Ravenna - POV
The storm came without warning. One moment, we were training near the edge of the glade the next, the skies split and the snow came down like knives. Razor-sharp, blinding, and relentless. The winds howled loud enough to silence my thoughts. "Get inside!" Xandros barked, his voice like thunder. I couldn't see him anymore, only the faint outline of his cloak slicing through the storm. I ran. The wind clawed at my face. My skin burned. By the time we stumbled into the half-collapsed ruin we'd passed earlier, I couldn't feel my fingers. The door slammed shut behind us magic, not hands. I turned around, breath ragged, body shaking. Xandros didn't say a word. He just stared at me. Snow dripped from my cloak. My legs gave out and I hit the stone floor hard. "Tired?" he asked flatly. "No," I lied. He looked at me for too long. Then without a word, he knelt down, undid the clasp of his cloak, and threw it over my shoulders. It was warm. Too warm. My breath caught. It smelled like smoke and shadow and something ancient like worn pages and starlight. My heart betrayed me. It ached. "I'm not weak," I said, trying to shove it off. "I know," he replied, pressing it firmly around me. "But even weapons freeze." My eyes widened. "Did... you just call me a weapon?" His expression didn't change. "A dull one." I smiled despite myself. But when our eyes met truly met something shifted. His gaze lingered. His jaw clenched. My breath felt too loud in the stillness. "You're shaking," he said. "I'm fine." He moved closer. Too close. And suddenly I was aware of everything. The way his hair fell messily around his face. The faint scar beneath his right eye. The warmth of his body. I hated how much I wanted to lean into it. He raised a hand. For a moment, I thought he might touch my cheek. But instead, he said, "Sleep. The storm won't pass soon." He stood. Back to silence. Back to shadows. I curled under his cloak, pretending not to watch him as he stood sentinel by the door. But I saw it. Just once. The way his fingers twitched like he almost reached for me again. And maybe I dreamed it... But I thought I heard him whisper my name. "Ravenna..."
Xandros - POV
She's beautifully strong. Resilient in a way that makes my chest tighten. She awakens something in me I thought I buried beneath ash and ruin something raw, dangerous... human. When she trains, her eyes speak louder than her voice ever could. Defiance. Pain. Determination. She bleeds and keeps moving. She stumbles and bites back the scream. The way she speaks her incantations, low, sharp, laced with emotion, it's not just magic. It's art. It's war. It's her. And I'm obsessed with it. No. I'm obsessed with her. The way her lips tremble when she's on the brink of collapse but refuses to fall. The way she looks at me like I'm a mountain she intends to conquer. The way she smiles... gods, that smile. It's rare. Brief. But when it happens, the storm quiets. I thought I'd sealed that part of me shut the part that feels. But she cracks me open just by existing. She doesn't beg. She doesn't cower. She doesn't try to make me soft. And yet... every time she speaks, something in me bends. She's not just a student. She's a wildfire I can't look away from. Powerful. Unrelenting. And mine. ...No. No, not mine. Not yet. But I want her to be. Gods help me, I want her to be.
Ravenna - POV
The air was colder this morning. Not biting, not cruel just cold in that still, quiet way that made everything feel fragile. I wrapped his cloak tighter around my shoulders as I stirred the coals in the hearth, trying to summon a little warmth. Footsteps. His. I didn't turn. I didn't need to. I could feel him behind me. That familiar weight, that gravity he carried like a curse. He stood there in silence. Not watching, not glaring just... there. And that was somehow worse. I finally spoke, soft but steady. "You're up early." "I never slept." His voice was lower than usual, almost thoughtful. I turned to glance at him and for the briefest second, I saw it. Not the cold flame. Not the distant mage. Just a man. Tired. Tense. Uncertain. Our eyes met. And for once, he didn't look away. "Your spell yesterday," he said quietly, "where did it come from?" I hesitated. "I don't know. It just... happened." He nodded slowly, then stepped closer. Too close. The space between us pulsed with something unspoken. "You shouldn't let your emotions fuel your magic," he said. "It's dangerous." "I was taught that too," I replied, "by people who feared what I could become." Another silence. And then he reached out. Not to grab. Not to command. Just... to brush a stray lock of hair from my face. Fingers barely grazing my cheek. His touch burned more than any spell. "You're dangerous," he murmured. "And yet," I whispered back, "you keep me close." The moment stretched. Then he pulled his hand away. The distance between us returned, cold and sharp. "Get ready," he said, voice tight again. "Training doesn't wait." He turned before I could say anything more. But for a flicker of a moment, I saw it in his eyes again. That crack in the armor. That something. And gods, it terrified me how much I wanted to see it again.
