Chapter 20: The Dance Before Dawn
The hall of the Enchanter's Academy had not seen a celebration in decades—not since the last peace accord or the rare eclipse gala that aligned five planes of magic in perfect harmony. But tonight, the chandeliers burned brighter, the walls sang with enchantments of joy, and even the grimmest grimoires had been ordered shut. The Council had done the unthinkable: they had not only pardoned a lich—but also sanctioned his union with a living enchantress.
It was a scandal dressed as a fairytale.
And Maribel absolutely hated the shoes.
"They're plotting against me," she whispered as she leaned against the ballroom wall, toeing one pointed heel like it was her enemy.
"They're plotting to make you look radiant," said her best friend Nyra, handing her a cup of sparkling cider that was very probably enchanted to taste like confidence. "Which, by the way, is working."
Maribel groaned. "Why is it that the moment your love becomes legal, you're suddenly shoved into corsets and wrapped in eight layers of tulle?"
Nyra grinned. "Tradition. Oppression. Possibly a distant cousin of the Council who owns a fashion boutique."
Across the room, Lucien was having his own crisis.
"They put me in white," he whispered to Professor Grindle, the ghost of a former illusionist who'd chosen to haunt the academy's left wing.
"You're the groom," Grindle replied with the faintest puff of ghost smoke. "White means rebirth, new beginnings—clean slates."
"I'm an undead necromancer," Lucien muttered. "This is a joke. I look like a taxidermied dove."
"You look like someone who scared a millennia-old Auditor into rewriting magical law. I'd wear a tutu if it meant that kind of legacy."
Lucien was about to argue when the music began—a waltz, slow and haunting. The air shimmered with illusions, painting the ballroom's walls with scenes of moonlit towers and astral planes, of battles survived and kisses stolen between spellfire.
And at the top of the stairs: Maribel.
Lucien's breath caught. And for a moment, he wasn't a lich, and she wasn't an enchantress caught between worlds. They were just two people who had loved each other at the wrong time in the wrong way and made it out the other side.
Maribel met his gaze as she descended the steps. "No snark about the dress," she warned. "I have hexes ready."
Lucien offered his arm. "I wouldn't dare. You look like you invented magic itself."
They stepped into the center of the ballroom, and the crowd circled, watching as the forbidden pair prepared to dance.
The waltz began. Slow, elegant. Each step they took drew magic into the air—tiny sparks in their wake. Not cast spells, but something deeper: the very resonance of two souls bound in defiance.
"You're stiff," Maribel whispered.
"I'm undead," Lucien whispered back.
They laughed, quietly, as the music swelled. Around them, illusions of their journey flickered—mirrors, forest escapes, the circle of judgment, and finally, the moment Maribel touched Lucien's hand for the first time.
The audience didn't just see them dancing. They saw why they were dancing.
—
Elsewhere in the Academy
Behind the scenes, not everyone was celebrating.
Deep within the restricted stacks, hidden beyond illusion barriers and guarded by whispering wards, a shadow moved.
It wasn't large. It wasn't loud. But it was angry.
Angry that centuries of control had been unraveled by a girl with heart and a corpse with charisma.
A voice crackled in the dark.
"They've weakened the seal. The balance is off."
Another replied, older, dry as parchment. "Let them play at love. The backlash will come. When it does… the lock will break."
A third hissed. "And the dark one returns."
Their laughter echoed like knives on glass.
—
Back at the Celebration
Maribel leaned against Lucien as the music softened, the lights dimmed, and the crowd slowly turned to their own revelries.
"I can't believe they gave us a tower," she said.
Lucien smirked. "I requested one with a view. You'll thank me when you see the undead roses bloom at midnight."
She yawned. "You realize everyone's watching us, right? Half the room thinks I enchanted you. The other half thinks you'll eat my soul."
"Well," Lucien said, "that's only on Thursdays."
She slapped his arm.
They wandered out into the moonlit balcony, where the music was fainter and the air fresher.
"This is it," Maribel said. "We actually did it."
"We haven't died yet," Lucien corrected.
"I died when I saw what you were wearing."
He placed his skeletal hand over his heart, feigning a wound. "You wound me."
She kissed his bony cheek. "Not nearly enough."
—
A New Kind of Tomorrow
That night, as the celebration bled into dawn, as fireworks enchanted with faerie laughter burst in the sky, as undead and living danced side by side—Maribel stood on the tower balcony with Lucien beside her and realized something wild and impossible:
This wasn't the end of their story.
It was the beginning.
She wasn't just the girl who broke the rules for love.
She was the girl who rewrote them.
And he—well, he was a lich, sure—but he was her lich.
Which made him infinitely more dangerous.
And, of course, completely hers.