Chapter 18: Burning Bridges

The silver thread of Dorian’s stasis spell didn’t snap; it disintegrated, dissolving into flickering white sparks that died against the heat radiating from Mira’s skin. For a heartbeat, the silence in the Great Hall was so absolute that the crackle of a single torch on the far wall sounded like a landslide. 

Mira didn’t move. She stood behind the heavy oak lectern, her fingers dug so deeply into the wood that her knuckles were the color of salt. She could feel the Council of Mages watching from the high gallery, their eyes heavy with the weight of a century of tradition she was currently setting on fire. Below her, the students of both the Ignis Academy and the Glacial Spire sat in a mosaic of red and blue silk, a fractured image of the unity she and Dorian had spent months trying to forge.

Dorian stepped forward, the heels of his boots echoing against the marble. He didn't look at the Council. He didn't look at the faculty. He looked only at her. His eyes, usually the color of deep-vein ice, were turbulent, shifting into a bruised violet.

"Mira," he said, his voice a low vibration that skipped across her nerves. "Walk away from the lectern. Now."

"If I walk away, they win," Mira replied. The air around her began to shimmer, the oxygen thinning as her internal temperature spiked. "If I walk away, the Accord dies before the ink is even dry on the scrolls. Is that what you want? To go back to the walls and the silence?"

"I want you to live through the next five minutes," Dorian snapped. He reached out, his hand hovering inches from her arm, restrained by the invisible barrier of heat she was emitting. "You're venting raw essence. You’re going to burn the hall down with you inside it."

Above them, High Chancellor Vane stood, his golden robes catching the torchlight. "Chancellor Mira, you have been found in violation of the Third Edict. By attempting to siphon the ley lines beneath the Glacial Spire to fuel the Ignis furnaces, you have committed an act of magical aggression. Step down, or we will be forced to use the Suppression Array."

The students murmured, a rising tide of panicked whispers. Mira felt a bead of sweat slide down her temple, evaporating before it reached her jaw. She hadn't siphoned the lines for aggression; she’d done it to save the Ignis archives from the creeping frost rot that had plagued the lower levels for decades. But the Council didn't care about archives. They cared about the balance of power, and she had tipped the scales.

"The frost rot was Dorian’s doing," a voice cried out from the Ignis side of the hall. It was Elara, one of Mira’s top seniors. "He’s been strangling our heat since the merger began!"

Dorian’s head snapped toward the girl, his expression hardening. "I have done nothing but provide the stabilization necessary to keep your volatile sparks from leveling this mountain."

"Stabilization is just another word for a cage!" Elara yelled back.

A shard of ice materialized in the air above the Glacial Spire students—a reflex, a defensive ward triggered by the sudden spike in collective emotion. In response, a plume of flame erupted from a wall sconce near the Ignis seats.

"Stop it!" Mira’s voice wasn't a scream; it was a command laced with the crackle of a forest fire. 

She turned her gaze back to Dorian. He was the only thing standing between her and the Council’s wrath, yet he was also the primary architect of the cold logic that was currently suffocating her. "Tell them, Dorian. Tell them you knew about the ley line redirection. Tell them you gave me the keys to the conduit."

Dorian’s jaw tightened. If he admitted it, he would lose his seat. He would be stripped of his titles, his lineage disgraced, and the Ice Mages would be left without a defender. If he stayed silent, Mira would be exiled—or worse.

"I gave her nothing," Dorian said, his voice flat and frozen.

The betrayal hit Mira harder than a physical blow. The heat around her didn't just rise; it detonated. The oak lectern ignited, flames licking up her arms, charring the sleeves of her robes but leaving her skin untouched. She stepped away from the burning wood, the floorboards beneath her boots blackening with every step.

"Liars," she whispered, the word carrying to every corner of the hall. "All of you, obsessed with your little kingdoms of frost and fire while the world outside forgets we even exist."

"Mira, enough!" Dorian moved then, abandoning caution. He plunged his hand through the heat, his fingers locking around her wrist. 

The contact was a violent collision of extremes. Where his skin met hers, steam erupted in a hissing cloud. Mira gasped, the sensation of needles of ice stitching into her veins fighting against the molten surge of her own power. She tried to pull away, but he held fast, his own face contorting as the skin of his palm began to blister.

"Let go," she hissed, her eyes glowing a terrifying, incandescent orange. "You’ve made your choice, Dorian. Stay in your frozen palace."

"I am trying to save you, you stubborn, brilliant fool," he muttered, pulling her closer until their chests were almost touching. The scent of ozone and scorched wool filled the space between them. "If you don't drop the mantle, the Array will tear your mind apart. Look up!"

She looked. The ceiling of the Great Hall was swirling with a sickly violet light. The Suppression Array—a relic of the Great War designed to strip a mage of their connection to the elements—was humming to life. It felt like an anvil hanging by a single hair.

"Let it come," Mira said, her voice trembling now. "I would rather have no magic at all than live in a world where you can hold my hand in the dark and deny me in the light."

Dorian’s expression crumbled. The icy mask he had worn for thirty years shattered, revealing a raw, bleeding desperation. "I didn't do it to protect myself. If I fall with you, there is no one left to negotiate your release. There is no one to stop Vane from executing the rest of the Ignis faculty."

"Then you should have told me the plan," she said.

The Array flared. A beam of violet energy struck the center of the hall, the shockwave knocking students from their benches. Mira felt the pull—a jagged, psychic hook reaching for the core of her fire. She screamed, her knees buckling.

Dorian didn't let go. He went down with her, his knees hitting the charred wood. He wrapped his arms around her, a shield of frost attempting to coat her burning form, his body a conductor for the agony pouring from the ceiling. 

"I have you," he groaned, his voice strained as the purple light began to leech the color from his own hair, turning the dark strands to a ghostly white. "Mira, look at me. Give it to me. All of it. The fire, the anger—dump it into me."

"It will kill you," she sobbed, her fire flickering as the Array intensified its leeching.

"Let it," he whispered against her ear. "I’m tired of being cold anyway."

Mira closed her eyes and did the one thing she had been taught never to do. She opened the floodgates. She didn't fight the Array; she used Dorian as a bridge, funneling the entirety of her incandescent rage and magmatic power through his soul and back up toward the ceiling. 

The explosion was silent. A dome of white light expanded from the pair, shattered the Suppression Array, and blew out every window in the Great Hall. Glass rained down like diamonds.

When the light cleared, the hall was in ruins. The Council gallery had collapsed into a pile of smoking rubble. The students were huddled in the corners, staring in terrified awe. 

In the center of the wreckage, Mira lay gasped for air, her robes tattered and her power feeling like a hollow ache in her chest. Dorian was slumped over her, his breathing ragged and shallow. He was alive, but the cost was etched into his skin; frostbite scars patterned his arms like lace, and his eyes, when he finally opened them, remained that bruised, haunting violet.

He looked up at the empty space where the Council had sat. Then he looked at the students.

"The Accord is over," Dorian said, his voice raspy but carrying a new, dangerous authority. 

Mira reached up, touching his face, her fingers finally cool. "No," she said, looking at the way the students were now standing together—red and blue robes intermingled, helping each other up from the floor. "The Accord just started. We just had to burn the old one down first."

Dorian leaned his forehead against hers, the scent of smoke still clinging to them both. "They'll hunt us for this."

Mira glanced at the doors, where the palace guard was already beginning to hammer against the reinforced oak. 

"Let them come," she said. "I’ve always wanted to see what happens when the ice finally catches fire."