2. A Resonance of Old Ghost

The heat was an invasive thing. It didn't just sit on the surface of her skin; it tunneled deep, wrapping around her lungs until every breath felt like inhaling steam. Aria’s vision blurred at the edges, the white walls of the gallery stretching and warping like melting wax. She could hear Clara saying her name, a distant, frantic sound, but she couldn't respond. All she could do was stare at Bastian.

He was moving toward her. It wasn't the smooth, predatory glide he usually employed. He moved with a jerky, pained gait, his eyes locked on hers with a mixture of horror and an almost feral hunger. The crowd seemed to sense the atmospheric shift. Conversations died in mid-sentence. Heads turned. The air between Aria and Bastian shimmered with a heat distortion that shouldn't have been there in a climate-controlled room.

«Aria, your side,» Clara hissed, grabbing her arm. «You’re smoking.»

Aria looked down. A thin, wispy trail of vapor was rising from the bodice of her dress. The silk was darkening, not from moisture, but from the sheer intensity of the thermal energy radiating from her mark. She had to get out. If she stayed, she would burn a hole right through herself.

She turned and bolted. She didn't care about the Sterlings, the commissions, or the social suicide of running out of a Julian-sponsored event. She pushed through the heavy glass doors and burst into the night.

The rain was mercy. It was one of Veridian’s signature downpours, heavy and cold, the kind that turned the city into a watercolor painting of neon blues and grays. Aria stumbled into the alleyway beside the gallery, leaning her back against the rough brick wall. The water soaked her hair and dress instantly, but the heat under her ribs didn't subside. It pulsed with the rhythm of a second heart.

«Aria! Stop!»

Bastian’s voice was a jagged blade. She heard his footsteps splashing through the puddles, heavy and insistent. She tried to move further into the shadows, but her legs felt like lead. The closer he got, the more the scar burned. It was a paradoxical trap: the body wanted to flee the pain, but the mark acted like a magnet, pulling her toward the source of the agony.

He rounded the corner, his coat discarded, his white shirt clinging to his skin. He stopped six feet away, his chest heaving. Even in the dim light of the alley, she could see the sweat beading on his forehead, mixing with the rain.

«Make it stop,» Aria gasped, her hand still pressed to her side. «Bastian, stay back.»

«I can't,» he rasped. His voice was lower than it used to be, filled with a gravelly desperation. «It’s pulling me, Aria. It’s like my ribs are being dragged toward yours.»

«We haven't seen each other in ten years,» she cried, the rain washing the tears from her cheeks. «It was dead. It was supposed to be dead!»

«Nothing we did that night meant to stay dead,» Bastian said. He took another step forward, and Aria let out a small, broken whimper as the heat spiked. «Look at me.»

She looked. Bastian reached for the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers. He undid the top three, pulling the fabric aside. There, right over his heart, was an identical mark. It was glowing. A faint, ethereal amber light pulsed beneath his skin, tracing the jagged lines of the scar.

«It woke up the moment I saw your name on the guest list,» he whispered. «I thought I could handle it. I thought I had enough control left to see you and feel nothing.»

«You never had control, Bastian,» Aria said, her voice regaining some of its edge through the pain. «You only had the illusion of it. You were the one who pushed us that night. You were the one who wanted to see how far we could go before we broke.»

Bastian flinched as if she’d struck him. He closed the distance between them before she could protest. When he reached out and gripped her shoulders, the contact was like an explosion. Aria’s knees buckled, and he caught her, slamming her back against the brick wall. The heat was no longer just a sensation; it was a physical force, a wall of energy that seemed to fuse them together.

«I didn't push us alone,» Bastian growled, his face inches from hers. «You were right there with me, Aria. You wanted to know what lay on the other side of the skin just as much as I did.»

«And look what it cost us,» she spat, though her body was betraying her, leaning into his warmth even as it screamed in protest. «I’ve spent a decade rebuilding myself. I have a life. I have peace.»

«Peace is just a slow way to die,» Bastian said. His eyes searched hers, looking for the girl he had once loved and destroyed. «Do you really think Julian invited us both here by accident? Do you think he doesn't know about the resonance? »

Aria’s heart froze. Julian. The man who sat at the top of the city’s hierarchy, the man who studied the marks like a scientist dissecting a rare specimen.

«What are you talking about?»

«The night of the accident,» Bastian whispered, his grip tightening. «We always thought it was just us. Two kids playing with fire in a basement. But there were cameras, Aria. Someone was watching. Someone wanted us to mark each other.»

Aria felt a new kind of chill, one that had nothing to do with the rain. «Why?»

«Because a shared mark is a battery,» Bastian said. «And we are the most powerful one they’ve ever seen.»

Before she could process his words, a black sedan pulled into the mouth of the alley, its headlights cutting through the darkness like the eyes of a predator. The doors opened, and two men in dark suits stepped out.

«Mr. Bastian,» one of them called out, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. «Mr. Julian would like a word with you and the lady. Now.»

Bastian looked at the men, then back at Aria. The fire in his eyes was replaced by a cold, hard determination. «Don't let them see you bleed,» he whispered. «If they know how much it hurts, they’ve already won.»