Chapter 28
The next week passed in a strange new rhythm.
Classes where everyone stared but tried to pretend they weren't. Training sessions with Aurelius where I learned to shape light into shields and weapons and healing energy. Nights reading Elara's journal, absorbing her experiences, learning from her mistakes.
And through it all, the constant awareness of Kairen.
He never left the North Tower. Caleb reported that he was eating now, at least, and occasionally responding to direct questions with monosyllables. But he refused to attend classes, refused to train, refused to see anyone except Caleb, Torin, and Terrance.
Refused to acknowledge what had happened in the North Field.
"He's scared," Caleb said on the fourth day, finding me in the library where I was researching light dragon magic. "I know that doesn't excuse it, but... Serenya, he's feeling everything again after five years of nothing. It's overwhelming him."
"I understand that," I said, not looking up from my book. "But understanding doesn't mean I'm going to chase after him. He knows where to find me if he wants to talk."
"He does. He's just..." Caleb sighed. "He's terrified of what you represent. Of needing someone. Of admitting his control wasn't enough to save him."
"Then he needs to figure that out on his own."
Caleb studied me for a moment. "You're different. Since the bond."
"How?"
"Stronger. More certain." He smiled slightly. "Less willing to make yourself small for other people's comfort."
He was right. The bond with Aurelius had changed something fundamental in me. I could breathe without pain, move without exhaustion, exist without constantly bracing for my body to fail. And with that physical freedom came a new kind of confidence.
I didn't need to apologize for existing anymore.
Didn't need to chase after someone who kept running.
"I'm tired of waiting for people to see me as worth their time," I said simply. "I've spent my whole life being dismissed. I'm not doing it anymore."
"Good," Caleb said. "You shouldn't. Just... don't completely give up on him? I know he's being an ass, but underneath all that fear, he's still my brother. And I think he wants to try. He's just forgotten how."
After Caleb left, I returned to my research. But his words lingered.
He wants to try. He's just forgotten how.
Was that true? Or was it just wishful thinking from a brother who wanted to believe the best?
"Does it matter?" Aurelius asked through our bond. "Whether he wants to try or not, you're building your life regardless. Let him catch up when he's ready."
"And if he's never ready?"
"Then you'll have built something beautiful anyway. And his loss will be his own."
I focused on the book in front of me—a treatise on light magic theory from three hundred years ago. Learning. Growing. Becoming someone who didn't need Kairen Draxen's acceptance to thrive.
On the sixth day, I had my first real test of the light bond's power.
It happened during Physical Conditioning. Master Wren had us running obstacle courses—nothing too intense since most students were still adjusting to their new bonds. But one of the second-years with a phoenix bond pushed too hard, drove herself beyond her limits, and collapsed mid-course.
I was closest when it happened. Saw her fall, saw the way she clutched her chest, gasping for air. Heat stroke, probably, or exhaustion severe enough that her body was shutting down.
Without thinking, I ran to her.
"Stay back," Master Wren ordered, moving toward the fallen student. "Let the healers—"
But I was already there, already kneeling beside her, already calling light into my hands.
The magic came easily now, pooling in my palms like liquid sunlight. I pressed my hands to the girl's chest and willed healing into her overheated, exhausted body.
The light flowed into her, seeking out the damage. I felt her body's distress—dehydration, muscle fatigue, lungs struggling to process oxygen. The healing magic found each problem and began addressing it, cooling her overheated blood, restoring depleted energy, easing the strain on her organs.
The girl's breathing steadied. Color returned to her face. Her eyes fluttered open.
"What..." she managed weakly.
"You pushed too hard," I said, pulling my hands back. The light faded, leaving only the silver-white mark on my forearm glowing softly. "Rest. The healing should hold, but you need water and actual rest."
Master Wren stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. "You healed her."
"Yes."
"Light dragon magic. Healing without a healer's bond.
" She turned to address the gathered students who'd stopped their training to watch.
"This is what dragon bonds can do. Pure elemental magic, not borrowed or channeled, but created from the bond itself.
" Her eyes found mine again. "Well done, Vale.
That was impressive control for such a new bond. "
The praise should have felt good. Instead, it just made me more visible, more different.
More alone in what I was becoming.
That night, Brooke found me on the roof of our dormitory building.
I'd taken to coming up here when the attention became too much. When I needed to be alone with Aurelius without curious eyes tracking my every move.
"Thought I'd find you here," she said, climbing onto the roof with practiced ease. Zephyr waited on the ground below—too large to safely land on the building. "You missed dinner."
"Not hungry."
"You're never hungry lately." She sat beside me, her shoulder warm against mine. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Everything's amazing. I bonded with a light dragon. I can heal people. My body works properly for the first time in my life. I should be celebrating."
"But you're not."
