A S H R I E L

The girls’ dorm is a wall of noise tonight.  Not the usual lights-out whispering, this is louder, higher, fizzy with nerves.  Someone down the hall squeals, “No, seriously, he said he’s going to kiss me at midnight..”  Then someone else shushes her, then makes it worse by shrieking back. Doors open and slam, perfume drifts under thresholds, and the air hums with hair curlers, smuggled lip gloss, the frantic excitement of teenagers who think a dance can fix everything.

I lean against the far wall, arms crossed, hood low. They don’t notice me. They never do.
Shadow work has its advantages. But the sound grates tonight. Because inside all this electric chatter, one door is quiet.

Elle’s.

I can hear every other girl talking about who they want to kiss, who wants to kiss them, who’s praying they get picked under the lanterns in the courtyard after the Ball. But from behind Elle’s door, nothing.

Silence like a bruise. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. Her quiet always hits harder than noise. A prefect walks by, giving me a suspicious glance, but she doesn’t say anything. She never does. Even humans can feel when someone is… not exactly human.

Outside the building, beyond the frost-bitten glass, something moves. Not close enough to threaten. Close enough that every whisper in my bones lifts its head. The Hollowed are prowling. And they’re not prowling for just anyone. Her emotions hit me before I even realize I’ve straightened off the wall.

They come like a pressure-drop, like the air losing warmth in a breath. A cold shiver rolls down the corridor, subtle but undeniable, and every light trembles once. The hair on my arms lifts. She’s upset. Not just worried.

It feels like she slammed into something that cut deeper than usual, and the aftershock is radiating out of her skin and through the damn walls. Frost prickles along the baseboard under her door. Just a thin line, barely visible unless you’re looking for it.
I’m always looking for it.

Whatever Draven said to her, I can feel the shape of it in the air. The heaviness. The fear.
And something else beneath that, something like shame, or heartbreak, or both tangled together. The Rift hums, low in my chest, responding to her pulse like it’s syncing with hers. I hate when it does that. I hate that I can’t turn it off.

But most of all, I hate how much I want to knock on that door and ask her if she’s okay. Like I have any right. The footsteps are soft, but I recognize them instantly.

Luke.

Of course he would come tonight. Of course he would pick the moment she’s at her weakest. He hesitates at her door, forehead resting against the wood. He thinks he’s subtle, but heartbreak makes everyone louder.

“Elle,” he whispers, voice cracking right down the middle. “Hey… it’s me.” My jaw tightens. He waits. She doesn’t answer. Something in me twists. Then he leans closer, like he’s pressing his entire world into the grain of her door.

“I’ll make you forget him tomorrow.”

The words punch through the hallway. Not loud, but they echo. Echo in me. Forget him. He means me. Of course he does. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t feel anything about this moment or this boy or the way his voice sounds like he’s drowning. But I do. Gods, I do.

He stays a few seconds longer, breathing in like he’s bracing for something, then steps back and leaves, shoulders hunched, hope bleeding out of him. I track him until he’s out of sight. Then I look back at her door.

Still silent. Still that bruise of quiet. It happens the second Luke’s footsteps fade around the corner. The frost under her door thickens, it spirals outward like fingers searching for something.  The lights flicker hard enough to buzz. And then, a whisper threads through the corridor.

“Not him.”

The voice is wrong. It’s shaped like Luke’s, maybe. Or like mine. Or neither. That’s the point. The Rift blends things when it wants to be heard. The Hollowed outside shift, scraping against stone. They’ve felt the spike too. I move toward her door before I mean to.  Shadows drag with me like they want to keep me there, right beside her.

My chest aches with a sudden, sharp pull. The kind that makes breathing feel optional. The Rift node is awake. And it’s paying attention.To her. To me. To the choice the world seems damn determined to wring out of her.

I rest my palm against the wood, not touching, not really, just close enough to feel the cold bleeding through. Inside, she’s not crying. She’s not moving. She’s drowning in whatever Draven told her. And the Rift is whispering like it wants to shape the pieces of her that are breaking.

I step back before I do something stupid, like knock on her door. Or say her name. Or admit to myself that I want to hear her voice more than I want to breathe. The shadows cling to me when I move. They always do, but tonight it feels different, like they’re trying to drag me somewhere I shouldn’t go. Toward her. Toward the pull I’ve been pretending isn’t there.

Draven’s words from weeks ago claw their way back up: Guardians don’t fall in love. Not because it’s forbidden. Because it’s fatal. She’s the Final Seal, and I’m..  Hell!, I don’t even know what I am anymore. A weapon wrapped in human shape. A threat pretending to be a boy.

Every record in the archives says what happens to the Seal when her heart splits. Every prophecy ties shadow to her unraveling. And still, when she’s hurting, my first instinct is to go to her.

My hand is still hovering near her door like a fool’s when another cold tremor shivers through the corridor. Her emotions spike, then collapse. The frost pulls back an inch. Like she’s curling in on herself. I shut my eyes hard.

