Chapter 7: The Quiet Before The Fracture

Hiraya didn’t knock; she didn’t need to. The air told her something was wrong before the door even finished swinging open. Her gaze snapped straight to Althea. Her fingers brushed Althea’s wrist—barely a touch—and she jerked back like she’d been burned. Her breath hitched sharply. Umbra lifted his head from the bed, hackles rising, sensing both the magic and the fear.

“What did you do?” Hiraya whispered. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disappointment. It was dread. Pure, sickening dread.

Althea swallowed hard. “Ate… I didn’t mean to. It was just—”

“You did,” Hiraya breathed. The softness people adored in her was gone. She stepped inside and shut the door with surgical precision, like noise alone could trigger a collapse. “You flared.”

Althea’s heart dropped.

Hiraya’s voice dropped lower, sharp as a kris. “You lit the Beacon.”

“No,” Althea whispered. “No, it wasn’t like that. I just—I got overwhelmed and—"

“And you wanted him.” Hiraya’s eyes, dark and ancient in the way only a Babaylan’s could be, flashed. “A Laurent.”

Althea flinched. “You don’t understand.”

“I’m the only one who understands.” Hiraya’s voice cracked, the sound terrifying in its rawness. “I felt you from across the valley. Do you know how loud you were? Do you know what hears a Beacon when it wakes?”

The room seemed to shrink.

This wasn’t just about Noah. This wasn’t even about the kiss-that-almost-was.

It was what she’d unleashed in the moment she snapped.

Hiraya paced once, then turned back, eyes wide and shimmering with a clairvoyance she didn’t want.

“They felt you,” she said. “All of them. Everything that waits on the other side of the veil for a Sombra to slip.” Her voice trembled. “You didn’t send a call. But you leaked it. And now the dark knows where you are.”

Althea’s blood ran cold.

Umbra rose, stepping between her and the room’s far corner, teeth bared at nothing visible.

A shadow shivered against the wall—wrong, misshapen, then gone.

Hiraya saw where the dog stared. Her face paled.

“You see? Already.” Her voice broke. “Bunso… you’re a hammer. And right now, you swung yourself straight at the one family clever enough to use you as a weapon.”

Althea’s throat ached. “I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking about them. I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

Hiraya strode to the closet, grabbed the black garment bag, and unzipped it with hands that shook.

“There’s no time.” Her voice flattened, hollow. “He ran. He chose. He chose reputation. He decided on a Laurent future that doesn’t include girls like us. Fine. Then you will choose steel.”

She held the dress open like a censer dripping darkness.

“You will wear this,” she said quietly, a verdict disguised as instruction. “And you will show him—and the entire school—that nothing happened. That you are untouchable. You will not break. You will not reveal the cost.”

Althea stared at the gown. It didn’t look like armor. It looked like a cage draped in shadow.

St. Valen’s grand hall glowed like it had been carved out of money and old gods. Marble floors reflected chandeliers heavy enough to kill a man. Gold leaf licked up the vault ceiling. The air hummed with wealth, ambition, and the particular predator calm of institutions that knew they’d outlive everyone in the room.

Violins filled the air with something delicate and deceptively holy.

Noah Laurent stood near the marble stairs, posture perfect, jaw locked so tightly it might crack. His tuxedo was immaculate. His expression was carved from ice.

He looked like the blueprint of a perfect heir. And completely, utterly miserable.

Georgina Westwood hung on his arm—beautiful, composed, strategically chosen. His mother’s idea. His father’s approval. A future made of polished chains.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she whispered, squeezing his arm.

“It’s definitely… a room,” he said through his teeth, eyes scanning the entrance again and again and again. He was waiting for her. Even now. Even after what he’d done. Some part of him didn’t believe she’d show. Some part of him prayed she wouldn’t.

Across the room, Luca Ashford leaned against a column like the devil waiting for the sermon to end. He nursed a drink he wasn’t touching. His eyes were hungry, alert, and restless—tracking the room, cataloging threats, and watching Noah play at nobility with a girl who wasn’t the one he really wanted.

Luca smirked to himself. This was going to be delicious.

The air shifted. Not a breeze. A pressure. Voices faltered. The violins wavered. Rich people straightened their spines without knowing why.

The Sombras have arrived.

Ricardo Sombra, the family patriarch, walked in first, suave and lethal, a man who never had to raise his voice to own a room.

Nerisa, his wife, a force in her own right, followed—dark silk, darker eyes, beauty sharpened into a weapon.

Odesa, the eldest of the three Sombra sisters, moved like a blade disguised as a debutante.

Hiraya, the middle sister, luminous and barefoot-soft, her eyes wide with visions no one else could see, appeared to be floating rather than walking.

Then—

Althea

The room inhaled.

Her gown was black in the way a void was black. The fabric clung to her body like a shadow obeying a command. The neckline was a sharp, merciless cut across her collarbones. The slit up her leg? A threat. A dare. A promise.

Her hair was in a chaotic knot, tendrils escaping like she’d been kissed within an inch of her life.

Luca froze mid-sip.

Noah forgot how to breathe.

Even the chandeliers seemed to tilt toward her, drawn like moths to a flame that could incinerate them.

Her eyes swept the hall. And finally—inevitable as gravity—they collided with Noah’s.

For a half second, they were alone in a room full of power and privilege. Then she saw Georgina on his arm. Something inside Althea went cold.

Sharp.

Final.

The fury—not loud, not explosive, but clean and lethal—rose under her skin like a tide. Magic answered it.

The nearest chandelier chimed. Just once. Soft, crystalline warning.

Only three people noticed.

Hiraya—breath hitching, nails digging into Odesa’s arm.

Luca—his grin slow and wolfish.

And Noah—eyes widening as light bent around her.

His whole body jolted as if she’d struck him.

“Noah?” Georgina whispered. “What—what’s wrong?”

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t look away from Althea. He couldn’t breathe.

His gaze dragged over her like a starved man.

It felt like a touch. It felt like a confession. It felt like everything he’d tried to swallow down was clawing its way back up.

Althea’s fingertips trembled around her champagne flute.

Her pulse roared. Magic surged—and the glass didn’t crack.

It shattered.

POP

Champagne and shards burst from her hand like a miniature star collapsing.

The closest chandelier swayed. The entire ballroom gasped. Luca’s smile sharpened.

Hiraya whispered, “Too loud.”

And Noah—

Noah took a step toward her, instinct overriding everything else.

Georgina’s voice trembled. “Noah—?”

He didn’t hear her.

He heard only the sound of something ancient awakening inside him, and at its center was the girl he couldn’t stop wanting.

And the shattered glass was only the beginning.