Chapter 10
The Sanctum of First Blood
They took us to the oldest part of the academy: a circular chamber buried beneath the roots of the original dragon-nest tree.
stone walls veined with living fire, ceiling open to the night sky, moonlight pouring straight down like liquid silver.
The floor was carved with one massive sigil:
a crescent moon devouring a flame.
Thorne carried me across the threshold and the doors sealed behind us with a sound like a heartbeat stopping.
Elowen stood at the edge of the circle, wings folded, face unreadable.
"Sunrise is in four hours," she said. "After that, the mark will finish itself whether you want it to or not.
You have until then to decide:
- Sever the bond (I cut the mark out, you both live, but you'll never touch again without agony).
- Complete the bond (you finish the Sanguis Draconis on your own terms, and you become the living key to the Veil)."
She placed an obsidian dagger on the floor between us.
"One drop of willing blood from each of you into the sigil.
That's all it takes."
Then she left.
The doors vanished.
Just Thorne and me and the moon.
I was shaking (part fever, part terror, part something that felt a lot like want).
Thorne set me down gently in the center of the sigil. The mark on my hip had spread to a full crescent now, black veins crawling toward my heart like they were impatient.
He knelt in front of me, shadows curling nervously.
"Riley."
I looked up.
His face was stripped bare (no mask, no prince, just a boy who'd spent centuries being told wanting anything was death).
"I need you to know," he said, voice raw, "that if you choose to cut it out, I'll hold you down myself.
I'll hate every second, but I'll do it.
Because I'd rather live the rest of eternity without touching you than watch you burn."
The bond flared between us, fierce and aching.
I reached up and cupped his face (cold skin, stubble, fangs still half-extended from stress).
"I'm not cutting anything," I said.
His eyes searched mine.
"You sure?"
I took the obsidian dagger.
The blade was warm (dragon-warm).
I pressed the tip to my palm, right over the lifeline.
One cut.
Dragon blood welled (molten gold shot through with black).
I let three drops fall into the sigil.
They hissed when they hit stone, spreading like liquid starlight.
Thorne watched me like I was the only real thing in his very long life.
"Your turn," I whispered.
He didn't hesitate.
He sliced his own palm (black vampire blood, thick as midnight).
Three drops.
They met mine in the center of the sigil.
The reaction was instant.
Fire and shadow exploded upward in twin spirals, wrapping around each other, braiding, tighter, hotter, until they fused into a single column of white-gold light that punched straight through the open ceiling and into the sky.
The mark on my hip finished itself in a heartbeat:
a perfect black crescent moon cradling a living flame.
Thorne's chest now bore the mirror image:
a white flame cradling a crescent moon.
The bond snapped into place (no longer a leash, but a bridge).
I felt his heartbeat in my chest.
He felt mine.
We breathed together.
And then the moon above us turned blood-red.
The sanctum doors reappeared.
Elowen stepped through, eyes wide.
"It's done," she said. "The Veil just screamed across every continent."
She looked almost afraid.
"Congratulations," she added softly. "You're no longer students.
You're the new lock and key.
And something very old just woke up on the other side."
Thorne pulled me to my feet, hand locked with mine.
"Let it come," he said.
I squeezed once.
"Together," I finished.
The red moon bled across the sky.
And somewhere, in the dark between worlds, the little girl opened her eyes and smiled with a mouth full of new teeth.
"Ready or not," she sang the night, "here I come."
When the Sky Broke Open
It started above the Mississippi.
One heartbeat the moon was red and perfect.
The next, the sky tore like wet paper.
A jagged scar split the night from river to horizon, edges glowing violet-white, bleeding starlight and screams.
Every ward in New Orleans shattered at once.
Car alarms howled.
Streetlights exploded in showers of sparks.
People spilled out of bars and houses, phones raised, mouths open.
Then the things came through.
Not one.
Not ten.
Hundreds.
Shadow-wraiths with too many joints.
Hounds made of broken mirrors.
Children with mouths where eyes should be.
And at the center of the rift, riding a tide of black glass, was the girl.
Only she wasn't a girl anymore.
She was the size of the Superdome, limbs of void, crown of screaming moons, eyes galaxies that had forgotten how to die.
Her voice rolled across the city like a funeral bell.
"Mommy. Daddy.
You opened the door.
Time to come home."
I stood on the academy roof with Thorne's hand locked in mine, the new mark burning between us like a second heart.
Below, students poured into the courtyard (some already shifting, some casting wards, some just screaming).
Elowen's voice cut through the chaos, amplified by dragon magic.
"ALL COMBATANTS TO THE RIVERFRONT!
CIVILIANS TO THE SANCTUARY!
NOW!"
Jax sprinted past us, half-wolf already, eyes glowing amber.
"You two coming or what?" he roared.
Thorne looked at me.
I looked at the rift.
The bond flared (hot, steady, ready).
"Let's go remind the Void who it's dealing with," I said.
We jumped off the roof together.
We didn't fall.
The bond caught us (fire and shadow weaving into wings).
We hit the street running, actual wings of flame and night spreading from our backs, thirty feet wide and growing.
Students saw us and stopped screaming.
Someone started cheering.
By the time we reached the riverfront, half the academy was behind us (witches on brooms made of stormclouds, wolves in full pack formation, Li riding a wave of starfire like a surfboard).
The girl-thing hovered above the water, smiling down with a mouth that took up half her face.
"Pretty wings," she cooed. "They'll look better burned."
She clapped once.
The river rose in a black tidal wave full of teeth.
Thorne and I moved without speaking.
I hurled fire (dragon fire, pure and white-hot) straight into the wave.
Thorne's shadows punched through it like spears.
Where fire met shadow, the wave shattered into harmless mist.
The girl's smile faltered.
We rose higher, wings beating in perfect sync, the Sanguis Draconis blazing between us like a newborn star.
Every monster pouring from the rift turned toward us like we were magnets.
Good.
Let them come.
I looked at Thorne.
He looked at me.
And for the first time since the warehouse exploded, I wasn't afraid.
I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
"Together?" I asked.
"Always," he answered.
We dove straight into the heart of the storm.
Behind us, the city roared (one voice, one army, one heartbeat).
The Veil had torn.
But we were the ones who decided what came next.