I should leave. I should put distance between us before I make things worse. But the Hollowed outside keep scraping against the building. They’re restless. Agitated. Drawn to her the way I am. And I can’t leave her unguarded. Not tonight.  Not when the node is awake and she’s cracking open under its weight.

“Get a grip,” I mutter under my breath, but the command feels weak. Guardian duty—fine. That’s what I’ll call it.  Not obsession.  Not longing. Not the way her name keeps burning under my tongue like a spell I’m not supposed to say. Just duty. Just protection. Even if no part of me believes that anymore.

I can tell the exact moment sleep starts tugging her under. Her emotions dim, drifting instead of spiking. The frost on the doorframe loosens its grip. A single curl melts, trailing down the wood like a tear. And under all that… I feel the Rift start to stir.

It’s faint, a thrum deep under the floorboards, like the building has a heartbeat.
I brace my hand against the wall, swallowing a curse. Dream-walking.

She’s slipping into that half-place where the Rift likes to layer itself over her mind.
She shouldn’t be open to it tonight. Not when she’s exhausted. Not when she’s shaken to pieces.  The node will smell her vulnerability like blood.

“Elle,” I whisper before I can stop myself. The name doesn’t reach her. Or maybe it does, it’s hard to tell. The shadows around my feet start to twitch, stretching toward her door like they have instincts of their own.

I dig my fingers into my palms. No. I’m not going in. I’m not letting the bond drag me somewhere I shouldn’t be. But the pull gets stronger. More insistent. The air thickens. My breathing stumbles. And then I feel it, the moment she crosses the threshold of the dream. A flare of warmth, then cold, then something unbearably tender.

I choke on the sensation. Because she’s not dreaming of running. She’s not dreaming of safety.  She’s dreaming of..

“Don’t,” I whisper to the empty hall, like I can stop the world by talking to it. The shadows answer by swallowing my ankles whole. The world tilts. One blink and the corridor dissolves under my feet. Cold air sweeps up my spine. Light fractures like glass. And suddenly I’m standing in the ballroom.

Or—no. Not the real ballroom. A warped version of it, like someone rebuilt it from memory but got all the details wrong. Lanterns hang overhead, but their light flickers backward, like time is stuttering. Frost spirals across the marble floor even though there’s no source. Mirrors line the walls, every single one reflecting only two figures. Her. And me.

Elle stands in the center of the room, breathing like she’s trying not to break apart. Her dress isn’t the one she’ll wear tomorrow, it’s some dream-born shimmer of white and shadow, shifting every time I try to focus. Her eyes find mine immediately. Like she knew I’d come. Like some part of her called me here on purpose.

“Ashriel,” she says, and my name sounds different in this place, less guarded, more vulnerable. It hits me like a hand around my heart.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I manage, though the words feel useless. She takes a small step toward me. The room tilts.

“Then why are you?” she whispers. I don’t have an answer. I don’t need one. The space between us closes in the quiet, like gravity shifted and decided we belonged in the same orbit. Her fingers tremble at her sides, like she wants to reach for me but is scared of the meaning. I reached first. Not because I’m brave. Because I’m weak.

My hand finds her cheek, and she leans into the touch like she’s been waiting for it all damn year. Her breath catches. Mine does too. The mirrors brighten. The frost on the floor curls toward us like vines. Then she rises on her toes. And I kissed her.

It’s not gentle, not really. It’s slow, but it has heat under it, something dangerous humming right alongside something soft. She makes this tiny sound against my mouth, and it undoes something in me I didn’t know was still holding.

Her hands grip my shirt. My shadows wrap around her waist like instinct. For one impossible second, the world feels right. Then the whispers start.

Choose.
Choose.
Choose.

They spiral around us, cold and hungry, tasting the moment like it belongs to them. Elle flinches. The mirrors ripple. A crack forms under our feet. I tear my mouth from hers, gasping.

“No,” I choke out. “Not like this. Not if they’re..”  Watching. Feeding. Claiming. But the dream is already fracturing. Her eyes widened. The floor trembles.  The lanterns overhead blink out one by one.

“Ashriel..” she starts, reaching for me, But I fall backward into shadow before her fingers touch air. I snap back into my body like I’ve been dropped from a height. The corridor slams into focus. I’m on my knees.  My palms are coated in frost so cold it burns.

My breath fogs in the air. From behind Elle’s door, I hear her gasp awake, sharp, terrified, alive. The whisper follows a beat later, low enough to almost be imagined:

“Choose.”

Tomorrow is the Ball. Tomorrow she’ll see Luke. Tomorrow she’ll have to pretend nothing is shifting under her skin, even though I know it is. Even though she kissed me, in the dream, yes, but it felt real. Too real. I stand, but my knees are unsteady.

There’s no ignoring it now. No pretending. Tomorrow, I won’t be able to stay away from her.  And the Rift— The Rift won’t let this stay harmless.

Whatever happens at that Ball… It’s already moving toward us. And we’re already too close to stop it.