Page 53

ASH

The training arena feels different this morning.

And by different, I mean everyone’s staring at me like I’m a bomb that might explode at any second.

Electric current races along my skin as Cassius straightens, his gaze tracking something beneath my sleeves while students shift positions with military precision—twenty-three faces watching me with predator intensity, each covering an exit or angle of attack.

Shit. They know.

The bond marks from healing Kieran last night pulse beneath my sleeves—silver lines that refuse to fade despite the Academy-issued glamour cream I slathered on them this morning.

Heat radiates through the fabric in patterns visible to anyone with magical sight.

The concealment flakes off like dried paint, glamour failing against royal magic that refuses to be hidden.

“Today we’re covering defensive formations,” I announce, keeping my voice steady while cataloging weapons within reach. Ceramic practice blades on the equipment table—twelve feet away. Emergency exits—two blocked by student positioning. “Partner exercises. Watch your spacing and?—”

“Professor Morgan.”

The voice slides between my ribs like ice. Cassius Brightwater, third-year Seelie with platinum hair and court ambitions written in every calculated move. His hand raises in perfect formal court style, but his eyes hold something that makes every combat instinct scream danger.

Darius shifts left, putting himself between me and the main door. Elena moves right, casual steps that happen to block the secondary exit. Marcus adjusts his stance to cover the weapons rack. Coordinated. Planned. Professional spacing that screams military academy training.

Information like this could secure a court position for decades—especially with seasonal selections opening soon. Eliminate the competition, take down the Academy’s star professor, and clear their path to advancement beautifully.

“Yes?” I reply, automatically assessing distances. Cassius—eight feet, knife accessible. Elena—fifteen feet, spellcaster position. Darius—twenty feet but blocking escape routes.

“I was wondering about the markings on your wrists.”

Every student goes dead still. Breathing stops. Training swords lower as magical attention focuses like laser sights.

Lightning strikes through my sternum as silver lines flare beneath my sleeves, betraying their presence with heat that bleeds through failing glamour. The concealment cream cracks and peels, falling away in visible flakes that drift to the stone floor.

“Not sure what you mean,” I start, but my throat constricts like a garrote tightening. Each word fights against invisible resistance, my windpipe seizing as it rejects the lie with physical violence.

Choking sounds escape before I can stop them. My hand flies to my throat as color drains from my face, neck muscles standing out in sharp relief as truth the constraint manifests.

Students lean forward, recognizing the symptoms with court-trained precision.

“Ah.” Cassius rises with liquid grace, practically purring with satisfaction as he watches me struggle against my own nature. “Cannot lie about it, can you? Very distinctive markings. Very... intimate.”

The word drops into silence like a grenade with the pin pulled.

From the gallery above, shadows deepen with sudden violence. Kieran’s presence burns across my skin like a physical brand. Frost spreads along the observation rail as his magic responds to rising threat.

Options rapidly diminishing: Deny everything—impossible with truth magic strangling me. Deflect—they’re too focused, positioning too deliberate. Retreat—exits professionally blocked.

That leaves door number four: complete catastrophe.

“Consort bonds,” observes Lyra Thornwick, a Wild Court student whose voice carries something that sounds dangerously like recognition. Hope. “Between courts.”

The floor dissolves beneath my feet. Several students inhale sharply—the political implications hitting like falling hammers.

“Interesting development for a supposed human,” adds Darius, shadows dancing around his hands with predatory excitement. His magic probes mine, testing for responses. “The question is... whose magic marked you?”

The arena’s atmosphere shifts like air before a thunderstorm. Students exchange glances—silent communications passed through magical sight, court signals, status calculations. They smell blood in the water, and royal favor awaits whoever exposes what I’m hiding.

Stone beneath my feet cracks with hairline fractures, responding to magic that presses against my ribs like a caged animal.

“Show us,” Cassius demands, stepping closer. Light coalesces around his fingertips—not the gentle illumination from basic training but something invasive, violent, designed to strip away concealment. “Show us what you are hiding.”

Twenty-three students, each one a weapon trained from childhood in court magic and political warfare. All focused on me with the kind of intensity that precedes bloodshed.

