Chapter 43 Burn
BURN
There are three ways to leave Cygnus University: graduate, fail, or die.
WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Claudia shrieks, running toward Cassius.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.
This is everything they were fighting against.
This is the fate they were supposed to defy.
Heart thundering, she kneels beside him and cradles his head in her lap, pressing on the wound in a feeble attempt to stop the blood gushing out. She feels his heart slowing beneath her hand.
There’s nothing she can do. He’s already lost too much blood.
“NO,” Triche screams. He lets go of Marcherie and she springs to the surface, voicelessly straining for air. Shreds of her mutilated throat—her vocal cords—float around her. Angel dives into the lake and swims toward Marcherie to save her while Triche swims toward Cassius.
Eyes wide with death, Cassius reaches up to touch Claudia’s face, but he doesn’t have the strength. His arm goes limp.
“I—” he heaves. “Love—” he gasps. He can’t finish the sentence as blood swims up his throat, bubbling over his lips.
“Cassius, please don’t go,” she sobs over him.
Seconds later, Cassius is dead. His body rolls, leaving him face down in the soft grass.
When Claudia looks up, Odette is standing above her, and Triche is still charging through the lake. He’s getting closer.
But that’s not who Claudia wants to kill anymore.
Now she has another target, and her world is tinted red. Leaping up, she tackles Odette to the ground and wraps her hands around her neck.
“I’m… sorry,” she chokes out. “I… had to… for… Marcherie.” Claudia squeezes harder until something pops. Odette gags. “It was… the only… way.” She tugs at Claudia’s hair, pushes against her shoulders. It’s no use. Claudia is strengthened by rage, drunk on vengeance.
Alistair comes between them and throws Claudia onto her back. Now free, Odette finishes the stellinguistic spell by shouting, “IN THE FERVENT DREAMS OF THOSE WHO REFUSED TO DIE.”
The spell in her hand glitters and glows and bursts into flames. Tendrils unfurl from Odette’s hands and lash out, reaching all the way to the High Sage while he closes in on the lake’s edge. Wrapped in magic, he’s held tightly in place, but because he’s not submerged, he’s not drowning.
Yet.
“I can’t hold him for long,” Odette shouts, her whole body trembling. “Claudia, you have to destroy Dracoemagyl and free Sidarphion or it’ll all be for nothing.”
“Do it, Claud. I’ll help Cassius,” Alistair says.
Claudia knows there’s no point to Alistair’s help. Cassius is already gone. She felt the change in the air when the last of his blood spilled out, when his soul slipped out of his body.
He’s dead. There’s no saving him. It’s already too late.
But if they don’t kill Triche, the High Sage will kill all of them.
Sidarphion is their only hope, and now only a few fading stars stand between the god and his freedom.
Without Cassius’s life to feed it, the constellation of Dracoemagyl is weak. Using it just once will be enough to burn it out.
Claudia can’t find the needle, so she uses her fingernail to claw the constellation into her skin.
Twenty-three cuts for twenty-three stars. Breath skating across her new wounds, she whimpers, “Dracoemagyl. Burn.”
“STOP,” Triche yells, but it’s too late for him to stop anything. All of them look up at the sky as the constellation flickers.
Once. Twice.
Then, it falls away.
When the constellation’s light rains down, it pours into Claudia’s wounds. She can taste it on her tongue. It tastes like Cassius, and it breaks her heart. She closes her eyes tightly as strange, violent visions play across her mind.
She sees Dorian Ship cutting down the man who could’ve been Dracoemagyl. She sees him become Sidarphion—body morphing from man to god; wings sprouting from his shoulders; magic burning in his eyes. She watches him complete his first act of godhood—placing Dracoemagyl’s curse of silence in the sky.
She sees the High Sage when he was young.
She watches Triche turn the cursed stars into a trap, tastes his magic tangling with the constellation.
Then, she sees him ambush Sidarphion, sees the celestial walls rising and the night lowering onto the god’s shoulders.
She sees Sidarphion’s eyes fill with terror just before they close, not to be opened for the next hundred years.
She then sees him awaken. She hears Odette’s scream that stirred him. She sees their bargain.
Then, she sees herself.
She sees herself through Sidarphion’s glowing green eyes.
She sees Auridolace.
When she opens her eyes, she looks up and the sky cracks in two.
