“We’re bound by duty,” I said, pulling away, “you just wanted everyone to see it.” Thalen’s jaw tensed, a flicker of words caught behind clenched teeth, but I was already turning away. He hadn’t even said it yet, but I knew what was coming. Why wasn’t I wearing the ring.
The diamond ring I had never chosen. The one I was forced to wear.
Somewhere behind us, two red-haired twins I didn’t recognize failed to contain themselves. Muffled laugh broke free, sharp as splintered glass.
“You know,” Shakari said in a sing-song voice, “you’re technically supposed to be married to that one sometime after graduation.”
“I’m aware,” I muttered.
She bumped into my shoulder with hers. “You could at least try to look like you don’t loathe him”
“I do loathe him. He was my boyfriend. He cheated on me, and now my mother is forcing me to marry him. I don’t want his ring. It’s quite simple.”
“Yes, sounds very simple,” Shakari replied with a smirk. “I never liked him anyway.”
But it wasn’t simple. The bitterness of betrayal stung beneath my skin like a splinter I couldn’t remove. For a moment, frustration mingled with sadness, and each glance at that ring twisted pain in my gut, raw and sharp as glass.
Thalen wasn’t just cold. He was polished, statuesque, untouchable. Worse, he was cruel in the deliberate way only someone who knows your heart can be. He had been mine when he entered Elarion. In his first-year, he chose someone else, treating me as a steppingstone. As if I were nothing.
And still, last year, my mother and his father made it official. They forced the engagement, slid the ring onto my hand, and called it destiny. Not for me, but for them. For his father, General Barret, and my mother, the Queen of Solenhart. A tidy alliance between crown and command, forged in legacy and sealed in blood. They would marry us for our strong magical traces and ensure a powerful heir for the throne. What I wanted never mattered. I didn’t want the ring, and I didn't want the crown.
The thought burned hot in my chest and blurred all else, but Shakari’s voice and the world around me pulled me back. I forced the ache aside as the looming tower doors of the main hall rose ahead, tall and framed in etched silver. The hum of Elarion’s central spire vibrated faintly beneath my boots, reminding me that no matter how loud my thoughts became, the academy would keep moving without me.
And then, just before the arch swallowed us into the main tower I saw him. His eyes held mine. They were Moonveil's deep silver eyes. I should have looked away. But I didn’t. Standing just beyond the crowd, his arms crossed over his chest; green uniform sleeves rolled to the elbow, a half-smile playing at his mouth like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.
He was taller than the rest. Lean and muscular cut more than built. Sun-kissed skin from years of training below the sun stretched over his forearms that flexed as he shifted. His shirt clung to a chest broad enough to carry a blade, narrow at the waist; hips angled in lazy challenge.
A tattoo on his muscular arm displayed a Dragontail legion’s sigil in green and gold. His jaw was sharp. His mouth was full and unsmiling. Stubble darkened his cheekbones. His hair was a deep caramel brown, thick and unruly, tousled like the wind had tried and failed to tame it.
And his eyes found me, held me. It was not a curious gaze, not cold, just steady, and sharp enough to cut.
I stopped walking.
He said something to a Sunheart male next to him. He didn’t respond, he just followed his gaze. My gaze.
Magic twisted in my hands, ran up my arms, pulsed through my chest like a second heartbeat.
Then his expression shifted.
His eyes were suddenly shadowed with anger, maybe even hatred. The sharpness of that change startled me, and I felt a coldness bloom beneath my own lingering curiosity. It hit me like sunlight through glass.
He didn’t move, didn’t blink. He just stared, like I was something he’d already decided to destroy.
And yet I couldn’t look away.
I forced my legs to move.
The tension lingered in my chest like smoke even as my feet moved forward. My magic hummed louder now, stirring with a strange rhythm I didn’t understand. I let my gaze slip away from the male in green just as we neared the final arch, the spires of Elarion rising above us like a crown carved from storm light.
We stepped beneath it, the threshold swallowing us in shadow and silence. The sound of the courtyard dimmed behind us, and all that remained was the pulse of magic beneath my skin and the echo of eyes I couldn’t forget.
I leaned close to Shakari. “Do you know who that was?”
Shakari glanced over her shoulder again. “I don’t know who he is. With his green uniform and his tattoo, he is from the Dragontail legion.”
Then I turned to Shakari, my voice low.
“He was burning me alive with his gaze,” I muttered. “I’ve never seen him before and I just got here. Already I need to watch my back.”