Chapter 18: Burning Bridges

Mira didn’t wait for the splinters of the Great Hall’s oak doors to hit the floor before she turned the air into a furnace. 

The structural integrity of the mountain was screaming, a low-frequency vibration that rattled her back teeth, but it was drowned out by the metallic clatter of the King’s Vanguard pouring through the breach. They weren't coming for a parlay; they were coming to dismantle the Accord with steel and slaughter.

“Dorian, left corridor!” Mira shouted, her voice rasping against the smoke. She didn’t look back to see if he was following. She knew the temperature of the air behind her had plummeted thirty degrees in a heartbeat. 

A vanguard captain, encased in serrated plate armor, lunged through the haze. Mira didn’t flinch. She snapped her fingers, and a whip of white-hot plasma lashed out, melting the man's visor shut and sending him reeling into his comrades. She felt the familiar, searing hum of the mountain’s corrupted ley line beneath her boots—a jagged, pulsing heat that begged her to let go, to simply incinerate the entire hall and everyone in it.

“Keep your temper, Mira,” Dorian’s voice was a shards of glass and silk, right at her shoulder. “If you bring the ceiling down, we die before we reach the descent.”

He stepped past her, his movements a terrifyingly fluid contrast to her explosive aggression. With a rhythmic sweep of his hands, Dorian pulled the moisture from the very breath of the soldiers, crystallizing it into jagged spears of ice that flew with surgical precision. He wasn't just fighting; he was composing a dirge. Where Mira was the wildfire, Dorian was the frost that cracked the stone.

The Great Hall was a nightmare of clashing elements. The tapestries of the blended schools—the silk she and Dorian had painstakingly hung together only weeks ago—shriveled and blackened in the heat. 

“They’re flanking us!” Mira cried. She spun, slamming her palms against the floor. A ring of fire erupted, a waist-high wall of violet flame that bought them five seconds of transition. 

Dorian grabbed her elbow, his grip freezing even through her leather duster. “The kitchens. There’s a service lift to the lower aquifers. We have to go down, Mira. Now.”

“The soul-binding ritual?” She stared at him, her eyes bright with the reflected glow of her own magic. “Dorian, that hasn't been performed since the founders cracked the world in half. If the resonance is off, we won't just fail—we’ll be erased.”

“Looking at the odds,” Dorian said, tilting his head toward the three dozen soldiers currently shattering his ice barricade with enchanted hammers, “erasure is starting to look like a dignified alternative.”

They broke into a sprint, weaving through the labyrinthine back hallways of the academy. The stone walls were weeping. Great rivulets of condensation ran down the masonry as the mountain struggled to reconcile the clashing heat and cold radiating from its two chancellors. 

Mira felt the strain in her chest, a tightening knot of magical exhaustion. Every time she threw a gout of flame, her heart hammered a frantic, uneven rhythm. Beside her, Dorian was pale, a thin line of blood running from his nostril. 

They reached the heavy iron grate of the service lift. Mira melted the lock with a touch, shoved the door open, and they tumbled inside. The lift groaned, descending into the dark, damp throat of the mountain.

Above them, the sounds of the massacre faded, replaced by the rhythmic, heavy thrum of the earth.

“We’re too late to save the building,” Mira whispered, leaning against the cold metal wall. She looked at her hands; they were shaking. The skin was stained with soot and the raw, red flush of overuse.

Dorian didn't offer platitudes. He stepped into her space, his presence a calm, chilled anchor against her frantic heat. He took her hands in his, his thumbs tracing the line of her knuckles. The contact sent a jolt through her—not of power, but of terrifying, human clarity.

“The building is stone and mortar,” Dorian said, his eyes locking onto hers. They were the color of a frozen lake, deep and dangerously still. “The Accord isn’t the hall, Mira. It’s us. It’s the fact that we are the only two people alive who can touch the source without being consumed by it.”

“The ritual requires a total synchronization,” she reminded him, her voice trembling. “No secrets. No ego. I have to see your every shadow, and you have to feel every spark of mine. Are you ready for that? After everything?”

Dorian leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. The contrast—his cold skin against her burning brow—should have been painful. Instead, it felt like the only right thing in a world falling apart.

“I have spent ten years hating you because I was afraid of how much I understood you,” he murmured. “There are no secrets left to keep.”

The lift hit the bottom with a jarring thud. The doors creaked open to reveal the Deep Caverns—a cathedral of crystal and raw, exposed earth where the mountain’s veins bled pure magical energy. The air here was thick, tasting of copper and ancient dust. 

At the center of the cavern sat the Resonating Stone, a jagged sliver of obsidian that seemed to pull the light from the air. This was the Heart of the Peak, the anchor of the ley lines. It was vibrating so violently it blurred at the edges.

“If we do this,” Mira said, stepping out onto the narrow stone bridge that led to the center, “there’s no going back to being rivals. There’s no going back to being Mira and Dorian. We’ll be an alloy.”

Dorian stepped onto the bridge beside her, his hand sliding down to interlace his fingers with hers. He squeezed tight, his grip a silent vow.

“Then let’s give them something worth burning for.”

Behind them, the sounds of heavy boots echoed from the lift shaft. The Vanguard had found the way down. Mira and Dorian turned their backs to the entrance and faced the obsidian stone, their combined magic beginning to swirl into a singular, terrifying vortex of steam and light.

They didn't look back as the first arrows whistled through the dark; they only looked at the stone, and then, finally, at each other.