Chapter 10: Midnight Practices

The ink on the Starfall Accord was still wet, but the heat radiating from Mira’s skin threatened to turn the parchment to ash. 

She didn’t pull her hand away from Dorian’s. The Great Hall of the Wyvern Academy was silent, the witnesses long since dismissed, but the air remained thick with the scent of ozone and chilled cedar. For ten years, they had defined themselves by the distance they kept. Now, as the unified sigil glowed a soft, violet hue between their pressed palms, that distance was a mathematical impossibility.

"The merger is official," Dorian said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to settle in the marrow of her bones. He didn’t drop his hand. Instead, his thumb grazed the pulse point at her wrist, a slow, deliberate movement that sent a spark of reckless fire leaping through her veins. "The students are asleep. The faculty has toasted to peace. And we are still standing in a drafty hall looking for things to argue about."

"I’m not looking for an argument," Mira countered, though her breath hitched. She looked up at him, noting the way the moonlight through the high, arched windows caught the silver in his dark hair. The icy reserve that usually served as his armor had thinned, leaving something raw and dangerously magnetic in its place. "I’m looking for the catches I missed in the sub-clauses."

"There are no catches, Mira. Only a school that needs two heads, and a world that finally stopped shaking." Dorian stepped closer, his boots clicking softly on the flagstones. The temperature between them was a localized weather system—a swirl of summer heat and winter frost that felt like a living thing. "You’ve been holding your breath since the solstice. You can let it out now."

Mira finally withdrew her hand, but only to tuck a loose strand of copper hair behind her ear. Her fingers trembled. "You make it sound so simple. We just spent three months rewriting the laws of magical education. Tomorrow, we start teaching pyromancy and cryomancy in the same courtyard. If the resonance isn't perfect, we’ll blow the roof off the east wing."

Dorian’s lips curved into the faintest of smiles—the one that always made Mira want to either throw a fireball or kiss him. "Then perhaps we should ensure the resonance is perfect tonight. A final test of the merged conduits."

"It’s midnight, Dorian."

"Which is the only time the ambient mana is quiet enough to hear the core," he said, extending a hand toward the heavy oak doors that led to the central practice dais. "Unless, of course, the High Chancellor of the Fire Sector is afraid of a little frostbite."

Mira laughed, a sharp, bright sound that echoed off the vaulted ceiling. "The High Chancellor of the Ice Sector is about to find out that fire doesn't just burn. It consumes."

They walked in silence through the darkened corridors, their footsteps syncing without effort. It was a terrifying grace, the way they had begun to move as one unit over the course of the negotiations. On the central dais, open to the night sky and the swirling stars that gave the Accord its name, the air was biting.

Dorian took his place at the northern point of the etched circle. Mira took the southern. 

"The fundamental law of balance," Mira said, raising her hands. Small embers began to dance between her fingertips, swirling like angry wasps. "To create a stable field, the heat must be internal. If I let it out all at once—"

"I’ll be there to catch it," Dorian finished. He raised his own hands. Frost bloomed across the stone floor, creeping toward the center in intricate, jagged patterns. "Flow into the center, Mira. Don't fight the cold. Map it."

She closed her eyes and pushed. 

The heat left her in a rush—not as an explosion, but as a focused stream of gold-red light. It met Dorian’s blue-white frost at the nexus of the circle. At the point of contact, the elements didn't cancel each other out. They braided. A column of shimmering, lavender mist rose toward the stars, humming with a frequency that vibrated in Mira’s teeth. 

It was beautiful. It was impossible. 

The magic demanded more. As the resonance stabilized, the connection between the mages deepened. Mira felt Dorian’s presence in her mind—not as an intrusion, but as a cool, steadying weight. She felt his exhaustion, his fierce pride, and a deep, aching loneliness that mirrored her own. 

Her eyes snapped open. Dorian was staring at her, his pupils blown wide, his hands shaking. The column of light flared, turning a brilliant, blinding white.

"Dorian," she whispered, the name a plea.

He didn't break the connection. He leaned into it. The magical braid began to pull them inward, toward the center of the circle, as if the spell they had created was hungry for its makers. Mira stumbled forward, her boots skidding on the frost-slicked stone, and then she was within arm's reach. 

The spell broke. 

The lavender light dissipated into a shower of harmless sparks, leaving them in the sudden, heavy dark of the midnight courtyard. Mira gasped, the cold air rushing into her lungs, but before she could steady herself, Dorian’s hands were on her waist, pulling her flush against him.

His skin was freezing; hers was molten. Where they touched, the air hissed. 

"Is that... stable enough for you?" she breathed, her hands finding the lapels of his heavy wool coat. 

"I think," Dorian said, his voice dropping to a gravelly silk, "that we've spent entirely too much time talking about stability, and not nearly enough time talking about this."

He leaned down, his forehead resting against hers. The scent of him—snow and old books—drugged her senses. Mira tilted her head back, her heart drumming a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She had spent a decade hating this man, five years ignoring him, and three months realizing he was the only person in the world who truly saw her.

"Dorian," she said, her voice a low crackle of heat. "If you don't kiss me right now, I am going to set this entire courtyard on fire."

"We wouldn't want to damage the masonry," he murmured.

Then he kissed her. 

It wasn't the tentative kiss of a peace treaty. It was a collision. It was the frantic, desperate release of ten years of repressed friction. Dorian tasted of winter and peppermint, his tongue sliding against hers with a possessive hunger that made Mira’s knees buckle. She hummed into his mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer until there wasn't a single breath of air between them. 

The world around them blurred. The stone beneath their feet, the stars above, the looming towers of the academy—all of it faded until there was only the sensation of his hands moving down her back and the searing heat she was generating in response. 

Dorian pulled back just an inch, his lips brushing against the corner of her mouth. "The merger," he panted, his eyes glowing with a faint, reflected blue light. "It’s going to be difficult. The boards, the students, the councils..."

Mira gripped his shoulders, her thumbs digging into the muscle. She could feel the power still thrumming between them, a tether that would never be severed.

"Let them try to stop us," she said, a fierce, triumphant smile spreading across her face.

Dorian chuckled, a low, dark sound of agreement as he swept her up into his arms, heading toward the chancellor’s quarters where the fire in the hearth was already burning bright.

The Starfall Accord was signed, sealed, and delivered, but as the door clicked shut behind them, it was clear that the real work—and the real magic—was only just beginning.