Chapter 2 Aspen
Aspen
The frost spreads without permission.
I watch it creep across the ground beneath my boots—delicate crystalline patterns that shouldn’t exist in pre-dawn warmth. My water rune pulses cold against my upper arm, responding to emotions I don’t want to think about.
Fury. Guilt. A protective instinct so sharp it borders on violence.
I haven’t slept.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Darian kneeling in our firelight. See my blade pressed to his throat—close enough to feel his pulse against the steel. Close enough to end him.
Close enough that Kaia stopped me.
That’s what I can’t process. She looked at the man who never saw her at all—only what she could do, never who she was—who dissected her wonder and called it research, who decided what she was worth and handed it to Thorne—and said don’t kill him.
Ice veins outward from where I stand, climbing the tree trunk beside me. I don’t bother stopping it.
“You’re going to freeze the whole camp if you keep that up.”
I don’t turn. Torric’s heat signature washes over me before he settles against the opposite tree, radiating warmth that makes steam curl between us.
“Let me,” I say quietly.
“Can’t.” His voice carries an edge I recognize—the same barely restrained violence I’m fighting. “Apparently we’re not allowed to solve problems by burning them anymore.”
“Or freezing them.”
“Shame.”
I feel his fury mirroring mine. The fire rune on his chest pulses hot enough I can sense it from here. We’re both wound tight, magic leaking in ways we haven’t lost control of since we were children.
Since Father branded us and told us it was for our own good.
“Kieran’s calling a meeting,” Torric says. “Dawn. Everyone.”
“To decide what?”
“What to do with him.” His jaw tightens. “Like there’s anything to decide.”
I breathe out slowly, trying to rein in the cold. Failing.
“If she asks us to let him live—” Torric starts.
“Then we let him live.”
“Even if—”
“Even if.” I finally look at him, meeting molten gold eyes that mirror my own conflict. “Her choice. Her bond. Her decision.”
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
Bob materializes between us, his shadowy form rigid with disapproval. He shifts between Torric and me like he’s trying to decide which of us needs the lecture more.
“Yeah, yeah,” Torric mutters. “We’re terrible. We know.”
Bob turns toward me specifically. His edges sharpen.
“I wasn’t going to kill him,” I say.
The shadow’s posture suggests he doesn’t believe me.
“Fine. I wanted to. But I stopped.”
Bob’s form flickers—satisfaction, maybe. Patricia appears next, notebook blazing as she underlines something emphatically, then adds a dramatic asterisk that somehow feels judgmental.
“Camp’s waking up,” Torric says, pushing off the tree. “We should—”
“Give me a minute.”
He studies me with the kind of scrutiny only a twin can manage. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Someone has to.”
“That’s what Malrik’s for.” But he doesn’t leave. Just stands there, heat signature steady and familiar. “She didn’t forgive him, you know. She just didn’t let us become murderers.”
The distinction matters. I’m not sure why, but it does.
“Come on,” Torric says finally. “Let’s go hear Kieran explain why we shouldn’t kill the traitor.”
The clearing sits at camp’s northern edge. Dawn light filters through leaves overhead, casting everything in gray and gold.
Everyone’s here. Malrik leans against a boulder, silver eyes unreadable. Finn’s propped against a tree, arms crossed, his usual mischief replaced by something colder. Kaia stands slightly apart, Mouse pressed against her leg, her shadows forming defensive patterns around her boots.
She looks exhausted. Dark circles beneath violet eyes. Jaw set with determination that makes my chest ache.
Kieran stands in the center, golden eyes landing on all of us with ancient weariness. The sanctuary magic clings to him, making the air shimmer.
Darian kneels at the clearing’s edge. Bound. Ashen. Still somehow managing to look composed.
His storm-gray eyes find Kaia immediately.
Cold bites through my veins before I can stop it.
“Tell me,” Kieran says.
No one speaks.
“I found him kneeling at her feet,” I say finally.
Kieran’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Did he threaten anyone?”
“No,” Kaia says. Her voice is steady but strained. “He confessed. Everything. Then waited for judgment.”
“Very noble,” Torric’s sarcasm could cut steel. “Doesn’t change what he did.”
“No,” Darian says quietly. “It doesn’t.”
Torric moves before anyone can stop him. Fire coils around his forearms as he crosses the clearing, stopping inches from Darian. Heat radiates in visible waves.
“Then give me one reason,” Torric growls, “why I shouldn’t burn you where you kneel.”
Darian doesn’t flinch. “I can’t.”
“Torric.” Kaia’s voice cracks like a whip.
He doesn’t move. Just stares at Darian with murder written across every line of his body.
“Don’t,” Kaia says.
That’s what makes him step back. Not Kieran’s authority. Not logic. Just that single word from her.
Bob shifts position, moving to stand between Kaia and Darian. Patricia’s notebook flares brighter. Even the newer shadows cluster closer to Kaia like they’re trying to protect her.
Kieran exhales slowly. “We need to decide—”
“No.” Kaia’s voice rings out, clear and certain. “You don’t get to decide this. None of you do—because he’s mine to deal with.”
