Chapter 20
Seph
I ran.
Branches tore at my clothes, but around me the world was swimming and warping. trees bending, the ground tilting like I was running through water.
There was a ringing in my ears that wouldn’t go away. I stumbled hitting a rock. I watched my blood pour out. It twisted black, like a serpent.
Heat knifed up my spine, sharp enough to steal my vision. My knees buckled, slamming into dirt. I tried to push myself back up but my hands slipped, shaking too hard to take my weight.
“No—no, no, no—”
The fever hit in a wave so violent I pitched forward onto my elbows. My stomach twisted. My skin blistered with cold and heat at the same time. Every breath scraped like glass.
Something pulsed in my palms.
Wrong.
Hungry.
Not mine.
I crawled a few inches, dirt packing under my nails. The trees blurred, doubling, smearing into streaks of black.
A shrill ringing built in my ears.
I gasped—and the sound that tore out of me didn’t sound human.
My vision flooded white.
Then black.
Then both at once.
The ground lurched and I collapsed onto my side, shaking, fingers clawing at the leaves as if I could dig the fever out of myself.
My gloves—
I didn’t have my gloves.
Where were they?
The world caved in around me. Like the shadows were taking form. For one wild, impossible moment, I thought I saw a dragon — black as midnight — soaring above the trees.
I fell again, tears pouring down my face before I even realised I was crying.
Where was I?
What happened?
It was this power. It was sick. Wrong. I had to expel it.
But it felt like death.
I fell, this time for the last time, down a bank. I tumbled, never stopping, like an endless loop in hell.
I hit what felt like water. My head smashed against a rock. And as I lay there I looked up at the shadow growing ever present above me.
The dragon.
“I’ve seen you before,” I whispered out loud.
Long ago.
It was the last thing I saw before I completely blacked out.
And I dreamed.
**
Sable slipped the copied key into the lock on my window bars — a tiny click that always made my heart lurch. I wasn’t supposed to use the roof. I wasn’t supposed to leave my room at night.
But with Sable, rules felt further away.
We crawled out onto the pane and shuffled to the flat section just outside my window — our secret spot for stargazing.
Sable sat beside me and draped a blanket over both of us. We lay back, looking up at the clear sky.
“Do you think I’ll ever see what’s out there?” I asked finally.
“Sister…”
“I know,” I sighed. “I know you don’t like talking about it.”
“It’s not that I don’t.” Sable chewed her lip, the way she did when she was angry but didn’t want to show it. “It’s Mum and Dad. I hate what they do to you, Seph. I really do.”
“They are taking care of the family. They are protecting it,” I said automatically — the words ingrained so deeply they didn’t feel like mine.
Sable scowled. “From what? From you? It’s not good enough. This whole society — the rules they make for Dark magic users — it makes me sick.”
I reached over and patted her gently.
We lay out there for a long time, watching the stars.
“One day, Seph,” she murmured, “I’m going to get us out of here, okay?”
“Sable…”
“I promise. You and me — we’re going to take on this world together. You’ll see.”
I smiled at her. “I love you, Sable.”
“I love you too, Seph—”
“Persephone? Are you awake?”
Father’s voice echoed from downstairs.
“Crap.” Sable scrambled up, dragging me with her. We ducked inside just as the lock turned.
She tumbled in behind me as the door swung open.
“I’m here,” I called quickly.
Father stood in the doorway.
“Sable? What are you doing in here?”
“Just keeping Seph company.”
“I thought I gave you some applications to look over.”
“Dad—” Sable began.
His eyes softened when he looked at her. “I know it’s a big decision, angel, but this is your future. You need to be prepared. Go on now.”
Sable hesitated — her gaze flicking to me, then to the small metal case in his hands.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“None of your concern. Goodnight, angel,” Gideon said firmly.
And Sable, afraid to anger him, nodded and stepped past him.
“Okay, Dad. I’m going.”
The moment she left, my stomach dropped.
I’d seen cases like that before.
“Father—”
“I have great news for you, Persephone.” Gideon stepped inside, closing the door behind him. he was grinning broadly. “Dr Marr has been working on a new medication that may help your condition. Lie down, so we can test it.”
I stepped back instinctively, pulse hammering. “I thought the old one worked fine. Can’t we just use that one?”
“Persephone, you know we need variable data. We’ve talked about this.”
“But has it been tested before?”
“Not properly, but he assures us it’s safe.”
“Father.” My voice wavered. “Do we have to—”
“Do I need to restrain you?” he asked calmly.
I froze. Lowered my head.
“No, Father.”
“Good. Then lie down and raise your sleeve.”
I climbed onto the bed, every muscle locked with dread. Gideon opened the case. Inside, nestled in white foam, was a large syringe filled with silver liquid.
It glinted under the bedroom light like something holy.
Or poisonous.
I swallowed hard.
He didn’t hesitate.
He never did.
When the needle went in, all I felt was pain.
Not sting, not pressure — pain.
Instant, consuming, wrong.
My body seized. My heart screamed. Every vein convulsed at once. I jerked so violently the mattress slid beneath me.
For a moment — a single, flickering heartbeat — Gideon actually looked worried.
“Persephone?” he said.
But the world was already going fuzzy at the edges, warping into static. A metallic taste flooded my tongue. Foam bubbled up past my lips — hot, sour, uncontrollable.
The liquid shot through my bloodstream like mercury, boiling me from the inside out.
I didn’t remember much after that.
Only flashes.
My body slamming into the bedpost hard enough that I heard wood crack.
My fingers bending back at unnatural angles, like invisible hands were pulling them.
My toes twisting, snapping, reshaping under pressure that wasn’t there.
My skin screaming — a thousand needles of heat ripping up through every pore.
A ringing so loud it felt like my skull was splitting open.
I think I screamed.
Or maybe I didn’t.
Maybe the sound was just in my head.
Everything went white.
Then black.
Then something in between — a sick, shimmering void that burned and froze at the same time.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Seconds… hours… years… it all bled together like ink in water.
I began to see things.
Or thought I did.
I saw my father — running from the room.
Or was he thrown? His face a blur of fear and disbelief as he stumbled backward.
Guilty.
Then another face — one I knew. One I loved.
Kieran’s.
He was above me, mouth moving, trying to say my name… but no sound reached me.
His hands brushed my face, my hair — frantic — but I couldn’t feel anything.
I wasn’t sure if he was real.
Or just something my dying brain conjured out of desperation.
Then the whispers.
“We can’t keep going like this…”
“I can’t leave her! I won’t!”
“You have to!”
Voices I almost recognized.
Voices I might’ve dreamed.
I thought I felt arms around me, strong and careful, lifting me off the soaked bedding.
I thought I felt hands wiping foam from my mouth, cleaning blood from my wrists, tucking me under clean sheets.
But I think I imagined it.
It all felt too gentle to be real.
And right before the void swallowed me whole, I saw something else.
A dragon.
Black as a starless sky.
Huge. Ancient.
Waking from a long sleep.
He lifted his head — slow, deliberate — and looked at me.
I looked back.
And fell into darkness.