Selene's POV
The Ashcroft safe house was not a house. It was a fortified data-node buried in the industrial underbelly of Sky-Crest City, accessible only through a series of decommissioned freight elevators and a hallway that smelled perpetually of ozone and old oil. Screens lined the walls, streaming silent data-feeds from across the continent. It was Dorian's natural habitat.
Selene hated it. It was a cage, albeit a high-tech one. The lack of windows, the constant hum of machinery, the recycled air—it grated against the wild, dual nature of her blood. She felt caged, useless, while Arlan was missing and her friends were imprisoned.
"Anything?" she asked for the tenth time that day, pacing behind Dorian's chair.
Dorian didn't look up from his bank of screens. "The official Academy channels are a masterpiece of misinformation. The story is consistent: Arlan Thorne perished in an unstable section of the Chained Deeps during his Pilgrimage. A tragic loss. A memorial service is being planned post-Melee."
"Lies," Selene spat.
"Obviously. But lies backed by the full authority of the Head Proctor and, it seems, the Solara family's tacit approval. More concerning are these." He brought up a series of encrypted financial ledgers. "Massive, untraceable capital inflows into several shell corporations owned by First Families with known conservative leanings—families who have been critical of the Academy's 'modern, chaotic direction.' The Emberhearts are among them."
"They're being paid off," Kaelen rumbled from where he was meticulously cleaning his gear. His injury had healed, leaving only a knotted scar. "To look the other way."
"Or to actively assist," Dorian corrected. "The Grand Melee isn't just an attack. It's a coup. The Accord shatters the Academy's leadership and security, Vance and her allies step in to 'restore order' with Accord backing, and the compliant families are rewarded with greater influence in the new regime. Lyra's betrayal was the key—she legitimizes the Solara family's shift, providing cover for the others."
Selene stopped pacing, a dangerous idea forming in the chaos of her mind. "We need to get Mira and Fen out."
Dorian finally swiveled to face her, his expression grave. "Impossible. They are being held in the Citadel's containment block, the most secure facility on campus outside the Head Proctor's own vault. Access requires five-tier biometric clearance. We have no allies inside. We are three people, one of whom is a nationally ranked fugitive." He gestured to Kaelen, whose destruction of an Accord outpost in Aerilon had made him a person of interest long before this.
"Then we make an ally," Selene said, her voice dropping low. "Or we become something they can't ignore."
"What are you suggesting?" Dorian's eyes narrowed.
Selene met his gaze. Her violet eyes seemed to swirl in the screen's glow. "My power… it's not just life-drain and minor curses, Dorian. My mother's line—the witches of the Crimson Wood—they dealt in pacts. In borrowed power. There's a reason it's forbidden."
Dorian went very still. "Selene. No. The cost…"
"What cost?" she shot back, her composure cracking. "Arlan is gone! Mira and Fen are in a cell! The world is about to be handed to monsters on a silver platter! My cost is sitting here, safe and useless!" Her fists were clenched, dark energy crackling around them like inverse lightning.
"The cost is your soul, your sanity, your very self!" Dorian stood up, his analytical calm breaking. "Witch-pacts are not tools! They are Faustian bargains! You draw power from entities in the deeper layers of the Aether, things that don't think like we do! They twist you, Selene!"
"I am already twisted!" she shouted, the sound echoing in the metal room. "I am a half-breed abomination in the eyes of everyone! My own family cast my mother out for loving a vampire! My power is already a curse! So let me use it! Let me turn their curse against them!"
The room fell silent. Kaelen had stopped his cleaning, watching them with the solemn eyes of a soldier who has seen desperate choices made.
Dorian looked at her, really looked at her, and saw not just the outcast girl, but the fierce, raging spirit he'd allied with. He saw her love for their broken lance, her loyalty to Arlan, her burning need to act. He also saw the path to damnation.
"There has to be another way," he said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"Find it," Selene challenged, her tone cooling into something terrifyingly resolute. "In the next 24 hours. If you can't, I'm performing the Rite of Borrowed Night. I will get the power to walk into that Citadel and tear it apart from the inside."
She turned and walked to the small, barren room that served as her quarters, sealing the door behind her. She slumped against it, the fury draining away, leaving only a hollow, terrified determination.
She pulled a small, obsidian pendant from under her shirt—the only thing her mother had left her. It was warm to the touch, always. As a child, she'd been told never to speak the words etched into its surface, never to even look at them too long.
Now, in the dim light, she traced the jagged, ancient runes with her finger. They seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.
'In shadow's deepest hour, when blood calls to blood, the gate may be opened. A price for a power. A life for a death.'
She didn't know what it would demand. Her lifespan? Her memories? Her humanity? It didn't matter.
Arlan had fallen into darkness for them. She would willingly walk into a darker one to pull them all back out.
She began to whisper the words, not to activate the pact, but to memorize them, to make them a part of her. The air in the small room grew colder. A faint, coppery scent, like old blood, wafted from nowhere.
Outside, Dorian stared at the closed door, then turned back to his screens, his fingers flying across the keyboard with newfound, desperate speed. He had 24 hours to find a miracle.
Otherwise, he would lose another friend to the darkness.
---