OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: OF UNSEEN CROWNS, COFFEE-STAINED CAMOUFLAGE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: OF UNSEEN CROWNS, COFFEE-STAINED CAMOUFLAGE, AND A HEARTBEAT THAT NEVER LIED

RIYEE'S POV

The moment our meeting ended, I left the Eclipsa Sanctum.

I didn't wait.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't ask for permission.

Because I couldn't—not after hearing everything. Not after my mother's name turned into a directive. Not after my father became a classified threat. And definitely not after learning why Headmaster Antonio Levesque quietly ordered us to protect Khaizer Dylan Dela Vega.

Everyone else dispersed into follow-up operations—tracking High Chamber signatures, tracing SAA infiltration paths, pulling the threads of corruption across every wing of Supreme Allievo. But not me.

I had one directive now: Find him.

Because if I didn't, my anxiety would shred me alive. Because we still don't know how much of KD's past is hidden, and the more we dig, the louder the warning in my chest becomes.

"Ari..." Saichel's voice was quiet. No grin. No tease. Just a pulse-aware whisper. "You're spiraling. Your heartbeat's leaking. Hide it."

I stopped. Closed my eyes. Breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.

Until I was no longer quaking from the inside out. Until the pulse-link calmed. Until the Velaris thread that connected me to him stopped feeling like a blaring siren screaming through my chest. Until the heartbeat pinky ring stopped flaring my panic across the sync—stopped leaking my dread into Xythe's earcuff and Saichel's anklet like a silent scream wrapped in static.

Until I wasn't broadcasting my breakdown anymore.

"That's better," Xythe murmured beside me. Cool and composed. But I caught the tiny twitch in his jaw. He hated seeing me like this.

They were both with me, of course. Because of Tri-Havoc Protocol.

The first and final line of defense of the Ardent Court. We move together, even without a mission. Even when the battlefield is personal.

I called it The Between Protocol—the promise that binds us even between wars. But I also broke it once. I left them once—when Xythe broke up with me. And they let me. But they never let go.

We moved through the east corridors, past flickering security beacons and hidden recognition fields. Our destination: Allievo Commons.

Technically, it was academic break.

But at Supreme Allievo Academy, break translated to lockdown with silk sheets. No home visits. No family calls. No off-campus travel. Just biometric surveillance, polite detentions disguised as "wellness assessments," and a rotating cast of smiling prefects monitoring your every yawn.

Allievo Commons was the only permitted zone that didn't feel like a prison. Part overpriced café, part student lounge, part emotional breakdown arena.

You could sip coffee and have an identity crisis here, and nobody would report you for it.

The rules never really applied to us—but we still had to pretend they did. In daylight, we blended. At night, we vanished.

That's our price under the Sovereign-Ardent Alliance Program.

And today? The Commons was packed.

Every table was occupied. Every year level is represented. The air buzzed with overcompensation—students laughing too loudly, acting too normal, trying too hard not to look like they were being watched.