Chapter 58 The Unholy Tie

Chapter 58 The Unholy Tie
The crimson vision shattered. Ravelyn violently snapped back into her physical body, gasping for air as her lungs burned. Her eyes rolled back from pure blankness, blinking rapidly as a leftover, dangerous gold fire slowly receded from her pupils.

She staggered away from the wooden platform, her boots skidding on the rough dirt of the tunnel floor. Her chest heaved. The image of the High Chief falling with a celestial spear through his chest was still burned into her retinas. Her ancestors hadn't just died in a fair war. They were hunted down like animals by the Grand Coalition. The very people who had dragged her to Gryphon’s Gate Academy were the ones who had wiped her family from existence.

"Malphas," she choked out.

The shadow beast materialized instantly, whining softly as it pressed its massive head against her knee.

She looked at the dragon sword sitting in the center of the platform. Its stone exterior was completely gone, revealing a pristine metallic blade with a hilt beautifully molded into the shape of a roaring dragon. She couldn't leave it here. She couldn't let anyone find it.

"Hide it," she commanded.

Malphas opened his jaws, swallowing the weapon into his shadow pocket. The ancient carvings on the wall immediately went dark, plunging the tunnel into a dim, suffocating twilight.

Heavy footsteps suddenly echoed down the passage, loud and frantic.

"Ravelyn!" Lucius burst into the space. His pristine white and gold school uniform was covered in black soot, his silver-blonde hair completely disheveled, and his breathing erratic.

Ravelyn panicked, instinctively backing away until her spine hit the cold stone wall. "Are you following me? Just stay away from me!"

"I can't!" Lucius yelled back. His voice boomed through the cavern, echoing off the rough walls. His chest heaved as he stared at her. "Although I absolutely detest your kind, I can't help but feel drawn to you!"

Ravelyn scoffed, deep disgust twisting her features. "Oh, that's such a sick thing to say."

Lucius opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, a slow clapping sound vibrated from the darker corner of the tunnel.

"She's right, you know. It is sick," Kieran drawled.

The demon prince stepped out from the shadows near the cave wall. His dark uniform shirt was torn at the shoulder, a fresh cut bleeding slightly near his collarbone, but his eyes were unnaturally sharp.

Ravelyn froze, her gaze darting between the two of them. The shock finally caught up to her. "What are you guys doing here? How did you even find me?"

"I was able to track you because we are bonded," Kieran said simply, crossing his arms.

Ravelyn frowned deeply, her defensive walls instantly going up. Malphas moved in front of her, stepping into a rigid, protective pose as he let out a low, vibrating growl toward the demon.

"Bonded?" Ravelyn demanded, her voice rising. "I don't remember agreeing to bond with you at any time. Why the hell are we bonded?"

Kieran sighed, rolling his shoulders back. "Think back to the medical wing. When you were poisoned by Seraphine, you were completely out of it, thrashing and screaming. You were about to lose your mind to the dark. I had to feed you my Aether just to stabilize your core and keep you alive. That kind of magic leaves a tether, Ravelyn. I can feel your pulse."

Ravelyn’s stomach dropped, a bitter taste rising in her throat. She hated being indebted to him, and she hated that he had a piece of her inside his senses.

Slowly, she turned her head to face the angel standing a few feet away. "Fine. But I doubt I'm bonded with you too, Lucius. We have barely even interacted since I got to this miserable academy."

Lucius didn't say anything. He stood rigidly, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. He didn't know how to explain it to her. He couldn't find the words.

The truth was, the exact moment Ravelyn had vanished from his view in the exam sector, a violent panic had gripped his chest. His pristine white wings had burst out of his back on their own accord, defying his control, and had flown him directly toward her location like a compass.

But there was absolutely no way he was going to tell her that.

"When you got to this place, the academy security grid got notified," Lucius lied, his voice forced into a cold, flat tone. "I merely followed the system coordinates."

As the lie left his lips, his left eye twitched slightly—a dead giveaway of his inner turmoil.

Kieran noticed it instantly. He frowned, his dark eyes narrowing as he glared at the angel, but he kept his mouth shut, waiting to see how Ravelyn would react.

Ravelyn didn't care about Lucius's excuses. She didn't care about his sudden obsession. Her gaze drifted back to Kieran, and the true weight of the flashback hit her.

The anger she felt for Lucius was nothing compared to the white-hot, agonizing betrayal burning in her chest right now. Lucius had always been the arrogant enemy, a golden prince from a tyrant bloodline, so his twisted behavior made sense. But Kieran was different.

A deep, quiet part of her had actually started to grow used to the demon. She had started to feel safe around him during their late-night banter. She thought he was the one person who didn't view her as a complete freak.

Now, she knew better.

"You knew," Ravelyn whispered, her voice shaking violently as she stared into Kieran's dark eyes. "You knew exactly what your kind and the angels did to my people. You knew about the slaughter. You knew about the massacre."

Kieran didn't blink. His expression hardened into an unreadable mask. "Ravelyn—"

"No! Shut up!" she yelled, tears of absolute fury pricking the corners of her eyes. "You looked me in the eye every single day. You made me do things together with you, pretending like you were just some bored prince helping a low-tier Wraith. You kept me in the dark while your family sat on a throne built on the bones of my ancestors!"

"It's a war that happened thousands of years ago," Kieran said, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm register. "My family didn't write the curriculum at this academy, and neither did I. If I told you the truth on day one, you would have charged straight into elder's chambers and gotten yourself executed before the first bell rang."

"So you lied to protect me? Is that your excuse?" Ravelyn let out a sharp, mocking laugh that sounded completely broken. "I hate you. I hate you more than I hate Lucius. At least he wears his arrogance on his sleeve. You played me."

Lucius stepped forward, the gold embroidery on his uniform catching the dim light as his halo flaked a sudden, protective heat. "Ravelyn, in as much as I hate to admit, but he's right. With your current strength, you wouldn't be able to do anything. They would lock you up."

"Let them," Ravelyn hissed, backing away toward the deeper, darker exit of the tunnel. "I'd rather be locked up than trust either of you."

"You don't have a choice," Kieran said, taking a swift step toward her. His shadow stretched across the dirt floor, moving faster than his physical body. "You want revenge for your family? You want to swing that shiny new toy you just hid inside your beast? You won't live long enough to wield it if you stay in this hole."

Malphas barked, a vicious, snapping sound as the shadow beast bared its razor-sharp teeth at Kieran, forcing the demon prince to halt his advance.

"Don't touch me," Ravelyn warned, her hands igniting with unstable, violet-gold flames. The hybrid energy was a volatile mess inside her veins, fueled entirely by her grief. "The next person who comes near me gets blasted through the roof of this cavern."

Lucius looked at Kieran, a silent, tense understanding passing between the two rivals for the first time in their lives. They couldn't force her without triggering another catastrophic explosion.

"Fine," Lucius said, lowering his hands. "We go back separately. But you need to clear your mana signature before you return, or the automated system will flag your core as anomalous."

Ravelyn didn't answer him. She didn't look at either of them again.

With her heart shattered into brilliant, angry pieces, she turned on her heel and sprinted down the dark, rough corridor of the tunnel, Malphas running hard at her side. She didn't know where the path led, and she didn't care. The golden valley of her ancestors was gone, replaced by a cold reality where she was surrounded by executioners, and the only person she had started to trust was the biggest liar of them all.