Chapter Forty-Three #2
“Thorn!” Talen’s voice slices through the alley as he skids into view—breath sharp, eyes scanning fast. His gaze flicks from me to Kael, to the blade at the cadet’s throat, then back to me.
For a second, he doesn’t move. I don’t either—but my magic’s ready, coiled under my skin, Threads fully drawn now, wound and waiting. One wrong move and Kael’s going down hard.
Talen sees it. Sees me—not panicked, not flinching. Just, holding. “I’ve got him, but three more of them ran toward the outpost after the other cadet.”
He hesitates. Just a beat. I flick him a look. Go. He does.
In front of me, Kael shifts, dragging the cadet half a step back, blade still pressed tight.
“I’m not teaching you,” I say, voice flat, every word weighted. “People like you don’t deserve that kind of power.”
“Oh, and you do?” he spits, eyes flicking toward the Innerlands. “Just because you wear their colours now?”
I don’t answer, just hold my ground, magic ready.
He shrugs, casual, like we’re just bartering over bread. “Too bad, I guess there’s no use for this one anymore.”
“Don’t,” I warn, one last time, muscle tensing, hands shifting at my sides. “Don’t make me do this.”
And for a second, I want to believe he’ll listen. That he’ll step back. That this doesn’t have to end the way it’s clearly about to.
If I wait, this cadet dies. If I strike, I kill one of my own, an Outerlander. But Kael didn’t come for a warning. He came for blood.
So when he moves, elbow snapping, blade shifting—
I don’t hesitate.
The air cracks as my hands lift. My Threads whip forward—blazing, fast—dragging the wind with them in a sudden rush before slamming into his chest like a hammer blow.
Kael jerks—body twisting, breath torn from him in one wet, ragged sound—
Then drops.
Hard. Lifeless.
The cadet stumbles free with a cry, scrambling away from the body.
But I stay frozen.
My hands are still raised, power still coiled beneath my skin, every part of me braced to strike again. But it’s done. I did that. It was clean. Quick, final, easy. Too easy.
I lower my hands.
But I don’t get the chance to breathe, to process—
A cry erupts behind me.
Talen.
I sprint toward the outpost—
Boots slamming into hard-packed earth, lungs burning, Threads still sparking hot beneath my skin.
Then I stop dead in my tracks.
Talen stands alone in the clearing outside the building. One arm raised. Palm tilted to the sky, still as stone. No shouting. No strain, just complete, terrifying control.
Three men hang in front of him, suspended midair like insects caught in glass. Their eyes wide, white-ringed, and unblinking.
And he’s not even breaking a sweat.
One of them spots me.
“You traitorous bitch,” he spits. “Bet you spread your legs for the whole Citadel in exchange for learning your magic.”
Talen blinks. Just once. Then cocks his head, “Oh,” he taunts, voice level. “You really shouldn’t have said that.”
And then—
The air shatters.
Not with sound. With heat.
It doesn’t build. Doesn’t crackle. It just is. Fire, everywhere—blazing to life in an instant, no spark, no source. It bleeds from the space around Talen, threads of flame coiling from nowhere. No fuel. No trigger. Just raw power.
The three men don’t even get a chance to scream.
Talen twists his hand—and the fire obeys.
It licks forward in thin, blazing cords, alive with heat and hunger, twisting mid-air before snapping around their bodies like nooses.
Then he clenches his fist, and the ropes squeeze.
Bone cracks. Flesh sears. And in a blink, their whole bodies collapse in on themselves like paper pulled through a furnace.
One second there. The next—ash.
I stare.
My heart pounds hard, ribs too tight to contain it. I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
Because I’ve never seen that much power before.
Smoke rises around him—thin, curling streams that glow faint at the edges, like metal just starting to cool. His Threads are still visible, flickering around his arms, faint but steady, like the magic hasn’t finished working its way out.
Then he drops his hand and just like that, it’s gone. The heat. The smoke. The weight of what he did. Everything folds back into silence, like the world takes a breath and resets around him, like none of it ever happened.
He turns, eyes find mine. And god, he’s just standing there. Breathing. Calm.
And I realise something in that moment: He’s always had this in him. All of it. And not once has he used it on me. That shouldn’t make me feel safe, but it does.
He watches me for another second. Then—
“You okay?” His voice is soft and in complete contrast to what he just did.
I hesitate but nod. I’m shaken. Strung tight, heart still hammering too fast to count. But yeah, I’m okay.
