A S H R I E L

Frost hums beneath my skin before dawn.
The air in the east dorm twists, sharp and cold, and for one heartbeat I feel her pain as if it were my own, the flare of a mark burning into flesh. Then silence. The kind that means something has changed.

The tether between us vibrates like a plucked wire. It shouldn’t exist, not like this, but it does.
Her pulse echoes through the Rift’s residue in my veins, faint, frantic. Then it quiets. I wait for the whisper to fade. It doesn’t.

By morning, Ravenshade hums with gossip.

The halls are never silent here, but today the noise tastes different like sugar-coated with fear. Girls huddle in corners, their eyes bright with scandal. Every whisper carries the same poisoned word.

“Bonded.”

The sound digs under my ribs, sharper than any blade.

I move through the corridors unseen, shadows folding around me. Their words reach even through stone walls.

“He marked her.”
“No one survives a Guardian’s claim.”
“She’s cursed for real now.”

They don’t know what they’re saying, but the Rift feeds on belief, and gossip is belief made loud.

At the landing near the girls’ dorm, the frost under my boots thickens. The air smells of lavender and iron. She’s close. The mark that burned into her skin is leaking power, subtle but persistent, like frost breath curling along the edge of a blade.

I lean against the wall’s cold stone, letting the Rift Sense sharpen until I catch the faint rhythm of her heartbeat. Quick, uneven. Exhausted.

She’s alive. For now.

Across the corridor, Maribel Crane laughs too brightly. She’s waving her phone, showing a blurry image of frost spirals etched into a dorm window.

“Proof,” she says. “You can’t fake a mark like that.”

Laughter swells, cruel and eager.
If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the frost pulse again, answering their lies. The mark recognizes the one who carries its mirror.

The Guardian’s mark. My mark.

And the academy, in its ignorance, is already naming what I never dared.

The mark hums again before I can stop it.
A pull beneath my ribs, faint but insistent, dragging my attention toward the dorm wing like a magnetic current. I shouldn’t follow it. Guardians were forged to obey summons of duty, not desire but this isn’t either. It’s instinct.

I step into the shadows, the world shifting cold around me. Frostlight threads between the stones as I walk. The tether guides me, a living thing that her heartbeat echoing through it, fractured and uneven.

Through the narrow dorm window, I see her silhouette.
She sits on the edge of her bed, shoulders hunched, fingers pressed to her palm where the spiral burned. Frost curls along her scarf. It glows faintly even in daylight.

The mark on my own hand answers with heat, then ache, then silence.
A mirror. A warning.

If I were human, I might call it longing.
But I know better. It’s the Rift reminding me that she is the Final Seal, and I am its weapon.

Still, when she trembles, my hand tightens on the window frame.
The frost spidering across the glass matches the pulse beneath my skin.
Her magic isn’t stable.
And the world is starting to feel it.

A knock breaks the stillness.
Her head lifts.
The door opens, and the boy steps in, hood up, cocoa cup in hand, all mortal warmth and clumsy devotion.

Luke Hart.

His presence burns against the cold leaking from the walls. The Rift recoils from him. I can almost taste it in the air with sugar and sunlight over iron. He doesn’t know the power he carries. Maybe that’s why the Rift hates him.

He speaks softly, coaxing her into a smile. It’s small, but real, enough to ease the tension in her shoulders. He reaches out, brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek, and the frost around the window fades.

The tether inside me twists. I should be relieved that her pulse steadies, and the mark dims but relief is not what burns in my chest.

His warmth steadies her.
Mine destroys.

I pull back into the shadow of the corridor before either of them can look up.
Still, I hear her laughter, quiet and unsure, like a memory from a life I never had.

For a heartbeat, I almost believe it could last.
But warmth never lasts long at Ravenshade.

The tether quivers again so sharp it drives through my ribs.
Inside the room, warmth flickers like a candle struggling in the wind. Luke sets the cocoa aside and speaks her name, voice low, shaking.

“Elle… I can’t keep pretending this is just friendship.”

She goes still. The sound of her breath reaches me through the glass: a soft, startled gasp.
He keeps talking with words that taste like sunlight, all promise and ache. “I’ve loved you since before this place. Since Moonhollow. Since you looked at me and I forgot how to breathe.”

Her fingers tighten on the edge of the blanket.
The frost beneath her hand shivers.

I should look away.
Instead, I watch the moment the world tilts. Her eyes widened, mouth parting with no sound. The tether between us surges, pain and longing tangled together.

Frost veins creep up the dorm wall, luminous, silent. The mark on my palm ignites in answer.

Luke doesn’t see it. He’s too human to sense the Rift gathering, too busy confessing the kind of love that belongs to the living.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he says, desperate now. “Just tell me you feel something.”

She tries. I can feel her trying.
But silence has weight, and it’s crushing her.

