Chapter 11 – A House Without Doors

The closer they grew, the more the academy tried to shut them out.

The invitation came three days after the tribunal.

A letter, scented with cold iron and pressed with the seal of House Nightshade. The envelope bore no name. Just a time, a location, and a single word written in calligraphy so precise it felt like a blade:

Come.

Kael read it in silence.

Then he tore the seal and slipped the contents into the pocket of his coat.

Lira leaned back in the desk chair, legs tucked under her, a half-eaten apple in her palm. "Let me guess. They're either going to disown you or ask you to kill me. Possibly both."

Kael didn't answer.

Which was exactly the answer she expected.

He didn't tell her where he was going.

He didn't ask if she wanted him to stay.

He simply adjusted the cuffs of his jacket, crossed the room, and paused at the door.

His back was to her when he spoke. "If I don't come back in an hour, follow the pendant."

Lira frowned. "What?"

But he was already gone.

She waited forty-eight minutes before she panicked.

Not visibly. Not out loud. But her bones knew. Her pulse did. Something under her skin itched—deep, primal, like an old scar being rewritten. The bond was still intact. That much she could feel. But Kael's presence had gone… silent.

Not distant.

Muted.

She yanked the pendant Veylan had given her from the drawer and pressed her thumb into the center. It flared once with cold light.

Then it pulled.

Northwest. Down the old stairwell. Toward the archive halls that had been condemned a century ago after a miscast spell had nearly burned through the foundation of the Seer Wing.

She hesitated for half a breath.

Then grabbed her cloak and followed.

The stairs beneath the academy changed the deeper she went. Stone turned to something more ancient, less shaped by tools than by intention. The torches along the walls flickered weakly, as if reluctant to light the path.

The pendant tugged stronger.

Downward.

Down a hall sealed by rusted iron. She pressed her palm to the sigil etched into the lock and whispered the word Kael had taught her weeks ago in passing:

Solvere.

The metal shrieked and cracked.

The door opened.

She stepped into a room with no light.

And felt everything.

Pain.

Pressure.

Fear.

The bond screamed.

Kael.

She ran.

He was on the floor at the center of a shattered ward circle, surrounded by flickering glyphs that pulsed with a sickly green light. A man in House Nightshade robes stood over him—young, elegant, his fingers outstretched, magic dripping from them like ink.

"Kael!" she shouted.

The man turned.

Not shocked.

Not startled.

Expecting her.

"Ah," he said. "The other half."

Kael tried to move, one arm trembling, but the magic in the room pinned him like a nail.

"Who the hell are you?" Lira demanded.

The man bowed slightly. "I am Alric Nightshade. His cousin."

"I don't care."

"You should," Alric said. "Because I am the heir now—at least, I will be when Kael is discredited, declared unstable, and quietly removed from the line of inheritance. And you… you're my leverage."

Lira stepped closer. "This is your plan? Stage a coup with a forbidden ritual and a hostage who can blast through walls?"

Alric smiled. "You misunderstand."

He raised a hand.

And pain ripped through the bond like fire through silk.

Kael screamed.

Lira dropped to her knees, clutching her chest. Her mark seared white-hot, the pain radiating through every nerve.

"I've been studying you," Alric said calmly. "Your bond. Your mark. Your resonance levels. They're unstable—beautiful, but unsustainable. If I can sever the bond here, now, while he's suppressed, I'll be a hero. And you'll be free."

She looked up, teeth clenched. "I don't want to be free."

"Everyone wants to be free," he said.

"No," she said, rising slowly, her skin glowing.

"I want to be whole."

She reached into her coat.

And threw the dagger Kael had given her—straight into the glyph anchoring the ward.

It shattered.

The magic exploded outward.

Kael gasped.

Alric stepped back, too slow.

Lira's light engulfed the room.

When the smoke cleared, Alric was unconscious, his casting hand burned, the lines of power along the floor twisted and broken.

Kael was slumped against the wall, one arm cradling his side, blood soaking the edge of his shirt.

Lira knelt beside him.

"You took your time," he rasped.

"Try getting jumped by your cousin sometime."

Kael's breath hitched. A laugh. Painful. Real.

Lira helped him up.

They didn't speak on the walk back to their suite.

But her hand never left his.

And when they crossed the threshold of their room, the bond flared again.

Line eleven.

Complete.

The twelfth… waiting.