Chapter 36: Twin Flames
Angel collapsed into the narrow infirmary bed after the discussion with Headmaster Death, his words about soul-bonding echoing in her mind until exhaustion finally pulled her into a shallow, fitful sleep.
The next morning, she was woken not by the mummified nurse, but by Crow himself. He stood at the foot of her bed, already dressed for training in black tactical pants and a fitted grey shirt. The sling was gone. His shoulder dislocation must have been better, the accelerated healing of a powerful Meister already doing its work. He looked rested, which only made her feel more acutely the deep, persistent ache in her own body.
"Up," he said, his voice leaving no room for debate. "Rehabilitation room. Now."
The Rehabilitation Room was a sterile, humming chamber. Violet light pulsed from panels in the walls, casting long, dancing shadows. The air smelled sharply of ozone and something else—a metallic tang that reminded her of the moment after a thunderstorm. The floor was slick with a thin sheen of condensation.
Crow’s idea of physical therapy was, unsurprisingly, brutal.
He had her on her feet, guiding her through a series of agonizingly slow movements: lunges that made her thigh muscles shriek, arm raises that felt like lifting concrete blocks, core twists that sent stabs of pain through her healing ribs. He was a relentless taskmaster, offering no praise, only sharp corrections.
“Your center is off. Again.”
“You’re favoring the left. Don’t.”
“That’s pathetic, Delacroix. A newborn has more stability.”
Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead within minutes. Her glasses kept sliding down her nose. Every breath was a ragged gasp that burned in her chest. The weakness was infuriating, a prison her own body had become.
“I can’t,” she panted, her legs trembling violently during a held squat.
“You can,” he snapped, standing directly in front of her, his silver eyes devoid of mercy. “You held back a Kishin. You will hold this position for ten more seconds.”
She gritted her teeth, a low groan escaping her. The tremor in her thighs became a violent shake. The world narrowed to the fire in her muscles and Crow’s impassive face.
On the eighth second, her leg gave out completely.
She pitched forward, a cry of frustration torn from her lips. There was no time to brace herself.
She collided with him.
His hands came up automatically to catch her, one splayed against her back, the other gripping her upper arm. Her face was buried against his chest, the damp fabric of his shirt against her cheek. For a split second, it was just physics—him preventing her fall.
Then it happened.
A resonant thrum, deep and internal, like a massive bell struck once inside her ribcage. A flash of brilliant, warm golden light erupted where their bodies met, so bright it bleached the violet glow from the room. It wasn't visible light, not really—it was soul light, pouring out of them.
The sensation was staggering. It was the opposite of the numbness from the battle. It was a cascade of pure, vibrating vitality. It was the feeling of a puzzle piece snapping perfectly into place, of a door she hadn't known was locked swinging open. For that fraction of a second, there was no pain, no exhaustion—only a terrifying, exhilarating wholeness.
It lasted only a heartbeat before snuffing out.
The room rushed back in—the hum, the ozone smell, the cold sweat on her skin.
They were both breathless. Angel clung to him, her fingers fisting in his shirt, her entire body humming with the ghost of that connection. She looked up, meeting his gaze.
Crow’s silver eyes were dark, the pupils wide and hungry. The controlled stoicism was utterly shattered, replaced by a raw, naked want that stole the air from her lungs. It was the same look he’d had in the madness, but clear, conscious, and directed entirely at her.
He stared down at her, his breathing ragged against her forehead.
Then, as if a switch had been flipped, his expression shuttered. The hunger was wiped away, replaced by something cold and closed-off. His hands, which had been holding her, now pushed her upright with impersonal efficiency. Once she was stable on her own trembling legs, he let go and took a full step back, putting clear distance between them.
The rejection was a physical slap. It hurt, a sharp sting that cut deeper than any muscle ache. After everything—after he’d pulled her from the madness, after the terrifying intimacy of their fusion, after he’d… been with her in front of everyone during the Medusa fight—this clinical distance felt like a betrayal.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“Doing what?” He turned to adjust a setting on a wall panel, not looking at her.
“Pulling away from me like I’m distasteful.”
He went very still. His back was to her, the lines of his shoulders tense. He finally spoke, his voice flat and dead. “You heard what Headmaster Death said.”
The words hung in the damp air. Teacher-student relationships can’t exist.
“So that’s it?” Her own voice gained a hard edge. “You just… shut down? After everything?”
He turned then, and his face was a mask of disciplined ice. “My role is to train you. To ensure you survive. Anything else would ruin your reputation and your place at this academy. It’s a distraction you cannot afford. I cannot afford it.” He gestured to the door. “We’re done for the morning. Get cleaned up. You’ll attempt a walk to the cafeteria this afternoon. Dismissed.”
He left her standing there, shaking in the middle of the slick floor, the echo of the golden light still tingling under her skin.
Later that day, she managed it. Each step was a monumental effort, a negotiation with her own rebellious body. She leaned heavily on a cane the nurse provided, her breath coming in short, harsh pants that echoed in the empty corridor. It was maybe two hundred meters. It felt like a marathon.
