CHAPTER FIVE
1312 Words
I woke up gasping, my lungs burning like I'd been underwater too long.
Kaelith sat beside me on the bed, his hand wrapped around my wrist. His eyes blazed with that familiar red glow, fierce and wild.
"What happened to you?" His voice came out rough. Dangerous. "You were hurt."
"How did you know?" I pulled my wrist back, confused. "How could you possibly know I was hurt?"
"The driver." He said it too quickly. "I asked him to watch over you at Collegia, yet he let you get surrounded by a mob before stepping in."
"They didn't actually hurt me." I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the throbbing. "But something else happened."
His jaw tightened. "What?"
"I saw something. A memory, I think."
Kaelith's eyebrow twitched. His throat worked as he swallowed hard. "What did you see?"
"A fair hand." The words came out barely above a whisper.
"A fair hand?" He leaned closer, his intensity making it hard to breathe.
"It pushed me." I closed my eyes, trying to pull the details back. "I didn't see a face, just this hand reaching out. Then bright silver light, and pain everywhere."
I opened my eyes to find him watching me with an expression I couldn't read. "It was from my accident. I'm sure of it. Someone pushed me in front of that truck on purpose."
A dull ache spread through my chest, heavy and suffocating.
Kaelith pulled me against him without warning, one arm wrapped around my back while his other hand traced slow circles along my spine.
I leaned into his chest, breathing in his scent. He smelled like patchouli and sandalwood with a hint of citrus. The smell wrapped around me like safety itself.
His fingers moved to my hair, then my temples, massaging in gentle patterns. Tingles spread across my scalp, warm and soothing. My entire body went slack, bones turning to water.
A moan escaped before I could stop it.
Heat flooded my face. I bit down on my lower lip, mortified at the sound I'd made.
I tried to pull away from his embrace.
His hand cupped my face, thumb brushing across my trapped lip until I released it. "Stop biting. You'll hurt yourself."
I stared up at him, caught in those impossibly dark eyes.
"Okay," I breathed, mesmerised by the way his lips moved when he spoke.
His lips looked soft. Inviting. I wondered what they would taste like.
As if reading my thoughts, Kaelith captured my bottom lip with his own. His tongue traced the sensitive skin, and when I gasped for air, he took the opportunity to slide inside my mouth.
Electricity shot through me. My eyes went hazy.
I tried to retreat, but he followed, his tongue chasing mine in a dance for dominance. Heat built between us, consuming everything else.
His hand moved to the small of my back, guiding me to straddle his lap. The movement felt natural, inevitable.
My fingers tangled in his soft curls as my hips rocked against him instinctively.
Kaelith groaned deep in his chest.
Then he pulled away abruptly, his eyes glowing faint red. He lifted me off his lap and set me beside him on the bed, putting deliberate space between our bodies.
My body ached at the loss of contact. Confusion and hurt swirled through me, making my eyes sting.
His jaw clenched tight. "Later."
He stood and gently patted my head, almost reverently, before walking out of the room.
Guilt crashed over me in waves I couldn't explain. Why did I feel guilty? What had I done wrong?
I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the uncomfortable emotion.
"Wait." I sat up straight. "I forgot to ask him about the memory. About how my accident actually happened."
I grabbed my phone and dialled my mother's number.
Maevra answered on the second ring. I explained the vision I'd had, the hand pushing me, the certainty that it hadn't been an accident.
"Darling, it was just an accident." Her voice came through gentle but firm. "A hit-and-run. The driver was never found, but there's no evidence it was intentional."
"But I saw…"
"Trauma can make memories unreliable." She sighed. "Your mind might be trying to make sense of something senseless. Sometimes accidents are just accidents."
I wanted to argue, but exhaustion pulled at me. "Okay. Thanks, Mom."
After we hung up, I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
I didn't believe her. That vision had felt too real, too specific. But without more evidence, what could I do?
The next morning, I returned to Collegia for Professor Llyen's class on magic theory.
The lecture hall buzzed with pre-class chatter as I found a seat near the middle. A few students glanced my way, but mostly ignored me. Liriel waved from across the room but didn't come over.
I knew whatever happened two days ago was not a coincidence.
Professor Llyen swept into the room precisely on time. He was tall and pale.
He always wore ink-stained robes despite all the modern technology available.
Students even joked that he was a vampire who never saw sunlight, because he was always locked away in his study, buried in paperwork.
He tapped a projection glyph, and a three-dimensional rune materialised above us, slowly rotating.
THRIKON – A stability-binding rune used to anchor magical constructs.
That was all the explanation provided.
Professor Llyen crossed his arms. "Someone tell me what's wrong with this rune."
Silence filled the lecture hall.
Students suddenly became very interested in their tablets, hoping to avoid eye contact with him so they wouldn't get picked to answer the riddle.
"No one?" His gaze swept the room.
I had been doodling absentmindedly, my mind wandering to Kaelith. He'd come home late last night and left before I woke up this morning. The pattern was deliberate. He was avoiding me.
But why?
The projected rune flickered, drawing my full attention.
My stylus froze mid-stroke. Something rippled in my chest, recognition I couldn't explain.
That's wrong.
The echo loop is inverted. Why would anyone invert a stability rune? They're trying to trigger a feedback collapse.
The nexus placement is completely wrong. Whoever drafted this shouldn't be allowed near a pen.
My hand shot up before I could think better of it.
"The central nexus is misaligned."
Professor Llyen's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "What nexus?"
I stood without permission and walked to the projection. When I lifted my hand near it, a thin silver light followed my fingertips. The rune responded, reshaping under my touch.
Gasps echoed through the lecture hall.
I blinked, feeling disconnected from my own body. Like I was watching someone else move my hands.
"Thrikon isn't meant to be drawn with a dual-axis loop." The words flowed out smoothly, confidently. "Drawing it this way creates internal instability. The nexus at the centre needs to sit at forty degrees for proper energy distribution."
I gestured, and the projection shifted accordingly.
"The binding ring must close clockwise. Counterclockwise closing causes harmonic collapse."
Professor Llyen stared at me as if I'd just announced I could fly. "Miss Lys, this correction isn't taught until master level. I only wanted students to identify what seemed off, not provide the solution."
He paused, studying me with unsettling intensity. "This particular version was banned fifty years ago."
His voice dropped lower. "How did you know that?"
The fog in my mind cleared suddenly. The entire class was staring at me. My hands trembled.
"I don't know." My voice came out small. Scared. "I just... knew."
The air grew thick with tension. Students shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
Professor Llyen tapped his fingers against the podium. "Stay after class."
My stomach dropped.
I'd just revealed knowledge I shouldn't possess. Knowledge I had no memory of learning.
And Professor Llyen wasn't the type to let mysteries go unsolved.
- Writer
