Thornhill Academy. Chapter 29

The infirmary doors sighed shut behind us, and the world narrowed to antiseptic light and the steady clack of tools. Healers moved with the kind of efficient calm that comes from having seen too many broken things to panic over any single one. Kael lay her on the bed and stepped back to stand beside me. We watched without crowding as they rolled her over and peeled away the shirt.

“What did this?” one of the healers asked, voice flat with business, eyes already scanning the damage. I swallowed, the taste of river and iron thick on my tongue. My mind slid past the question to the thing in the trees, the wraith-beast, and for a second, the right answer felt dangerous to speak aloud.

“I’m not sure,” I said before I even thought twice about it. It wasn’t a lie. It was careful.

The healer hummed under her breath and bent to work. Kael and I took seats a short step away from the table, close enough to be useful, far enough to give the healers space. He leaned his elbows on his knees and studied the girl. Then, soft and low enough that only I could hear, he asked, “Want to tell me what was up with your dragon back there?”

I looked at him, and of everyone in the world, it was Kael who could say those things and not have them land like accusations. We've been best friends since we were born. He knew me, I knew him.

I let out a breath and said the only thing true and small enough to hold. “He says she’s his.”

Kael’s fingers tightened on his knees. A faint sound left him, half a laugh, half a curse. “He says what?”

“He said...” I tried to shape the animal’s words into something less absurd. “He said she’s his. As in...” I hated how my voice dropped to explain the impossible. “As in mine. As in he claimed her.”

Kael’s eyes slid to the healers and back to me. He was careful with his expression. “Ev,” he said, “You sure you’re not losing it?”

I wanted to bristle. Instead, I told the other truth. “I’ve felt… something since the first time I saw her.”

Kael’s head tipped, curiosity raw. “Something? Like interest?”

“Curiosity,” I corrected. “At first.” Saying it felt like spitting a shard of glass into the room. “She walks differently. She looks like she’s been dragged through everything and kept breathing. That kind of stubbornness gets my attention.” I gave a humourless half-smile. “I told myself that was all it was.”

Kael listened, every line in his face attentive. “And then?”

“And then when I saw her on the ground...” There it was, the knot behind the throat that I’d been carrying all night. “When I had her in my talons, when he had her in his, something snapped.” The word felt poor and violent. “It wasn’t just curiosity. The dragon named her, and the feeling in me wasn’t a human thing. It was… absolute. No question. It felt like a thing older than my words had decided.”

Kael was quiet long enough that a heater in the room clicked like a metronome. “You think she's your mate?” he asked finally, soft and incredulous.

“Not the Moonlight Festival kind of mate,” I said fast. “Not official. That’s the law; fates are revealed at the Moonlight Festival, with wards, witnesses, and ritual. I know that. We grew up on those rules. But something in my chest, my dragon, that's what he says.”

Kael let out a low whistle. He arranged his face into a careful neutrality. “So the dragon decided, not you,” he summarised. “And the dragon isn’t one to be argued with.”

"It's not...I don't...Fuck man..." I scrubbed a hand down my face. "I don't know what to do with that."

His hand landed on my back, steady as ever. "Then you just wait until the festival. Easy. If it's true, then you'll be called to each other."

The head healer pulled her gloves off with a snap, murmured one last ward over the stitched skin, and stepped back. “That’s it,” she said, voice crisp. “She just needs rest now. Keep her warm, let the salves do their work. You can leave if you like, or stay. Either way, she’ll be fine.”

*Fine.* My chest loosened just a fraction at the word.

Kael nodded, thanked her, and leaned back in his chair, all restless limbs folded in false calm. I didn’t move. My boots felt welded to the floor, every part of me tethered to the pale rise and fall of her chest. When the healers filed out, the room grew quiet. The faint tick of wards, the steady hum of lamps, Kael’s breathing, those were the only sounds left. He shot me a look but didn’t press. He stayed, the stubborn bastard, and I was grateful for it even if I’d never say it. I shifted closer. My chair scraped low against the floor until I was at her bedside. Up close, without all the mud and blood, her face looked… softer. Not fragile, she’d fought too hard for that word ever to fit, but soft in the way exhaustion makes you honest. Strands of black hair clung damp to her skin, lashes fanned against her cheeks, and lips parted just enough for breath to whisper through. I didn’t realise I’d reached out until my fingers brushed her hand. Small. Cold. My dragon stirred instantly, a low purr rolling under my sternum, urging me closer, encouraging me to keep hold. So I did. I slipped her hand into mine, my thumb tracing across knuckles still streaked faintly with dirt.

The fit was… wrong and right all at once. My hand dwarfed hers, calloused and clumsy compared to the delicate lines of her fingers. And yet when I curled my palm around hers, my dragon went utterly still. It seemed like the world had been waiting for this shape to fall into place. *Mine.* The word rumbled through me again, certain as stone. I closed my eyes, trying to breathe past the heat of it. How could he know? How could he claim this before the Moonlight Festival, before the wards and the ritual and the council’s law? Fate wasn’t supposed to trip early. Bonds weren’t supposed to break rules. My dragon didn’t give a damn about what was supposed to happen. He only cared that she was here, that she was breathing, that her hand was in ours.

"Are you going to tell her? Kael asked softly from the other side of the bed, watching me.

"No," I said, even though the word tasted bitter. "I'll wait for the festival to confirm it."

He nodded once. An unspoken vow that he wouldn't tell her either. We would wait, and if fate deemed it so, then I would let my dragon claim her properly.