the power stirring inside me...
Still felt asleep.
It didn’t respond to my fear.
And that was the most terrifying part of all.
******
My fire stayed exactly where it was.
My heartbeat didn’t.
It felt as though my flames were being held back.
Panic surged inside me.
But that was impossible.
Airis was in Mataarus.
He couldn’t possibly be blocking the flow of my fire magic.
A pause.
Not in the fight.
Inside me.
Damn it.
What if that was the answer?
“If they were brought to life...” I said, glancing toward Stasia as she grew another tree to shield us.
“Then they have to breathe too, right?”
“No idea.”
She shrugged.
Then she paused, her expression shifting as the thought settled in.
“Damn.”
“Probably.”
“What if we poison them?” I asked, raising a brow.
“You can create toxins through biochemistry, right?”
A blast of water struck nearby, forcing me to squint.
Stasia stayed silent.
“And what if we poison ourselves too?”
“We hold our breath.”
I shrugged.
“Miloran brought them to life, but can he actually give them intelligence?”
“That...” Stasia nodded slowly.
“That actually sounds like a good idea.”
“I’ll grow poisonous plants.”
“Highly toxic ones.”
“And I’ll try to ignite the toxins.”
I had absolutely no idea how I was going to pull that off.
But we didn’t exactly have better options.
The tree protecting us disappeared.
While Stasia focused on her part, I trapped the statues inside a cage of fire.
Like mindless machines, they walked straight into the flames.
Massive unfamiliar flowers burst from the ground around them.
“Hold your breath!”
I reacted instantly.
Without taking another breath, I redirected the flames from the cage toward the plants.
Thick gray smoke erupted outward at once.
Swallowing the statues whole.
Then, suddenly, Tarven and Miloran appeared beside us.
Each grabbed one of us by the arm and practically dragged us out of the hall.