Chapter 6 | Awakening | Kael
She didn't look back.
I stand at the exit of Forgotten Walk, watching her figure fade toward the dorm area. Her black velvet coat flaps in the wind, way too big for her small frame—like borrowed armor. Dawn light pours between the eastern towers, painting her outline in pale gold.
Something stirs inside me. Not pain—more like a weird pull, as if someone tied a string to my heart and she's carrying the other end away. Classic post-Bloodbond symptom—I've read about it, know the theory. But knowing and feeling are two different things.
I look at my palm. My fingertips still hold her warmth, and her blood.
That blood felt wrong. Not just the temperature or thickness—something deeper. When I first caught her scent, beneath the peach and rust, there was an ancient echo hiding there, like a distant bell ringing low and heavy, carrying a familiarity I don't want to think about.
Must be a hallucination. Leftover toxin. Or early Bloodbond messing with my head.
I push myself up. Shadeblight residue still crawls through my body like stubborn parasites, but my strength is coming back. Dawn seeps through the pillars, and the silver moss's glow fades. Moss goes dormant in daylight, turning plain gray—like all magical things eventually becoming ordinary.
Some instinct growls in my chest. My own instinct, the part the Bloodbond woke up after a thousand years. It says: Chase her. Bring her back. Make her yours. Complete the bond.
I close my eyes, pushing down the urge. Not now. She needs space, time to process everything. And I need time to figure out—how can a Nullblood make Shadeblight cure work better than it should?
That ancient echo... No. Impossible.
Progenitor bloodline died out three thousand years ago. Every bloodkind historian agrees on that. A Nullblood having Progenitor blood makes as much sense as fish learning to fly.
I stand up and head toward the exit of Forgotten Walk.
My footsteps on the moss make no sound. Third-Rank Prince Shadow-glide—body melting into darkness, moving faster than eyes can follow—even weakened by poison, this basic skill flows naturally. Each step feels like walking on air, like I don't quite belong to the ground.
Three seconds later I'm at the exit. Dawn has broken, she's long gone, but I still know which way she went.
The Bloodbond link is a thin thread, running from my heart to wherever she is.
Thin. Fragile. But real, like a red line buried in snow.
I will find you. I repeat in my head. Not a threat. A promise. The first promise I've made to another person in a thousand years.
The Owlspire has stood at the edge of the academy for seven hundred years. Three-story stone tower, covered in dark purple bloodvines on the outside—they say those only grow on the oldest buildings 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.
Kieran is waiting in the study. He sits on the windowsill, back against the stained-glass owl pattern, flipping a hemacoin. His amber eyes are calm as old wine in the candlelight, watching me carefully.
"You disappeared all night." He says, the hemacoin spinning between his fingers with a soft scraping sound. "The Council thought you died at the border. Judge Caos sent three search teams to the border forest before dawn."
"Almost did." I toss my mud-covered shirt onto a chair and pull a clean black coat from the closet. "A Nullblood saved me."
Kieran raises an eyebrow. My lieutenant, Council reformist ally, has followed me for two centuries—sharp, loyal, straight to the point. "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 refracting complicated light patterns, like a maze. "She used bloodrose, shadowmoss, and lunite to mix a Shadeblight cure. Council alchemists need three days to make that. She just read it and remembered. And..."
I pause. That ancient echo surfaces again—when her blood entered me, it was like someone from the distant past softly ringing a bell.
"And what?" Kieran asks.
"And the cure worked better than it should have." My voice drops. "Shadeblight completely cleared in fifteen minutes. Normally, even the best formula takes six hours."
Kieran sets down the hemacoin. His eyes rest on my neck for a moment, then return to my face.
"You sealed a Bloodbond."
I turn. Goblet still in hand.
"Your scent changed." He says it calmly, like reading a lab report. "Peach and rust underneath. Your pupils are thirty percent more dilated than normal. Classic post-Bloodbond reaction."
I'm quiet for a moment, then nod. "Yes. After she saved me."
"What are you going to do? Bring her to the Owlspire and keep her like a pet bird?"
I walk to the window. The academy's outline becomes clearer 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 link is a thin thread running from my heart to wherever 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'll never need saving again."
Kieran walks over and stands next to me. "So you'll officially accept the appointment?"
"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 stripe across my hand. I look at my fingers, remembering her pulse under my thumb.
Fast. Frantic. Like a frightened animal. But her fingers while mixing the cure were steady as rock.
"Her talent surprises me." I say, speaking to Kieran or maybe to myself. "But her toughness surprises me more. Grew up in Ashen Row, wearing a Suppressor to class, bullied by the Pureblood crowd—but she didn't turn out like Valeria. She didn't use bitterness and anger against the world. She just... kept doing her own thing."
Kieran is quiet for a while. Then: "You're serious about this?"
"I never joke."
Outside, bats return to their roosts, wings beating the air like black wind. I set down the goblet and turn toward the desk. On it lies an unfinished proposal—the mandatory Bloodwarding Council application.
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 skills. Give her a chance to stand before me as a student instead of just a Nullblood.
This girl—I don't want to see her get trampled again.
The Bloodbond link 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 link, like an unsigned letter.
I close my eyes, feeling her heartbeat.
"Wait." I say to the air. "I'll give you the power to protect yourself."