Chapter 5: The Inquisitor’s Warning

The frost on Dorian’s sleeve didn't melt when I grabbed his arm; it bit into my palm, a jagged reminder that even in a moment of shared crisis, we were elemental opposites. 

We stood on the precipice of the Great Hall’s balcony, watching the black-clad carriage of the High Inquisitor wind its way up the serpentine mountain path. The horses were constructs of smoke and iron, their hooves striking the cobblestones with the heavy, rhythmic thud of a funeral drum.

"He’s early," Dorian said, his voice a low grate of glacial stone. He didn't pull away from my touch, though his muscles were wired tight beneath the fine velvet of his doublet. "Vane was suppressed to arrive at dusk. The Council is eager to catch us in a state of disarray."

"Then let's give them a masterpiece of order instead," I replied, finally withdrawing my hand. My skin hissed where the cold had nipped it, a faint trail of steam rising from my red-dabbled fingertips. I adjusted the high, stiff collar of my crimson robes, centering myself. "Is the cooling charm on the south wing holding?"

"It is," Dorian said, turning to face me. His silver-grey eyes were scanning my face, looking for the flicker of panic he expected. I gave him nothing but a sharp, professional smile. "But the North Spire is currently venting heat like a dying star. If Vane smells the sulfur coming from your alchemy labs, he’ll cite it as a volatile hazard before he even shakes our hands."

"My students are practicing containment," I snapped, though the heat in my chest was more than just magical. "Maybe if your cryomancers stopped trying to freeze the ink in our communal wells, we could actually focus on the curriculum."

"Details for later, Chancellor. For now, try to look like you don't want to immolate me."

We descended the grand staircase in a synchronized display of forced unity. Our boots clicked against the marble in a perfect, unsettling rhythm. At the bottom, our respective faculty members were lined up like soldiers—the Fire-born in their vibrant silks on the left, the Frost-born in their stark whites on the right. The air in the middle shimmered with the violent friction of their auras. 

The heavy oak doors of the academy groaned open. 

High Inquisitor Vane did not walk so much as he drifted into the hall, shadowed by four silent peacekeepers whose faces were hidden behind porcelain masks. Vane himself was a man of sharp angles and monochromatic greys. His eyes were the color of stagnant water, and they immediately fixed on the point where Dorian and I stood together.

"Chancellor Thorne. Chancellor Vance," Vane said, his voice a sibilant rasp that seemed to suck the warmth out of the room. He didn't offer a hand. He drew a long, obsidian rod from his sleeve—a Tuner. "The Council sends its regards. And its concerns."

"We are honored by the oversight, Inquisitor," Dorian said, his tone perfectly neutral. It was the voice he used when he was most dangerous. "The merger moves apace. The students are integrating their studies, and the administrative overlap is nearly complete."

Vane didn't look at Dorian. He moved past us, the tip of his obsidian rod hovering inches above the floor. As he reached the center of the hall, where the two schools’ ley lines met in a delicate, braided knot, the rod began to vibrate. A low, discordant hum filled the air—the sound of a cello string about to snap.

"Do not lie to me, Vance," Vane whispered, his back to us. "I can hear the mountain screaming."

He struck the floor with the rod. 

The shockwave didn't just rattle the windows; it vibrated through my very teeth. For a heartbeat, the illusion of the Great Hall flickered. I saw the cracks in the masonry, glowing with a sickly, bruised purple light. The Academy's Core—the mountain's magical heart—wasn't just strained. It was fracturing.

I stepped forward, my temper flaring. "The integration of two primal sources is a delicate process, Inquisitor. A certain amount of environmental feedback is expected."

Vane turned, his lip curling in a sneer that didn't reach his cold eyes. "Feedback? Chancellor Thorne, you are standing on a powder keg. This mountain is a geomantic anchor for the entire northern province. If the internal fires and the external frost are not harmonized, the anchor will shatter. The blast would level the plateau and everything on it."

Dorian moved to my side, his presence a sudden, stabilizing chill. "We are aware of the resonance issues. We have a plan to stabilize the wards."

"Then your plan is failing," Vane said. He walked a slow circle around us, the porcelain-masked guards closing in like wolves. "The wards are thinning. The discord between your two factions is feeding the instability. Magical energy follows the shape of the mind, and right now, this school is a theater of war."

He stopped in front of us, leaning in until I could smell the ozone and old parchment clinging to his robes. 

"The Mid-Winter Gala is in three weeks," Vane said. "The Council has decreed this the deadline. If the Core is not stabilized—if the wards do not show a perfect, harmonious resonance by the stroke of midnight at the Gala—we will declare this merger a failure of the highest order."

