The days after the kiss passed in a blur.

Sylus didn’t return to Arcadia Academy. No announcements, no excuses. Just... absence.

And the tension that had clung to the halls like smoke?

It eased.

Renee could breathe again without his presence—at least on the surface. No more long stares across training fields. No more searing silences in shared hallways. No more late-night questions she couldn’t answer.

By Friday, her pack was ready.

They left just after dawn.

King Cael, Queen Valethrina, Prince Damon, and Princess Renee Arcadia Nosfera boarded the royal transport bound for Drakoryth. No public ceremony, no fanfare. Just cloaked guards and veiled carriages and tension thick enough to chew.

The invitation hadn’t come. But the silence had stretched too long, and Valethrina couldn’t let uncomfortable truths rot in the dark.

“It’s time,” she had said. And no one dared argue.

They arrived late into the evening.

The palace steward met them at the gates with quiet bows and wide eyes, clearly surprised—but not bold enough to voice it. Their rooms had already been prepared. Vireth, as always, was ten steps ahead.

Renee said little as they moved through the marble halls. She didn’t ask if Sylus was here. She didn’t need to. His presence still clung to the stone.

She slept poorly.

The next morning dawned gray and sharp.

Sylus was already awake.

He’d been gone all night—walking the outer city under a cloak, losing himself in the press of markets and mountain wind. He hadn’t meant to vanish so long, but sleep didn’t come easily lately. Not when he still tasted her name in the back of his throat.

He was halfway through black coffee when Vireth swept into his private sitting room like a storm already halfway through its path.

“You will wear something presentable,” she said without preamble. “And you will behave.”

Sylus raised an eyebrow. “You’re being oddly specific.”

“We have guests.”

He leaned back. “Anyone I like?”

Vireth gave him a razor-edged smile. “Hopefully. Eventually.”

And then she was gone—leaving the scent of fire and finality in her wake.

Sylus sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t know what game she was playing, but if it involved diplomacy, he’d play nice.

For now.

The royal meeting room was already aglow when he arrived.

Soft light filtered through frosted windows. Fresh arrangements of northern heather and spell-stabilized lilies lined the corners. Someone had gone to great lengths to make the space look warm and friendly.

He didn’t trust it.

Sylus stood near the window, arms folded, gaze on the horizon.

He didn’t hear the doors open.

He felt them.

The shift in air. The quiet hush of power entered the room. He turned slowly.

And froze.

Cael. Valethrina. Damon.

And Renee.

Sylus’s breath caught the second he saw her.

Not just because she looked every inch a royal—silver-trimmed black jacket, hair pulled back, her expression unreadable—but because something was missing.

Her scent.

She didn’t smell like Damien.

For the first time in weeks.

And gods, it hit him like a blade in the ribs.

He didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

“What is this?” he asked, voice low, directed at the one person who always had answers.

Vireth didn’t even blink as she stepped past him toward the table.

“This,” she said, “happens when a son of mine refuses to handle his mess.”

Sylus flinched. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve been dragging this out for weeks. Avoiding her. Lashing out. Making everyone else tiptoe around a bond you claim to feel but do nothing about.” She gestured to Renee—who hadn’t looked away from him. “So now we’re going to fix it.”

Cael stepped forward calmly. “This affects both our families. And frankly, we’d rather not wait until your awkward tension levels a school building.”

Damon gave a lopsided grin. “Or a city block.”

Sylus’s throat tightened. His gaze flicked back to Renee.

She wasn’t glaring.

She wasn’t soft.

She was just… there.

Composed.

Unsmiling.

But silent.

And that silence felt more dangerous than anything she’d ever said to him.

Vireth sat down with a sigh. “So. Shall we begin?”

The room had settled, but the air hadn’t.

They sat across from one another—Drakoryth and Arcadia. One long table. Two thrones worth of power. And between them, the tension that had dragged across weeks like storm clouds caught in a stalemate.

Vireth folded her hands, voice crisp.

“Let’s start with what we know. Sylus?”

He straightened slightly, though his voice stayed low. “The bond snapped for me the moment she entered the room. It wasn’t a slow pull. It wasn’t subtle. It was complete. My dragon hasn’t been quiet since.”

All eyes turned to Renee.

She didn’t flinch. “For me… it didn’t snap. I felt something ignite. Pressure. Heat. The physical effects were undeniable—but the connection never landed.”

She met no one’s gaze directly. Not Sylus. Not her mother. Not even herself.

“It tried. But it didn’t finish.”

Silence followed.

Then Thareon leaned forward, the weight of a kingdom in his voice.

“Renee,” he said calmly. “Did you—in any part of yourself—reject it? Not intentionally, but subconsciously. How you perceive Sylus, perhaps. What he’s done. What he hasn’t.”

Her brows drew together faintly. “No,” she said after a beat. “That moment… I forgot everything. The tension. The arguments. It wasn’t about Sylus as a person. I didn’t resist him. I just… didn’t feel it finish.”

