I exchanged a brief, loaded glance with Lucas. If we told her the truth—that our families were part of a secret society dedicated to her eventual return—she would bolt. She’d see us as just another set of manipulators trying to use her for some secret agenda.
“The founding families of Imperium have always been... independent,” I said, choosing my words with extreme caution. “We prioritize the preservation of our true history over the Assembly’s curriculum. When the Assembly ordered the destruction of Aelari tech to ‘prevent further bane attraction,’ our ancestors simply hid the most vital pieces. We believe knowing where we came from is the only way to understand our magic.”
“They’re a bunch of control freaks,” Rowan added, crossing his arms. “Easier to control a population if they don’t know the true extent of their own power.”
Jupiter nodded slowly, her eyes drifting back up to the planet at the center of the projection. Ophiuchus. Her home. I felt a sudden, heavy shift in the atmospheric pressure of the room. Her magic was spiking.
It wasn’t intentional. I could tell by the relaxed slope of her shoulders. But the ambient energy in the archive was growing denser by the second. The tomes on the nearby shelves began to rattle faintly against their wooden confines. The air tasted metallic. We could all feel it radiating from her like a bloody tidal wave of cosmic power that she didn’t even realize she was projecting. It was intoxicating, and mildly terrifying.
“Let’s look at a few more things before we have to head to class,” Jamie suggested, stepping slightly closer to her. His Pisces magic was likely getting overwhelmed by her emotional resonance.
I reached out and carefully tapped the base of the astrolabe. The holographic projection collapsed instantly, folding back into the dark metal with a soft hum. Jupiter blinked, as if waking from a trance, and the heavy pressure in the room immediately dissipated, making my ears pop.
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “Sorry. I just... got lost in it for a second.”
I touched her arm lightly. “Nothing to be sorry for, love.”
We moved deeper into the archives. Over the next forty-five minutes, we showed her a few smaller, less prophetic relics. A Gemini cipher-ring that spun on its own axis when she drew near it. An Aries sun-stone that glowed with a heatless, eternal flame. With every artifact she interacted with, her magic pulsed, eager and hungry for the connection to her ancestral past. We collected a few heavy, leather-bound books on spatial theory and early Aelari defensive wards for her to read later, packing them carefully into her satchel.
“Alright,” Lucas said, checking his watch. “Phoenix, Jamie, and I need to report to advanced elemental theory. Theo, Rowan, you’re with Jupiter for combat training.”
“Dungeons today,” Rowan groaned, stretching his massive arms. “Brilliant. I love the smell of rotting darkmatter-flesh in the morning.”
Jupiter stiffened. It was a minuscule reaction, just a sudden rigidity in her spine, but I caught it. Noodle, who was draped around her neck, let out a low, unhappy hiss.
“We’ll see you at lunch, Jupiter,” Lucas said, his fingers lightly brushing her shoulder. “Have a good session.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, though her voice lacked its usual bite.
We parted ways at the main stairwell. While the others headed up toward the sunlit towers of the academy, Rowan, Jupiter, and I began the long descent into the sub-levels.
Imperium’s combat dungeons were located three levels below, heavily warded and lined with thick lead and silver to prevent any magical bleed-out. The air grew colder and damper with every step, smelling faintly of sulfur.
As we walked down the dimly lit stone corridors, Jupiter grew increasingly more quiet and lost in her own world. Normally, she was talkative, asking endless questions or chatting with Noodle, but right now, she was pale. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her jacket, and she was chewing on her lower lip.
“You alright, love?” Rowan asked, bumping his shoulder gently against hers. “You look like you’re marching to the gallows. It’s just a few Class Two scavengers today. Target practice, really.”
“I know,” she said quickly.Tooquickly. “I’ve fought plenty of bane before. Bigger ones than whatever they have locked up down here.”
“She took down a Class Five,” I reminded Rowan, keeping my eyes on Jupiter’s tense profile. “A few scavengers are beneath her pay grade.”
“Exactly,” she said, offering a tight, unconvincing smile.
But as we approached the entrance to the combat arena, the distant, guttural chittering of the captured bane echoed down the hallway. Jupiter stopped dead in her tracks. Her breath hitched, and her eyes went wide. Noodle tightened his coil around her neck, hissing aggressively now.
“Jupiter, look at me.” She blinked, her gaze snapping to my face. Her chest was rising and falling too fast. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. You’re shaking.”
She looked away, ashamed, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “It’s stupid. I’m being stupid. I’m the Ophis, I’m supposed to be fearless.”
“Nobody’s fearless, silly girl,” Rowan said. “Talk to us.”
Jupiter let out a ragged breath, leaning back against the cold stone wall of the corridor. “The last time I had to fight a captured bane... it was in the caverns at Dominion. It was supposed to be a controlled training exercise. But it wasn’t.”
“What happened?”
“The Assembly officials—Director Orion, Director Waverly and some of the council—they set it up I’m pretty sure. They wanted to force a bond between me and the Nightfall Shield. I can’t prove it, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I believe they rigged the containment wards in the caverns to fail. A Class Four bane got loose while we were in there. It cornered us.”
Rowan let out a vicious string of curses under his breath. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. Putting students in an arena and deliberately dropping the wards was beyond negligent; it was attempted murder.
