The glass coffin hung thirty feet above the cracked marble of the Grand Atrium, suspended by nothing but the Choir children's lullaby and the stubborn hope of five hundred broken Winged.
For twenty-one dawns the academy had woken to silence.
No lightning.
No brass heartbeat.
No Arya.
Alexander Nicholas stood beneath the coffin every sunrise, barefoot, shirt open to the wind, storm-runes flickering like dying embers across his chest.
Today the wind smelled of salt and gunpowder.
Today he carried a single white rose (real, not gold) and a voice that had forgotten how to ask.
He climbed the marble steps until his lips brushed the glass above her mouth.
"I'm done waiting," he said.
The words cracked the sky.
Five hundred Winged looked up.
Lira's candle-flame hair guttered.
Calen's storm-blue eyes filled with rain.
Nyxara clutched her sister's severed head in a brass jar and whispered, "If you leave us too, I'll burn the moons."
Alexander raised the rose.
"I will bond one Taker only," he declared, loud enough for every crystal orb on the continent to hear.
"One soul to carry my storm.
One heart to hold my sky.
Let the auction begin."
The atrium exploded.
Cassia Emberkin's coal tattoos flared crimson.
Liora Frostfang's breath froze the air into knives.
Solara's wings dimmed to funeral gold.
Gilgamesh blurred in a circle so fast he left golden after-images that looked like tears.
And in the shadows, a boy no one had noticed for weeks stepped forward.
Anthony Felix.
Level 38 Giver.
Hair the color of fresh cinnamon, eyes the green of library lamps at closing time.
He wore the plain grey tunic of a volunteer medic, but every movement carried the memory of palace ballrooms.
He had been there the night Arya fell (catching bandages, catching glances, catching feelings he never dared name).
He bowed to Alexander, voice soft as dust between pages.
"I bid one secret," Anthony said.
"The secret of how to wake her."
The atrium fell silent.
Alexander's storm-runes flared white.
"Speak."
Anthony smiled (small, sad, certain).
"Not with words.
With tongue."
He climbed the steps.
No one stopped him.
Even the Choir children's song faltered.
Anthony pressed both palms to the glass above Arya's hips.
The coffin hummed.
A hairline crack zig-zagged across the surface, glowing rose-gold.
He leaned in, breath fogging the glass.
"I've been practicing," he whispered.
"Every night since you fell.
On pillows.
On peaches.
On the memory of the way you moaned when you thought no one was listening."
He kissed the crack.
The coffin shattered.
Shards became gold butterflies that swirled around Arya's body like a living dress.
Her back arched.
Her lips parted.
A single moan (raw, shocked, alive) rolled through the atrium and knocked every Winged to their knees.
Anthony didn't stop.
He slid his hands under the butterflies, found warm skin, found the place where the black rose had bled.
His tongue traced the scar, slow circles, gentle pressure, the rhythm of a heartbeat learning how to beat again.
Arya's eyes flew open.
Green.
Storm-green.
Awake.
The System's voice returned (no longer cold blue text, but a woman's voice, velvet and smoke, curled inside Arya's ear like a lover's secret).
SYSTEM: "Welcome back, Alpha.
Reboot complete.
Kiss-to-Level ratio: brutal.
One tongue = one level.
You just hit 41.
Try not to come too hard; the continent is watching."
Arya laughed.
The sound cracked the marble floor and sent gold lightning racing up the pillars.
Anthony looked up, lips glistening, eyes shining with tears he refused to let fall.
"Hi," he said.
"I brought you home."
Alexander's storm-runes went quiet.
Cassia's coals cooled to embers.
Liora's ice knives melted into puddles that reflected Arya's smile.
Nyxara set the brass jar down, opened it, and Nyxael's severed head blinked once (slow, deliberate, proud).
Arya sat up.
The butterflies became a dress of living gold that hugged every curve and left strategic slits for future malfunctions.
She looked at Anthony, then at Alexander, then at the five hundred kneeling Winged.
"Round one," she said, voice husky from twenty-one days of silence, "is officially mine."
The atrium roared.
Dragons roared back from their tattoo prisons on her ribs.
The war had a heartbeat again.
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Later, in the war-room that used to be the library, Arya stood on a table made of rescued books and addressed her shattered court.
"Jonathan's beasts will come every second dawn," she said.
"We will meet them with teeth, tongue, and whatever's left of our wings.
Levels will crawl.
Kisses will cost.
But every time we bleed, we remember why we fight."
She looked at Anthony (standing quietly by the map table, sleeves rolled, hands still trembling from the taste of her).
"You," she said, "stay close.
I'm going to need that tongue on standby."
Anthony's blush could have powered a city.
Alexander stepped forward, storm-runes flickering like candlelight.
"Tomorrow," he said, "the auction continues.
Liora and Cassia want their turn.
And I want my storm whole."
Arya smiled (slow, sharp, eternal).
"Then let them bid," she said.
"But the sky already chose its Alpha."
Outside, the first of Jonathan's beasts (a Tier-7 Glass Widow with legs of broken mirrors) began to crawl over the horizon.
Inside, five hundred Winged sharpened their tongues and loaded their hearts.
The Alexander War had begun.
And the first kiss had already been stolen by a boy who loved her from the shelves.