Her gaze snapped up.
“Youanchorit,” he said softly. “Control implies ownership. Aether cannot be owned. It can only be balanced between the pull of power and the weight of restraint. That is why you survived. You had an anchor.”
“Thorne,” she said, the name catching in her throat.
Vaelen nodded. “Fire grounds chaos. His presence steadied the current long enough for it to bind, but the tether between you is volatile. If either of you denies it, it will tear you both apart.”
Thaelyn’s stomach turned. “Then how do I keep it from happening again?”
Vaelen stepped closer, his eyes like moonlight through glass. “By learning to breathe without borrowing his breath.”
He led her to the center of the chamber, where a circle of mirrored stone waited. “Sit,” he instructed.
She obeyed, legs folded, palms up.
“The first lesson,” he said, lowering himself across from her, “is to listen. The second is to survive what you hear.”
He pressed a hand to the floor. The runes flared, light spilling upward in a column that surrounded them both. Thaelyn felt it immediately, the vibration beneath her skin, the subtle hum in her bones.
“Close your eyes,” Vaelen murmured. “Find the noise beneath the silence.”
She obeyed. The world sharpened. Wind whispered through her veins. The floor breathed. Somewhere far above, thunder echoed faintly. And beneath it all, a second rhythm, slow, steady, foreign.
Thorne. The connection snapped taut. Heat seared her lungs. Images flickered in the dark: his silhouette against the firelight, the moment he struck her down, the flash in his eyes when the world shattered.
Her pulse spiked. “I can’t.”
“Youmust,” Vaelen’s voice cut through the rising panic. “Face it. Name it. Only what is named can be anchored.”
She drew a shuddering breath. “Rage.” The light surged. “Fear.” It dimmed. “Guilt.” It steadied.
“And beneath it?” Vaelen asked quietly.
She hesitated, the word forming unbidden. “Connection.”
The circle flared, brighter than before. The bond pulsed once, acknowledgment, and then retreated, leaving her gasping in the sudden stillness.
Vaelen’s expression was unreadable. “Good. You are beginning to listen.”
Thaelyn opened her eyes. “I don’t want to be bound to him.”
“Want has nothing to do with it,” Vaelen said. “Fate rarely asks for consent.”
He rose, extinguishing the runes with a sweep of his hand. “We will continue tomorrow and keep going until you learn to stand alone inside the storm.”
When he left, the chamber dimmed, leaving her surrounded by quiet luminescence. She pressed a hand over her heart, feeling the echo of another heartbeat that wasn’t hers fade to silence.
As she turned to leave, a faint tremor rippled through the floor, so softly that she might have imagined it. The candles flickered blue for an instant, whispering of something vast and watching beneath the academy’s foundation.
Vaelen’s voice drifted back from the hall: “Remember, Thaelyn. Power never appears without purpose. Something woke when you did. And it’s listening.”
Chapter
Nineteen
The dragon fields slept under a fractured moon. Mist drifted low across the grass, silver-edged, ghosting over the dark sprawl of the valley. Beyond the ridge, the mountain winds still carried the faint hum of magic, not the gentle whisper of elemental currents, but the pulse of something more profound. Restless. Watching.
Thorne sat alone at the edge of the field. His jacket lay discarded beside him, sweat still clinging to his skin despite the chill. He hadn’t slept since the Scorchfield. He doubted he could.
