E L L E

The hallway drops into dead silence the second the Hollowed’s claws slice across Luke. No sound. No air. Just the way his body jerks like someone cut a wire inside him. My breath punches out in a white burst. Frost shoots down my arms fast enough to burn. The ground freezes beneath me, locking around my ankles before I even move.

“Luke—”  I think it comes out. Maybe it doesn’t. My mouth works but my voice is gone. He stumbles back, hand flying to his neck. There’s blood. Not much, but enough that my stomach flips. Enough that my brain screams he could be dying and I still can’t move. Somebody screams behind me. Second-years scatter. Rowan presses himself to the wall, whispering something about Seals under his breath.

And Ashriel. God. Something is wrong with the air around him. Heavy. Pressurized. Like reality is stretching over something too big. His shoulders roll back sharply, shadows rippling under his coat like wings trying to break through.

“Elle,” he snaps, voice the only sound I can hear. “Stay back.” I want to. I swear I do. But something in my chest yanks me forward, deep and magnetic, like a hook caught behind my ribs. I don’t move because I’m brave. I move because something Rift-born wants me closer. The Rift wants me.  I feel it like a pulse.

The Hollowed twitches like it hasn’t figured out how to be a body yet. Limbs bending the wrong way. Frost ash drifting off its skin in thin, peeling sheets. And then it uses Luke’s voice. Not right. Not close.  Just enough to make my heart drop.

“Elle…” it croaks.

My stomach lurches. “Don’t.. don’t do that..” Luke forces himself upright, fingers shaking around his bleeding arm. “It’s copying. Don’t listen.. Elle, look at me..” But the creature isn’t looking at him anymore.  It’s looking at me. Its face sharpens. Not fully, just two eyes, pale and cracked like broken ice.

“Sunlight…” it whispers. Luke stiffens.  So do I.

“Flame.”  The word hits Luke like a punch. His breath stutters. He looks at me like he’s realizing something he really, really doesn’t want to. The Hollowed leans forward, smooth in a way physics shouldn’t allow.

“Break,” it hisses. And the word feels like it lands inside my chest.

Luke steps in front of me again, even bleeding, even shaking. “Elle, get behind me. I can get you out.. I swear..” But the frost reacts first. It cracks violently under my feet and slams into his shins, knocking him back with a sharp curse. He braces on the lockers, eyes wide with hurt and confusion. The frost doesn’t even brush Ashriel. It splits around him, like it knows him. Like it recognizes him. But it hits Luke like he’s the threat. I don’t understand it. I hate that I don’t.

“Elle.. your frost..it’s..”

“I’m not doing it!” The words tear out of me. “I swear I’m not..” The Hollowed snaps toward him. Luke barely gets his arm up. The claws rake across his shoulder and a burst of frost explodes across his skin, like the monster injected winter straight into him. His gasp is worse than the blood.

“LUKE!”

I scream his name so hard it hurts. The frost inside me explodes upward, filling my chest with sharp, electric cold. My legs fold. I try to run, but the ice around my ankles yanks back, tearing a sob out of me.

“Let me go..”  I don’t know who I’m yelling at. My magic? The Rift? Myself?

Luke is clutching his arm, teeth gritted. “Elle, it burns.. Jesus.. the frost..”

Tears freeze at the corners of my eyes. “I’m not controlling it, Luke! I can’t..” My vision whites out for a second. A whisper brushes my ear.

Choose…

“No!” I choke. “No, no..” The hallway tilts. My knees buckle again. Something cold squeezes between my ribs like fingers made of ice. I can’t breathe right. I can’t think right. I can’t stop the pull toward the thing that wants to kill us.  I reach for Luke but something else catches my wrist.

Ashriel. His grip is steady, cold, grounding. “Elle,” he says, low and sharp, pulling me back into myself. “Look at me.”

I do. And the bond slams through me like a hot-cold punch to the lungs. My knees give out, and he pulls me close so I don’t hit the ground. Something under his coat shudders violently, half-formed wings straining against his skin.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs. And for a terrifying heartbeat, I want to. God, I want to. And Luke sees that too.

The Hollowed jerks toward Luke again, this time faster, more fluid, like it learned something from the last strike. Luke’s still trying to catch his breath, still pressing his hand against the frost-cracked skin on his arm, still standing there like bravery is enough to stop a monster built out of nightmares.

“Ashriel..” I start, but I don’t even finish his name. He’s already gone. Not gone like vanished, gone like he stepped out of the second we’re standing in and into another one. Like reality hiccups around him. One heartbeat he’s beside me, the next he’s across the hallway, shadows ripping behind him like they’re trying to keep up.

