Chapter 49 Dueling Mentors
Chapter 49 Dueling Mentors
The Spire of Celeste didn’t just house the elite; it breathed superiority. The air was so thin and filtered it felt like inhaling liquid diamonds, a stark, antiseptic contrast to the scent of basalt and sweat that usually clung to me after a session in the pits. I stood in the center of the Chamber of Clarity, my charcoal training leggings feeling like a smudge of graphite on a pristine canvas of moonstone.
Malik was waiting for me, his back to the floor-to-ceiling crystalline windows. The morning sun caught the gold in his hair, weaving a literal halo around a head I knew was currently filled with very un-angelic thoughts. He was the picture of divine order, his white tunic draped over shoulders that were far too broad for a man supposedly focused on the ethereal. I wanted to trip him. I wanted to see him stumble, just once, to prove that his blood was as red as mine and not some shimmering celestial ichor.
“You are late, Amaya,” he said. He didn’t turn, but his voice carried that low, rhythmic vibration that made the fine hairs on my neck stand at attention. It wasn’t the hungry, predatory growl Ryker used; it was a pressurized calm, like the ocean floor right before a tectonic shift.
“I got distracted by a particularly arrogant sunset,” I chirped, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back on one heel. “And by ‘distracted,’ I mean I spent twenty minutes wondering if you actually sleep or if you stand here in a decorative pose until the moon comes out. Does it ever get exhausting? Being a living ornament for the Architect?”
Malik finally turned, his sapphire eyes locking onto mine. There were faint shadows beneath them, a subtle crack in the perfect porcelain of his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept, and I knew exactly why. My psychic ‘whipped cream’ broadcast from breakfast was still hanging between us like a neon sign in a dark alley. He was fighting it. He was fighting the memory of my tongue tracing the imaginary sweetness off his skin.
“The ‘Broken’ protocol has begun, Amaya,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, ignoring my jab with a practiced ease that only made me want to push harder. “The Echo Chamber was a test of your resilience. Today is a test of your focus. If you cannot shield your mind, you are a liability to yourself and the prophecy. You are an open book in a library filled with arsonists.”
“Liability is my middle name,” I muttered, stepping closer until I was inside the circle of his personal space. I could feel the chill he radiated—a cooling, static energy that made my skin prickle. “So, what’s the lesson, Saint? More litanies? Or are we going to do some of that ‘sacred meditation’ where I try not to think about how much I want to see you lose that damnable tunic and find out if you’re gold all the way down?”
Malik’s jaw tightened so hard I heard the faint click of bone. In a blur of white silk and blinding grace, he appeared directly in front of me. He didn’t touch me, but his aura—a vast, cold expanse of pure light—wrapped around me like a shroud. It was suffocating and intoxicating all at once.
“You think your ‘bratty’ defiance is a shield, Amaya,” he whispered, leaning down until his lips were just a hair’s breadth from my ear. His breath was cool, smelling of mint and ozone. “But it is a sieve. Your thoughts leak from you like blood from a wound. If I can feel your desire, so can the enemy. Do you want the dark entities to know exactly how you want to be touched? Do you want Whiro’s hounds to see the way your pulse jumps when I stand this close?”
I shivered, the coldness of his grace clashing violently with the heat rising in my gut. “Maybe I don’t care who knows. Maybe I like the idea of showing this whole stuffy school that their precious Saint has a pulse.”
“I care,” he rasped. His hand came up, hovering just an inch from my cheek. I could see the desperate restraint vibrating in his fingers, the way his knuckles were white as he fought the urge to close the distance. “Focus on the center of your chest. Visualize the filing system you built in the Echo Chamber. Every thought of Ryker, every thought of... me... put it in a box. Lock it. If you don’t, the visions will tear you apart before the demons even get a chance.”
“Is that a threat, Malik?” I challenged, looking up at him through my lashes, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “Are you going to lobotomize me for being human? For wanting something that isn’t a law?”
His eyes dropped to my mouth, and for one glorious, terrifying second, the ‘Saint’ absolutely vanished. The man beneath—the Wolf King, the king of deception—looked out at me with a hunger so raw it made my knees weak. His hand finally made contact, his thumb grazing my lower lip with a pressure that was both a caress and a command. It was the first time he’d truly touched me since the Great Hall, and the jolt was enough to make my vision blur.
“I am going to save you,” he whispered, his voice a low, intimate growl that vibrated in my chest. “Even if I have to break my own soul to do it. Now... close your eyes. If I feel a single drop of whipped cream in your mind, we start over. And trust me, Amaya, my patience is a lot more dangerous than your desire.”
We spent the next four hours in a psychological tug-of-war. Every time my mind slipped—every time the memory of Ryker’s hands or the scent of Malik’s skin flickered through my head—he hit me with a wave of mental pressure that felt like being plunged into an arctic lake. It was exhausting, punishing, and yet... I could feel the boxes forming. I could feel the control growing.
“Dismissed,” he said finally, his voice flat, his back to me once more as he looked out over the floating islands. But as I walked away, the ‘brat’ in me couldn’t help but look back. I felt his gaze lingering on the sway of my hips, a silent, holy confession that while he was teaching me how to hide my sins, he was failing miserably at hiding his own.