The training grounds were quiet just snow, stone, and shadow. My boots crunched against the frostbitten earth as I took my place. The air still carried his touch, like phantom fire brushing against my skin. I didn't know what to do with that. So I did the only thing I could. I trained. "Ignis umbra, cor meum audi." (Shadowfire, hear my heart). Dark flames flickered at my fingertips, dancing in unnatural hues of violet and black. They hissed as they touched the ground, angry, confused, like me. Why did he look at me like that? Why did it matter? I raised my hand and whispered another incantation. "Vis tenebrarum, ruina mea, surge." (Force of darkness, my ruin, rise.) The earth cracked, shadows erupting into jagged spires. I struck again, harder, casting spell after spell until the cold bit into my throat, my limbs, my spine. I was shaking, but not from fatigue. From everything else. Why did I care about his touch? About his silence? Why did his voice linger like an old wound I couldn't stop picking? "Again," I muttered to myself. I conjured a new sigil in the air, etched with trembling hands. "Noctem voco, turbatio mentis." (I call the night, confusion of the mind.) A new mist bloomed thick, purple-black, circling me like a wounded animal. It twisted, distorted the air, echoed every memory I wanted to forget. His gaze. His hand on my cheek. His voice you're dangerous. Then stay away from me, I thought. But he didn't. I dropped to my knees in the snow, the mist swirling tighter. My hands were red and raw, blood against frost. This isn't about power anymore, is it? This was something else. Something deeper. Something I wasn't ready for. The mist faded slowly. My heart didn't. And behind me I knew he was watching. Silent. Unmoving. But there. As always.
I turned around and saw him standing there, silent as always, unreadable, unmoving. Watching me. Something in me snapped. I was shaking, my chest heaving with more than exhaustion. The fire I'd summoned had long faded, but the one in my chest? It blazed. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, XANDROS?!" The words erupted before I could stop them."FIRST YOU'RE COLD, THEN YOU'RE NOT! IT'S LIKE YOU WANT TO LET ME IN BUT YOU CAN'T! WHY?!" My voice cracked. My throat burned. But the words kept coming."IS IT BECAUSE I'M A DEMI-HUMAN? A SLAVE? A PET? A BREEDING WHORE TO YOU?! IS THAT WHAT ALL THIS IS?! WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF?!" The air turned deathly still. And then I saw his face. No change. Not in his posture. Not in his breath. But his eyes, Gods, his eyes. Hurt. Not rage. Not disdain. Hurt. Like I'd torn open a wound that never healed. My heart dropped. The blood froze in my veins."No, Xandros!" I took a step toward him. "I didn't mean that, I didn't mean any of it! Please, please don't turn away from me!" But he already had. His back faced me like a wall. The kind you can't climb. The kind meant to keep people out. I fell to my knees, fists sinking into the snow. The storm above us thickened, the snow falling heavier, sharp as regret. The only sound between us was my breath and the crackling of something breaking, not outside, but within.
Xandros - POV
She screamed at me, and I stood there stone still while her words tore through the marrow of my bones. "Is that what I am to you? A breeding whore? A slave?" Gods. If only she knew how wrong she was... and how right. She doesn't know what she's asking. She doesn't understand what I see when I look at her. She terrifies me. Because she's everything I buried, and she's dragging it out of the grave. I don't flinch. I don't scowl. But her apology cuts deeper than the accusation. "No! Xandros! I'm sorry! Please don't turn away from me!" She thinks I'm turning away. I'm not. I'm breaking. The girl I thought would crumble under pressure now has me unraveling with a single sentence. I gave her my cloak earlier. Now I wish I'd given her something more like the truth. But the truth is uglier than she deserves. I move, just enough that she knows I'm still listening. I don't speak. I can't. The words would crack me open, and I'm not ready to bleed. Instead, I kneel beside where she collapsed, gently pick up one of her frostbitten hands bloody, trembling and examine the magic scarred into her skin. Not with pity. With reverence. She's not weak. She's just feeling, and that's more dangerous than anything I've ever taught her. I don't say her name. I don't offer comfort. I just place her hand back down gently and rise. "Rest," I say finally. My voice is quiet. Rough. Human. "I'll handle the rest of today's training load." I turn and walk away Because if I stay, I might say something I can't take back.
Elsewhere...
Beyond the ruined temple, beyond the frost-laced forest and dying moonlight, something unseen stirred. A curl of black mist slithered through the snowdrift, trailing ash in its wake. It pulsed once, twice as if feeding on something invisible. Emotion. Conflict. Power. And from high above, in a silver-lit tower beneath a starlit dome, a High Seer stared into the Astral Pool. The water swirled with darkness. "The mist thickens," she murmured. Behind her, an attendant hesitated. "Should we inform the Circle?" The Seer didn't look away. "Not yet. Let them believe it still sleeps." "But... is that wise?" The Seer's gaze hardened. "No," she said. "It's prophecy."