"But I'm not." I pulled my knees to my chest. "Everyone looks at me differently now. Not as Serenya, but as the light dragon bond. The miracle. The impossible thing that shouldn't exist."
"You are kind of impossible."
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny." She bumped my shoulder. "But I get it. You wanted to belong, and now you belong too much. You're too special, too different, too watched."
"Exactly. I went from invisible to the center of attention, and I don't know how to be this person everyone expects me to be."
Brooke was quiet for a moment. "Then don't be what they expect. Just be you. Serenya, who survived impossible odds. Who crawled through fire to prove she belonged. Who bonded with a legend because she was stubborn enough to hope for the impossible."
"That person feels really far away right now."
"She's not. She's right here, sitting on a roof because she needs space from people who don't understand.
" Brooke's voice turned firm. "You're allowed to struggle with this.
You're allowed to miss being invisible sometimes.
But don't let the attention make you forget who you actually are underneath all the dragon magic. "
"And who is that?"
"Someone who doesn't quit. Someone who fights for what she wants." She paused. "Someone who deserves better than waiting around for a boy who can't get his shit together."
I laughed despite myself. "That obvious?"
"You keep staring at the North Tower like you're trying to will him to come talk to you.
It's painful to watch." Brooke's expression softened.
"I know the bonds are connected. I know you need his shadows to balance your light.
But Serenya, you can't make him ready before he actually is.
And you're allowed to be angry that he's making you wait. "
"I am angry," I admitted. "I'm furious that his shadows have been reaching for me for weeks, that our bonds connected whether we wanted them to or not, and he's still hiding in his room pretending none of it happened."
"Good. Hold onto that anger. Use it to build yourself into someone so amazing that when he finally does show up, you make him work for your attention."
"That's surprisingly vindictive advice."
"I contain multitudes." She grinned. "But seriously—focus on you. Master your magic. Heal people. Fly with Aurelius. Build a life so full that Kairen is an addition, not the center of everything."
She was right. I knew she was right.
But knowing and doing were different things.
Because every night, lying in bed, I felt the soulbond. Felt Kairen's presence in the North Tower, close enough to reach but impossibly distant. Felt his turmoil, his fear, his desperate desire to run from what terrified him.
And part of me—the part that had spent weeks letting his shadows wrap around me, finding relief in their cold touch—wanted to go to him anyway.
Wanted to force the conversation that needed to happen.
But I didn't.
Because Brooke was right about something else too: I deserved better than chasing someone who kept running.
On the eighth day, Headmistress Thorne summoned me again.
This time, Kairen was already in her office when I arrived.
He sat in one of the chairs across from her desk, looking even worse than he had in the North Field. Thinner, paler, shadows under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises. His uniform hung loose on his frame, and his hands trembled slightly where they gripped the chair arms.
But he was there. Out of the North Tower. Present, if barely.
Our eyes met for a brief moment, and I saw something flicker in his expression—recognition, longing, terror, all mixed together before his walls slammed back into place.
"Sit, Miss Vale," Headmistress Thorne said.
I took the other chair, maintaining careful distance from Kairen. Through the soulbond, I could feel his awareness of me—sharp, painful, desperately focused on maintaining his composure.
"I've called you both here to discuss the practical realities of your connected bonds," Headmistress Thorne began. "It's been a week since the North Field incident. Mr. Draxen, your shadows have been stable?"
"Yes." His voice was rough from disuse.
"And yours, Miss Vale? Are you managing the emotional intensity of the light bond?"
"It's difficult, but manageable."
"Manageable is not optimal. According to historical records, light and shadow bonds require regular proximity to function properly.
Without balance, Miss Vale will be overwhelmed by emotional intensity, and Mr. Draxen will continue being consumed by void.
" She steepled her fingers. "I'm instituting a requirement: you will spend a minimum of two hours per day in close proximity.
How you use that time is your choice—training together, studying, simply existing in the same space.
But the bonds need to balance regularly. "
"No." Kairen's voice was flat.
Headmistress Thorne raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, I don't believe I was asking for your opinion. This is a requirement for your continued enrollment."
"Then I withdraw."
The words hit like a physical blow. Through the soulbond, I felt his desperation, his terror at the thought of forced proximity, his willingness to throw everything away rather than face what he was running from.
"You would throw away three years of training, your dragon bond, your entire future, rather than spend two hours a day near Miss Vale?" Headmistress Thorne's voice was dangerously quiet.
"Yes." But his hands were shaking harder now, betraying the lie.
He doesn't mean it, I realized. He's terrified and defaulting to the only defense he knows—running.
"Mr. Draxen," I said quietly. Both of them looked at me. "Can I speak with you? Privately?"
"No."
"Please. Just five minutes."