From the gallery, Kieran shifts forward. But he’s too far away, and whatever’s about to happen is moving with the speed of falling dominoes.

Ancient fire stirs in my chest, responding to threat with recognition that predates civilization. My ribs crack outward as foreign magic presses against bone. Temperature drops three degrees as something wild awakens.

I clamp down on it hard, forcing power back into whatever corner it crawled out of. Not here. Not like this. Not when it means losing every scrap of control I’ve built my life around.

Plants in wall planters turn toward me without wind. Crystal fixtures brighten by degrees. Students step back instinctively as primal magic bleeds into the atmosphere.

“Perhaps we should settle this definitively,” Elena says, ice-blue eyes glittering with malice and calculated ambition.

Before I can ask what she means, she strikes.

Light explodes from her hands—brilliant, invasive, wrong in every way that matters. The magical assault slams into me like a freight train made of pure illumination, clawing at whatever’s been hiding my true nature.

Acid pours through my nervous system. Copper floods my mouth as capillaries burst under pressure. My vision fractures into geometric patterns that hurt to perceive directly, and my bones feel like they’re being hollowed out and refilled with molten metal.

The magic I’ve been suppressing surges upward, fighting against decades of binding with the fury of something that’s been caged its entire existence. Wildfire scorches through my vertebrae. I grit my teeth until enamel creaks, shoving it back down.

This was supposed to be MY choice. MY timeline. MY decision about when and how to reveal what I am.

But the power writhes under my control like a living thing with its own agenda, and Elena’s assault keeps coming. My skin burns where ancient magic tries to break free, clothing smoking at stress points.

“Stop,” I manage through gritted teeth, though I’m not sure if I’m talking to her or to the magic threatening to tear me apart from the inside.

Beneath the pain, something else surges with volcanic force.

Rage.

Not at being exposed—that was inevitable. But at having the choice stolen. At being attacked by students I’ve been teaching, protecting, training to be better than this. At magic used as a weapon against someone who showed them nothing but respect.

My hands clench into fists, knuckles white with strain. Stone fractures spread outward from my feet in spider web patterns. Several students stumble as the floor shifts beneath them.

Something deep in my chest snaps like a loaded spring released after decades of compression.

The thorns explode.

Lava replaces my blood as power tears through unprepared channels.

This isn’t the gentle awakening from before—this is forced manifestation, royal magic ripping through a system that’s been suppressed for decades.

My skeleton fractures under pressure as bones reshape to accommodate power they were never meant to hold.

Blood fills my mouth as capillaries burst throughout my system. Each thorn that erupts takes something from me—energy, life force, pieces of myself that I may never get back. But I don’t stop it. Can’t stop it.

The price of hiding what I am has become higher than the cost of revealing it.

First, small thorns pierce through my sleeves—tiny points of blue-green light that make students gasp and step backward. Then larger ones, spiraling up my arms in patterns that glow with their own internal fire.

The stone beneath my feet doesn’t just crack—it splits with the sound of breaking bones as roots burst upward like they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this moment. Massive vines erupt from Academy foundations, thick as tree trunks and armed with thorns the size of daggers.

Elena screams as her spell fractures against royal magic, feedback slamming her backward into the arena wall. Cassius stumbles, his perfect court composure cracking as he stares at power that shouldn’t exist.

And me? I stop fighting what I am.

Power flows through my marrow, reshaping me from within. Each vertebra aligns with sudden certainty, spine straightening into perfect royal posture that speaks of bloodlines and birthrights.

Stone continues cracking outward in concentric circles. Crystal fixtures throughout the arena blaze with sudden brilliance, responding to royal presence with recognition programmed into their very structure.

“Enough.”

The word hits with authority I didn’t know I possessed—the voice of Wild Court royalty, the bloodline every court spent centuries hunting. It resonates from deep in my chest, vibrating through stone and crystal until the entire Academy rings like a struck bell.

Academy stones sing in harmonic response to power they remember from before the courts divided, when royal magic flowed freely through these halls. Ancient runes appear on walls, glowing with soft green light as they recognize legitimate royal presence.