Chapter 8 – Veiled Threats

The bond could be broken. But not by them.

Lira was being watched.

At first, it was just a feeling—subtle, a pressure at the edge of her awareness, like eyes brushing her skin from behind. But over the next few days, the tension wrapped tighter. Students paused mid-conversation when she passed. Instructors stared too long during drills. Conversations stopped when she entered rooms that had once just ignored her.

No one said her name out loud.

But they all knew it now.

Not Lira Valerius—the polished noble lie she wore like second skin—but the girl from the Rite. The commoner who somehow Bonded Kael Nightshade. The problem that couldn't be explained, unlinked, or erased.

Even Kael noticed.

He didn't ask, not directly. But he adjusted his routines without a word—walked closer to her in the halls, timed his training matches to start after hers so they could leave together. When two Bloodcraft students lingered outside their shared room too long, he stepped into the hallway with a single command:

"Leave."

And they did.

Three days after her duel with Talia, she found it.

A folded note under her pillow.

Unmarked. Unsealed. Thin parchment, smooth and freshly inked.

Four words:

Unbind. Or die slowly.

No signature. No crest. No House seal.

She read it once. Then again. Then sat perfectly still for a full minute, letting the tension settle into her limbs.

Kael entered the room before she could move.

He paused halfway through removing his gloves, his eyes flicking from the note to her face.

"What is it?"

She held it up silently.

He crossed the room in two strides, took it from her, and read it.

Nothing in his expression changed.

Then, without comment, he tore the paper once.

Then again. And again. Until it was shredded into a dozen jagged pieces.

He tossed them into the small hearth and muttered a word under his breath. The parchment burst into flame.

She didn't thank him.

And he didn't speak until he turned to face her again.

"They're escalating."

"You think it's the Thorn?" she asked.

"Not yet," Kael said. "This feels more… personal."

Lira narrowed her eyes. "Someone jealous, maybe. Someone noble. Someone promised to you."

He didn't confirm it. But his silence said enough.

That night, she didn't sleep.

Not really.

She lay still in bed, eyes open, watching the glow of the binding sigil etched into the far wall slowly fade as the midnight hour passed. Across the room, Kael's breathing stayed steady. But she could feel him awake—tension humming across the bond like a string pulled tight.

They were unraveling. Both of them. Slowly. Silently.

Bound together. Surrounded.

Untrusted.

Unwanted.

The next morning, their schedule changed.

No drills. No sparring.

Just a summons.

A silent message sealed with a sigil neither of them recognized: an eight-pointed star, encircled in thorns.

Kael looked at it for a long time.

Then said, "Master Veylan."

His study was not part of the main campus. It lay at the edge of the observatory towers—old, crumbling structures built long before the academy's current reign, before the Houses had carved power into bloodlines. The halls there were colder. Quieter. Less touched by enchantment.

When they arrived, the door opened for them without a knock.

"Enter," Veylan called.

They stepped into a chamber lit only by floating lanterns and the faint gleam of rain streaking down tall windows. The scent of ink and old magic filled the air—something earthy and metallic, like scorched roots.

Veylan stood beside a long table piled with scrolls and crystal lenses. He didn't look at them.

"I assume you've received your first threat."

Lira nodded once.

Kael said, "We don't know who sent it."

"You will," Veylan said. "Soon. They always step into the light, eventually."

He turned, holding a thin scroll sealed with red wax.

"I'm not here to discuss warnings. I'm here to talk about the bond."

Kael's posture stiffened. "We already know it's unstable."

"You know less than you think."

Veylan unrolled the scroll and turned it so they could see.

It wasn't text.

It was a drawing.

A crest—hand-sketched, partially faded.

A circle, broken by a spiral of thorns. A mark nearly identical to the one on Lira's skin.

"I found this in the Eryndral vaults," Veylan said. "Before the Headmaster sealed them. Before the Thorn began erasing records again."

Lira stepped forward slowly.

"That's my mark."

"It's part of it," Veylan corrected. "But not all. The original had twelve lines. Yours only has nine."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the bond is incomplete."

Kael moved closer, eyes scanning the sketch. "What happens when it finishes?"

Veylan looked at them both.

And said, quietly, "You stop being two people."

Lira's stomach turned. "That's not possible."

"It wasn't," Veylan said. "Until now."

Later, she sat alone in the library.

Not the Grand Library. That was too visible now, too heavily monitored.

This one was tucked behind the Spiritcaller dorms—old, unmaintained, forgotten. She had found it two nights ago while looking for a shortcut. It smelled of dust and neglected spellbooks.

She sat on the floor with her knees drawn up, the half-finished crest Veylan had shown her burned into her memory.

Nine lines.

Twelve in total.

Three missing.

What happens when they're complete?

Would she still be herself?

Or would she become something else—someone else?

She didn't notice Kael until he sat beside her, one knee drawn up, the other arm slung loosely over it.

"You're hiding," he said.

She didn't deny it.

"They'll come for you again," he added.

"I know."

A pause.

Then, quieter: "Do you care?"

Lira turned to look at him.

"I care that I don't know who I am. That I might not stay who I am. That this thing inside me—this mark—was never meant to be reborn, and it chose me anyway."

Kael was quiet for a long time.

Then he held out his hand.

Palm up. Empty.

"I won't let them finish it."

She stared at him. At the hand. At what it meant.

Not affection. Not comfort.

A vow.

A promise to interfere with fate itself.

She placed her hand in his.

And the mark on her chest burned like fire.

That night, the dreams returned.

She stood in the same courtyard as before, but this time, the sky was red with ash. Kael stood beside her—older, bloodied, hands shaking.

Across from them stood a circle of figures in House colors, masked and silent.

One of them spoke:

"If you do this, you'll undo the balance."

"We are the balance," Kael said.

"Then you'll both fall."

The ground cracked.

Lira screamed—

And woke to the sound of shattering glass.

In the real world.

It

Kael was already out of bed, sword in hand.

Their window had been broken.

A single rose lay on the sill.

A black one.

Burnt at the edges.