Chapter 12 #3
Luna nodded quickly. “Agreed.” We slipped out the large wooden doors; footsteps soft against the stone floor as we made our way back to the dorms. But even as I clutched the books tightly to my chest, I wasn’t sure if I was hoping to find a solution out of the bond…or an excuse to stop fighting it.
“Ryn, time to get up,” Gia whispered, gently shaking my shoulder. I startled upright. The golden light of dawn was beginning to spill through the window.
“Shit,” I muttered, glancing around and realizing I had fallen asleep in the chair again, still clutching the book I’d been reading.
The cover was creased, my notes half-finished.
I scrambled to my feet, shoving my hair down flat and pulling on my brown leathers.
My limbs ached from yesterday’s training, but there was no time to care.
“Thanks, Gia. See you at breakfast!” I called over my shoulder as I bolted out the door.
I took the stairs two by two, heart pounding, pushing through the dull burn in my thighs, until I caught my foot on the final step.
Landing hard on my knees, a sharp gasp escaping as pain shot up into my ribs.
“Fuck,” I hissed, gritting my teeth. A shadow loomed over me. Of course. Aiden.
He stepped beside me, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, Ruin?”
“Oh, just… praying,” I reply, voice tight with sarcasm.
He arched his brow. “Do you always have to be sarcastic?”
“Do you always have to ask stupid questions?” I forced myself to stand, ignoring the pain searing through my knees. Aiden’s gaze lingered on me with that same sharp intensity.
“We’re late. Let’s go.” Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed my arm, and shadows enveloped us, cool and weightless, as he pulled us through them and onto the training field. Professor Firebeard stood ready, arms crossed. His expression was unreadable, but I could tell he wasn’t thrilled.
“You’re late, Yarrows,” he stated, tone flat but firm.
“Sorry. I… went to bed late,” I muttered, guilt pooling in my stomach. I tucked wind-whipped hair behind my ears and tried to braid it quickly under his sharp stare.
“Don’t let it happen again,” he instructed. “Now let’s begin.” The obstacle course rose from the ground once more. And just like yesterday, Aiden sprinted ahead without a backward glance. He let me fall twice. Didn’t even help me up once.
“Come on, Ruin,” he called over his shoulder, voice thick with mockery.
“Do try to keep up.” He sounded like he was calling a dog.
My blood boiled. I picked up a small rock and hurled it straight at him.
It smacked him square between the shoulder blades.
He spun around, eyes ablaze. I smiled. Swinging over the gap, landing hard on the platform beside him, glaring through my mud-streaked hair and armor.
“You’re supposed to be helping me, not letting me fall,” I snapped, arms crossed tight across my chest.
“Maybe I’d help you,” he said, voice clipped, “if you learned to help yourself first.”
“Maybe I’d help you if you learned to help yourself first,” I mimicked, using my hand like a talking puppet. That did it. The shadows around us shifted. Thickened. We were suddenly wrapped in darkness, a heavy, clinging veil. I swallowed hard, heart thundering.
“Careful, Ruin,” Aiden warned, stepping toward me, so close his breath hit my cheek, his towering form looming in the dimness.
“Why?” I taunted, chin lifting. “What are you gonna do?” In one swift motion, his hand shot out and clamped around my throat. I gasped.
“Do not push me,” he growled, voice low and dangerous. His grip tightened just enough to make it hard to breathe, his thumb brushing over the pulse at my neck. His eyes dropped to my parted lips. And for a split second, I saw something else flash in his gaze.
Desire.
It vanished as quickly as it came, masked behind rage. With a low sound in his throat, he released me. The shadows peeled away, and then he was gone. I stood there alone, chest rising and falling fast, skin still tingling where his fingers had been. What the actual hell was that?
“How’s training with Aiden going?” Gia asked, walking beside me as we made our way across the courtyard toward Strategic Decisions class.
I let out a defeated sigh. “Well… not great,” I muttered. “You know, who would’ve thought trying to work with your enemy would be so difficult?” I added sarcastically, earning a laugh from Gia.
