Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 99

I pour another glass, leaning back in my chair as I mutter to myself, “Brilliant, Cassian. You’ve got a siphon in your classroom.” And from what I saw in her mind, a half-mad dragon claiming her as his mate, a hellhound with an anger problem sniffing around her like a dog with a bone and a bloody obnoxious warlock who might just find himself drained like a prune if he can’t learn to control his tongue. The fire crackles in reply. I sigh, dragging another book toward me. The wine is half gone now, and the night outside the window has folded

into silence.

The next book is older than the rest, its leather cover cracked from overuse, but the binding is still intact. Arcane Pairing: The Theory

1/3

173

Balance Lies In The Many, Not The One.

of Magical Bonds.

I flip through until a heading catches my eye.

“The Siphon’s Paradox.”

“When a siphon bonds to a wielder, their fates entwine irrevocably. The siphon becomes a mirror of the mate’s element, and the mate becomes

the vessel through which the siphon feeds. To sever the bond is to starve one and break the other. Unlike traditional fated pairings, siphons

rarely anchor to a single partner. Their nature demands multiplicity; they require several conduits through which to feed and stabilise the energies they absorb. A siphon with only one mate will eventually drain them to exhaustion. Balance lies in the many, not the one. Historical

accounts suggest that the rare few who formed all bonds successfully could wield the combined magics of their mates, an impossible harmony of

elements said to echo the first creation of magic itself.”

The words wouldn’t stop echoing through my head.

“Balance lies in the many, not the one.”

Every time I blinked, the paragraph burned behind my eyes like an afterimage. On paper, it sounded poetic, destiny and connection and balance. But I’d been alive long enough, seen enough blood spilled in the name of “balance,” to know exactly what people would read between those lines. They’d call her a weapon. The Council would see “the rare few who could wield the combined magics of their mates”, and their mouths would water. They’d see control, war, power, another thing to twist into their service. But Allison Rivers isn’t a weapon. She’s a girl. A scared, stubborn, infuriating girl who tries to hide the fact that she’s drowning under everything she carries. And Evander Drayke, he’s not some chosen conduit for her hunger. He’s a student. A good one. A boy I’ve taught for years, who’s never once abused his power, never let his dragon temper make a mess of this place. The thought of the Council separating them, stripping her away, calling their bond unnatural and destroying something sacred, turns my stomach.

I pace my cabin, running a hand through my hair as the fire burns low. I can still feel mind from earlier, the brush of her consciousness when I’d reached in. It had been brief, a flash of instinct, but it was enough to show me what she is. What she’s terrified of. Power like that, if anyone else had felt it, if any of the other professors had been in my place, she’d already be chained. No. That can’t happen. Not to her. Not to Drayke. Her mistake this afternoon, that flicker of uncontrolled magic in front of me… it can’t happen again. Not near anyone else. They’d use it against her before she even understood what she’d done. If she’s going to survive here, if they’re both going to, then she’ll need to learn control. I let out a long breath and glance back at the book, at the neat, unfeeling ink that’s doomed countless

others before her.

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