The Professor
1376 Words
The eastern tower was off-limits. Students who wandered in didn’t return the same — if they returned at all. And yet Seren found herself standing at its sealed entrance, heart pounding, mark burning beneath her skin.
Kael, Elias, and Talon were back in the Vault, trying to locate the missing pages of the blood journal. Rhys had vanished again — too close to the eclipse, too dangerous to stay near.
That left her, alone, standing before the one man she had been warned never to remember.
She knocked.
The door opened before her hand touched the wood.
“You came,” said Aric Vael, stepping into view.
Even in the dim candlelight, he was devastating — tall, severe, wrapped in a dark coat that shimmered like starless velvet. Silver streaked his black hair. And his eyes… her eyes. Ice and smoke.
“You left a ring in my hand,” she said, stepping in. “I want answers.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’ve waited a long time to give them.”
His chambers were unlike any classroom — books bound in bone, weapons sealed in crystal, scrolls humming with sleeping spells. This wasn’t a teacher’s space.
It was a warrior’s shrine.
And at its center: a painting covered in black cloth.
“Is it a portrait?” Seren asked, stepping closer.
“Yes,” Aric said softly. “Of who we used to be.”
“We?”
“You were the Moon-Fated Queen. I was your Bonded Blade. You chose four to balance the world’s power. But me… you chose for your soul.”
He uncovered the painting.
She gasped.
It was her — standing tall, crown tilted, eyes blazing with power. And behind her, hand on her shoulder, was him. Younger. Unscarred. Smiling.
“I was never your professor,” he whispered. “Not first. I was your first love. Your last breath. Your curse.”
Aric poured them each a drink — wine made from nightshade berries, sacred to truth-speaking. Seren didn’t sip. She wanted no haze for this.
“Why did you curse me?” she asked. “Why erase my memories, my magic, my past?”
He flinched.
“Because I was selfish,” he said. “Because I loved you more than the world, and I couldn’t bear to lose you to them. Even if they were good. Even if they were right.”
“So you punished us?”
“No. I punished myself. But the spell rebounded. You weren’t supposed to forget everything.”
He set the glass down and looked at her, haunted.
“They were willing to share your heart. I was not. That was my sin.”
“And you’ve been waiting all this time for me to remember?”
He nodded.
“I taught you poetry this semester. Do you know what that was for me? A miracle.”
When Seren stood, ready to leave, Aric reached out — but didn’t touch her.
“You were mine,” he said. “And yet you were never a possession.”
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t. I’m not.”
He stepped closer. Inches between them.
“If I asked you to remember what it felt like… would you hate me?”
She should’ve walked out.
Instead, she stepped forward.
Their lips met — and time shattered.
Every clock in Ashmoor stopped ticking.
All magic pulsed.
The seal on her back split open, revealing a final, glowing mark: the fifth bond.
And when they broke apart, Aric was bleeding from the corner of his mouth.
“What’s happening to you?” she gasped.
“The curse is lifting,” he said. “And when it’s gone… you’ll have to choose.”
That night, Kael sat bolt upright in bed.
Talon dropped his cup mid-spell.
Elias fell to his knees during a meditation rite.
Rhys howled — not in pain, but in loss.
They all felt it.
The final bond had awakened.
And Seren had kissed another.
Back in her room, Seren stared at her reflection.
Five soulmarks now shimmered across her shoulders. One for each boy.
One deeper. Older. Aric’s.
But her heart wasn’t any closer to understanding.
“I thought I just wanted to be normal,” she whispered. “Invisible. Safe.”
But she’d never been any of those things.
She was the storm. The spark. The Queen reborn.
And tomorrow, she would have to face them all.
Because the Headmistress had called a Gathering.
And every Alpha — bonded or not — would be watching her.
Seren didn’t sleep.
After the kiss, after the mark’s awakening, she had run from Aric’s chambers like her skin was on fire. But even now, hours later, his words echoed in her bones.
“You were never meant to break. You were meant to remake the world.”
She stood in the girls’ bath chamber, steam curling around her like a veil. Her mark glowed faintly in the candlelight — five sigils now, each one pulsing differently. Each boy had left a part of themselves in her. Magic. Memory. Feeling.
And Aric…
He’d left gravity. A pull she couldn’t fight.
“Stop thinking about him,” she muttered.
“You’ve bonded with worse,” said a voice behind her.
She spun, dripping wet, clutching a towel to her chest.
Rhys.
He was standing by the marble arch, dressed in all black, moonlight on his pale throat. His fangs were showing — not fully extended, just teasing.
“Did you come here to gloat?” she asked.
“No,” he said, stepping closer. “I came to remind you what it feels like to want someone who’s still alive.”
The air snapped between them like lightning.
“You think he’s not alive?” she asked. “That Aric’s… what? A ghost in professor’s robes?”
“No,” Rhys said, “he’s a man who died loving you more than he should’ve. And now he’s trying to finish what he started.”
“Which was?”
“Owning you.”
Rhys didn’t stay. He never did.
After he vanished into mist, Seren returned to her dorm, only to find Kael waiting on her bed.
“You went to him,” Kael said, voice like cut stone.
“You don’t own me,” she shot back, exhausted.
“I know,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
He stood and held something out to her — a charm, broken in half. Her half.
“You gave this to me in your first life. Before we were bonded. Before we even kissed. You said you wanted to remember what it felt like to choose someone without fate telling you to.”
She took it slowly, heart trembling.
“I still want that,” she whispered.
Kael nodded once, pain in his eyes. Then he left — no demands, no anger. Just silence.
And grief.
Later that night, Seren couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were a maze — every path led back to Aric.
She turned to the blood journal she had stolen from the Vault earlier and flipped through it again.
A page she hadn’t seen before had appeared — not written in ink, but etched in blood.
It was a letter.
To the next life,
If you’re reading this, the curse is close to breaking. If I remember you before you remember me, I’ll try not to act like it hurts. But if you kiss me before I’m ready… the whole world might burn again.
— A.V.
Her breath caught.
He’d written this before he died. Not as a professor. As a boy in love.
At sunrise, the Academy bells tolled three times — a sound used only for emergencies or royal announcements.
Outside, whispers turned to shouts.
A parchment had appeared on every door, sealed with the Headmistress’s blood-red wax.
By Order of the High Magi Council,
The Moonborne Girl is to appear at the Gathering Circle at sundown.
All five bonded are required to attend.
Judgment will be passed. Fate shall decide.
Kael. Rhys. Talon. Elias. Aric.
All of them would be there.
All of them would have to speak one truth… or watch their bond be severed.
- Writer
