Chapter 14 #2
I stop in front of him, suddenly hyper-aware of my hands, the way my throat feels too tight.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
I try to joke. It comes out thin. “History class is… uplifting.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “Yeah. Straits has that effect.”
Two boys from Green Squad drift close, eyes bright. “Hey, Gallegher,” one of them calls out, too casual. “Is it true your grandfather was a Service general? That you’re, like, pure fire line?”
Noa’s jaw tightens. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Is it true you can’t mind your own damn business?”
The boy laughs like it’s a joke, but he shuffles back into the crowd, away from Noa’s stare.
Noa looks at me again, and there’s apology there—quiet and immediate—as if he hates that I have to stand in the blast radius of his name. His gaze flicks briefly to the clusters of students forming, the way their eyes keep tracking him—me—like we’re items on a ledger.
He leans closer, just enough to make his voice mine. “Ignore them.”
I swallow. “Is it true?” I ask, softer. “About… all of it?”
His eyes hold mine for a beat—then drop, like the question lands somewhere tender.
“Governments got involved a long time ago,” he says quietly. He doesn’t sound proud. He sounds tired. “They learned how to keep power from leaving. How to make sure the strongest lines stayed where they wanted them. Some families fought it.”
His gaze lifts back to me, sharp with something protective. But it flickers—showing something beneath the pointed edges, something like… shame.
“Some didn’t.”
I think of Straits’s tone. The cold certainty.
I think of the chart. The lines. The crests.
I glance at Noa’s hands and I can almost see it: the magick prowling under his skin, powerful and a little bit wild.
He catches my glance and huffs out something like a laugh. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m… inevitable.” A muscle in his jaw ticks. Discomfort crosses his face. “I don’t—” He stops. Swallows. “I don’t like being reduced to my bloodline.”
“And yet,” I say, the words slipping out before I can stop them, “when you wield fire… it makes sense.”
His eyes flicker—heat, then something softer.
“You’re devastatingly good,” I add, quieter, because it’s true, and now it feels like a piece of this new puzzle clicking into place. “The kind of good that doesn’t come from one person. The kind of good that comes from generations of knowledge encoded into your bones.”
His throat works. “Celeste—”
“I’m not judging you,” I say quickly. “I just…” I glance down at my hands, at my ring, at the skin Straits stared at like she could read my entire history from it. “I didn’t realize how much of this world is… inherited.”
Noa’s gaze drops to my hands, watching the way I twist the ring on my finger. “It’s complicated,” he says carefully. “And it makes people stupid.”
Across the corridor, two girls whisper and glance at me again—giving me looks that hold both curiosity and calculation, like I’m a question they want answered.
First generation.
Dormant gene.
Activated.
An anomaly.
I straighten my shoulders, forcing myself to breathe around the attention.
Noa shifts closer—not touching, but there, solid beside me—an unspoken warning to anyone watching.
The hallway starts moving again as more students spill out of classrooms. I fall into step beside Noa, heart pounding. The air suddenly feels sharp around me, needling my skin, charged with something dangerous.
Because if magick is inherited…
Then my blood has a story I don’t know yet.
And somewhere in those hidden lines—dormant and waiting—there are secrets someone decided I wasn’t allowed to know.
* * *
By dusk, the word inheritance still tastes like metal on my tongue—until Noa proves exactly why the world keeps count.
That evening, third- and fourth-year fire-wielders are scheduled to duel at the Caldera, the massive sunken arena carved out of the cliffside I saw on my first day.
Noa invited my squad and me to come watch, and we arrive just as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, casting gold and blood-orange light across the stone terraces.
We file into the front row and sit in the growing dark as the arena begins to pulse with light and heat. The air here tastes of ash and anticipation. The Caldera itself seems to speak to the fire it commands. Bright and volatile, always reaching. Always consuming.
Two fourth-years are already engaged in a dazzling duel—fire whirling, shields forming and vanishing in precise rhythm. Footwork matched at every movement like a choreographed dance.
When their match ends, a girl with copper curls named Tasha steps into the ring, fire already dancing at her fingertips. She squares off against a boy I vaguely recognize—Liam, one of Noa’s friends.
They bow. And then Tasha attacks.
She is fast. Faster than I expect, slinging arrows of flame in a barrage that lights up the dusk like fireworks. Liam blocks one, dodges two, but a fourth slams into his left arm and sends him to the ground with a strangled shout.
Professor Kael is already moving, a metal tin in his hands. He opens it and dabs something onto the wound. A tincture we made in class not long ago—Emberveil. Liam hisses faintly through clenched teeth as the professor applies it to the wound, sealing it shut.
Tasha stands unbothered, barely acknowledging the professor as Liam is helped from the arena. She looks confident. Smug.
That lasts about ten seconds.
Because then Noa steps into the ring.
And the Caldera changes.
The moment his boots hit the arena floor, the air shifts. I can feel it, like the oxygen around us has turned into something heavier, thicker. The crowd goes silent. Even Tasha hesitates.
Then she moves—sending bolts of fire screaming toward him.
Noa doesn’t even flinch. With one flick of his wrist, he summons a wall of flame that curves around him like a cloak.
She throws more bolts, each faster than the last. He dodges with minimal effort, barely moving more than a step at a time.
His fire bends and arches with lazy precision, deflecting every attack with grace.
His fire forms into something almost solid in his hands.
He’s toying with her. And she knows it.
Her expression twists into one of frustration and determination.
She shifts tactics and summons a burst of firelight so blinding that the entire front row has to shield our eyes, gasping as our vision turns white.
When we blink the light away, she’s hurling full-bodied fireballs, huge and erratic, like she’s trying to land a single hit just to salvage her pride.
Noa doesn’t move. Until suddenly, he does.
And just before he strikes—he catches my eye. Smiles.
And then—
That cocky bastard winks.
He winks at me as fireballs scream toward him across the arena.
Before I can even curse under my breath, he throws a lasso of flame with a sharp flick of his arm. It wraps around Tasha’s legs and sends her sprawling.
The crowd erupts into cheers.
Tasha pushes herself off the stone floor with shaking arms and walks off the field with what little pride she has left.
Noa barely acknowledges her departure. He’s already turned to the next duel underway, standing at the arena’s edge with a casual tilt to his stance—the epitome of poise and confidence, just another day, for him at least.
He walks up to our row after the final match, and more than a few of my squadmates look up at him in full fan-girl mode as he approaches.
Including some of the boys. Rozsen and Ian practically launch themselves at him with a barrage of questions, animated and breathless in their praise.
As fire elementals themselves, they clearly see him as some kind of god.
Noa takes it in stride, smiling, listening, answering every question with patience and ease.
He is always like this in public—gracious, charismatic, disarming.
But I know better. Beneath the smile is something far more dangerous.
Something burning. And damn if I don’t want to burn right along with him.
It makes me wonder, though—if I ever let go of the reins, even for a second… what would they see in me? Something to be revered?
Or would I be thought of as a threat? Something to be handled? Someone that disappears without a trace like those Magicks before me?
The thought curls around my spine like smoke, unshakable.
Because the truth isn’t just that I fear what I can do.
It’s that I fear what they would do if they ever saw it.