The frost fractures with a soft crack. A whisper curls from the mirror behind her, faint but distinct.

When the flame declares, the frost will answer.

Prophecy wearing my mother tongue.

Luke reaches for her hand. The moment he touches her, the frost flares blue-white, brilliant,  and merciless.

I know what comes next.

The Rift has heard the confession.
And it is hungry.

The air convulses.
Frost leaps from the walls in branching veins, racing across the ceiling like lightning made of ice. The Rift doesn’t whisper now, it screams.

The mark on my palm burns, the heat searing through bone. Every pulse from her heart hits me like a strike of frostfire.
She gasps and clutches her hand. Luke shouts her name, but his voice warps, drawn out and hollow, as though the world itself is stretching thin.

Mirrors along the corridor cloud. My reflection moves a half-beat late, warning enough. I step forward, calling my blade from the shadows. The ether folds around me, cold as judgment.

Inside the room, the floor cracks open in a thin, spiraling line. Frost spreads outward from her feet. It’s not an attack yet, it’s a call. The Rift answered her confusion with hunger.

Luke tries to pull her back, arms tight around her shoulders. For an instant, her heartbeat steadies, but the frost won’t stop. It crawls up his arm, glittering and cruel.

The tether between us sings in agony. I can feel the Rift forming teeth.
There’s no more time to hide, no distance left to keep.

I step through the mirror.
Light fractures, swallowing the hall behind me.

The world on the other side hits like a frozen tide.
Sound shatters, light bends, and the Rift’s stench with iron and snow burns my lungs.

Elle stands at the center of it, framed by spiraling frost. Luke is on his knees beside her, one arm locked around her waist, the other slick with frostbite. The spiral on her palm glows brighter with every breath.

Then the floor splits.
The Frost Hound drags itself free, a creature of crystalline ribs and steaming jaws, eyes gleaming like shards of dying stars. Its breath fogs the air into needles.

It’s larger than before, and smarter too. It remembers me.

“Get away from her!” Luke yells, stumbling to his feet.
He moves between Elle and the monster, human and unarmed. Brave, foolish, mortal.

The Hound lowers its head, frost spreading beneath its paws. It lunges.

I don’t think, I move. The Ethereal Blade bursts from my palm, white-blue fire arcing through shadow. I met the creature midair. The impact rings like struck glass, shards scattering.

The blade cuts through frost and whispers alike, but the cost comes instantly with pain crawling up my arm, black veins of obsidian tracing beneath the skin. I bite it back and drive the blade deeper until the Hound screams, a sound too human to bear.

It collapses, shattering into smoke and frost.

Silence rushes in, jagged and thin.

The silence afterward cuts deeper than the fight.
Frost dusts the air like ash, the ground glittering with what’s left of the creature. I stand in the center of it, breath dragging, the blade trembling in my grasp.

Pain blooms beneath my skin, hot first, then sharp as glass. Obsidian veins crawl up my wrist, burning through muscle until they reach my shoulder. Every pulse tears another thread of my essence loose.

The blade flickers. My wings try to form instinct before reason, but they stutter halfway, black steel, half-shadow, half-light. The sound they make isn’t wind; it’s a groan like bending metal.

I force them back down. Not here. Not in front of her.

Elle kneels in the frost, eyes wide, breath shaking. Luke hovers at her side, horror carved into his face. Neither of them sees what I’m becoming. That’s mercy.

The Rift inside me quiets at last, but it’s a silence that feels wrong, hollow. Each time I use the blade, less of me returns. Soon there won’t be enough left to protect her.

Still, when she turns toward me, relief flickers through the pain. Her mark glows faintly, answering mine like a heartbeat finding its twin.

Duty burns away the last of my hesitation. Whatever I am, whatever remains.
I was made for this.

The air still crackles, the world holding its breath.
Elle sways on her knees, frost glittering along her lashes. The mark on her palm burns too bright, white-blue, then silver.

Luke reaches for her again, but the frost between them flares, repelling him. He stumbles back, his breath clouding in the cold.

I move before she falls. The blade dissolves, scattering into sparks that fade against her skin as I catch her. She’s weightless, chilled through, pulse fluttering like trapped wings.

Her gaze meets mine, unfocused, frightened, but knowing. The mark between us ignites once more, twin spirals locking in rhythm. Frost spirals bloom beneath our hands, carving symbols older than any tongue.

A whisper trembles through the air, not hers, not mine: The Seal chooses.

My wings flicker without permission, half-light, half-shadow. The cost tears through me, but I hold her tighter.

“Elowen.”
Her name escapes before I can stop it, soft, raw, a vow breaking.

The frost brightens, swallowing the room in white.
When it clears, Luke’s voice echoes somewhere distant, shouting her name.

But she’s already gone slack in my arms, eyes closing, breath fading into the cold.

The tether goes silent.

And I know, whatever waited in the Rift just claimed her.