I tuck it into the small box where I keep my most private possessions, unable to bring myself to destroy it. Not yet. Not when it might be the only clue to understanding what I truly am. Not when there’s still doubts swirling in my mind about where my allegiances should lie.

"This changes nothing," I tell Typhon, trying to convince myself as much as him. "I made my choice. I'm staying here."

He doesn't answer, but his silence speaks volumes. He can feel my own doubt and how hollow the words ring to my own ears.

I see movement from my window. A group of second-year legacies is striding into the courtyard, parting the sea of offerings still being gathered and prepared to face their elemental trial.

My heart leaps before I can stop it—a reflexive response to what I already sense through our tether.

Raith is back.

After months of nothing but ghostly emotional impressions, he's close enough that I can feel the pull of his essence, warm and vital through our connection. With it comes a tangle of emotions so complex I can't begin to unravel them.

Relief. Wariness. Longing. And beneath it all, a current of doubt that wasn't there before.

"You'll see for yourself that the Aurenciels cannot be trusted—that their hatred of our kind runs through their very blood." Lorkan's words echo in my memory, unwelcome but impossible to ignore.

I lift my window for a better view, using a touch of essence to shift the water always running down the exterior of our tower out of the way. Their legacy uniforms gleam silver and gold in the afternoon sun.

And there he is.

Even from this distance, Raith is unmistakable—tallest of the group, his powerful frame moving with fluid grace despite obvious exhaustion. His dark hair is longer now, tied back from his face. The scarring on the left side of his face, once so prominent, has faded to a subtle pattern of lighter skin since I healed him after the siphon attack that nearly killed him.

Students part before him, some ducking their heads in deference, others watching with undisguised curiosity. The Aurenciel heir. The last prince of the Red Kingdom, hidden in plain sight within Empire's most elite academy. It’s a secret only he and I share. A secret that still threatens to destroy the beautiful connection we formed before I knew who he really was.

As if sensing my gaze, he pauses, head tilting back to look directly up at my window. Our eyes meet across the distance, the tether between us humming with recognition.

For one breathless moment, I feel everything he feels—the weight of secrets too heavy to carry alone, the desperate need to explain, to be understood. To be trusted.

Neither of us moves. The distance between us feels both infinite and meaningless, physical space nothing compared to the gulf created by revelation and doubt.