I didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly the space between us was gone. My mouth was on hers, and it wasn’t a battle this time. It was a surrender. The kiss was desperate, raw, all the unspoken frustration and fear of the last month pouring into a single, searing touch. Her lips were cool at first, the familiar taste of frost and winter air, but they warmed beneath mine.

My fire surged toward her instinctively, curling around her magic like smoke drawn to snow. Instead of burning her away, I melted her.

And she let me.

She parted for me slowly, with a soft, yielding sigh that nearly unraveled me on the spot. I cupped the back of her neck, my fingers threading into the braid she’d so carefully twisted hours ago. I tugged it loose. I needed to feel all of her, unbound, uncontrolled.

The moment her hair fell, her hands moved too. Up my chest, beneath my collar, pushing aside my shirt. Her palms were cool against my skin, but they didn’t chill me. They ignited me in a way nothing else ever had.

I broke the kiss long enough to breathe—and gods, I needed to breathe—only to trail my mouth down the elegant line of her throat. She tilted her head back with a soft gasp, exposing the pale blue column of her neck. I kissed her there, gentle and reverent, feeling her shiver beneath me. She tasted like minerals and winter storms, clean and elemental.

I whispered against her skin, “You’re beautiful.” My voice was rough, unfamiliar to me in its honesty. Then I faltered, realizing I needed to reveal my truth to her. “I'm scared of losing someone else. Of being too late again. I’m scared of losing you. And the longer this drags out with no answers—”

She placed cool fingers over my heated lips. Her expression was stripped of all its usual ice. Her usual icy shield softened, revealing a flicker of her own vulnerability.

“I understand. I’m scared, too.” Her voice was barely audible. “I’ve always been too scared of trusting anyone to lead but myself, especially when it comes to my family and friends.”

She pulled back just enough to look at me. That was it. The last wall between us crumbled to dust.

She kissed me again, with fierce certainty.

I lifted her easily into my arms. She was so light, all sharp edges and controlled grace. I carried her from the common room into my private chamber. The door clicked shut behind us, and when I laid her down on my bed, the dark furs, I gave her one last chance to raise her shields. “Tell me to stop.”

Her answer was to hook a hand behind my neck and pull me down, her mouth claiming mine in a soul-stealing kiss that left no room for doubt. It was everything I felt for her, returned in equal measure.

Magic shimmered between us. My fire swirling with her frost, dancing in harmony and contrast. Her frost bloomed across the dark furs beneath us, glittering like starlight caught in a gentle snowfall. When the frost crawled up the stone walls in intricate, feathery patterns of impossible beauty, my fire stirred in answer. Not wild and destructive, but reverent. The glowing patterns on my skin brightened to molten gold, casting flickering shadows that danced with the glittering ice.

The room became a living storm, a paradox of elements finding a violent, perfect equilibrium. The air thickened with steam as our powers bled into the space, heat and cold entwining in a delicate, perfect balance. My heat made condensation drip from the ceiling like a summer rain. Her frost made the air sharp and clean.

Steam billowed around us, and water droplets beaded on our skin. Every breath we shared was an exchange of power, every touch a fusion of opposing worlds. Fire meeting ice. Summer meeting winter. My driving heat was met by her encompassing cool, a friction that was more than physical. It was elemental.

And when the storm peaked, the room plunged into a sudden, deep cold as a pulse of blue-white light exploded from her, and every drop of moisture in the air turned to glittering ice crystals, suspended in the air around us like a thousand tiny stars.

Then a volcanic eruption of heat and light flared from my skin. Her floating ice crystals shattered into vapor. The air thickened into fog, and for one breathless moment, the world vanished in steam and silence.

Afterward, I held her close, my hands tracing the curve of her back, feeling the steady pulse beneath her skin. Her head rested in the crook of my shoulder, her breathing slow and even, each exhale a cool whisper against my skin.

