Chapter 6: Before The Fall

The gala was a week away. For St. Valen’s, it was a tradition. For Althea, it was a countdown.

Noah’s collision with her in the corridor—the way he had jerked back like he had touched fire—had been a correction. A punishment. A reminder that what had almost happened between them wasn’t warmth; it was a lapse he regretted. His horror had not been about her; it had been about being seen. And Luca’s quiet dagger of a comment kept echoing: “He’ll always choose the mask.”

Humiliation burned in her chest, sharp and bitter. Then came her family’s email, and the blade twisted deeper.

The week blurred into a hollow, tightening panic.

Her magic—the seismic, wild thing that lived under her ribs—had gone quiet.

Not calm.

Not sleeping.

Just… watching.

Waiting.

She tried to train her mind instead, the way her lola had demanded: sit, breathe, control.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, Umbra’s head heavy on her lap, a single unlit candle placed before her. The room was dim. Cold. Too still. She breathed.

Hinga, apat… Labas, anim… In one, two, three, four… Out one, two, three, four, five, six…

But her mind wouldn’t empty.

It was filled with him.

Noah’s body caged hers against the wall. His breath was trembling against her cheek. His thumb barely touched her jaw. His voice, low and fractured: “You can’t understand what this costs.”

And then—the way he had looked at her afterward. The way he’d fled.

Her breath caught. The candle flame, which had been dormant, roared up—angry, bright, and violently alive. Three inches high.

Umbra growled, not at the flame, but at the shift in her—a warning.

Althea stared at the candle, heart pounding. The scent hit her a second later—sweet, chemical, faintly burnt sugar. The smell of her magic waking.

“No,” she whispered. “Not now.”

The flame only grew taller.

Her frustration—her shame—triggered memory like a reflex. Suddenly, she was there again.

The jungle heat clung to her skin. The Sombra estate at fourteen.

The pavilion is open to the thick, suffocating air—the cloying scent of champaca and ylang-ylang. Not floral. Not sweet.

Funereal. Rotting.

Odesa kneeling beside her—perfect posture, unblinking.

Hiraya is trembling, trying to hide it.

Their lola stood before them, immaculate in white, eyes sharp enough to cut. No softness. Only judgment.

Beside her, the mambabarang—the sorcerer they’d flown in—held a crude wooden effigy bound in red thread. He began to chant.

It wasn’t a sound. It was an intrusion.

The false warmth hit her like a drugged wave.

Love. Adoration. Hunger disguised as devotion.

It crawled up her throat and coated her lungs. She needed the effigy. She would die for it. She would kill for it.

Her stomach churned. Her vision blurred.

“This is gayuma,” her lola said, voice cold as steel. “A child’s magic. A crutch for the weak. You are a Sombra. You are not ruled by want. You are ruled by will.”

The feeling tightened around her ribs, making her sick.

“You do not feel it,” Lola said. “You observe it. Name the lie. Then sever it.”

“I… I can’t,” Althea rasped. “It’s—corrupting—”

“Pathetic.” Lola hit her with her cane. “Again.”

The chant rose. The wave crashed.

Althea choked, drowning in the false adoration, in the sweet, cloying infection of love that wasn’t hers. Her magic—the monster inside—rose fast. Faster than her will. It didn’t want to observe. It tried to break.

There was a crack like thunder.

The effigy exploded into splinters. The mambabarang flew backward with a cry.

The narcotic sweetness burned away, replaced by the metallic tang of live magic—her magic—bright, terrifying, and uncontrolled.

Silence.

Hiraya sobbed. Odesa stayed stone-still.

Lola looked at Althea with fury so cold it felt like ice spreading over her bones.

“You did not master it,” Lola whispered. “You broke it. You are a hammer, apo. Brutal, yes. But not disciplined.” A pause. “Again.”

Althea gasped back into the present.

The candle flame died instantly, leaving only smoke.

“Feel nothing,” she whispered to herself.

The chant her family lived by.

The one Noah wore like a second skin.

He’d felt something in that corridor. Then he erased it.

She never could.

She shoved on her boots, desperate for air, when a soft knock sounded.

Hiraya stood outside, elegant as always, holding a black garment bag that likely cost more than the dorm room itself.

“Hello, bunso,” she said gently. “I brought your dress.”

She stepped inside. She froze.

The room was thick with static. Residual magic. Emotion, she couldn’t hide.

Hiraya’s eyes narrowed. “Althea… what happened?”

She touched her sister’s arm. And that was the mistake.

Hiraya jerked as if struck. Her pupils dilated. Her fingers spasmed. She saw everything.

The corridor. Noah’s hands braced beside her head. His breath, shaking.

The way he wanted had slammed through him—raw, forbidden, overwhelming.

The way Althea’s heart had answered with equal force.

The way he’d recoiled—not from her, but from being exposed.

From being seen wanting something he shouldn’t.

Then Hiraya felt something worse:

The monster.

The seismic magic rising under Althea’s skin.

The Beacon flare—silent but deafening—calling into the dark.

Calling something back.

Hiraya ripped her hand away, stumbling a step, face bone-white.

“Oh, bunso…”

She looked at Althea the way a storm watcher looks at a sky that’s about to crack open.

“What have you done?”