CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"You basically just had a metaphysical threesome!" Ember squealed, practically bouncing on my mattress.
Gods, I regretted opening my mouth.
Jeremy had slipped out at dawn. All quiet kisses and lingering touches, but no words.
Not long after, Not long after, Ember had stormed in with Luna trailing behind her. Just as sassy as her, the lynx flopped dramatically onto the rug. Ember had demanded every single detail of my week.
And like an idiot—suffocating under the weight of it all—I told her.
Now she was clinging to every sentence like it was the most scandalous scroll of gossip to hit the Academy since House Ventus streaked through the dining hall.
"Ugh, don't use that word," Aether muttered, his voice thick with feline disapproval as he padded across the room and flopped onto the couch.
Even Zya emerged from the balcony shadows, stretching like a dark queen on her perch.
Asher had left her with me. Apparently, ignoring me didn't extend to leaving me unguarded. But gods, I needed the male himself more.
I sighed, pulling on my uniform. My mind was already drifting toward the catacombs.
I had a meeting with Jules tonight and zero real answers so far—just those damn riddles and symbols Jax had left behind. Once dressed, Ember and I made our way down the winding Ignis stairwell.
The House common room was flooded with the soft, golden light of morning, the arched windows overlooking the crimson rolling waves of the Zymarrian Sea.
We grabbed our usual—strong coffee and a moon muffin—before heading toward the arena. Ember, of course, hadn't stopped prodding me since we crossed the threshold of my room.
Tell me again how his voice sounded through the bond when he… you know.” She grinned, nudging me sharply with her elbow.
I rolled my eyes, fighting a blush. "You're insufferable."
"I prefer 'delighted,' actually."
She didn’t know about Jax’s journal. Not really. She knew I was looking for answers, but not about the riddles, the symbols, or the secrets my brother had buried between those pages.
That was one disaster I was keeping to myself for now. So as far as Ember was concerned, my biggest problem was my spectacularly fucked-up love life.
We turned the corner near the training wing, and there he was.
Asher was leaning casually against a stone archway, shadows coiling softly around his boots like restless smoke.
His eyes locked onto mine the second I came into view.
"Darling," he murmured. His gaze fixed on me like I was a storm he'd summoned himself and was now daring to destroy him.
The bond ached. Deep and low, still carrying the phantom heat of last night. The hunger. That primal pull that made the simple act of breathing feel like a chore. Even with his mental walls hammered back into place, I could feel him there.
I didn't blink. I didn't waver.
"Maddox," I said flatly, the coldness in my voice a shield as I brushed past him.
Beside me, Ember practically choked on her own breath.
“I'm Team Maddox,” she stage-whispered, then leapt down the last few steps as if she'd just walked onto the stage of a live theater production.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. Asher's gaze was a physical weight burning into the back of my skull as we stepped out into the open-air Ignis arena. The Aegos Trials were screaming toward us, and training had officially become a battlefield.
Stone walls lined the massive circular arena, its sand floor scarred from dozens of earlier matches.
Professors flanked the edges with glowing crystals and clipboards at the ready.
Combat dummies hovered above rune-marked pedestals; shadow nets flickered in the corners; and water channels surged along the borders. Air glyphs shimmered like invisible blades while earth pillars pulsed beneath the floor.
It was an elemental playground designed to break us down and see what was left.
“Alright, first-years!” barked Professor Theron, striding into the center like a general preparing for war.
“Today is field rotation. You'll be paired randomly. Live element use is permitted. Control bracelets are required. Healing staff are on standby, so try not to die on my sand."
I scanned the field, my chest tightened. Everyone was here. But Ryven... gods. He should have been standing right there with us. Instead, he was still "officially excused," a polite way of saying he was a shaking mess recovering from a soul-poison.
Ember was practically vibrating next to me. "I swear to the gods, if they pair you with him, I'll eat a rock just for the drama."
Theron lifted a glowing crystal toward the sky. "Pairs will now be revealed. Step to your assigned quadrant."
Names shimmered into the air in burning light. And then I saw it.
Ava Pyreson & Asher Maddox.
Ember gasped so hard I thought she might actually swallow her muffin whole. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she whisper-yelled.
I didn't even blink. I just looked up across the expanse of the arena.