The words land like stones in still water.
Kieran goes very, very still.
“Explain,” he says carefully.
“He’s mine.” Kaia’s hands curl into fists. “The bond isn’t just the five of you. It’s him too.”
The silence that follows could shatter mountains.
Kieran’s face drains of color as realization dawns. His eyes widen before he schools his expression.
“How?”
“When you forced the bonds, it wasn’t just you, Malrik, Finn, Torric, and me.” She glances at Darian, then back to Kieran. “It was him too.”
Understanding crashes through the clearing. The way Darian found us. The way he knew exactly where to look.
Kieran turns to face us—all of us. His expression shifts through shock, betrayal, fury, before settling on something that looks dangerously close to hurt.
“You all knew.”
It’s not a question.
Torric’s jaw tightens. Finn looks away. Malrik’s shadows deepen. And I meet his gaze steadily. “Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since she told us,” I say quietly. “After Callum cornered her at the lake.”
“And no one thought to tell me?” Power bleeds around the edges of his control. The ancient kind that reminds everyone why he’s called the Dragon of the Void.
“Would you have believed us?” Malrik’s voice cuts through the tension. “Or would you have assumed we were protecting our own interests?”
“I deserved to know.”
“So did she.” Finn steps forward, chaos magic sparking.
“So did all of us. Before you forced bonds that weren’t ready to form.
” He laughs without humor. “You trapped us all—not just her. Made decisions for people who should have had a choice. And now you’re angry because we kept one truth from you? That’s rich.”
Kieran’s hands flex. “I was protecting—”
“Yourself,” I interrupt quietly. “You were protecting yourself from knowing something that would force you to question whether you made the right call.”
His eyes snap to mine. For a moment, I think he might unleash the full weight of his power. Instead, he just looks tired.
“You should have told me,” he says again, softer.
“And you should have asked,” Torric shoots back. “Asked if we wanted these bonds. Asked if she was ready. Asked literally anything before you trapped us all in connections we can’t undo.”
Carl tumbles out of a nearby tree with a scroll clutched in his shadowy grip, landing in an undignified heap.
He scrambles up, salutes Bob with obvious pride, and presents his “intel” with earnest determination.
Bob takes one look at the blank parchment and his form visibly deflates with disappointment.
The absurdity of it cuts through some of the tension.
Kaia steps forward. Her shadows move with her—Bob at her right, Mouse at her left, Patricia hovering near her shoulder. The newer recruits form a protective semicircle behind her, their movements slightly off-sync but earnest.
“This isn’t about you, Kieran.” She looks around at all of us. “Or any of you. This is about him.” She gestures toward Darian without looking at him. “And what happens next is my decision. Not yours. Not theirs. Mine.”
“Kaia—”
“I’m not asking permission.” Her violet eyes blaze. “I’m telling you how this is going to work. He’s my bond. My problem. My choice.”
Kieran studies her for a long moment. Something shifts in his expression—resignation, maybe. Or respect.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
The finality in her voice ends the discussion.
Kieran nods once. Sharp. Then turns and walks away, ancient power trailing him like a cloak.
His absence leaves the air thin, like the world is waiting to exhale.
“Well,” Finn says into the silence. “That went great.”
I turn my attention to Darian. He’s been silent through the entire exchange, watching with carefully neutral expression except for the faint tremor in his bound hands.
“He followed the bond,” I say. “Straight to us.”
Kaia goes still.
“We can use that,” I add.
Cold spreads across the ground.
She meets my gaze. Understanding passes between us—gratitude, maybe. Or just acknowledgment that sometimes mercy needs an excuse.
“Fine,” Torric says finally. “But I’m burning him if he so much as looks at her wrong.”
“Get in line,” Finn adds.
Malrik’s shadows still. Then, quietly: “We’ll hold him.”
We fall in behind her. Nothing else matters.
Linda appears beside Bob, placing what looks like a shadowy hand on his shoulder—reminding him to stand down now that the crisis has passed.
Several of the newer shadows mirror the gesture with each other, as if they’re learning from her example.
Walter drifts upside down for a moment, inspecting Darian like a puzzle before bobbing away to investigate a nearby rock.
Kaia turns to face Darian fully for the first time. Her shadows shift with her, forming patterns I don’t fully understand. Bob positions himself protectively. Patricia’s notebook blazes brighter. Even Mouse’s violet eyes narrow with warning.
“You’ll stay bound,” she says quietly. “You’ll answer every question. And if you lie—” She doesn’t finish the threat. Doesn’t need to.
Darian’s voice is rough. “Whatever you need.”
“Good.” She takes a breath, steadying herself. “Because if you do, I’ll let them kill you. And I won’t stop them twice.”
The words settle like frost on stone.
Finn moves to her side immediately. Torric follows, heat signature blazing with protective fury. Malrik drifts closer, shadows intertwining with hers.
And I stay where I am. Watching. Letting the cold spread beneath my boots in patterns that mirror the ice in my veins.
Her choice. Always.
But if Darian so much as breathes wrong, I won’t ask permission again.
The blade will find his throat. This time, nothing will stop it.