OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER FIVE: OF BALCONY INVASIONS, HEARTBEAT SPIKES, AND A STOLEN BED

CHAPTER FIVE: OF BALCONY INVASIONS, HEARTBEAT SPIKES, AND A STOLEN BED

RIYEE's POV

Moving into Eclipsa Sanctum didn't feel like a shift. It felt like stepping into the version of us the world had always been waiting for.

If anything, it was necessary. For the Ardent Court. For me. The dorm was like a shadow-twin of our old one in Celestine—Vestigia Domus—but colder, sleeker, designed for precision over comfort. Five floors in total, and each one a chapter in the Court's story:

First floor: the Sigil Heart Hall, where strategic briefings and classified memory logs were kept. Second floor: the Tech and Training Wing—with the Simulation Room, Tactician Deck, Workshop Bay, and Comms Center. Third floor: our dorm level, wrapped in a U-shaped arc around a glass atrium. My room was at the center. The only one with a balcony. Fourth floor: the Observatory Garden, where silence blooms. Basement: restricted zone. Orichalcum reserves and prototypes stored behind kinetic vaults.

My room overlooked the atrium. Designed in obsidian base tones, pulsing softly with rose-gold accents, deep plum shadows, and faint traces of icy blue. Even my room looked like it didn't belong to a nice girl. It looked like a quiet rebellion.

The balcony was my favorite part. Open air. A place to breathe.

Or so I thought. Because the second I stepped toward it, something clanked—sharp, loud—and I snapped back like I'd touched fire.

Then I saw him.

"KHAIZER DYLAN DELA VEGA!" I stormed forward, voice cracking through the night. "Are you insane?"

And there he was. Perched halfway over the railing like it was a lounge chair, like he hadn't just almost plummeted three floors down or slipped past every patrolling officer on campus. Khaizer Dylan Dela Vega—wearing that look. The one he always wore when he did something illegal but wanted it to look poetic.

My heart spiked, and of course, it triggered our Pulse Link. I felt Saichel and Xythe's pulses jolt in response. Perfect. Just what I needed. Now they were probably sprinting this way, armed and dramatic, ready to storm in like we were under siege.

He blinked at me like I was the one overreacting.

"What?" he said, all innocent, stepping inside and dusting off his pants like he actually lived here.

"Don't you what me," I hissed, shoving him toward the bed before someone outside spotted him. "You jumped up my balcony, KD! This isn't Home for Angels. This is Supreme Allievo Academy—surveillance, guards, curfews, and a very strong possibility of us getting expelled if you keep pulling your stunt-man auditions on my window."

"Used to climb up your terrace every summer before the dorms opened," KD said, completely unbothered as he flopped onto my bed like he owned it. "Not really new."

I smacked him. Lightly. Because if I didn't, I was going to combust from sheer stress.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snapped.

He just grinned, that maddeningly relaxed grin that made me want to throw him out and kiss him at the same time. "Visiting my girlfriend?"

"Through the balcony?!"

"The front door's locked." He shrugged, like that explained everything. "Headmaster said this whole place was restricted. Only Court access, remember?"

I crossed my arms. "So you climbed up here like a Marvel reject with a death wish?"

"No." He leaned in, infuriatingly smug. "I did it the KD way."

I glared, pulse still racing. "You could've fallen."