The frantic, gnawing fire that had been eating me alive for weeks was finally banked. It wasn’t gone; it had just found its center. In her.

I didn’t want to move.

This fragile peace was new territory. It was quiet and terrifying and more real than any duel I'd ever fought. I wanted to hold onto it, to build a fortress around this single moment of stillness.

She shifted, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at me. The last of the steam swirled around her, veiling her like a goddess in a dream. Her violet eyes were soft, unguarded, and filled with a new, serious light. For the first time, I felt like we were truly on the same side, a united front.

“I think we should go to Isa,” she said quietly.

The words slid under my skin like a blade of ice.

I stiffened, just slightly, but she felt it.

Her expression was calm, certain. She wasn’t provoking me. She wasn’t testing me. She genuinely thought I’d say yes.

“We have to,” she continued. “We’re not getting anywhere, and it’s been nearly over a week. We’ve tried everything. She knows something. It’s time.”

She paused, and I saw the resolve harden in her gaze.

“We have to go to Isa. Together.”

The warmth in my chest cooled to a dull ache. The embers of my magic flickered with confusion. I thought we had found our peace. A reason to be careful.

Gently, I pulled back, sitting up.

“Aster,” I said. My voice was calm, reasonable. “No.”

She blinked. “No?”

“We agreed. With the group. We’d work our leads. Stay cautious.” I had to be the responsible one, the man I thought she needed me to be. I dragged a hand through my hair, the fire inside me sparking with rising tension. “Going to Isa now, without a real plan, it’s a mistake.”

Her face didn’t twist in anger. It iced over.

“You’re serious.” Her voice dropped in temperature by ten degrees. “You’re actually saying no.”

“This isn’t about not doing anything. This is about being smart. We don’t know what Isa’s capable of, or how far she’s gone to keep this hidden.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She sat up now too. “You think I haven’t considered the risk?”

“I think,” I said, trying to steady myself with her lovely vision before me, “you’re reacting because we’re out of leads. But throwing ourselves into her office with no warning is suicide.”

Her eyes narrowed, cold returning to her voice. “That’s rich. Coming from the guy who used to mock anyone who hesitated. Who scorched his own desk because the group didn’t move fast enough.”

She left my bed, gathering her clothes. Each motion was precise, freezing. “I thought after everything—after this—you’d finally be on the same page as me.”

“I am,” I said, rising to my feet. “But the same page doesn’t mean the same sentence. We have to be smart.”

“You’re not being smart,” she snapped. “You’re hiding behind them. You’re hiding behind Rielle's grief and Garnexis's caution. The Ardorion I thought I knew would have been kicking down her door an hour ago.”

I reached for her arm. “That’s not fair.”

She jerked back. “Neither is this.”

Her eyes became frozen violet gems. The warmth between us was gone, replaced by a vast, arctic silence.

“I finally decided to trust a fire,” she said, her voice cutting and final, “and you've decided to become an ember. Don't talk to me about plans until you remember how to burn.”

She left without another word. The door closed behind her with a soft, final click that echoed in the sudden emptiness of my room like a thunderclap.

I stood there in the wreckage—still flushed, still bare, still burning—and felt the heat drain from my chest. I’d thought holding back was the right choice. That tempering the fire was finally growth.

But maybe all she’d ever needed from me was the wildfire.

I turned to grab my discarded shirt, and that’s when I saw it.

Her student ID card.

It had slipped out of her robe pocket, lying face-up on the stone floor.

I picked it up slowly.

Her beautiful image stared up at me, her expression as composed as ever, a perfect mask.

I remembered what Shara had told us about the Docilis Vault, about using another’s ID to see a truth they couldn’t speak. We just had to hit the thumb print on the weird stone board before inputting the ID number. A thought, hot and reckless, sparked in the hollow cavern of my chest. She wants me to burn, I thought. She wants a fire.

I looked at the card in my hand, then at the closed door of my chamber. What would a fire do with a key like this?