Chapter 5 | The Bloodbond | Mixed POV
I don't move, and he doesn't speak again.
Wind threads through the gaps between pillars, a low moan, like thousands of lost souls sighing together. Silver moss spreads beneath us, its glow painting our outlines ghost-pale, two spirits that don't belong to this world. His arm wraps around my back, body heat seeping through fabric, hot enough to make me panic, hot enough to melt me.
"You shouldn't be here," he says.
"Where should I be?"
"Anywhere." His fingers tighten slightly, as if afraid I'll disappear. "Anywhere but my arms."
It should be a warning, but his breathing falters. His golden eyes hold something I've never seen in anyone's eyes before. Not Lucian's fake tenderness, not Blake's showy possession. Something more raw. More real. Hunger. The desperation of a thousand years of loneliness finally touching something familiar, like a drowning man finally reaching shore.
My mind screams at me to run, but my body won't listen. The bitterness of blackwood and the sweetness of blood orange mix into something that makes me dizzy. Not alcohol—something older. The beginning of the Bloodbond, two bloodlines resonating at the level of the soul.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Kael," he says. "But tonight, you don't have to remember."
His lips come down. Not testing—claiming. Claiming this isn't a dream, claiming I'm not a hallucination, claiming this girl glowing on forbidden moss is real. I freeze for one heartbeat, then kiss him back. The moss glows beneath us, silver light rushing in from every direction, a tide swallowing us whole.
His lips find my neck. The skin there is sensitive, fragile, my pulse jumping under the surface like a trapped fish.
"Don't hold back," he says, voice against my throat, each word sending vibrations through me. "I want to hear you."
His fingers work at my collar buttons, pausing at each one, giving me time to say no. I don't say no. I don't dare say no, don't want to say no. I want this. Want him. Want to be needed, even if it's only for tonight.
"Scared?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"That I'll wake up tomorrow and find out this was fake."
"Not fake," he says. "But I can't make you promises."
"I don't need promises." After Lucian's bet, promises are the cheapest thing in the world, lies wrapped in pretty paper. "I just want tonight."
His forehead touches mine.
"Mine," he says.
The word hangs in the air. Not ownership. Recognition. Like finally finding what belongs to you in a field of ruins. Like a traveler crossing a desert for a thousand years finally finding water.
"Yours," I answer. Quiet, but enough. Enough to break something tight in the air.
His pupils spread wide. Then everything comes undone.
The Bloodbond isn't a ritual. Isn't a prayer. It's instinct. The oldest, most basic instinct. His lips close on my neck, fangs finding the pulse. Sharp pressure, then pain.
A fang piercing you isn't a normal bite—it's something deeper, something that goes into your soul. Having your blood drawn feels strange, not painful but satisfying, like an empty space finally being filled. Like someone finally pouring water into a container that's been dry too long.
My vision explodes in silver-white, like a thousand stars going off at once inside my head. I feel his heartbeat echoing through my veins, slow and heavy, like an ancient drum. That rhythm is different from mine, three times slower, but each beat makes my heart answer, like two tuning forks getting close.
Something cold pours into my veins, thick like liquid moonlight. It moves through me, burning everywhere it goes. Not a painful burn—a changing burn. Like a blacksmith shaping a sword in a fire, each strike changing its form.
Silver light spills from where we touch. I feel his heartbeat echoing in my veins, slow and heavy. The rhythms are different, but gradually sync up, like two rivers adjusting their flow where they meet.
"Bloodbond," he says, pulling his fangs back, lips against my ear, voice rough as sandpaper. "It's done."
I touch my neck. Two tiny puncture wounds, healing right before my eyes. But something stays underneath—warm threads spreading from his bite marks toward my heart. Invisible, but I can feel them. Like a new vein added, carrying not my blood, but ours.
"It'll leave a mark," he says. "A silver scar. It never fades."
"Can it be washed away?"
"No." There's bitterness in his voice. "The Bloodbond ties both people together. Unless one of us dies, the mark never goes away."
I should be scared. But the new power inside me feels too strange, like someone lit a lamp in my chest. The lamp doesn't burn—it just warms. Just... is. Like someone finally built me a fire in winter.
"Your scent changed," he says. "Still peach and rust underneath, but there's something else now."
"What?"
"Me."
I freeze. Then smell my wrist. He's right. My familiar, barely-there scent now has a new layer. Blackwood and blood-orange. Deep, bitter, sweet. An ancient mark that won't wash off.
