The words cracked my chest open to something tender and raw, terrifying in its truth.
Forever.
I’d never dared to dream that big. Never believed I was allowed to. But with her…it didn’t feel like a promise to fear. It felt like home.
My arms tightened around her, protective and sure, and I pressed a slow kiss to the top of her head, letting it linger there.
“I’m realizing,” I said softly, “that even forever doesn’t sound like long enough, Darling.”
She exhaled a shaky breath as she curled tighter into me, and I held her like she was my entire world.
Because she was.
12
KIERAN
Afternoon sunlight spilledthrough the glass ceiling of the Placement Hall, washing the training yard in gold.
After nearly two days of training, the strangeness of being back here had started to fade. The room still carried memories of failure and loss, a reminder of what had nearly broken me. Now, standing here again, it finally felt like something we could claim as our own—a space steady enough to focus on what came next.
Noah sat off to the side, a small fortress of open books surrounding him, ink smudged across his fingers. He’d moved his work from the archives to here, apologizing that he’d gotten lost in research the day before and promising to stay nearby in case anything useful turned up.
I stood near the left edge of the room, stretching my legs and shaking the stiffness from my limbs before we started again. A few feet away, Steele examined his rune blade, his concentration so intense the room felt charged. This morning I’d awoken determined to make today better, offering Steele words of positivity and support over coffee to ensure yesterday’s frustration stayed where it belonged. Ithoughtit had worked.
We’d been training for hours, testing rune combinations that refused to hold for more than a heartbeat. Steele had burnedthrough his patience, and though I tried to stay encouraging, my words only reached so far. He was a man allergic to failure, the kind who dissected every mistake until it bled clarity.
A sharp sting pulsed along the inside of my left wrist, a deep burn flickering just beneath the skin, where his last attempt had rebounded. I flexed my hand, willing it to fade. The ache was familiar, too much like those first days of trying to connect with the stars. Only now I had no real control–with Steele’s power taking the lead, I was just along for the ride.
I knew the others were frustrated, watching us struggle while there was nothing they could do to help. There wasn’t much they could do except offer support and observe. Right now, though, we were all on a short break between rounds of the intensive training we’d been doing.
Ronan claimed a patch of shade near the wall, summoning shadow creatures while Niz circled above in his smaller wyvern form, chasing them in lazy loops, still sore from losing an hour-long match against a shadow phoenix.
Unlike a normal phoenix, the shadow creature’s feathers didn’t blaze with ordinary fire. Its black plumage smoldered with low embers as it moved in quick, precise arcs. It conjured spheres of shadow-ash and blasts of white-hot flame to hurl at its enemies, and one of those struck Niz on the shoulder and sent him sprawling.
Though, to be fair, that loss was partly my fault. He’d looked over when a hiss of pain escaped me, his distraction giving the creature just enough of an opening to finish the match.
Gabe had been running different courses throughout the room most of the morning, sprinting across obstacles and forcing himself through the drills as if under fire. I had watched in between sessions with Steele as he vaulted over large distances and slammed through targets. Only now did he pause, leaning against one of the pillars to catch his breath, gazeflicking between Steele and me. Concern was etched in every line of his tense posture and pinched brow, his arms crossed tightly as if he was physically restraining himself from stepping in to help.
Across the yard, Bastian had taken to the higher platforms—the training equipment used for placement tests—moving through it with easy precision. He handled the obstacles with ease, using his magic to steady himself or rise on blood-forged platforms instead of his wings. It was hard not to be impressed.
That wasn’t all he’d been doing, though. He’d started shaping things from blood—not just weapons, but smaller, strange things. Minutes ago, he’d formed a heart in his palm, each beat pulsing in time with mine before he released it and let it splatter into nothing on the stone.
Who said romance was dead?
I had to admit, the wild edge that usually burned through him was quiet for once. Even the air around him felt steadier. His calmmight’vehad more to do with the latte I made this morning—specifically, the blood I’d stirred into it. A small experiment that was possibly going to become a daily habit.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the night before and the awareness it had carved between Bastian and me, burning and softening in equal measure. Afterward, we’d gone downstairs for a relaxing evening, the others already gathered around the kitchen island.
For a few rare hours, there had been nothing but laughter and easy conversation, the kind that made the world outside these walls feel distant. Later, when I finally drifted off, I’d woken to find his arm draped loosely around my waist, his breath slow and even against the back of my neck.
As if hearing my thoughts, Bastian floated down, black wings extended, from the two-story platform where he’d been training and sauntered over.
“How are you doing, Darling?” he asked, voice a low drawl. “Steele behaving himself?”
Steele shot him a look sharp enough to cut but didn’t bother with words.
“He’s doing his best,” I said, brushing my hand over Bastian’s chest. “How are you feeling? Still holding?”