Valethrina sat straighter now. Her voice was calm, calculating. “Renee. Are you still under the seal?”

A long pause.

Renee exhaled.

“I am. But not under yours.”

Vireth’s brow lifted. “What do you mean?”

Renee’s fingers traced the edge of her chair. “The original seal—yours and my mother’s—dissolved three years ago. My mana outgrew it. I lost control—more than once. So I redesigned it. Modified it. And placed a new version on myself.”

The room stilled.

Even Sylus blinked.

Valethrina sat forward sharply. “You... redesigned the seal?”

Renee nodded once. “The original was built to fade as I aged. Mine… doesn’t fade. I can lift it when I need to. Temporarily. But if my mana spikes past threshold—if I’m at risk of losing control—it slams back into place.”

Vireth blinked once. “You built a reactive mana lock.”

“Technically, it’s more of a regulatory weave with auto-binding contingencies,” Renee corrected. “But yes.”

Cael looked over at Valethrina, one brow raised. “Is that even possible?”

Valethrina didn’t answer right away.

Then she gave a soft, almost baffled breath. “Apparently… yes. Because she did it.”

Damon leaned back with a lopsided smirk. “Little sister always was the plot twist in human form.”

He looked at her. “What other secrets are you hiding, huh?”

Renee’s eyes glinted. “That’s for me to know… and for you to lose sleep over.”

A chuckle passed through the tension.

Only briefly.

Then Vireth leaned forward again, gaze sharp. “There’s a possibility the seal—your version—could interfere with the bond.”

Renee nodded. “I’ve considered that.”

“And?”

Renee inhaled slowly.

“Then I’ll lift it,” she said. “Just for a few seconds. Long enough to confirm.”

Sylus shifted in his seat—but said nothing.

Damon sat up straighter. Cael’s jaw flexed, concern flickering behind composure. Valethrina didn’t move—but her power coiled tighter.

“Are you sure?” Thareon asked.

Renee met his gaze. “We need clarity. And I need the truth.”

And with that—

She closed her eyes.

Renee didn’t need to speak. The moment she closed her eyes, the entire room knew.

Her mana released like a held breath finally exhaled after years of silence — not gradual, not forgiving, but total.

It detonated.

Magic erupted into the space with a force that defied subtlety. The walls shivered. The floor groaned. It wasn’t a wave. It wasn’t even a storm. It was a presence, tangible and feral — the kind of magic that didn’t ask for permission to exist. It didn’t rise like mist or pulse like light.

It descended.

A weight. A heat. A command.

And it was visible.

Color rippled from her skin — not glowing but burning just beneath the surface, like molten sigils alive in her veins. Crimson edged in gold, flickering shadows twisting into forms older than language. Her mana didn’t dance. It coiled, vast, and sentient, like something ancient remembering its body for the first time.

Even those seated didn’t stay seated by choice. They were held in place — not by fear, but by force. Her magic wrapped around them like a clawed hand around a throat. Not choking. But proving it could.

Sylus’s breath locked. His mouth opened, then closed, a stunned, helpless movement. He looked at her like a man might look at a god carving a new law into the sky.

He couldn’t speak, could barely think.

Thareon, who had survived battlefields that cracked continents, felt his spine stiffen instinctively as if his body remembered something it had never experienced. Beside him, King Cael’s eyes narrowed, sharp with something not quite fear — but awe.

Vireth and Valethrina?

They didn’t flinch — but they felt it. The weight. The certainty.

And more than that — they felt the shift.

Because this was stronger than when she was a child. Stronger than when they’d sealed her together, drawing on blood, pact, and spellfire to contain the raw magnitude she’d been born with.

Now? They couldn’t even stand in the room with her mana unshackled.

They were near the top of the demon hierarchy. Not nobles by privilege — but by power. Creatures that bent reality and dominated courts. And they were anchored to their chairs like stone beneath a landslide.

Ever the reckless fire of the Arcadia line, Damon struggled visibly against the pressure, eyes wide and unblinking.

He looked at his sister like he’d never seen her.

The room bent around her.

Not literally — but atmospherically. Like gravity had chosen a new center.

And then, in the very heart of that silence, as if called by instinct, the bond snapped into place.

It wasn’t just a feeling. It was a pull, a magnetic click of soul meeting soul. Renee gasped — not dramatically, but sharply — as if something long missing had returned without warning. Her posture shifted. Her aura drew inward, controlled again.

And just as suddenly as it had begun, the room was released.

She reactivated the seal.

Her mana coiled back into her body like a creature trained to obey, not extinguished but contained — barely.

Everyone breathed again. They inhaled like they’d been deprived of air.

Renee turned to Sylus. When it came, her voice was smooth and composed, but it carried the weight of something final.

“I confirm the bond,” she said. “It snapped for me. We are mates.”