"Side effect of the Bloodbond," he says. His fingers trace the wound, touch light as a snowflake. "From now on, your body will remember my scent. Wherever you go, I can find you."
That should scare me. But I'm too tired, too full, too broken. His warmth, his scent, his blood inside me—everything makes me want to close my eyes and sleep in his arms. Sleep for a long time, without dreams.
"Sleep," he says, like he can read my mind. "I'll watch."
"You won't sleep?"
"I've slept too long." Something unreadable in his voice, like silt at the bottom of a deep pool. "Tonight, I want to stay awake."
I don't know how long I sleep. When I wake up, the sky is still dark, but the eastern horizon is starting to lighten, like fabric slowly changing color. His arm is still around me, breathing steady, but he's not asleep. I can feel his eyes on my face, light as moonlight but just as real.
"Awake?" he asks.
I don't answer. Because being awake brings the shame flooding in.
What did I do?
A complete stranger. Someone whose last name I don't even know. A Third-Rank Prince, a Council instructor, heir to the Obsidian Moon's top military family—and me, a Nullblood, a failure wearing a Suppressor, on forbidden moss, sealing a Bloodbond with him.
The blood drains from my face. My limbs go cold. I jerk upright, grab my scattered clothes, fingers shaking too hard to button anything. Every movement screams: I need to leave, forget, pretend this never happened.
"Leah—"
"Don't look at me." My voice comes out sharp, unfamiliar, like a panicked bird.
He goes quiet. I get dressed with my back to him, too afraid to turn around. The scar on my neck still burns, a hot brand reminding me that every kiss, every drop of blood, every mine and yours—was real.
And that's the scariest part.
"Coat," his voice says from behind, careful, like approaching a spooked bird.
I turn. He's dressed, buttoning his shirt. He holds out the black velvet coat, moving slowly. The coat carries his scent, blackwood and blood-orange, and something fainter, like cedar.
"I don't need—"
"Your clothes are torn," he says. "Wear it."
I look at my skirt. He's right—the hem is ragged, torn when I was mixing the cure. The edges are uneven like a shredded flag. I take the coat and pull it on. The black velvet swallows me, falling to mid-thigh, the fabric carrying his scent like a warm shell around me.
"There's something in the pocket," he says.
I reach in and find a dried flower. A bloodrose, picked from the clearing. Deep crimson petals faintly glowing silver in the darkness, like the silver light when I mixed the cure. The edges are starting to curl, not completely dead yet.
"Why are you giving me this?"
"I don't know." There's confusion in his voice, like he doesn't understand his own action. "I just wanted you to have something."
I say nothing. I shove the flower back in the pocket and turn toward the pillars. My steps are fast, almost running. I don't look back, afraid his face will make me weaker. Afraid I'll stop, go back, say I don't want to leave.
"Leah."
His voice follows me. I don't stop.
"I will find you."
The words hit like a stone between my shoulder blades. I run, through the pillars, through the silver moss, through the exit of the Forgotten Walk. The academy takes shape in the dawn light, a picture I don't want to face.
I don't look back.
When she runs out, something moves in my veins. Not pain—a strange pull, like someone tied a string to my heart and she's carrying the other end away.
I look at my palm. My fingertips still hold her warmth, and her blood.
Her blood. Better at curing Shadeblight than any formula. I'm not sure if it was the paste itself, or something in her blood I can't explain. When I first caught her scent—peach and rust, and behind it, an ancient echo, like a distant bell ringing low and deep, carrying something familiar I don't want to look at too closely.
A hallucination. Leftover poison. Has to be.
I push myself up. The Shadeblight is still crawling through my body like stubborn parasites, but my strength is coming back. Dawn seeps through the pillars, the silver moss glow fading. Moss goes dormant in daylight, turns ordinary gray.
Some instinct growls in my chest. Not another voice—my own, the part the Bloodbond woke up after a thousand years. It says: Chase her. Bring her back. Make her yours. Finish the bond.
I close my eyes, push down the urge. Not now. She needs space, time to process. And I need time to understand—how can a Nullblood make a Shadeblight cure work better than the formula?
That ancient echo... No. Impossible.
The Progenitor bloodline died out three thousand years ago. Every bloodkind historian agrees. A Nullblood having Progenitor blood makes as much sense as fish learning to fly.