There he was. Arms folded, that familiar, infuriatingly smug look already forming on his face. Gods, that smirk.
I was going to wipe it off his face or die trying.
···
Once the final pairings were announced, we were dismissed to change into our issued Trials training leathers.
Designed by human techs, the suits were surprisingly sleek, all matte black with silver-threaded runework woven directly into the reinforced hide.
Each line pulsed with a low-level protective enchantment designed to absorb the worst of a spell's kinetic impact. It was meant to ensure we didn't actually die during the trials.
Comforting. Kind of.
I pulled mine on, the leathers adjusting seamlessly to my body and temperature.
Beside me, Ember was muttering a string of creative curses at her boots. I glanced at the updated board and smirked. Ezra. She'd been paired with Ezra.
"Anything to say, Em?" I asked, arching a brow.
She looked at me with pure death in her eyes. "If I die, bury me in sarcasm."
"Noted."
We reassembled by quadrant, the arena shimmering under fresh enchantments as the professors activated the next phase.
This wasn't just sparring anymore. This was preparation for the Trials. And the real thing? A different beast entirely. divided into five brutal phases designed to weed out the weak.
First came the Pit, a nightmare of shifting platforms and rising walls.
You and your partner were dropped into a mechanical deathtrap filled with creatures like trolls, bone-wolves, or whatever else the Academy had captured, and you had to fight your way to the exit before the timer ran out.
Then came the middle stretch: separate elemental phases known as the Labyrinth.
The catch was that you didn't know which one you were getting or in what order until you stepped into them.
It could be the drowning depths of a water trial, the suffocating heights of an air climb, or the crushing weight of the earth.
It was designed to test your adaptability and ensure no team could over-prepare.
Finally, the Veylaith Survival Trial serves as the finale: three to five days in the heart of the Veylaith Forest, beyond the safety of the wall, where the forest whispers in the dark and doesn't leave bones behind.
To reach the end, you and your partner have to survive every phase together. If one falls, the other is disqualified.
But there's a twist: once you reach the very end, the partnership dissolves.
You have to turn on each other in one final one-on-one match.
The one left standing is crowned the Aegos Trials Champion, earning House glory and a guaranteed place in the Astral Guard.
This round was brutal, a battlefield of constantly shifting platforms, elemental traps firing from enchanted walls, and unpredictable terrain that forced you to move, think, and strike without a second's pause.
I rolled my shoulders back, adjusted the runes on my gauntlets, and stepped into the sand.
Asher was already waiting in our assigned quadrant, his silhouette cutting a sharp line against the mist.
And as much as I hated to admit it? A dark, traitorous part of me was glad I was paired with him.
Because if we both made it to the end—after all the silence, the shadows, and the mess he'd made of my head—I wanted to be the one to beat his smug, broody, arrogant ass into the sand. With fire. And a very wide smile.
We watched pair after pair take on the maze.
This round was brutal, a battlefield of constantly shifting platforms, elemental traps firing from enchanted walls, and unpredictable terrain that forced you to move, think, and strike without a second's pause.
Darcy and Sera were paired together, and gods, they held their own. They were smooth and tactical, moving like shadows to flank their Umbra opponents with synchronized bursts of darkness.
It wasn't flashy, but it was clean. Controlled.
Ember and Ezra, however, fought like chaos incarnate. Ember tossed fire like it was confetti while Ezra moved behind her with shadow blades and quick shields. Somehow, it worked.
They bickered the entire time, of course, but they pushed their opponents—two Ventus twins with matching daggers and tempers—straight to the edge. Apparently, mutual irritation did wonders for magical compatibility.
Mavrik and Rhea obliterated their match. Mavrik's water arcs moved in perfect synchrony with Leviathan, his massive dark-winged water dragon, making them almost untouchable.
Rhea's precision with Vesper, her viper, sealed every gap they left. Their opponents barely knew what hit them.
Then there was Maddy—thank the gods she'd been paired with Zaria. Calm and precise, the two of them worked like a tide and a fortress. Zaria sent controlled waves to disarm their enemies. while Maddy used high-precision gusts to knock them off their footing.
Their opponents—a fire wielder named Kaelen Voss and a water wielder named Lira Solen—couldn't keep up with the coordination.
And then it was our turn.
"Asher Maddox and Ava Pyreson," Theron barked.