CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A week had passed. And gods, it was a total shit show.
Asher hadn't thawed. Not the morning after we hauled Ryven's near-corpse out of the woods, and not a single second since. His walls weren't just up; they were fortress-high and obsidian-thick. Cold. Every time I looked at him, I felt like I was staring at a statue of a commander I used to know.
And Ryven? Ryven was a wreck.
The violet veins hadn't resurfaced—thank the gods—but his body was paying the toll for the Void he'd invited in.
He spent the first three days purging, vomiting until he was shaking and hollow.
Solstice never left his side, a golden sentinel perched on his headboard, and Maddy...
Maddy looked like she was fading right along with him.
The Riftball match had been canceled, a small mercy from Veyros, as the skies had opened in a relentless deluge every day since.
It matched the mood of the Academy perfectly—gray, damp, and heavy.
Ryven didn't remember a thing. Not the hollow, not the pulsing vines, and certainly not the way the black veins had almost swallowed his soul.
To the rest of the student body, he just looked like he was nursing the world's worst hangover.
Classes, meanwhile, were a chaotic blur of combat spells, elemental theory, and the bloody History of the Second War.
By the time I dragged myself back to my dorm each evening, I was so bone-tired I barely remembered my own name.
It didn't help that Ember was constantly chirping in my ear between lectures.
"So… Daddy Darkness still giving you the cold shoulder?"
I swear to all the gods—I was going to murder her.
Because Asher was there. He was always within ten feet of me, a silent shadow, but the man didn't speak.
No teasing. No wicked banter. No lingering glances that made my skin tingle and my breath hitch.
It was as if everything that had happened—the bond, the baths, the electricity of his touch—meant absolutely nothing to him.
I tried to squeeze information out of Zya, but the shadow-cat was as loyal and silent as her master.
Even our four-way link had dulled into a tactical frequency: "Where are you?" "Moving to the mess hall." "Status."
He trained late into the night—every single night.
Sometimes, I'd pass the courtyard and catch a glimpse of him through the rain.
He looked like a god of war, sweat-soaked and lethal, shadow magic curling around his limbs like sentient smoke.
Once or twice, I caught him off guard. His walls would flicker for the space of a heartbeat, and I'd feel it through the tether—a jagged, agonizing pulse of longing. Maybe even love.
But it vanished before I could catch it. Up went the fortress. Locked tight.
Then, three days ago, Jeremy returned.
By the gods, I was relieved to see him. He was familiar.
Safe. He brought me a pressed flower from Eldrethine and held my hand with a gentle certainty, acting as if I were still his and only his.
I hadn't told him about the almosts with Asher.
About the ache in my chest that felt like a permanent bruise.
I didn't know if I could—not when I didn't even know what I was to Asher anymore.
Still, I didn't have much time to wallow.
Every spare second not spent at Ryven's bedside or in a lecture was spent hunched over a desk with Jules.
We were deep in the archives, candles burning down to stubs as we picked through Jax's journal.
We'd barely scratched the surface, but the pages were already a nightmare of riddles, strange sketches of the Monoliths, and phrases that made my blood run cold.
To make matters worse, the Aegos Trials were looming on the horizon. Training had shifted from intense to outright brutal.
Asher and I still sparred every night, but he wasn't my Asher. He was in full protector mode—silent, distant, and clinical. I wasn't his partner; I was a mission. A responsibility. A body he was sworn to shield.
And gods, it was pissing me off.
He parried my every strike with a bored flick of his wrist.
He corrected my stance with a cold hand on my hip that felt like ice rather than fire. He blocked every burst of flame I threw at him without blinking. He saw my form, but he didn't see me. Not like before.
As much as it felt like my heart was being shredded, I couldn't afford to let my feelings get involved. Not anymore. Not when the journal was whispering secrets about the Ring, and not when the shadows in the Veylaith were clearly just getting started.
If Asher wanted to be a statue, fine. I had an addict to save and a brother's ghost to chase.
So here I was—sprinting through the rain, soaked to my socks, Aether padding silently beside me on my way to the archives for another late-night decoding session with Jules.
I'd just come from Runes class, where we'd finally learned how to trace a basic healing rune.
It was meant to close surface wounds—handy, but not nearly enough for the darkness we were dealing with.