A single bright white star falls from the fault line and crashes directly into Starlake.
The fire sizzles as the water drinks it all down.
The ground beneath them shakes when the remains of the star sink to the bottom of the lake with a heavy thud.
Little bubbles rise to the surface of the lake. The water ripples.
Alistair comes to her side, Angel following close with Marcherie limp in his arms. Odette stands at the end of the line. Cassius lies dead behind them.
The five of them stare at the center of the lake, waiting, watching. Triche trembles in his trap.
“Let me out,” the High Sage pleads.
“No,” Odette snaps.
“I can save Cassius. I can heal him! Just let me get to him and I will—”
“You’re lying,” Claudia says, her voice hollow and knowing.
Something has changed within her. Perhaps it’s the magic of Dracoemagyl in her blood, but she feels some strange tether to the High Sage.
Some greater power lets her know just how wicked he truly is.
“I can taste the rot in your soul. You deserve to die.”
Triche opens his mouth to speak, but his eyes go wide. He screams and jolts forward, startled as if something has grazed his legs below the surface of the lake.
Then, he falls.
The lake stills.
A silent eternity later, blood and bubbles rise where he once stood.
Then rises his head, severed from his neck. It bobs and spins until it’s face up, mouth wide open, eyes and teeth all missing.
The rest of his body never comes up.
When the shock wanes, Claudia falls to her knees next to Cassius. She touches his shoulder, but she can’t bear to turn his body. She can’t stomach seeing his lifeless eyes. Angel and Odette stabilize Marcherie to her left. Alistair comes to her side.
“Claud,” he says quietly, placing his hand on her arm. “We should go in—”
“Stop. Do not take me from him.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But we need to go inside. We need to treat our wounds and figure out what we’re going to do next. You don’t need to witness this horrific scene for any longer than you have to. It will only make it harder to forget.”
She shoves his hand away. “I don’t want to forget. I refuse to forget.”
“Claud…”
The sound of water lapping snags their attention. There are strong ripples coming from the center of the lake.
“Is it him?” Alistair asks.
Claudia swallows hard. “It’s him.”
Night-black wings are the first to rise from the surface.
Then she sees Sidarphion’s face. His perfect, angelic face, and those piercing green eyes.
Essence of dreams drips from his soaked silver hair.
He’s even more beautiful now with the moon-touched glow of freedom.
The rest of his body emerges, his wet black clothes molding perfectly to his godly form.
The air freezes around them as the god of stars and nightmares steps out of the lake and onto the firm ground.
He approaches Claudia immediately, smiling down at her with Triche’s blood staining his teeth.
“Hello, Starling.”
Claudia can’t speak. Can’t think. She’s caught between her lover’s dead body and her enemy’s terrifying form.
“You have freed me,” he says, voice filled with awe.
“No,” she growls, glaring at Odette. “I didn’t kill Cassius. Odette did. She is your monster, your murderer. Not me.”
Odette walks forward, leaving Marcherie breathing steadily in Angel’s strong arms. Her lip quivers. “I’m sorry. I had to. We couldn’t kill Triche on our own. We didn’t have a choice.”
“I wish you went with Triche,” Claudia bites out. “I wish he killed you. I wish you were dead.”
“I know. But I’m going to fix this,” she says, throwing herself to the ground between Claudia and Sidarphion. Claudia scowls at the back of Odette’s head, hands trembling.
She could kill her now. She could wrap her hands around her throat once more and squeeze until her neck splits in two.
Bowing before the god, Odette says, “I want to make a new bargain with you, Sidarphion. You must want revenge on the gods who left you to rot. They could’ve saved you, but they did not.”
The rhyme snags Claudia’s ear. It’s such a subtle charm, but it’s there. A similar spell once worked on Triche—maybe it will work now.
A soft breeze moves through Sidarphion’s silver hair as he tilts his head. He’s listening. He’s intrigued.
“Here is my offer: I will help you get vengeance. Make me your pawn. Your soldier. Your High Priestess. I can hurt them the way Triche hurt you. I can trap them for more than a century. I can make them all suffer for an entire millennium, or for all of eternity if that is what you wish.”
He sucks the blood from his teeth. “And in return?”
“You bring Cassius back. You let him live a long, happy, curseless life alongside Claudia. And you leave Claudia alone for the rest of her days.”