I stand up and walk toward the exit of the Forgotten Walk.
My footsteps on the moss make no sound. Third-Rank Prince Shadow-glide—body melting into darkness, moving faster than the eye can follow—even weakened by poison, this basic skill flows smooth as instinct. Each step like walking on air, something that doesn't belong to the ground.
Three seconds later I'm at the exit. Dawn light, her back already gone, but I still know which way she went.
The Bloodbond connection is a thin thread, from my heart to wherever she is.
Thin. Fragile. But real, like a red line buried in snow.
I will find you. I say it again in my head. Not a threat. A promise. The first promise I've made to another person in a thousand years.
The Owlspire waits at the edge of the academy, Kieran in the study.
The Owlspire is a separate tower on the edge of campus, my private place. Three stories, the outside covered in dark bloodvines, which they say only grow at the oldest houses from the Progenitor Queen's time. The observatory looks out over the whole academy, from the Crimson Pit to the Arcanum tower, from the library's glass dome to the dorm courtyards.
"You disappeared all night." He sits on the windowsill, flipping a hemacoin, amber eyes calm as aged wine in candlelight. "The Council thought you died at the border. Judge Caos sent three search teams to the border forest before dawn."
"Almost." I toss the mud-stained shirt over a chair and pull a clean black coat from the closet. "A Nullblood saved me."
Kieran raises an eyebrow. My second-in-command, Council reform ally, has followed me for two centuries—sharp, loyal, direct. "A Nullblood?"
"Arcanum student. Nullblood, wearing a Suppressor, Number Seventeen." I pour wine but don't drink, just watch the surface ripple. The goblet is hemacrystal, the deep red liquid throwing complicated light patterns, like a maze. "She used bloodrose, shadowmoss, and lunite to make a Shadeblight cure. Council alchemists need three days to make that formula. She read it once and remembered. And..."
I pause. That ancient echo surfaces again, from when her blood entered me, like someone from far away softly ringing a bell.
"And what?" Kieran asks.
"And the cure worked better than the formula should." My voice drops. "The Shadeblight cleared completely in fifteen minutes. Normally, even the best formula takes six hours."
Kieran puts down the hemacoin. His eyes rest on my neck for a moment, then return to my face.
"You sealed a Bloodbond."
I turn. The goblet still in my hand.
"Your scent changed," he says, calm as reading a lab report. "Peach and rust underneath. Pupils dilated thirty percent more than baseline. Classic post-Bloodbond reaction."
I'm quiet for a moment, then nod. "Yes. After she saved me."
"What will you do? Bring her to the Owlspire and keep her like a pet bird?"
I walk to the window. The academy takes shape in the dawn light. Light falls across my hand. The pull is still there—she's somewhere in that direction, getting farther away, but the Bloodbond connection is a thin thread from my heart to where she is.
"I won't chase her down and lock her in a cage." My voice drops. "I'll teach her. Make her strong enough that she never needs saving again."
Kieran walks over and stands next to me. "So you'll officially take the position?"
"Yes." I finish the wine. "Push through mandatory Bloodwarding. Give every non-combat student the ability to defend themselves."
"And she'll meet you again in that class."
I don't answer. Dawn paints a golden line across my hand. I look at my fingers, remembering her pulse under my thumb.
Fast. Frantic. Like a scared animal.
"Her talent surprises me," I say, voice aimed at Kieran, or maybe myself. "But her strength surprises me more. Grew up in Ashen Row, wears a Suppressor to class, gets bullied by the Pureblood crowd—but she didn't turn out like Valeria. She didn't throw hate and poison back at the world. She just... kept doing her work."
Kieran is quiet for a while. Then: "You're serious about this?"
"I never joke."
Outside, bats fly home to roost, wings beating the air like black wind. I put down the goblet and turn to the desk. On the desk sits an unfinished proposal—the Council application for mandatory Bloodwarding.
In three days I'll walk into Council Hall as the officially appointed Senior Adjudicator. Push through mandatory Bloodwarding, give every non-combat student self-defense training. Give her a chance to stand in front of me as a student instead of a Nullblood.
This girl—I don't want to see her crushed again.
The Bloodbond connection trembles in my awareness. She's far away, awake, going through her own morning. Fear and shame mixed together, coming through from the other end of the connection, like an unsigned letter.
I close my eyes and feel her heartbeat.
"Wait," I say to the air. "I'll give you the power to protect yourself."