"And then?" I asked, my voice tighter than I wanted it to be.

"And then we enact martial law," Vane replied, a terrifying softness in his tone. "The Council will seize the academy. Both of you will be stripped of your titles and your magic will be bound for a period of no less than twenty years. The students will be redistributed to labor camps where their capacities can be... properly utilized."

I felt the blood drain from my face. Binding a mage was a death sentence in all but name. To take the fire that lived in my veins and lock it behind an iron seal—I’d rather be thrown from the height of the Spire.

Beside me, Dorian’s hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. The air around him dropped twenty degrees in a second. "That is an extreme measure for a temporary fluctuation."

"The Council is tired of your bickering," Vane said, tucking his rod back into his sleeve. "You have twenty-one days to prove you can lead as one. If you cannot find a way to make your fire dance with his ice without burning the house down, we will extinguish you both."

He turned on his heel, his guards flanking him in seamless silence. They marched back toward the carriage, leaving the great oak doors hanging open to the biting mountain wind.

The faculty began to murmur, a low tide of rising panic. I saw my Head of Alchemy looking at Dorian’s Chief Cryomancer with blatant accusation. The spark of conflict was there, ready to ignite into a wildfire of blame.

"Quiet!" I shouted. The word carried a snap of heat that forced the room into silence. 

I didn't look at my staff. I looked at Dorian. He was staring out the open doors at the retreating carriage, his jaw set so hard I thought it might shatter. 

"My office," he said, not looking at me. "Now."

We didn't speak as we climbed the stairs. We didn't speak as we passed the students huddling in the corridors, their eyes wide with the rumors that were already spreading like a contagion. 

Once inside his sanctum, Dorian slammed the door and threw a privacy ward. It was a brutal, efficient spell that frosted the glass and deadened all external sound.

"He's right," Dorian said, turning to face me. The composure he’d held in the hall was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged energy. "The Core is spiking. I’ve felt it in my sleep. Every time we argue, every time our departments clash, the mountain absorbs it."

"I thought I was the only one," I admitted, sinking into a chair. I squeezed my eyes shut, seeing the purple fractures in the Great Hall's floor. "I’ve been diverting heat to the foundations for a week, trying to melt the stress fractures in the stone."

"And I’ve been trying to reinforce them with permafrost," Dorian said with a hollow laugh. "We’ve been working against each other even when we were trying to help. We’re doubling the strain, Mira."

"He said we have to harmonize," I said, opening my eyes. "Not just exist. Not just tolerate. Harmonize."

Dorian walked over to his desk and picked up a crystal decanter. He poured two glasses of amber liquid, his hands remarkably steady despite the chaos. He handed one to me. As our fingers brushed, a spark of pure, unadulterated energy jumped between us—not a burn, not a chill, but a sharp, clean shock that made my breath hitch.

We both froze. The spark didn't dissipate; it lingered in the air between our hands, a tiny, glowing golden thread of light. It pulsed with the rhythm of two hearts.

Dorian looked from the light to my eyes. For the first time, I saw something other than rivalry or calculated professionalism in his gaze. I saw a desperate, terrifying realization. 

"The wards aren't just reacting to the school," he whispered, his voice dropping to a register that made my skin prickle. "They’re reacting to us. To the source."

I swallowed, the golden thread stretching as I slowly pulled my hand away. "If we're the source of the discord, then we have to be the source of the harmony."

"The Gala is a masquerade," Dorian said, his eyes darkening. "Vane will be there with his Tuner. He’ll be looking for any sign of friction. If we don't look like a single, unified entity by then..."

"We lose everything," I finished for him.

I looked at Dorian—at the sharp line of his jaw, the silver in his hair, the way he stood like a man who had never known a day of peace. We were the most powerful mages of our generation, and we were being threatened with the one thing we couldn't fight with a spell: each other.

"We need to practice," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "The resonance. We can't just fake it in public. We have to... we have to actually do it. Alone."

Dorian stepped closer, entering my personal space until the scent of cedar and cold air overwhelmed my senses. He looked down at me, his expression unreadable.

"Then we start tonight," he said.

He reached out, his hand hovering over mine on the arm of the chair. He didn't touch me, but I could feel the cold radiating from him, seeking the heat of my skin. 

"If the mountain falls, Mira, it falls because we let it."

I looked up at him, the weight of the threat and the strange, electric pull of his presence twisting together in my gut. Outside, the wind howled against the mountain, but inside the room, the silence was even louder.

"Then don't let me go," I said.

Dorian’s fingers finally closed over mine, and this time, the mountain didn't scream—it groaned, a deep, tectonic shift that felt like the beginning of an earthquake.