The silence in the Spire was thick enough to choke on. It clung to the walls, to my skin, to the space between us like smoke after a fire that hadn't quite gone out.
I sat on the edge of the grand piano, my fingers idly tracing a path through the dust on its lid. The fight still trembled in the air, alive and unfinished—Julian's hand crushing my arm, the way his skin sizzled when it touched the violin, the unholy scream the strings had made. A scream I felt in my teeth, in my bones.
Across the room, Julian stood rigid beside the shattered remains of a chandelier. The pieces lay scattered like fallen stars, glinting under the flickering light. His back was turned to me, his posture too still to be calm. Leather gloves now covered his hands, but I remembered the blisters—raw, angry things that should have healed within minutes. They hadn't.
I pressed a single piano key.
A quiet note echoed through the room like a whisper daring to speak.
Julian didn't turn. "Stop."
I struck another key. "Make me."
His shoulders twitched. For a moment, I saw the edge of the predator. I thought he might close the distance between us in an instant, fury riding his every step. But then he exhaled—a long, restrained breath that sounded like it cost him something.
"You have no idea what you're playing with," he said.
"Then explain it to me," I shot back.
He turned.
His eyes, usually so sharp and sure, were darker now. Not the sharp crimson of rage, but something muted, something weighted. Not exhaustion. Pain. Not the kind that scars skin, but the kind that sinks deeper and refuses to leave.
"Your music isn't just sound," he said. "It's alive. And it's hungry."
My fingers froze on the piano. The words landed heavy, settling inside my chest like a stone in water.
Outside, the wind howled and clawed at the stained-glass windows. The light fractured across the room in shifting shards of color. Somewhere deep in the Spire's bones, the old wood groaned like it was remembering something it had tried to forget.
I reached for my violin.
Julian was there before I could lift the bow. His hand clamped around my wrist—fast, firm. "Don't."
I met his gaze, not flinching. "Why? Scared I'll break your fancy house?"
His voice softened, but it didn't lose its edge. "Scared you'll break yourself."
The rawness in his tone hit me harder than any blow. It wasn't condescension. It wasn't control. It was fear. Real, unguarded fear. For me.
I hesitated, caught off guard. His grip loosened.
I pulled away, but didn't touch the violin again.
Instead, I turned back to the piano. My fingers hovered over the keys. I didn't know what I was going to play until the notes began to spill out of me. Soft at first. Tentative. A melody half-remembered from a childhood too far away to matter. It wavered and trembled, uneven as breath, but it filled the room, curling around the silence like ivy wrapping stone.
Julian didn't speak. He didn't move.
Then, slowly, deliberately, his gloved hands lowered to the opposite end of the piano. He pressed a single chord. Deep, rich, resonant. It vibrated through the wood, through my skin.
My breath caught.
Our eyes met across the piano's polished surface, and something passed between us. A flicker. A question. Maybe a truce.
I played another note. He answered.
The music began to build between us—hesitant at first, like two people learning how to speak the same language. But then it grew stronger. I didn't need the violin. The piano sang under my fingers, blending with Julian's in perfect dissonance, like we were arguing through melody and somehow agreeing all the same.
The air thickened.
Candle flames danced higher than they should have, stretching as if reaching for something unseen. The light bent. Warped.
My veins began to glow, gold threads pulsing beneath my skin like sunlit rivers. Across from me, Julian's eyes ignited. Crimson surged through them, and his fangs lengthened. The hunger wasn't for blood. It was for connection.
The music surged.
A chandelier exploded above us. Shards of crystal rained down, catching the candlelight like falling stars. The windows shuddered in their frames.
I couldn't stop. The melody had taken hold, a tide pulling me deeper. Julian's playing intensified, his movements precise and sharp, like a predator pacing the edge of surrender.
Then it happened.
I hit a wrong note.
A single dissonant sound cracked through the storm of music like lightning tearing the sky.
And everything broke.
The connection snapped. We recoiled from the keys, gasping. The strings beneath the lid still vibrated, humming with the remnants of something too wild to name. My hands trembled. The light in my veins pulsed one last time before fading into stillness.
Julian stared at me across the piano. His chest rose and fell as if he were struggling to breathe. As if he needed to breathe. As if, for just a moment, he was alive.
I swallowed hard. "What the hell was that?"
He looked down at his hands. The gloves were scorched, the leather peeling back to reveal skin that had blistered even worse than before.
"A mistake," he said.
But there was no conviction in his voice.
And in his eyes, I saw something even more dangerous than power.
Hope.
***
Night fell like a shroud, heavy and quiet, cloaking the Spire in shadows that felt too still, too watchful.
And I dreamed of fire.
A city blazed around me—its streets swallowed by smoke, buildings reduced to molten bone. The sky bled red, and the air was thick, suffocating, saturated with the acrid stench of charred flesh. I stumbled through the ash, the heat licking at my heels like a living thing.
In the distance, a figure stood motionless amidst the flames.
Julian.
But not the Julian I knew.
This one wore a crown of bone, sharp and jagged, like the remains of something devoured. Blood dripped from his hands, slow and steady, painting the ground beneath him. A knife gleamed in his grip, silver catching firelight. He turned, and his eyes were empty. A void. His mouth moved, voice curling through the inferno like smoke.
"You'll sing for her too, little weaver."
I gasped awake.
Sweat clung to my skin like a second layer, and the bedsheets twisted around my limbs, damp and suffocating. I sat up too fast, the edges of the dream still clinging to me like smoke.
Julian stood over me, framed in the soft spill of moonlight pouring through the tall windows. He was still, unnervingly so. A statue carved from silence. His expression was unreadable, but his presence was thick—watchful, weighty, the way a storm watches the sea before it breaks.
"You were screaming," he said, voice low.
My throat burned. I hadn't noticed until he said it. I touched my neck. My fingers trembled.
I nodded, barely.
Julian didn't move. He should've been asleep—drawn into the pull of dawn like every other vampire—but he stood wide-eyed, alert, as if sleep had forgotten him entirely.
Then came the sound.
Three sharp knocks.
They echoed through the Spire like gunshots, snapping the quiet clean in half.
Julian's head turned toward the door, sudden and precise. His body tensed, every muscle drawn tight beneath the fabric of his coat. His nostrils flared once. Twice. Then he whispered the words I never wanted to hear.
"Conclave enforcers."
Cold trickled down my spine.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. "What do they want?"
Julian's jaw clenched. A vein pulsed in his neck. He didn't look at me when he answered.
"You," Julian said, and the word landed like a blade in the silence.
I froze, my breath catching somewhere between disbelief and dread.
Outside, the wind had picked up, rattling the stained-glass windows like a warning. I heard it again—knock, knock, knock—precise and patient, like whoever stood on the other side of the Spire's ancient doors knew exactly what they were here for. And they weren't in a hurry. That made it worse.
I looked at Julian, really looked at him. His eyes had darkened to something almost feral. Not fear. He never feared anything. But tension rolled off him in waves, coiled and sharp.
"Why me?" I asked, barely managing to keep my voice steady.
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he stood—one slow, deliberate step toward the door, his boots silent against the stone.
I stood too, heart pounding. "Julian."
He turned his face to me then, moonlight cutting across his cheekbone, outlining the faint shadow of something ancient behind his expression. "Because the music you made last night—what we made—shouldn't exist. It broke the laws the Conclave was built on."
"It was just music," I said, though even I didn't believe it.
Julian gave a bitter smile. "No, Ari. That wasn't music. That was power." He paused, his gaze tightening. "And you woke something."