She pushed through the cafeteria doors and stopped, swaying slightly, a victory so small it was almost pathetic.
The academy cafeteria was a vast, hall-like space with long wooden tables. It was mostly empty between meal times. At a table near the back, she saw Amber and Leo. Amber noticed her immediately, her face lighting up before shifting to concern. She said something to Leo and hurried over.
“You walked!” Amber said, sliding an arm around Angel’s waist to offer support. “Come sit, you look like you’re gonna pass out.”
Angel let her sister guide her to their table. Leo gave her a warm, sympathetic smile. “Hey, Angel. Tough session?”
“Something like that,” Angel mumbled, sinking onto the bench with a grateful groan.
Amber sat close, her energy buzzing. She waited until Leo got up to get Angel a glass of water. Then she leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Okay. We need to talk. And don’t even try to dodge it.”
Angel knew what was coming. She braced herself.
“Crow,” Amber said, the single word loaded with implication. “During the Medusa fight… when you pulled him out of his madness. What happened after, between you two… everyone saw it, Angel.”
Angel felt her face heat. The memory was a chaotic blur of terror, relief, and a furious, possessive intensity that had burned away all reason. “It wasn’t like that,” she started weakly.
“It was exactly like that,” Amber countered, her eyes serious. “It was raw, and it was public. Maria looked like she’d been stabbed. Regir hasn’t made eye contact with anyone since. So… what is going on? Is he… are you two…?”
Angel sighed, the weight of the last twenty-four hours pressing down. She was too tired to deflect. “Headmaster Death says we’re soul-bonded.”
Amber’s eyes widened dramatically. She sucked in a sharp breath. “Soul-bonded? Are you serious?”
“That’s what he said. He said it started during the battle with Asura, but he implied it happened before that, that there’s more to it.” Angel rubbed her temples. “But no one will tell me what it actually means. Crow just clams up and quotes academy rules.”
“Soul-bonded,” Amber repeated, her voice hushed with a kind of awe. “Angel, that’s not just a deep resonance. That’s… that’s forever. It’s like your souls are permanently linked. It’s super rare, and it’s…”
She didn’t get to finish. The cafeteria doors banged open with violent force.
Alyce Kingston stormed in, her face flushed, her red hair a chaotic halo. She scanned the room, spotted them, and marched over, dropping her tray onto the table with a clatter. “This place is a drag,” she announced, flopping onto the bench opposite Angel. “No one’s doing anything. Jack’s still out cold in his coma, so there’s no weird symmetry lessons. Boring.” She shoveled a forkful of pasta into her mouth, then glanced at Angel. “You look like death warmed over. Crow work you too hard?”
Angel just nodded, the conversation with Amber hanging unfinished in the air between them. Amber was still staring at her, mouth slightly agape, the words soul-bonded clearly still ringing in her ears.
Across the cafeteria, unnoticed by any of them, Crow stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching. His hand was pressed flat against the wall, his knuckles white. The spot on his chest where the crow tattoo sat felt like it was burning. He watched Angel laugh weakly at something Alyce said, watched Amber lean in again, speaking urgently now.
He turned and disappeared into the corridor, the hunger in his silver eyes carefully locked away once more, a prisoner behind bars of his own making.
He turned and disappeared into the corridor, the hunger in his silver eyes carefully locked away once more, a prisoner behind bars of his own making.
Back at the table, Amber waited for Leo to return before leaning in again, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “A soul-bond is basically a forever thing, Angel. It’s not just combat deep.” She glanced furtively at Leo, who was walking back with a water glass. “It’s why Leo and I have to be so careful.”
Leo set the water in front of Angel and slid back onto the bench, his arm brushing Amber’s. “Careful about what?”
“About this,” Amber said, gesturing vaguely between them. She kept her voice low. “Everyone thinks we’re just best friends who are really in sync. If the faculty thought it was romantic…”
“They’d reassign us in a heartbeat,” Leo finished, his usual easygoing tone gone. “Too risky. Could ‘compromise the purity of the resonance’ or some archaic crap.”
“It’s not crap,” Amber sighed, but she didn’t sound convinced. “It’s the rule. Partners who get involved emotionally supposedly can’t separate the bond from the battlefield. Makes them reckless. Or something.”
The cafeteria door swung open again, and a group of lower-year meisters walked past, chatting loudly about sparring techniques. Amber immediately straightened up, putting a few more inches of space between herself and Leo.
“So, anyway,” she said, her voice artificially bright, “how’s the leg pain, Angel?”
Alyce, who had been shoveling in pasta, rolled her eyes at the obvious shift. “Smooth. Real smooth.” She stabbed her fork into her food. “God, I’m so bored. A whole month with no missions? Mandatory rest is just mandatory torture. We’ve got another week of this thumb-twiddling.”
“I have way longer,” Angel said, flexing her hand on the table. The muscles still felt foreign, like borrowed equipment. “Maybe another month before I’m cleared for anything real. The Meister blood is helping, but… I was almost paralyzed, Alyce. It’s not a sprain.”
