The balcony doors shut behind Jina with a soft click that felt louder than the ballroom's chandeliers.
Outside, the night air cut clean—cold wind off clipped hedges, damp stone under her palms, citrus blossoms pretending the palace wasn't a cage.
Jina went straight to the railing and gripped it like it could keep her upright.
Inside, music drifted through glass—strings and laughter and the soft, choking sound of people enjoying a spectacle they didn't have to pay for.
Her jaw ached from holding herself together.
Don't bite.
Don't Command.
Don't give them the proof they're begging for.
She exhaled hard through her nose.
It didn't help.
Her chest still burned with anger—hot, sharp, directionless. Not the bond this time. Just her.
They wanted her to prove she owned him.
They wanted her to prove she could make someone kneel.
They wanted her to become the shape that made their fear feel tidy.
Jina swallowed, throat dry.
Her hands stayed locked on the stone until the shaking stopped.
Then she let one hand slide into the hidden seam she'd sewn into her sleeve.
Her fingers closed around glass.
The vial came out into the cold: dark lattice suspended in a shimmer of fat and soulglass dust, the contents catching lanternlight like a bruise that refused to fade.
Her "no antidote" poison had a schedule.
She'd been trying to outwork it.
Quietly.
Shamefully.
Like a thief.
Jina set the vial on the stone ledge—careful, reverent, as if it was sacred instead of dangerous.
Then she pulled out the rest.
A folded sheet of notes, edges softened from being opened too many times. A strip of clean cloth. A thin needle wrapped in waxed paper. A tiny glass vial of clear stabilizer that was almost empty—rationed down to drops like it was worth more than gold.
She arranged them with practiced hands.
The ritual was the worst part.
Not because it was hard.
Because she'd done it enough times that her body recognized the sequence and stopped arguing.
Breath. Cloth. Needle. Ratio. Time.
She stared at the notes.
Tight handwriting. Numbers. Symptoms tracked like she was a patient and a doctor and a lab rat all at once.
Trial 7 — microdose 0.02
Reaction: nausea + tremor at 3 min
Heal applied: mild
Outcome: partial symptom suppression 11 min
Crash: worse.
A smear of dried blood marked the corner—her blood, from a night her hands shook too hard and she'd missed the vein.
Jina's throat tightened.
She pressed the cloth to her palm like she could erase the evidence.
This isn't science.
This is desperation with numbers on it.
A gust of wind slapped cold into her face.
It didn't cool her anger.
It made it sharper.
She held the needle in her fingers and looked down at her forearm.
Pale skin.
Faint bruises in a line that was too neat to be accidental.
Tiny puncture marks hidden where sleeves covered them.
A map of nights she didn't talk about.
A map of I am running out of time.
Jina's mouth twisted.
She hated the needle.
She hated how familiar it felt anyway.
She pinched the skin, steadied her hand, and muttered under her breath like a prayer she didn't believe in.
"Micro. Controlled. Don't be stupid."
Her vet brain tried to take over—clinical, calm, stubborn.
Measure. Observe. Adjust.
But there was another part of her, raw and exhausted, that didn't care about elegant methodology.
That part just wanted one morning where her ribs didn't feel like hooks.
One breath that didn't taste like metal.
One day where she wasn't performing stability for people who wanted her broken.
She dipped the needle into the dark vial.
A bead clung to the tip—shimmering, wrong.
For a heartbeat, her hand hesitated.
Not from fear of pain.
From fear of what it meant that she kept doing this.
That she kept choosing a sting and a burn and a private gamble because it felt like doing something instead of waiting to die.
Jina clenched her jaw.
And drove the needle in.
The sting was small.
The burn was not.
Cold fire slid under her skin and spread fast, racing up her arm, then down into her chest like it was looking for the poison to fight.
The poison woke like it had been waiting.
Pain lanced under her ribs—sharp, deep, delighted.
Her breath snapped.
Jina grabbed the railing hard enough that her fingernails bit stone.
"Okay," she rasped. "Okay. Monitor."
Her stomach lurched. Heat climbed her throat. Dizziness hit like someone had kicked the floor out from under her.
Too fast.
Too much.
She'd miscalculated again.
Jina swallowed hard and tasted iron.
Her vision spotted at the edges.
She squeezed her eyes shut and reached for Heal—not to cleanse, not to cure—just to keep her body from sliding off a cliff.
Warmth answered in her ribs.
A thin thread of control.
Then the cost hit immediately: the poison dug in harder, furious at interference, punishing the drain.
Jina's knees softened.
She bent over the railing, gasping into cold air, trying not to make a sound loud enough for anyone inside to hear.
Not here.
Not where they can record it.
Not where they can call it proof.
Her anger cracked through the dizziness, ugly and bright.
She slammed her palm against the stone ledge—once, hard.
Pain flared through her hand.
Good. Grounding.
"I'm doing everything right," she hissed, voice shaking, more furious than she'd been in the ballroom. "I'm—"
Her breath broke.
She swallowed again. Iron, bitter.
"I'm trying," she said, and the words were so small they felt humiliating.
The bond gates in her sternum held… until they didn't.
Not fully.
Not open.
But the fire-thread—Sivaris's thread—twitched hard under the pressure of her pain and rage.
A crack.
A leak.
Heat slipped out of her like a signal.
Jina felt it leave her body and knew, instantly, she'd made a mistake.
"Damn it," she whispered, and forced her breath slow. "Close. Close."