I let a slow exhale, then turn, and something shiny catches my eye.
I glance down—Talen’s dropped one of his blades.
I grab it, he gives a quick nod, telling me to toss it over.
Mistake, my hands are still shaking, and the blade goes wide, clipping his side.
Not deep. Paper cut at worst, but still enough to make him flinch.
“Fuck, Thorn,” he jokes. “You trying to kill me now? I thought we’re on the same side.”
“Sorry, I was—”
He lets out a breath, half a laugh, shakes his head. “Come on. Long fucking day. Let’s get inside.”
Turns out Talen had a spare key to the outpost this whole time. He unlocks the door and steps inside without a word. We follow, boots dragging, silence stretching between us.
The first door off the corridor creaks open beneath his hand, and the two cadets don’t even hesitate. They look half-dead—sun nearly down, nerves fried—and the second they see the bunk inside, they head straight in and drop.
The room’s barely big enough for the two of them. One bunk bed, no space to move without elbowing the other.
Yeah. I’m not sleeping in here.
Talen glances back, meets my eyes. He doesn’t explain, just gives a small nod, this way, then turns and keeps walking.
I follow. I don’t need much, just a door, a bed. Somewhere to process everything that just happened without having to talk to anyone about it.
Talen stops in front of the second door at the end of the hall.
He opens it, and I freeze in the threshold.
A wide four-poster bed takes up most of the space, its quilt thick and dark, pillows stacked in neat rows at the head. A dresser sits opposite, and at the back—an actual private bathing chamber.
What the fuck, this isn’t a cadet's room. My brows lift before I can stop them.
Talen shifts, glancing over just long enough to catch the look on my face. He exhales through his nose, already bracing like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Union Clause,” he says flatly.
I blink. “What?”
“They assign partners in a Union Clause a shared room on overnight patrols,” he adds with a not-quite-apologetic shrug. “As I’m the officer in charge and you’re my partner, you got upgraded.”
“You didn’t think to mention this before we got here?”
“I didn’t know.” He hesitates. “Or I forgot.”
My laugh comes easy. “Convenient.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take the floor.” He says it quickly, like it might fix something.
Sharing a room with Talen? Yeah, not sure that’s a great idea.
A week ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance to trap him overnight. But now? Now that I’ve admitted I trust him—want him, in ways that feel bigger than I’m ready for—I’m not so sure. Because handing him the knife? Fully, honestly? I’m not there yet, I don’t even know what there means.
But, fuck, what other option do I have?
I glance back down the corridor. The other room had one small bunk and barely enough floor space to stand, let alone lie down.
And this bed… God, I’ve never seen anything like it.
And Talen made his boundaries crystal clear.
He’s barely said a word to me all day—obviously still pissed.
He told me to stop. I didn’t. Six weeks of pushing, and now he won’t even look at me. Fair.
“Fine.” I say, stepping inside and dropping my pack by the door.
Talen follows, closing the door behind him, then nods toward the bathing area, separated from the main room by a thin curtain, half drawn. “You go first. The bath’s ready for you.”
I step past the curtain, and stop. The tub’s massive, carved stone sunk into the floor, filled nearly to the brim. Steam curls off the surface.
“How is it already full?”
“I ran it for you.”
I blink. “When?”
“Earlier.”
I turn back toward him, brows raised. “While you were holding three grown men in the air, you used your magic to run me a bath?”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Figured you’d want one.” A beat. Then: “Was I wrong?”
“No, I just…”
I don’t even know. It’s either the strangest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Or the sweetest. And I don’t have the bandwidth to untangle which one it is.
So I just say, “Thank you. But… why? I thought you were mad at me. For, well… the last seven weeks or so. Since the ball.”
He pauses, arms folding across his chest as he leans back against the wall, one brow lifting.
“Yes, well… I didn’t exactly appreciate your methods of trying to break me, especially while I was teaching.
” A crooked grin tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“But I was impressed with how far your magic has come.” For a second, it almost sounds sincere, then he adds, “And really, I can’t blame you for wanting more of this. ”
He glances down, runs a slow look over himself, like he’s doing me a favour just standing there.
I huff out a laugh and roll my eyes, already turning toward the bathing chamber—because yeah, I want more of that, but I’m done playing games.
I draw the curtain shut behind me and start undressing. It’s stupid—he’s seen me naked before—but the thin fabric between us makes me feel weirdly exposed. Too real. Too close, so I step into the water and sink down fast, letting the heat swallow me whole.