Chapter Two #2
The halls ahead grew more opulent—wood paneling polished to a high gloss, floors covered in thick, plush carpeting that muffled her step, and gently pulsating magelights that illuminated plaques etched with names.
Morvaine. Ellesmere. Straton.
She knew them all. She'd been raised alongside many of them, or rather their children. They mingled at every society dinner, every gala where bloodlines mattered more than skill.
This was the legacy wing, she realized, reserved for families who'd sent tamers to Vallemont for generations, whose children were expected to follow in perfectly polished footsteps.
Her gaze moved from plaque to plaque, steps slowing when she found it. Allencourt. The list beneath stretched back hundreds of years. She found her Uncle Ormand's name, marked retired, and then her mother's—Katrinel Allencourt.
She reached out and brushed her fingers across the polished surface, as though touch might somehow bridge the distance between them, this woman whose legacy was easier to recall than her face, her laugh, or her smile.
Cassara let her hand drop and stepped back.
There was no time for sentimentality.
She moved on, paying little heed to the other plaques and their prestigious lists.
Around the next corner a heavy oak door stood slightly ajar. The scent of steeped tea and honeyed fruits drifted out, warm and inviting. Cassara glanced at the crest embossed in the brass handle, an older Vallemont emblem, reserved for patrons, donors, and the highborn few.
She crossed the threshold allowing the door to whisper shut behind her, sealing off the hum of the corridor.
Inside, the lounge was all polished opulence, arched windows casting morning light across velvet seating, tables of etched brass and darkwood arranged in intimate clusters.
Crystal trays glinted with stacked cakes, sugared fruits, and folded tea napkins that had probably never touched a spill.
A runework kettle purred softly at the center of the refreshment cart, steam rising in elegant curls.
Cassara shrugged off her coat and draped it over a velvet-backed chair in a partitioned alcove near the window. She poured herself a cup of tea, light amber, floral, not too strong, and let the warmth soak into her palms.
This, at least, was familiar. Highborn spaces always were. Controlled and curated, tasteful to the point of sterility.
She settled into the cushioned bench, stretching, her boots scuffing against the leg of the table. One of the attendants entered only long enough to replenish a platter of fruit and bow slightly before disappearing again.
Cassara took a sip of tea, letting it sit on her tongue before swallowing.
Her gaze drifted to the sky beyond the glass. The clouds were thinning now, sunlight streaking through in pale ribbons as the airship continued its ascent. Somewhere far below them, the Allencourt estate sat cloaked in silence. Her father would still be in his study.
She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t come to see her off, but the curtain had moved. She hadn’t imagined that.
For a second, her fingers stilled around the delicate handle of her cup. Maybe he had watched her go and he’d said nothing because anything less than a command felt like weakness, or because silence was easier than trying to name whatever fractured thing lay between them.
A familiar ache pressed behind her ribs.
Sentimental. She was being sentimental again.
Gods, she hated that.
She glanced across the table, searching for anything to distract from the heat building behind her eyes.
That’s when she saw the paper.
A copy of the Aerithian Dispatch lay folded beneath a tea tray, its edges curled from use. She tugged on the edge until she could read the headline printed across the top in bold lettering.
“Western Patrol Lost, Two Vallemont Graduates Among Dead.”
Cassara froze.
A drawing beneath it showed scorched earth and the charred remnants of a crest badge. The article mentioned a rise in corrupted beast attacks, another outpost under lock down, and unconfirmed leviathan sightings near the southern ridge where repairs were still underway from the last breach.
Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.
This.
This was the future waiting at the end of Vallemont. Not polished duels and prestige, this. Obliteration. She imagined herself in that uniform, holding her ground while the world burned behind her. And for the first time since boarding the ship, doubt curled cold around her ribs.
What if she had made a mistake?
No. She scowled at the thought, but it still dug in.
But still, what if her father hadn’t been entirely wrong?
Vallemont won’t make you better, Cassara. It’ll only show you how far you fall short.
The memory needled sharper now, like it wanted to see her flinch.
And yet… something in them caught. Not the warning, but the challenge buried beneath it. The fact that he expected her to fail. That he was already waiting to say I told you so.
Cassara’s hand clenched around her teacup. The sweetness had turned sour. She set it down too fast and the porcelain clicked sharply against the tray.
