Break the Academy

They had been collected. Assessed. Paired. Prepared.
Nobody prepared for what happens when the weapon thinks.

Meridian calls a full academy assembly to separate the Tier 5
students permanently. Her framing is protection. Her plan is
control. She is interrupted before the third sentence.

The Paired Nightbinding applied to a four-hundred-year blood
binding is the largest thing either of them has done.
It unmakes Meridian's four-hundred-year network simultaneously.
Every student built toward the weapon is freed from the
obligation at once. The cost is real. They are both sitting
on the courtyard ground afterward. Rory comes and sits with them.

Meridian leaves the academy. She does not go broken.
She concedes she was incomplete. For something four hundred
years old, this is significant.

In the courtyard afterward, Wren says: What do you want to do
with all of it? He says: I want to decide it with you.
She says: okay. He says: that's it, just okay?
She says: I'm done resisting things I actually want.

BREAK THE ACADEMY is the conclusion to The Obsidian Academy.
The complete 5-book series is available on Kindle Unlimited, with more to come.