The noise of the Great Hall did not fade so much as it was cut.
Sound, then none.
Like a rope pulled tight and snapped.
Only their footsteps survived it.
Lyra followed him into a corridor she had never seen, though the Academy insisted it knew all its own bones.
This passage was narrower, the ceiling lower, the stone darker and laid in older hands.
The blocks were larger, imperfectly fitted, their edges softened by centuries of touch.
No torches burned here.
Oil lamps crouched in shallow alcoves, their light uneven, the glass clouded with age.
The air held cold and damp together, the smell of stone that had never learned warmth.
Sion walked ahead of her.
He did not hurry. He did not slow.
His pace had the finality of a decision already made.
The fall of his boots against the floor was steady, deliberate, each step a quiet claim on the space ahead.
Lyra struggled to match him.
Her bare feet slipped on stone worn smooth by time, her steps shorter, uneven.
She stumbled once, catching her toes on a raised seam, a breath breaking out of her before she could gather it back.
He did not turn.
He did not ask.
He continued forward as if the corridor itself obeyed him, as if the world adjusted rather than required confirmation.
They walked in silence.
It pressed in around them, not empty but full.
Lyra heard her own breathing, too fast, refusing to settle.
She heard the faint rasp of linen against her legs.
Beneath it all, her heart beat hard and badly, a thing without discipline.
It was the only sound that belonged entirely to her.
And then there was his scent.
In the Great Hall it had been diluted, tangled with incense and bodies and heat.
Here it ruled the air.
Pine and frost. Steel. Clean earth.
It did not drift or soften.
It settled, claimed the corridor, marked it.
Each breath she took passed through him first.
The familiarity of it struck deeper than memory.
It reached somewhere beneath thought, beneath language.
Something in her answered without permission.
Yes. This one.
That was what frightened her most.
She kept her eyes on the floor, counting the uneven stones, trying to stay inside the present.
But her mind, loosened by pain and ceremony, slipped sideways.
The walls lost their shape.
Stone stretched into leather, glowing amber with firelight.
The echo of boots became the crackle of wood burning low.
The cold sharpened into the clean bite of night on the open steppe.
She knelt beside a small fire, working grease into a leather strap meant to bind a blade.
Her hands moved quickly, practiced, knuckles split and stained.
Across the fire, someone sat with his back to her, broad shoulders bent over a map worn thin by use.
She knew the shape of him without seeing his face.
Sion.
Not robed. Not gilded. Fur and cured leather instead.
His hair longer, bound back.
A pale scar crossed his forearm where the sleeve was rolled up, the skin there taught and bright against the firelight.
And she felt safe.
Not comforted. Not sheltered.
Safe in the way forged between people who had stood watch for one another.
If he stayed awake, she slept. If he traced a path with his finger, she followed it.
There was no need to question it.
No space for doubt.
Her life moved with his, braided too tightly to separate.
And, quietly, she trusted him with her death.
The vision broke.
Nausea rose sharp and sudden.
Her body lurched before her mind caught up.
Pain bloomed in her chest, not physical, not quite imagined.
She stumbled, palm striking the wall.
The stone was cold, damp, rough beneath her hand.
Real.
Her breath tore loose, loud in the narrow space.
The footsteps ahead stopped.
Sion turned back.
He stood beneath a shallow alcove where a stone ancestor watched with sightless eyes.
The lamp above cast its light upward, carving his face into planes of shadow and gold.
In the dimness, his eyes looked almost black.
He did not ask if she was hurt.
He looked at her.
Took in the way she leaned against the wall, the way her chest rose too fast beneath thin linen.
"The memories come harder in the in-between places," he said.
His voice was lower here, stripped of ceremony, carrying easily. Almost casual.
"Silence gives them room."
Lyra swallowed.
The certainty she had felt moments before—that bone-deep trust—collided with the fear twisting through her now.
The impact left her dizzy.
"I don't know you," she said.
The words sounded small, even to her.
One corner of his mouth shifted. Not a smile.
Something tired, edged.
"You say that every time," he replied. "At the beginning."
He turned away again and resumed walking.
"Come."
The word was quiet. It did not invite argument.
Lyra pushed herself upright and followed.
Her legs felt unreliable, as though they belonged to someone else.
The memory had unsettled her, but it left something worse behind.
Confusion.
She had trusted him. Fully.
How could that exist alongside the man who had claimed her before the Academy, before witnesses, before choice?
The corridor sloped downward.
It curved gently to the left.
The air grew colder, drier.
His scent did not fade. It guided her, whether she wished it or not.
He moved like a fixed point, and she was pulled after him into something without a visible end.
Another memory surfaced, brief and uninvited.
Muted laughter inside a barn packed with hay.
Dust and sweetness in the air.
Being lifted, thrown into softness, followed by the impact of a heavier body landing beside her, the structure shaking with it.
A younger face above her, the same eyes, lighter then, bright with something close to joy.
"Caught you."
She was laughing. Breathless. Unafraid.
The memory slipped away before she could hold it.
Lyra clenched her fists, nails biting into skin.
Enough.
Sion stopped before a door.
It was massive.
Dark oak banded with wrought iron twisted into restrained patterns—branches, veins, something organic made rigid.
There was no handle.
Only a heavy iron ring and a complex lock.
This was not an entrance meant for ease.
He turned to face her, his body obscuring most of it.
The light here was thin, coming from a single lamp farther down the corridor.
His features were cut sharp by shadow.
"These are your quarters," he said.
The tone had changed.
Not command. Not explanation.
Something weighted, almost careful.
"You no longer belong in the Omega dormitory. Or the common halls."
A pause.
"This is your cell."
Another pause.
"And your fortress. That part remains undecided."
He placed his hand against the door, not to open it. To claim it.
"Inside, you'll find what you need. Food. Clothes. A place to rest. A Beta named Elara will attend you."
Lyra knew the name. White-streaked hair. Competition, once.
"She's bound. Not as you are. She can help you learn the terrain."
Terrain. The word rang hollow.
"And you?" Lyra asked, the question escaping before she could stop it.
Sion watched her in silence. The lamp hissed faintly.
"I'll be close," he said.
"I always am. You'll know when I'm not."
His gaze dropped to her collarbone.
"The scar will tell you. It binds. It doesn't just remember. It pulls."
He stepped aside.
"The door will lock from the outside. For both our sakes."
No apology lived in his voice.
"When you're meant to leave, I'll come."
He waited.
Lyra had nothing left to give him.
She stepped forward.
The oak was cold beneath her hand. She could feel him behind her, solid, watchful.
Without ceremony, Sion turned and walked away.
His footsteps echoed, then dissolved into the corridor.
Lyra remained where she was.
Alone, but not unclaimed.
The space behind her led back to a life already closing.
Ahead stood iron and wood. A line drawn.
She touched the door once more.
At her collarbone, the scar pulsed.
Not painfully. Deliberately.
A second heart, beating in time with footsteps that no longer sounded.
He was gone.
But the mark, the scent, the unfinished trust—
All of it stayed with her, sealed inside the quiet dark of the corridor of fate.