She reached inward—gates, valves, pressure—
The dizziness fought her. The poison laughed in her ribs.
The balcony doors opened behind her.
No knock.
Just the smooth, confident entry of someone who didn't need permission to take space.
The air warmed.
Smoke and spice sliding into cold.
Sivaris.
"You're bleeding," he said mildly.
Jina didn't turn right away.
She kept her grip on the railing so her legs wouldn't betray her.
"Go away," she said, tight.
Sivaris didn't move closer yet. He stood just inside the doorway, framed by lamplight, eyes bright.
"I felt it," he said.
Jina's jaw clenched. "That's why you're here."
"Partly," he replied, voice soft. "And partly because you're terrible at pretending you're fine."
Jina turned.
Her face was pale. Sweat clung at her temples. Her breathing was not smooth.
Sivaris's gaze dropped—not to her mouth.
To her forearm.
To the needle she hadn't even had time to hide.
To the puncture and the faint tremor in her fingers.
For the first time, his smile faltered.
Not kindness.
Something closer to being caught off guard.
"You're dosing yourself," he said.
Jina's throat tightened. "It's none of your business."
"Boundaries," Sivaris murmured, tasting the word. Then his eyes flicked to the notes on the ledge. The smeared blood. The nearly empty stabilizer vial. "You've been doing it repeatedly."
Jina's anger flared again, defensive and ragged.
"Yes," she snapped. "Because I'm poisoned."
Sivaris's nostrils flared. His gaze found the dark vial like an animal smelling blood.
"That's soulglass," he said, low. "And that lattice is Diadem craft."
Jina's fingers twitched toward the vial protectively.
Sivaris's eyes lifted to hers.
He should've looked pleased—an angle, a weapon, a lever.
Instead, his voice came out flatter.
"You're burning yourself down in secret," he said.
Jina's laugh was sharp and bitter. "What did you think I was doing at night. Resting."
Sivaris took one step closer, careful.
Not touching.
"Those punctures," he said quietly. "You've been hiding them."
Jina's mouth tightened.
She didn't answer, because answering would make it real in a way she couldn't afford.
The poison rolled through her again—nausea, dizziness, a deep ache that made her ribs feel hollowed.
She braced harder on the railing.
"I don't have time to do this gently," she rasped.
Sivaris's eyes flashed. "Then you'll die."
The bluntness hit her like a slap.
It wasn't a threat.
It was arithmetic.
Jina's anger finally broke clean—no elegance, no restraint left to shape it.
She slammed her palm down again and hissed, voice shaking.
"Maybe that's what they want! Maybe the only safe Aurelia is a dead Aurelia!"
The words came out too loud.
Too honest.
The fire-thread surged again, hungry and hot—
and the gate cracked wider under the force of her rage.
Heat spilled into Sivaris through the bond like a confession without language.
He went still.
Not theatrical stillness.
Predator stillness.
Because he felt more than pain.
He felt the shape beneath it:
the repeated cycle of trial → crash → Heal patch → deeper debt.
the sleepless compulsion.
the private panic that didn't want the throne—just wanted air.
And something else—sharp, unsettling—
a fear of becoming what everyone expected when she opened her mouth.
Sivaris inhaled once, slow.
His expression changed by a fraction.
Raw interest turning into something alert.
"Different," he murmured, almost to himself.
Jina froze.
Not because the word was new.
Because of the way he said it—as if the bond itself had agreed.
"You keep saying it," Sivaris continued softly, eyes fixed on her. "And your thread… carries it."
Jina's stomach dropped.
She didn't speak.
She couldn't.
The dizziness hit again, heavier.
She fought to keep her face calm, but exhaustion was finally winning. The kind that wasn't just lack of sleep—lack of options.
Sivaris's gaze flicked to the courtyard below, then back to her.
"The court will call this instability," he said mildly. "Your collapse. Your 'moods.'"
"I know," Jina whispered.
"And Diadem will use it," he said.
Jina's fingers tightened on stone until they went numb.
Sivaris stepped closer again, stopping just outside touching distance.
Then—carefully, and infuriatingly—he asked,
"May I."
The question landed wrong in a palace built on taking.
Jina hated that she hesitated.
She hated that her body swayed and forced her to make a choice.
"Fine," she said, tight.
Sivaris touched her wrist with two fingers—minimal contact, controlled.
The bond flared.
Not sweet.
Not romantic.
Just heat carrying truth.
Sivaris's jaw tightened.
"You're cracking," he said quietly.
Jina yanked her wrist back, immediately regretting it when the world tilted again.
"I'm not cracking," she snapped.
Her voice broke on the last word.
She swallowed hard.
Then, quieter—because denying it felt stupid—
"I'm… functioning."
Sivaris's eyes stayed on the vial, then on the notes.
"You're not functioning," he said. "You're bleeding time."
Jina's throat tightened.
He was right and she hated him for it.
Sivaris's smile returned—blade-bright, but thinner now.
"Close your gate," he murmured. "Right now."
Jina's eyes narrowed. "Why."
Sivaris's gaze lifted, sharp.
"Because someone else is listening," he said softly. "And your bond just told me you're out of time."
Jina's breath caught.
The cold wind pushed against her damp skin.
Inside her sternum, the fire-thread twitched again—wanting to leak, wanting to betray her.
Jina swallowed iron and reached inward, shaking, forcing the gate shut with the last of her control.
In.
Out.
And the balcony suddenly felt less like open air—
and more like a ledge.
[Bond Flare]