His jaw clenched. Through the soulbond, I felt his warring impulses—the desperate need to flee versus the equally desperate need to stay, to finally stop running.
"Five minutes," Headmistress Thorne said. "My outer office. I'll wait here."
We stood and moved to the small antechamber outside her office. The moment the door closed behind us, Kairen put the maximum distance possible between us, pressing his back against the far wall like a cornered animal.
"You can't force this," he said, his voice tight. "You can't make me—"
"I'm not trying to force anything." I kept my voice calm, non-threatening. "But Kairen, look at yourself. You're barely functioning. You're terrified and exhausted and running from something that might actually help you."
"You don't understand—"
"Then explain it to me." I took a single step closer. He tensed but didn't flee. "Tell me why you're so scared of two hours a day in the same room. Tell me why you'd rather withdraw from the Academy than accept help."
"Because I can't—" His voice cracked. "I can't need you. I can't need anyone. The bond already took everything from me. I won't let it take this too."
"What? What would it take?"
"Control." The word came out anguished. "I built five years of control.
I learned to function in the void. And then you showed up and his shadows started reaching for you, and now I'm feeling everything again and I can't—I can't go back to being that person.
The one who felt too much and couldn't handle it. "
Through the soulbond, I felt the truth beneath his words. Felt his terror of being vulnerable, of needing someone, of admitting that his carefully constructed survival mechanism had failed.
"The person you were before the bond wasn't weak," I said softly. "Caleb told me you were passionate, protective, quick to anger but quicker to love. That's not weakness, Kairen. That's being human."
"That person got me a dragon bond that nearly killed me. That person had to be erased for me to survive."
"But you didn't survive. Not really. You've been existing in void for five years, and it's been slowly consuming you." I took another step closer. "The shadows reaching for me wasn't weakness or loss of control. It was survival. They were trying to save you from fading completely."
"I don't want to be saved." But his voice lacked conviction.
"Yes, you do. You're just terrified of what being saved means."
We stood in silence for a long moment. I could feel him through the soulbond—feel the war happening inside him, the desperate need for connection battling against five years of carefully constructed emotional walls.
"Two hours a day," I said finally. "That's all they're asking. We don't have to talk. We don't have to interact. We can sit in the same room in complete silence while the bonds balance. You can pretend I'm not there if that's what you need."
"Why are you offering me that? After everything I've said, everything I've done—"
"Because unlike you, I'm not interested in suffering unnecessarily.
The bonds need to balance, and I need my emotions manageable.
Whether that happens with you being cooperative or resistant doesn't actually matter to me.
" I met his eyes. "But I'd prefer cooperative.
It would make the next several years less miserable for both of us. "
Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe, that I wasn't begging or pleading or trying to force connection he didn't want.
"Just two hours?" he asked quietly.
"Just two hours. Library, training grounds, empty classroom—wherever you're comfortable. We exist near each other, let the bonds balance, and then we go our separate ways."
He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then:
"Fine. But I'm not promising anything beyond proximity."
"I'm not asking for anything beyond proximity."
We returned to Headmistress Thorne's office, both of us careful to maintain distance. Through the soulbond, I felt Kairen's reluctant acceptance warring with his continued terror.
"We've reached an agreement," I told Headmistress Thorne. "Two hours a day, starting tomorrow. In whatever location feels appropriate."
She studied us both with those sharp eyes. "Very well. But I'll be monitoring the situation. If either bond shows signs of instability, we'll revisit this arrangement." Her gaze fixed on Kairen. "And Mr. Draxen? If you withdraw from this requirement, you withdraw from the Academy. Understood?"
"Understood," he said quietly.
We were dismissed. Kairen left immediately, his stride quick and purposeful, shadows pooling at his feet in agitation.
I watched him go, feeling the distance between us like a physical ache through the soulbond.
Two hours a day, I thought. Starting tomorrow.
It wasn't much. Wasn't the acknowledgment or acceptance I might have hoped for.
But it was a start.
And maybe, if I was patient enough, it would be enough for Kairen to slowly realize what his shadows had known all along.
That we were meant to balance each other.
That running was futile.
That surrender might actually be survival.
But that realization would have to come from him.
All I could do was show up, exist in proximity, and build a life worth living whether he ever came around or not.
"Proud of you," Aurelius said warmly through our bond. "You didn't chase. You didn't beg. You simply stated what you needed and let him choose."
"He only chose because the alternative was losing everything."
"True. But he still chose. That's progress."
I left the administrative tower and headed toward the training grounds where I'd promised to meet Brooke.
Two hours a day with Kairen Draxen, starting tomorrow.
It would either be the start of something or two hours of painful, awkward silence while we both pretended the cosmic connection between us didn't exist.
Either way, I'd survive it.
I'd survived everything else.
This was just one more impossible thing to endure.