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.

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 like she’d been waiting her whole life to burn through it. Her palms were cool against my skin, but they didn’t chill me. They ignited me in a way nothing else ever had.

I slid my hand down her body to pull her flush against me, my body thrumming with a heat that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with her. The cool press of her body against mine was the only thing keeping me grounded.

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 column of her neck. I kissed her there, once, twice, and felt her shiver beneath me. She tasted like minerals and winter storms, clean and elemental.

My fingers found the edge of her robe, and I slipped my hand inside.

Her skin was silk over ice. Smooth and impossibly soft, cool to the touch but vibrating with barely leashed power. She moaned when I dragged my fingers up her side, brushing the outer curve of her breast.

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered. My voice was rough. I didn’t recognize myself in it. Then I stilled, realizing I needed to reveal my truth to her. “I'm scared, Aster. 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 this time, harder, and began to push my robes and tunic from my shoulders. I helped her. The moment it hit the floor, her hands were on my bare skin, and I nearly lost my footing from the jolt of sensation.

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, sealing us in our own world of heat and ice. I laid her down on my bed, the dark furs a delightful contrast to her pale skin and silvery-blue hair. Her robe slipped off her shoulders as she leaned back, and for a heartbeat, I just looked at her.

She was magnificent. Her breasts were full, her skin the color of moonlight on snow, flushed faintly lavender where I’d kissed her. But it was her nipples were a stunning, dusky blue, the color of a twilight sky just before the stars emerge, pebbled and hard from the cool air and my gaze.

I hovered over her on the bed

“Tell me to stop” I gave her one last chance to raise her shields.

Her answer was to hook a hand behind my neck and pull me down for another soul-stealing kiss. I gave her the kiss she sought, with everything I felt for her, and she gasped, a sharp, broken sound. A delicate layer of frost bloomed across the dark furs beneath her, glittering like starlight.

I marveled at the frost, the beauty of Aster’s unrestrained response. The air in my room grew thick, shimmering with steam as our magics bled into the space, my heat meeting her cold.

I lowered my head, my tongue flicking out to taste one of her nipples. She cried out, her back arching, and the frost on the bed spread, crawling up the stone walls in intricate, feathery patterns. Her eyes fluttered shut. My fire stirred again, this time not wild, but reverent. I wanted to worship her.

And I did, lavishing attention to her breasts before I kissed my way down her chest, across her ribs, then lower still. Her skin was cool to the touch, like river stones, but it warmed wherever my lips lingered.

Her stomach twitched under my mouth. She gasped my name, and I answered by slipping my tongue just above the waistband of her underthings, then sliding them off altogether. Her thighs trembled when I kissed the inside of one, then the other.

Her skin tasted like storm rain and frost, but beneath that… heat.

I wasn’t expecting that.

When I kissed her core, slow and careful, she let out a breath that ended in a cry. She was warm. Not just alive, but burning. Not cold at all. Her heat wasn’t wild like mine, but steady, deep, internal. She gripped the furs, her hips arching into my mouth, her breath coming faster. I explored her slowly, deliberately, savoring the taste of her, the way her thighs clenched around me, the rising pulse of water against fire.

When she came, it was quiet and powerful. Her body arched, her fingers tangled in my hair, and her magic surged outward in a wave of mist that rolled across the floor like fog over lava. I watched her unravel, and I knew I was hers.

I rose above her, and she pulled me into a kiss that was all teeth and tongue and need. Her fingers found the waistband of my trousers and shoved them down. I kicked them free and then paused, bracing myself above her. Her hands slid down my chest, her touch cool and firm.

“You don’t have to be careful,” she said, her voice low. “Not with me.”

Gods.

I positioned myself between her legs, steam rising from where our bodies almost touched. She looked up at me, her violet eyes wide and dark with a desire that mirrored my own. Her legs wrapped around my waist, my fire surging where our skin met, curling around her like flame around a glacier.

“Ardorion,” she whispered, a plea and a command.

I pushed inside her, and the world nearly exploded.

I froze.

She was so incredibly warm, so tight. The center of the earth hidden beneath a frozen lake. It was a shock to my system, a dousing of my senses in the most overwhelming way. I’d expected coolness. Instead, I was met with a welcoming, liquid heat that threatened my ecstasy too soon. She gasped, her nails digging into my back, and the frost on the walls flared with a brilliant, blue light. My own fire roared in response, the patterns on my skin glowing a molten orange.

In trying to stop my early release, I didn’t move within her yet, but I left no part of her untouched, my mouth and hands mapping every inch of her cool, smooth skin, determined to warm every part of her, to claim her with my fire.

The room became a whirlwind of opposing forces. My heat made condensation drip from the ceiling like a summer rain. Her frost made the air sharp and clean. We were a living storm, a paradox of elements finding a violent, perfect equilibrium.

She raked her nails down my back. “Move, Ardorion.”

So I did.

The first thrust nearly undid me.

Every thrust was a clash of 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. With every movement, steam billowed around us, our bodies slick with condensation. She met my rhythm, her hips rising with a fierce, demanding grace, a silent insistence that this wasn't a conquest, but a convergence.

We moved like we were made for this—like water boiling to steam, like fire smothered in snow only to rise again harder, faster.

My fire flared with each thrust. Hers pulsed against mine in cooling waves. The heat between us wasn’t just complementary. It was fusion.

I felt her start to unravel beneath me, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, her body trembling. I leaned down, kissing her hard, swallowing her cries as her climax hit her like a wave of pure, frozen energy. 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.

The overwhelming sensation of her inner heat clenching around me was all it took. With a guttural roar, I followed her over the edge, my own release a searing, volcanic eruption of heat and light. The floating ice crystals instantly vaporized, turning the air into a thick, hot fog as my own magic flared, painting the walls in shadows of dancing flame.

We collapsed together, panting, our bodies slick with sweat and condensation, the air in the room a chaotic swirl of hot and cold. The storm had finally broken. And in the wreckage, for the first time, there was peace.

And for the first time in a long time, the fire in me didn’t want to burn anything.

It just wanted to stay.

We lay tangled in the aftermath, the air in my chamber thick with the scent of ozone and melted frost. Her head rested in the crook of my shoulder, her breathing slow and even now, each exhale a cool whisper against my skin. My fingers traced the elegant curve of her hip, my own magic, now a soft, contented ember, humming quietly beneath my palm. 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, the sheet falling to her waist. “You think I haven’t considered the risk?”

“I think,” I said, trying to steady myself with her breasts bared 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 being afraid.”

The accusation stung. I stared at her, blindsided. “This isn’t about being afraid, it’s about not getting ourselves frozen next to Halven! It's about protecting the group… protecting you.” I leaned forward, my voice cracking with an honesty I couldn’t hold back. “I told you, I’m afraid of losing someone again. I can’t lose you, Aster.”

My confession, which had felt so raw and true moments ago, now hung in the air like a weakness. She looked at me, and her expression was one of profound, chilling disappointment.

“I thought you were a storm with no reins,” she said, her voice colder than any winter wind. “All this time, you’ve been the one pushing, fighting, ready to burn everything down to get what you want. The one time I am ready to unleash a blizzard, the one time I ask you to be that fire with me... you choose to be smoke?”

The words hit me like a physical blow. She was throwing my own nature in my face, twisting the very part of me I had tried to temper for her.

The air in the room chilled several degrees as she found her robes, dressing with a mechanical efficiency that was terrifying to watch. The woman who had melted in my arms was encasing herself back in ice.

“You aren’t protecting me,” she said, her back to me as she fastened a clasp at her shoulder. “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?