The air hits my face a split second after he moves. A pressure wave. A rush of cold. Luke barely sees it, just a blur, then Ashriel slamming into the creature, ripping it off its feet like it weighs nothing.

The sound returns all at once, shattering glass, or maybe it’s tile cracking under the impact. Students scream. Someone runs. Rowan mutters something like, “This isn’t possible,” over and over.

Ashriel doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t hesitate. He stands between Luke and the monster like a blade forged just for this one moment.

“Ashriel!” I gasp, but he doesn’t look back. He’s not looking at anything except the Hollowed, his entire body coiled with a fury I can feel like static under my skin. The shadows along his back twitch again. He is not human. He never was. His anger isn’t human. His precision isn’t human. I know that now, even before the truth shows itself.

The Hollowed lunges again, this time straight at Ashriel, limbs bending like broken marionette strings snapping into place. The temperature crashes, my breath turns to solid white fog, my eyes watering.

Ashriel meets it mid-air. He doesn’t punch. He doesn’t slash. He just moves, hands snapping around the creature’s throat with inhuman precision, like he’s done this a thousand times. A low, vibrating hum ripples through the hallway. The Hollowed lets out a sound somewhere between a rasp and a choking laugh.

Then it cracks. Hairline fractures spread across its body like smashed porcelain. A split second later, the entire thing collapses inward, dissolving into a cloud of frost ash that drifts around Ashriel’s boots like dead snow.

And just like that, it’s gone. The silence afterward feels wrong. Too empty. Too final. Luke stares at the floor like he can’t believe he’s still standing. He looks shaken. Hurt. Betrayed in a way that terrifies me. I don’t blame him. I can’t believe any of us are.

Luke presses his palm to his shoulder again, wincing when his fingers brush the frost-burn. His breaths come too fast, too shallow. He looks at me like he’s trying to understand how we got here, how anything got this out of control.

“Elle,” he whispers. “What is happening to you?” The question lands like a bruise. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I don’t know. I really don’t. My whole body is shaking—fingers numb, lips tingling, frost curling up my wrists like tiny claws.

Ashriel turns toward me. And something in his face, something tight and fierce makes the breath catch in my throat. He reaches for my hands first. Not Luke. Me.

His fingers close around mine, turning my palms upward gently, like he’s checking for splintered bone instead of frostbite. The cold doesn’t bother him. It never does. His skin feels like shadow and steel, steady in a way nothing else is.

“You’re burning through too much,” he murmurs, voice low. “You’re hurting yourself.” Luke flinches like the words hit him too.

Luke’s jaw clenches. “Get away from her.”

Ashriel’s eyes lift,  slowly, dangerously. “She needed grounding.”

“She needed me,” Luke fires back. Something inside my chest cracks. Not magic. Not frost. Just… me. The part that hates hurting him. The part that hates wanting someone else at the same time.

“Luke,” I whisper, “please..”

“Why is this happening?” he cuts in. “Why can he touch you when you’re, when you’re like this? Why can’t I?” I look away. Because I don’t know how to say the truth out loud. Because I am afraid of the answer too. Because the frost reacts to emotions it doesn’t understand. Because maybe I don’t understand myself either.

Ashriel shifts slightly, just enough to angle his body between me and the scattered frost ash on the ground. And maybe it’s the way the broken emergency light above us flickers… or maybe it’s something else. But for one terrifying, breath-stopping moment, I see it. 

A black, metallic arc behind him. A shape that isn’t a shadow. A shape that doesn’t belong in this world. A wing.  Not fully unfurled.  Not fully there. Just a flicker,like the truth glitched through the illusion for half a second.

I suck in a sharp breath. But Luke sees it too. His whole body goes rigid. The color drains from his face. His pupils blow wide, like he’s staring at something he can’t unsee.

“Elle…” His voice cracks. “What.. what is he?”

Ashriel stiffens, sensing the shift even if he doesn’t turn around. His hand tightens around mine, just for a second before he drops it like the contact burned him.

“Luke,” I say, panic tightening my throat. “Luke, don’t..” Luke stumbles back, shaking his head over and over, eyes flicking between me and the shadow behind Ashriel that shouldn’t exist.

“No,” he whispers. “No. I saw that. I saw— I saw something. You knew something was wrong with him. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

Ashriel exhales once, sharp and resigned, like the world just accelerated toward a truth he’s been trying to outrun. The hallway lights flicker again. And the shadow behind him twitches.