We entered the classroom and took our usual seats.
Students murmured around us as Professor Wicken flipped through her notes at the front of the room.
That’s when I noticed him. A student I did not recognize.
And that was saying something after weeks here, even if I didn’t know everyone, I’d at least seen their faces.
But this guy? No. Something about him seemed off.
Like the shadows clung to him differently than everyone else.
His leather uniform bore the patch of Hera’s unit, but even that didn’t sit right.
“Gia,” I whispered, leaning closer. “Do you see that cadet over there?” I subtly nodded in his direction.
She glanced up, following my gaze. “Yeah, why?”
“Do you remember seeing him before?”
Gia blinked at me before looking again. “No, but then again I haven’t really been paying attention to a lot of faces,” she replied with a shrug, turning her gaze back to the front.
But I couldn’t look away. The guy sat with perfect posture; hands folded neatly in front of him.
Too neat. Too still. His shoulder-length black hair fell in smooth, deliberate strands around a face carved in sharp, unforgiving angles; high cheekbones, a blade-straight nose, a jaw cut with almost surgical precision.
His skin was pale, nearly translucent beneath the light filtering through the windows, as if the sun passed over him without ever truly touching him. He was handsome. Unsettlingly so.
Not in a warm, human way, but in the way statues were beautiful.
Too symmetrical. Too controlled. As though he’d been sculpted rather than born.
His body was solid, like someone used to training, but it was his eyes that chilled me.
Black. Not dark brown. Not shadowed. Black.
Like voids. Like pits with no bottom. They didn’t reflect light. They swallowed it. Our gazes met.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
Slow. Purposeful. I narrowed my gaze, but he only smiled wider…
and turned back to Professor Wicken, as if the moment hadn’t even happened.
Something about him screamed danger. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.
And that unsettling feeling stayed rooted in my chest like ice spreading through my ribs. Who the hell was he?
“Yarrows, can you answer the question?” I tore my gaze away at the sound of Professor Wicken’s voice.
“Sorry, what?” I asked, furrowing my brows. A few kids laughed or snickered at my confusion
“I asked what you’d do if your Southern Encampment fell,” Wicken said, tone sharp, eyes scanning the room as if she already knew no one had the guts to answer her.
“Would you send reinforcements? Call it a loss? Or try to save it?” I couldn’t think.
Not with him looking at me like that. That cadet, dark-eyed, unreadable, had completely thrown me off.
He lounged back as though this was all some game, one he was already winning.
“I—” The word stuck, brittle and hollow.
He raised a brow, amused. Waiting. I forced myself to meet his gaze.
“I would try to save it,” I stated, this time with steel in my voice.
His smirk faded. “First, I’d raise protection spells to block enemy reinforcements.
Seal the breach. Then I’d call for my own and send them in hard and fast.” I leaned forward slightly, my pulse racing.
“And I would give one order: no mercy shown to the enemy. None.” Silence fell for half a beat. Let him chew on that.
“Very interesting, cadet Yarrows, you’re taking the strong approach, does anyone else want to answer that question?
” Professor Wicken asks when that cadet raises his hand.
“Oh yes, cadet Erebus, go ahead,” he leaned forward now, hands folded as if this were a casual debate and not war strategy.
He spoke and his voice was smooth—too smooth.
“I wouldn’t save it,” he replies, a few heads turned. Even Wicken’s brow twitched. “I’d let it fall,” Erebus continued, unfazed. “Burn it down myself if I had to. A weakened post is a liability, better to cut it loose than waste resources trying to salvage what’s already broken.”
I stared at him. Something about the way he said it was so calm, so calculated, sent a chill down my spine.
Even Gia fidgeted next to me at his answer.
He smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it.
“Besides, once the enemy thinks you’ve abandoned it, they relax.
That’s when you strike somewhere else, somewhere that matters more. ”
The room was quiet now. Too quiet. Wicken’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. It seemed she was even unsettled by his answer. And Erebus? He leaned back again like he hadn’t just dropped a live blade in the middle of the table. What the fuck was wrong with that guy?