Claudia’s heart races. Her emotions are at war—she hates Odette for killing Cassius, but if the girl is willing to relinquish her fate to Sidarphion in exchange for bringing him back, Claudia will forgive her immediately and entirely.
The god’s stare intensifies upon Odette while he ponders. Reaching down, he hooks her chin with his finger. Odette gathers her sweat-soaked hair and pulls it off her neck, offering her skin up to Sidarphion’s teeth. All he has to do is bite, and the bargain is made.
He leans down to her ear and says, “No.”
The wind ceases. The world stills. Odette stiffens against his mouth. “No?”
Claudia’s throat tightens. Her stomach bottoms out.
“No,” the god confirms. “I will not raise the blood of Dracoemagyl for you, and I do not want the vengeance you offer.” He grabs her by the shoulder and throws her out of his way as if she weighs nothing. She lands with a thud and a cry on the ground. Claudia almost smiles.
Sidarphion steps up to Claudia and cups her cheek. “I want you.”
She swallows a retch, slapping his hand away as hard as she can. It doesn’t budge. She can’t escape his touch. “I hate you.”
“What did I tell you about lying, Starling?” He kneels in front of her, leaning in so their foreheads touch. “Now, do you want Cassius back or not?”
Her body trembles with grief and rage. Hot tears streak down her face, pouring over Sidarphion’s cold hand. “What more do you want from me?”
“I’ll bring him back for you under this condition: He gets you during the day. I get you at night.”
She blinks, breathless. “What?”
“Every night from hereafter, you will come to the Realm of Nightmares. If at any point you want to stop, I’ll let you go, but I’ll take back Cassius’s life. His survival hinges on your tether to me. That’s my only offer. Do you love him enough to promise part of yourself to me?”
She looks down at Cassius’s lifeless form beside her, then back up at the devil who wants to bite her soul. Again. His teeth drip. He’s so eager, so hungry.
But there’s something else in his eyes. Something softer.
They stare at each other for a long time, close enough to share breaths. His fingers twitch against her cheek as though he’s fighting the urge to touch her more, to pull her closer.
As if he’s trying to be gentle.
“Please,” he says, his face twisted in discomfort.
Claudia remembers what Triche said to her when she was locked away in that cell.
The god of stars and nightmares got on his knees and begged for me to let you go.
The High Sage also said that it wasn’t because Sidarphion cared; wasn’t because Claudia was special. He said it was only because Sidarphion’s freedom hinged on her life.
But that’s not the case now. The god is free, and still, he begs.
He begs for her.
She doesn’t know what he thinks she can offer him now, but she knows this new bargain won’t be like the last. It won’t threaten her life.
Because, for some reason, Sidarphion wants to keep her alive. Even when her life shouldn’t matter to him anymore. Even when he has nothing more to gain from her. Even when keeping her close means raising the blood of his enemy—Dracoemagyl.
Why? Why?
Claudia takes a deep, steadying breath. Standing, she nods. “I always knew I loved Cassius enough to suffer at the hands of your bargain.” She pulls her hair over her shoulder and shoots one final, withering glare at Odette.
She’ll get her revenge on her for this.
She’ll get it soon.
Her eyes cut back to Sidarphion. “Do it.”
Without any hesitation, he drives his sharp teeth straight into her neck, and his power lurches through her veins until it spears her very soul. His tongue slides over his previous bite, and he laughs.
This time, the bite is twice as big, and hurts twice as much.
But his power makes it worth it. It’s a balm. It’s a reward. It pours into her blood and warms her bones. It eats the tension from her muscles, swallows the grief that pooled in her stomach.
It makes her feel like she’s been reborn into someone else. Something new.
When he pulls back, it’s as if an integral part of her is taken out of her body. More than a piece of her soul—maybe all that is left of it.
He swallows, then smiles. “Done. I’ll see you tonight, Starling. It will be nothing like it was before. I can promise you that.”
In a plume of shadowy night, Sidarphion disappears.
Turning her attention back to Cassius, she sits beside him and pulls him into her lap.
The star-shaped mark below his eye is gone. Cradling his face, she says, “Can you hear me, Cassius? Come back, my love. Come back to me. Come home.”
He stirs.
He groans.
He opens his eyes.