Part 1 Chapter 1 The High Priest's Sanctuary
Malakor began chanting a low, resonant incantation, activating the diagnostic runes inscribed on the floor.
Aurelia braced herself, expecting the familiar, agonizing tug of Malakor's spell pulling at her core. But the moment Malakor’s magic sparked, something else happened.
As Vaelor stood beside her, a strange, electric current suddenly snapped between them. It wasn't the cold, sterile grounding she had been taught to expect. It was hot. It was a violent, magnetic pull that originated from deep within her lower abdomen and surged outward, reaching toward Vaelor's proximity like a starving flame finding fuel.
Her Aether didn't calm down—it woke up. It began to hum, a deep, resonant vibration that made her vision blur with a sudden, dizzying rush of heat.
Aurelia’s breath hitched. She risked a glance at Vaelor.
Underneath his expressionless exterior, she saw the muscle in his jaw clamp down so hard the bone distinctively shifted. His amber eyes flickered down to her, widening by a fraction of a millimeter. He felt it too. The magic passing between them wasn't a standard siphoning; it was a mutual, forbidden resonance that felt shockingly intimate, like an invisible touch sliding beneath her robes.
If Malakor senses this, we are dead, the realization flashed through Aurelia’s mind like lightning. The Covenant executed anyone whose magic deviated from the prescribed doctrines.
Desperation flooded her. Clawing at the internal walls of her mind, Aurelia forced her hands out of her sleeves and slammed her palms together, biting the inside of her cheek until the copper taste of blood filled her mouth. She used the sharp, physical pain to violently clamp down on her own Aether, dragging the rogue, humming current backward, tearing it away from Vaelor's aura with everything she had.
The runes on the floor flickered and died. The suffocating heat vanished, leaving Aurelia trembling, her chest heaving as she dropped back to her knees.
Malakor ceased his chanting, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked down at the dormant runes. He walked over to her, his silver eyes searching her pale face, completely oblivious to the invisible thread that had just snapped between his initiate and his guard.
"An abrupt containment," Malakor murmured, sounding more intrigued than angry. "Your methods are crude, Aurelia, and highly unorthodox. But you managed to force the anchor to hold." He turned his back to them, gesturing toward the heavy iron doors. "Go back to your cells. Vaelor, Sareth—escort her. We will resume her trials at dawn."
"Yes, High Priest," Sareth's voice cut through the silence, smoother and lighter than Vaelor's, though his eyes remained fixed on the floor where Aurelia had just knelt.
Aurelia pushed herself up, her legs weak. As she walked past Vaelor to reach the exit, she didn't dare look at him, but the phantom warmth of his proximity still lingered on her skin, a terrifying secret locked between them.