A thought crystallized then, a way to bridge the gap between her confinement and her new, terrifying duty. “Well, since I’ve been assigned to study Asura,” she said, looking directly at the red-haired weapon, “maybe you can help me with that while I’m recovering. It’ll give you something to do.”
Alyce’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. Her green eyes widened, then sparked with frantic energy. “OMG, yes please let me help.” She slammed the fork down, jostling her glass of soda. It tipped, a dark wave sloshing toward the table’s edge before Leo lunged and steadied it. “Sorry! But yes. I’m in. When do we start?”
Progress, over the next couple of days, was measured in small, hard-won victories. Angel’s body, fueled by her unique heritage, began to reclaim itself. The cane was abandoned for short trips down familiar halls. The constant, grinding ache subsided into a dull, manageable throb after exertion.
She still couldn’t run. She definitely couldn’t fight. But she could walk from her room to the main staircase without stopping, if she went slowly.
“That’s your limit?” Alyce asked, standing at the top of the stone staircase that led down into the academy’s bowels. The air grew colder and damper with each descending flight.
“For now,” Angel said, gripping the iron railing. Her knuckles were white. “Going down is easier than coming up.”
“I’ll get you back up,” Alyce said, her tone unusually devoid of mockery. It was a simple statement of fact.
Silas Blackwood was waiting for them at the dungeon entrance, a tall, pale spectre in the low light. He said nothing, merely turning with a whisper of his coat to lead them deeper. The corridors here were hewn from black stone, lined with doors that hummed with containment seals. The air smelled of damp rock, ozone, and a faint, metallic sorrow.
He stopped before a cell no different from the others. Through a narrow, reinforced window, Angel saw him.
Asura was curled in the far corner, knees drawn to his chest, face buried. His shoulders shook with silent, relentless sobs. The ragged, uneven sound of it filled the hallway.
“He hasn’t stopped since his incarceration,” Silas murmured, his hands folded behind his back. “We can detect no trace of the Kishin madness in his soul wavelength. It has been completely… scoured. He does not speak. He only weeps.”
Silas unlocked the door. The mechanism clunked heavily in the quiet.
Angel stepped inside, Alyce a half-step behind her. The crying hitched, then ceased. The figure in the corner went very still. Slowly, Asura lifted his head.
His face was ravaged, slick with tears and old grime. His eyes, once blazing with chaotic fury, were hollow pits of exhausted despair. They focused on Angel, and a spark of impossible recognition flickered there.
“You,” he rasped, his voice shattered from disuse and weeping. “You are still alive?”
“I am,” Angel said, her own voice quiet in the stone room.
“Why?” The question was a broken thing.
Angel took a careful step closer. Alyce tensed beside her, but didn’t stop her. “Do you still want to kill everyone? To unravel the world and feed on the chaos?”
Asura flinched as if struck. He shook his head violently, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. “No. No, I see it. I see all of it. The screaming. The breaking. I can feel every fracture.” He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking slightly. “Make it stop. Please, make the seeing stop.”
Angel looked at Silas, then at Alyce. She saw no deception in his wavelength, only a bottomless, drowning grief. She moved forward again, until she stood before his crumpled form. She held out her hand.
“Come on,” she said.
He stared at her open palm as if it were a forgotten language. After a long moment, a trembling, scarred hand reached out and grasped hers. His skin was cold. She pulled, putting her own recovering strength into it, and helped him stand.
“Where are we going?” Alyce asked, watching the former god of chaos shuffle unsteadily.
“A tour,” Angel said, thinking of Amber leading a shy, poisoned boy through these same halls. “He needs to see what’s outside this room.”
The journey back up the stairs was arduous. Angel’s legs burned, her breath shortening. Halfway up, Alyce wordlessly slid under Angel’s other arm, taking most of her weight. Together, they ascended, a strange procession: the ancient guide, the recovering meister, the temperamental weapon, and the sobbing god.
They emerged onto a high overlook, a balcony of stone that jutted from the academy’s side. Death City sprawled below them under a grey sky. Cranes stood over buildings being rebuilt. Crews, looking like ants from this height, moved materials. The scars of their battle were vivid—a swath of rubble here, a skeleton of a tower there.
Angel released Asura’s hand. He shuffled to the railing and looked out.
He didn’t speak for a long time. The wind tugged at his thin prison clothes. Then, a low, anguished sound ripped from his throat. It wasn’t the mad roar of the Kishin. It was the pure, unbearable sound of a man waking from a nightmare to find the blood on his hands was real.
“I did that,” he whispered, the words carried away by the wind. His tears fell again, but these were silent, tracking clean lines through the dirt on his face. He looked at the reconstruction, the slow, stubborn healing of the world he’d tried to break. “I am so sorry. I am so… terribly sorry.”
He sank to his knees on the cold stone, his forehead touching the iron railing, and wept for the destruction he had made.