All Chapters of Ashes of Six: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The night after the Trial ended was a blur of smoke, blood, and firelight burned into my eyelids. I remember the way the crowd split when I flared, the way their gasps tasted like ash in my mouth, the way the Sigil at my collarbone pulsed so hot it felt carved into my bones. But what I remember most was how the three of them walked me back. Lucien was silent, his shadows licking the edges of his coat. Caelum prowled at my side like he would rip apart anyone who so much as looked at me wrong. Elias was behind us, his runes sparking faintly as if he couldn’t bear to lower them, not while I was in reach of the Houses. They didn’t speak much, but they didn’t have to. Every step felt like a gauntlet in itself. When we reached Aurelian, I expected the wards to bar them. They weren’t members of this House. They weren’t dragons. But the moment I laid my hand against the carved Sigil on the door, the wards parted, and the flame-shaped seal at the threshold let them pass. Not with grudging all

Nora went limp between us, her fire flickering in a final crackle of sparks. One heartbeat, she’d been screaming, scales flashing, dragon roaring through her skin, and the next her body sagged, trembling, unconscious from too much fire, too much of us. I was the second to slide free of her, careful, almost reverent, my hands steadying her hips even as my cock ached from the loss of her heat. Caelum still had her straddling him, but he froze too, chest heaving like he was afraid to let go. Lucien knelt by her head, his shadows already curling over her flushed cheeks, cooling her down where sweat and fire burned too hot. “She’s out cold,” Caelum muttered, voice rough. He eased her off his cock with surprising gentleness, laying her down on the sheets between us. Blood still streaked his chest from where her claws had raked him, but he didn’t even look at it. I pressed my fingers to her throat, searching for the rhythm. Her pulse stuttered, quick and shallow, and my gut clenched until

The echo of Seraphine’s prophecy still rang in my bones when the chamber split into shouts again. But this time it wasn’t about Nora. It was about me. “Elias.” My father’s voice cracked across the hall like a whip. The Archmage didn’t raise his volume, he didn’t need to. Every eye swung toward him, the crowd parting as though the sound itself commanded it. Callum Everley rose from his seat, his cloak blazing violet, copper runes sparking like stars as they lit along the hems. “Step away from her.” The words landed like shackles. They were the same tone he’d used when I was a boy fumbling spells in the Everley libraries, the same inflection that had kept me chained to study when other students laughed in the courtyards. It was the voice of command. Of House. Of blood. And it curdled something inside me. “No,” I said. The chamber erupted again, outrage spilling like flame. My mother’s face was a mask of fury, her hands white-knuckled at the edge of the council table. Callum’s gaze h

The stink of burned silver and wolf blood hadn’t even cleared before another voice struck the chamber. “Lucien.” My father’s voice, smooth as glass, sharp as a blade. Lord Gerrard Nerezza didn’t roar like Alaric Hawthorne. He didn’t need to. The weight of his name, his titles, his power, all of it pressed down on me like a coffin lid. He rose slowly from his place at the council table, his crimson-lined cloak trailing like spilled blood. “Enough of this farce. You will remember your station. You will remember your duty. Selina Viremont was promised to you, bound by oath, sealed in blood. And you will obey.” Gasps and murmurs rippled across the chamber. Selina, standing with the Crimson Court, lifted her chin, her smirk thin as a blade. She looked at me like I was already hers. Like Nora was nothing more than ash in the wind. It made me laugh. Not warm. Not kind. The kind of laugh that made lesser men flinch. I tilted my head back, baring my fangs, the sound rolling low and cold t

A week. That’s all it had been since the walls of the Gauntlet cracked and the truth bled out with the fire. A week since mercenaries fell, traitors were dragged into the open, and the patriarchs spat their fury at us before storming out. And now it was over. Not the war, that was beginning. But the fragile, impossible rhythm of classes and trials and pretending that Obscura Arcanum was still a university? Done. Headmaster Arx’s announcement had been as cold as his expression. Effective immediately, Obscura Arcanum University will be closed until the spring term. Faculty review and security reassessment are necessary to ensure the safety of all individuals. Students are to return home at once. Home. The word hit like an insult. The other students scattered, dragging trunks and satchels, flocking to the gates in groups. But me? I had nowhere to go. No home waiting. No family. Aurelian House was all I’d had. And now it was being stripped bare. I stood in my room, staring at the