Between that and the cheer squad? I was done.
Somehow, despite everything, Maddy had managed to pull together a full team—Ember, Sera, Zaria, and a few others.
Matches started next week, assuming the rain ever stopped.
Of course, Maddy was captain, but she wasn't her usual self. Not without Ryven. He'd been officially "booked off" by the Academy healers, medically excused for Eclipsa recovery.
I slipped into the archives wing of the Tower of Archives, water dripping from my blazer onto the stone floor.
Aether shook out his fur with a low grumble.
"Careful," I muttered. "They'll ban us again."
"Ava!" Jules called softly.
Her orange curls were tied up in a massive bun on top of her head, her nose buried in four books at once. She was already at our table—her usual spot tucked beneath the arched window, papers scattered like battlefield debris.
I trusted her with Jax's journal. She wasn't Fae. She wasn't royalty. She wasn't caught up in any politics or pressure—just smart, loyal, and normal. And gods, we laughed together. I needed that normalcy.
"Hey Jules," I greeted, peeling off my soaked blazer and flopping into the chair beside her. I gave her a quick side-hug before pulling snacks from my bag.
She plucked a chocolate and grinned. "You're the best."
"Anything?" I asked, already bracing for the answer.
"Same, same," she sighed, leaning back. "I'm running through old languages, but none of these symbols match anything in the recorded archives."
"Fuck."
Hours later, we were still hunched over more damned books, halfway through a bag of cookies.
"Surely there's some record in this entire academy," I muttered, tossing a scroll in frustration. "I swear to the gods, I will search this whole place upside down."
Jules's head snapped up, chocolate still in her mouth, her glasses sliding down her nose and her blue eyes wide. "What?"
"The Academy! There has to be a place where the old stuff is kept."
She swallowed and leaned in, whisper-yelling,
"The Academy... there are forbidden catacombs underneath it."
I straightened. "Come again?"
"But they're forbidden, Ava!"
"And why are you only telling me this now?" I hissed back.
She sighed, closing one of the texts with a thud. "Because they've been shut down for centuries. But there are rumors—they say the catacombs hold ancient tomes. Stuff from the gods' era. Things not even the Headmasters are allowed to study."
My heart skipped. Tomes from the gods' era?
"I need to get in there," I whispered, my breath catching as I looked at her pleadingly.
She sighed again, rolling her eyes and packing up the books with reluctant resolve. "Fine. Give me until tomorrow night. I will see what I can dig up about where the entrance is."
I nodded, fire already licking beneath my skin. Maybe this was it. Maybe we were finally going to get answers.
I threw my soaked blazer back on, gave her a quick wave, and headed down the tower steps.
Back toward Asher's silence. Because gods help me—if he looked at me one more time with that unreadable, smug, too-good-for-emotion face, I was going to wipe it off him myself.
With a fireball.
···
I went straight for the bathrooms in the Ignis training grounds, stripping off my soaked uniform and pulling on my red leggings and matching crop top. My hair went back into its usual braids, tight and crown-like. No distractions.
The rain had finally stopped, leaving the air thick with magic and mist. As I stepped outside, there he was—slamming his fists into a training bag like it had personally offended him.
Shirtless, of course.
His Umbra training shorts clung to his hips, revealing muscular legs and soaked trainers, while shadows curled lazily around him like smoke.
The moment I stepped out, he stopped. Turned. And looked right at me.
Gods. That look—low, intense, unreadable—hit me like a punch to the chest. It took my breath away every single time.
And worse? He knew it. He felt it through the bond.
I didn't know how to shield yet. Didn't want to, not really.
Every damn day, images of the moonlit baths surfaced: the feel of his hands, the whisper of his lips, the way he made me feel.
It cracked something inside me, slowly and constantly.
And he just stood there like he hadn't shattered me and walked away.
I composed myself, barely, and made my way to the mat.
"Hey," I murmured, stretching.
"Normal drills today," he said, grabbing his wraps. "But I was thinking of adding magic."
No hello. No warmth. Just cold, calculated protector mode.
"Cool," I muttered back.
The air between us was thick with everything neither of us would say, the bond humming beneath my skin like static. He was acting like none of it had happened.
Like everything he ever said in the tunnels, in the baths, in the damn bond… meant nothing.