Page 111 of Embers of Midnight
That pulse again—just enough to test the lines of my mind, a weight that wants my knees to think about the floor. It isn’t a smash. It’s a verdict, read cold from sigils that have held too many feet.
Anchor. Tab to palm. The pressure slides off. My breath catches once and finds the count. Two short. One long. Pain spikes in my side and drops to something I can step over.
“Last offer,” he says. “Open your hand or I will teach you the lesson you keep refusing.”
“Last answer,” I say. “Open a door that helps, or own what happens when I refuse to go through yours.”
For a heartbeat he lets me see what lives under the headmaster. It isn’t rage. It’s certainty that no one else is qualified to steer. It is the oldest arrogance in a fresh suit.
“Then we proceed,” he says.
I draw Pyrelight. The horn along the spine warms like a steady pulse against my palm. Morrow shifts his weight to my flank. The rings along the wall hold their false daylight. Draven’s magic hits again—measured, heavy—and I raise the blade and refuse to be judged.
Verdict and Fire
Seraphina
His magic hits first. It isn’t a flash. It’s a verdict laid through the floor, a weight that wants my knees. The breath count arrives because I drag it in and nail it down. Two short in. One long out. The ache under my wrap climbs, then settles into the background where it belongs.
“Last chance,” Draven says, as if we are still in a classroom. “Stand down.”
“You locked the doors,” I answer. “We aren’t doing chances.”
His palm opens over the sigils. The light shifts one shade colder. A circle knits around my boots and squeezes. The line has the shine of wax and stone dust, a bind drawn for students who panic.
I do not give panic a room. I let heat fall from my hand into the seam and drive Pyrelight’s edge along the softening line. It partswith a clean hiss. The circle breathes out. I step free and stay off the brightest sigils.
Morrow ghosts left until he is a dark ripple at my flank. His ears tip toward Draven’s hands rather than his face. Good dog. Good hunter. He will not move until I need a miracle.
Draven doesn’t look angry. He looks sure. The lines he throws next are neat and narrow: a lash of force angled for my weapon wrist and a second higher for my throat. I bring the blade across my body and let steel and horn take the first hit with a vibration that makes my teeth ache. The second kisses my hoodie and misses the artery by a span of fingers. I feel the heat of my own skin through the tear and do not look at it. Looking at it is the oldest mistake.
“Put the knife down,” he says. “You will keep breathing if you listen.”
“You should hear yourself,” I say. “You sound like a man explaining a flood to the people on the roof.”
He steps left and the portal rings answer him. Two brighten, one to my right and one behind him, and the air strings itself tight between them. He tilts his wrist and the string becomes a line that wants to cut anything foolish enough to stand up through it. I lower my profile and feel the cold of it travel an inch above my braid. The next line rises from the floor toward my calves.
I ground it into Pyrelight. The horn along the spine takes the charge and hums like it found an old friend. My elbow shakes.The line breaks. I slide across polished stone and change levels so he doesn’t get a second try at the same bones.
The bind he throws at my ankles is a better one. It bites at the tendons and pulls. I drop to one knee, press the blade flat, and use a thin exhale of heat along the edge to soften his geometry. The strap lets go with a sound like wet wire. I move before he can choose a smarter angle.
Morrow goes from quiet to motion when Draven brings his palm up and the air in front of it condenses into a short spear the length of my forearm. The tip is aligned for the clavicle gap above my heart. He doesn’t throw it. He pushes it with intention.
“Don’t,” I say, because my mouth wants a word, and that is the one I give it.
The spear is already moving when Morrow launches. He takes the line across the shoulder that was meant for the space above my heart. The impact flips his growl inside out. He hits stone, scrabbles once, and dissolves mid-breath—fur to ink in an ugly shimmer that makes my stomach drop. The tattoo surges up my forearm, stutters, and pulls hard toward the wrist in that telltale flash that means he’s snapped home to Ash.
My mouth opens, but nothing leaves it. His name sits behind my teeth like a blade I refuse to waste. Breath shears in the middle and tries to scatter. I drag it back into count because I promised all of us I would not break here. Two short in. One long out. The ache under the wrap turns sharp; I let it be fuel and not a leash. He is alive. I will bring him back warm, not memoried.
Draven uses the opening the way men like him always do. Force slams across my ribs and lights the old bruise white. The floor tilts; I set a hand to the world and make it stay level. His follow-through rakes my shoulder with real steel. Heat spills into my sleeve and slicks my fingers under the cuff. I do not look at the blood. Looking is a luxury I haven’t earned.
“You don’t have to bleed for a school that will never deserve you,” he says. “Stand up and I will make this quick.”
“You do not get to narrate my mercy,” I say. “You already chose your path.”
He tilts his palm in the air and the rings moan. Three lash lines bloom from the same point: one for the knee, one for the heart, one for the throat. I take the knee with a block and absorb it into my thigh. The heart line comes true.
I lift Pyrelight and meet it on the horn.
