The following morning when the bond solidified was extremely quiet.
Elira had assumed the academy to be different in some manner—such as the world tilting and the heavens splitting apart to usher in the difference between Kael and herself. But not so. The sun still rose over the white-stone towers of Arcanis Academy, the banners still flapped in the air, and students still staggered about the courtyards yawning and cursing early classes.
And everything was different.
She could feel Kael, even behind the academy. A soft shape in the very back of her mind like a soothing thread with a soft tugging, reminding her that he was there, solid. Vigilant. Missing her, maybe. The idea made her breasts pound—and that irritated her.
"This is how people go crazy," she muttered to herself, arriving in Rune Theory class. "Thinking about boys in their own heads."
"Ahh," a cheerful voice piped at her elbow, "talking to yourself again. Just like I told you it would do. You are so predictable."
Elira glanced sideways to see Cerys Brightlace grinning up at her under a crown of silky white curls, her eyes sparkling with laughter.
"I'm not talking to myself," Elira said, sitting down beside her. "I'm. thinking."
"Sighing over how tall and broody and mysterious the Void Prince looks with no shirt on under moonlight?" Cerys goaded, dramatically exhaling. "If so, do go on."
Elira nearly choked on air. "Cerys!"
"I saw you two," Cerys declared, seemingly savoring the impact. "Last night. Training grounds. And unless that was some very deep magical therapy exercise, you two seemed. close."
Elira rubbed her temples. "It's not what it looked like."
"Then what was it?"
She halted. "A bond flare. We supported it."
Cerys opened and closed her eyes. "Is that possible?"
"No," growled Elira. "It seems not. But we did."
The second girl made a soft whistling noise. "Saints preserve us. You're frightening."
Professor Ghent suddenly stampeded into the lecture room then, robes whipping and hair afly, exclaiming on "offhand time runes" and " idiot apprentices." Elira winked at Cerys once, lastingly conspiratorial, and then faced ahead.
Elira's mind however was in no such direction.
As Ghent began to berate the old civilizations of elemental confluence and their flawed applications of sigil logic, she couldn't shake the feeling—that something was heading in her direction.
And not necessarily anything in mind.
Someone was watching her.
---
That afternoon, she found her hunch confirmed.
She was summoned.
Not by a professor. Not even Headmistress Veyla.
But by the Council's Inquisitor.
The message had been delivered in a faceless, silent raven. A single scroll attached to its leg with red ribbons. The seal: seven stars encircling a black eye.
Her blood ran cold.
The Hollow Hall. Third Tower. Sundown.
She arrived early, she just couldn't help herself. The Hollow Hall wasn't a name—it was a myth. A very ancient part of the academy, surrounded by walls since the War of the Riven Crest. Only the Council were allowed to enter. It wasn't shown on any maps.
The stone doorway loomed in front of her, covered in sigils that began to glow when she approached.
No guards. No torches. Just silence.
Bracing herself, she pushed open the door.
The room was enormous—larger than she'd imagined, domed and cathedral-like, with windows high above that admitted slanted golden light. Arched pillars rose upward, and the floor was made of a mosaic of shifting symbols that moved when she did.
At its center was a figure.
Tall, hooded in gray, with no face to be found—only a veil of smoke beneath the hood. A low, bone-deep voice emerged from it.
"Elira Thorne."
She swallowed. "Yes."
"You have been soul-bound to Kael Valen," it stated. "You have accessed volatile magic. You have survived a Void flare and wielded forbidden light. All of these are. abnormalities."
Elira didn't move. Didn't speak.
"You are either a miracle," the voice continued, "or a threat."
"I didn't ask for the bond," she said, slowly. "I didn't ask for any of it."
"No one ever asks for fate."
Another figure stepped out of the shadows—this one tall and thin, with eyes like cut glass. A woman. Her presence was terrifying in its stillness.
"The bond has stabilized," the woman said. "Our seers did not foresee this."
"Does that mean I'm not a threat?"
"It means," the smoky figure replied, "you are unpredictable. And unpredictability… is dangerous."
Elira could feel the tension building in the room. The way their eyes burrowed into her. They weren't just trying to intimidate her.
They were studying her.
And then the voice of the woman came again. "What do you know of the Aetherion bloodline?"
Elira froze in her tracks.
"Only that it's extinct," she said.
"Incorrect."
The air shifted. The mosaic under her feet throbbed, changing from runes and stars to a single symbol—a sun with eight points.
The same wound that had originally surfaced on her first burst.
"We consider you its last heir," said the woman in smoke. "And if this is the case. your role in this prophecy is only just beginning."
Elira spun around, dizzy. "What prophecy?"
The glass-eyed woman smiled faintly. "The one about the Bound Souls. Of Lightborn and of Voidwalker. Of the Reckoning."
"The what?
"You and Kael are not held together by accident," the voice whispered. "You are the fulcrum. Together, you could reshape the world."
"Or destroy it."
The words sounded like a death knell.
"We will be observing, Elira Thorne. Carefully. Tread carefully."
And with that, the room went black, and the stone door creaked open behind her.
The conference was over.
---
Elira couldn't remember walking back to her dorm, how she'd evaded the guards, or even when the sun had passed below the horizon. Her head spun with all she'd heard.
Aetherion. Lightborn. Fulcrum. Prophecy.
And Kael.
When she reached the staircase at the end of the dormitory, she paused.
He waited.
Positioned against the stone arch, arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed upon her.
"You went to the Hollow Hall," he said softly.
Elira nodded.
"They summoned me too," Kael said, stepping back from the wall.
She looked at him. "Did they mention the prophecy?"
He hesitated. "They said our bond could be used against us. As a weapon. Or a key. They're afraid of what we might unlock."
Elira took another step forward. "They said I might be of the Aetherion bloodline."
Kael's eyes darted away. "That explains the light."
"And they think we're the ones the prophecy is speaking of. Light and Void. Bound souls."
He stared at her face for a very, very long time.
"Do you think so?"
She wanted to say no.
But deep inside, something was telling her: You've always known you're destined for more.
"I think," she said, "that we don't have an option."
Kael wrapped his hand around hers, his fingers tangling with hers. Not a hug. Not a kiss.
Just touch. Real. Anchoring.
"Then we do it together."