She wouldn’t prove him right.
She wouldn’t be another crest-badge buried in ash. Another girl remembered for what she could’ve become.
If this was what lay ahead, so be it.
She would meet it on her terms.
Turning away from the paper, her eyes landed on a painting hung just above the door, an oil rendering of one of the school’s founders astride a gleaming drake, flame trailing from its throat like a banner.
It reminded her of her mother’s flame-winged kestrel. It was said the fire it breathed was so hot it could carve stone mid-flight, that its cry alone could silence a battlefield.
Cassara remembered the stories and the way other tamers’ voices dropped reverent when they spoke of her mother. The Ember Songbird. The beast that followed her had been feared and worshiped in equal measure.
A slow exhale escaped her. Would she be able to catch a beast like that? What if she was paired with something docile or decorative? A status symbol and nothing more.
She didn’t want impressive, she didn’t want obedient, she wanted something real, something fierce and unruly.
She wanted a beast that would choose her not out of deference, but defiance.
Her forehead fell to rest against the window, her breath fogging the cool glass.
Every inch of her body ached from tension, her mind worn thin from holding itself too tightly.
She’d been up all night and it was finally catching up to her, but as much as she wanted to close her eyes, she didn’t let herself unwind, not fully.
The quiet, the tea, the soft flicker of magelight, it was all too clean, too composed.
Just like this place. Just like the role she was expected to play.
She didn’t hear the door open. Didn’t register the soft hush of steps behind her until a breath brushed her ear.
“That look on your face,” Julian murmured, his breath warm, amused, too close. “Should I hope you’re thinking of me… or worry that you’re not?”
Cassara startled. Not enough to let him see it, but enough that her body went rigid.
He was already sliding into the seat beside her, arm stretched along the backrest like he belonged there.
“Do you ever knock?”
“I prefer dramatic entrances,” he said, voice low. “Though I admit, I was hoping for something more welcoming. You looked almost wistful.”
“Must’ve been the tea, it’s too sweet,” she muttered, straightening.
“But not sweet enough to soften that scowl,” he teased. “Which is… very you.”
His eyes swept her face like he was trying to memorize it, soft in the corners, brow faintly drawn. Not the polished gaze he wore at public functions. This one was quieter, hungrier, almost tender.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said finally, his voice barely rose above the hush of the room. “I was worried…”
“I’ve been avoiding you. How did you find me?”
He tilted his head slightly. “You’re a highborn. I assumed you’d go where you belong.”
She stared at him for a long moment, unsure if it was a compliment or a challenge. Julian’s expression softened further, his voice dipping. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cassara said nothing, but her silence wasn’t cold, it was cautious.
She was watching him, measuring.
“I just didn’t like the way he looked at you, the way he spoke,” he continued. “Like he thought you were… available. Like he wanted to use you.”
Cassara’s brows lifted faintly and she turned to gaze out the window again. “So you decided to mark your territory without consulting me first?”
“I decided to remind him that you’re not some token for the loudest fool to chase.” He sighed. “I didn’t come to fight,” he continued, voice quiet now, gentler. “I just thought you might want… company.”
She turned toward him, slow and steady. “I don’t.”
He leaned forward slightly, his expression . “I came to apologize.”
“Mm. For starting a scene, or for assuming you speak for me in public?”
Her words didn’t hold the bite she wanted them to. She was tired and staying angry at Julian had never been easy.
He smiled, wry this time, almost sheepish. “A little of both.”
Cassara set her cup down with quiet precision. “Apology noted.”
“But not accepted.”
“You’ve known me long enough to know the difference.”
His eyes searched hers for a beat too long. “You’ve known me long enough to know I don’t give up that easily.”
He leaned forward then, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely, no longer performing, not outwardly. But there was calculation behind the ease, a tension to his stillness, like a thread pulled taut waiting to snap.
Julian’s voice was lower now, intimate in a way that curled beneath her skin. “You remember your birthday gala, don’t you?”
She remembered. The gardens at dusk. Stolen cordial in glass flutes. The taste of plum and summer heat, the way the lanterns caught in his hair, how he looked at her like she was something rare and untouchable.
Until he’d touched her anyway.