Page 134 of Ashen Souls

Harper grinned. “What?” she whispered, her eyes wide with mock innocence. “I’m being supportive.”

We pushed through the double doors, leaving the familiar hum of the hallway behind.

The room was already full when we entered. The low murmur of conversation mixed with the scrape of chairs beneath the glow of half-open laptops. Students leaned toward one another in small clusters, exchanging last-minute complaints and careless jokes.

Harper slid into an aisle seat with deliberate nonchalance, nudging my arm until I took the one beside her.

The clock above the board ticked past the hour.

He wasn’t there.

Daeren’s presence was an inescapable guarantee, but Ethan was human. He could simply choose to walk away.

My gaze kept drifting back to the empty door.

“Relax.” Harper lowered her voice without looking at me. “He’s human. Humans mismanage time.”

My foot tapped a restless rhythm against the floor. The image Harper had described yesterday—distracted, searching, disappointed—intertwined with the empty doorway in front of us.

The minute hand advanced.

A student near the front began to gather her things as if preparing to leave. Someone behind us muttered about wasted tuition.

What if he had decided not to come? What if my absence had altered something irreparably? What if he had simply given up?

The door opened.

The heavy wood shut with a click, and the hum of the room cut off abruptly.

Ethan walked in. But he didn't look like the meticulously put-together academic we were used to.

He was missing his jacket. His usually crisp shirt looked slightly rumpled, his thick black hair was messy, and a rough shadow of stubble lined his jaw. He moved quickly, but with a dragging weariness, like a man who hadn't slept all night and had only realized ten minutes ago that he was late.

I stared at him. Stripped of his immaculate academic polish, he wasn't just attractive. He was… Human. Flawed. Reachable.

“I apologize for the delay,” he said, dropping his leather satchel onto the desk.

His voice lacked its usual commanding energy. It sounded flat, almost mechanical. He looked like he was standing at that lectern just because it was his job, not because he actually wanted to be there.

He took a stack of notes from his bag, and as he did, his gaze swept the room, automatically mapping the rows.

The moment our eyes met, he stopped moving. It wasn't some theatrical, sweeping change, but I saw the exact second he came back to life. I saw the effort it took for him to bite back a smile. His throat worked as he swallowed, fighting to suppress a look of unguarded relief.

The background noise of the lecture hall became irrelevant. Slowly, despite the warning bells ringing in my head, I let the corner of my mouth tip up in a small smile.

Ethan’s jaw flexed. He cleared his throat, tore his eyes away from mine, and addressed the room with the familiar authority he always carried.

“Today,” he began, “we continue our discussion of myth as structure rather than narrative, specifically the function of binding rituals in pre-modern cosmologies.”

The word binding felt like a direct accusation after last night.

Ethan’s eyes moved across the room as he spoke, engaging the front rows, pausing briefly on raised hands, but they kept returning to me. Each time, the contact was fleeting. Each time, I broke it.

“Miss Hart.”

My name cut through the drone of the lecture.

I blinked, my head snapping up. “Yes?”