Chapter Fifteen Viola
Poacher camps are growing at an alarming rate. Firstliners have been sent to bolster the Wanoran-Aurignan border. I fear an uprising.
Updates requested on your search for the Deathbringer—her aspier hasn’t resurfaced in more than two decades. She must be alive.
fifteen | viola
Archyr stabbed me, and I offered to help him.
Selfishly, of course. Because he and his sister seem to be the only ones who care about the murders, and I now have leverage: guilt.
Sure, DOTS says that Firstline is investigating, but it’s been four days, and the fact that they haven’t figured out that Beau’s and Victor’s bodies are at Dearly Departed is concerning.
Given the caliber of Firstline recruits, I doubt they’d make such an oversight.
This only tells me that the deaths of Olivia, Beau, and Victor are part of something bigger; and that it’s being dismissed by the authorities.
“—so rude; I cannot believe he said that in front of you,” Lyria rambles, and I feel bad for tuning her out momentarily.
“It’s fine; we all process grief differently,” I reassure her.
Some apparently by stabbing others accidentally.
“Congratulations again,” I say, and I mean it.
I find out Lyria is a month younger than me.
Twenty-two and she’s already a Grand Magus.
It typically takes four years per rank, with mastery of Arcane taking longer because it involves different classes of magic.
That she managed to do all that at such a young age ties my tongue.
“Tell me more about your research,” I ask. She’s so easy to talk to that I forget I need to leave.
Her face lights up. “I’m using our aspiers’ venom with a Mortemagi cuff that Delaney lent to me, to see if we can reverse the Mortemagi life-drain so they can heal instead of draining their lifeblood during some spells. It was my mother’s—”
Something scratches against the floor. Lyria and I glance toward the door, and Raiku slithers forward until he stops in front of Lyria. She reaches for him, and he wraps himself around her arm.
“We have to go.” She glances at the clock, then she’s on her feet. “Curfew doesn’t lift for another fifteen minutes. They’ll look for you at the House of Death. Can you run?”
Lyria’s pulled eyebrows and urgent tone tear me off the sofa. She grabs my hands, and within seconds, we’ve crossed Founder’s Room and gone through the secret door into the Poisoned Stairwell. Behind us, a door slams open. I jump, but Lyria gently squeezes my hand, tugging me forward.
The Poisoned Stairwell is as dark and unwelcoming as it was when I stepped in it alone last night.
Lyria takes the first step up, and the lights on the wall come to life.
I follow her as fast as I can, and after every flight, she pauses to make sure I can keep going.
Her steps are sure, and her grip never falters.
Finally, we stop at a landing in front of a wall, and she lets go of my hand. She runs her fingers over the smooth stone, pauses on the right, and pushes in a small square. The wall slides open to a hallway carpeted with a familiar black-and-white diamond pattern.
“I cannot step into the House of Death with an aspier,” she says. “Will you be okay on your own?”
“Why are you so kind to me?” The words escape my lips. I am not used to kindness. Not when I had to live under the roof of a woman to whom my existence was her damnation.
“The world is cruel enough as is.” She glances around. “You’ll need a friend around here.”
Friend. I don’t know what to make of that word. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a friend, besides my sister and Mara. One of them is dead, and the other is a monster.
I blink, and Lyria’s gone.
When I reach my room, my hands are shaking from the adrenaline. I will them to steady long enough for me to push the key in the door. But the keys slip and clatter onto the floor.
A hand reaches for them at the same time I do.
“Miss Corvi.”
The unmistakable silvery voice ropes around my neck.
My heart races in my throat, and my eyes water from the panic.
What lie will I fabricate to explain why I’m outside of my room before curfew is lifted?
My mind is empty, and all I want is for him to leave—he sent my sister to her death, and as much as I want to confront him about it, now isn’t the time.
Not when he has the power to suspend me.
No. I cannot admit defeat so easily. Olivia depends on me. And now, Beau and Victor do, too.
I clench my fist, level my breathing, and blink hard, before reaching to take the keys from Lorne’s hands. “Thank you,” I say. But he doesn’t let go.
“I came by earlier, but you didn’t answer,” he accuses. Why was he at my door before six in the morning?
“I was sleeping.” I lift my face to him. If I’m going to lie, I might as well look him in the eye, like he did when he pretended to be devastated by my sister’s death, when all this time he was the reason she left Gorhail.
“Curfew doesn’t lift for another ten minutes. Why are you outside your room?”
“I was on my way to find you.” Why did I say this?
His hand relaxes ever so slightly, and my fingers close around the keys.
The lie wasn’t in vain, because Lorne hangs on to my every word with bright eyes and a faint tug at his lips.
With every mistruth, self-loathing boils at my throat.
I am becoming everything I hate about Gorhail: manipulative and self-serving.
But at the same time he deserves all the horror in the world for what he did to Olivia.
“At six in the morning?” He arches a brow.
“Is it not a good time?” I ask innocently. I don’t let him answer, terrified the veil of lies will tear. “I wanted to ask you…”
He takes a step toward me, and my back is against the door, weighing if I should continue with the lie.
“Will you…” I ask, and he inches forward.
If he comes any closer, I will scream. “Will you come to my sister’s funeral?
” I ask in a breath. Olivia, please forgive me for bringing this lying, deceitful excuse of a mage to your funeral.
But I cannot be caught violating curfew, not when my puzzle board has just filled with more pieces.
“Olivia,” I stress on my sister’s name, “would want you there.”
His shoulders sag, his eyes flatten, and he vacates my personal space. I’m careful not to be obvious with my relief. Right when I think that he will agree and leave, he narrows his eyes, studying me like prey. “The funeral isn’t until noon. You could’ve asked me at breakfast,” he says suspiciously.
Oh no. He’s caught my lie. He will report me to Delaney, and if she suspends me or places me under her watch, I won’t be able to go to the catacombs. “Lorne…”
“I understand,” he says, and another wave of panic engulfs me. What does he understand exactly? “I can’t sleep either. It’s not easy knowing you have to bury the person you love the most.”
My skin prickles. Something about the way he speaks of Olivia twists my insides.
He cheats on her, causes her to run away, lies about knowing her, then laments her death—his reaction makes no sense.
Then again, I can’t imagine my sister with someone like Lorne.
He’s too performative. What did she see in him?
Or was he the one covering for her while she was here?
With the rigidity of Gorhail’s rules, I can’t imagine Olivia’s half truths sufficed as an explanation.
“Were you always at Gorhail?” I ask. “Olivia never mentioned you…”
“She didn’t?” He flinches. “Are you certain?”
If she had, I would have remembered. Olivia only ever spoke of her friends Sierra and Fable. I’m glad he knows she didn’t think him worthy of being introduced. He was seeing someone else. He didn’t even respect her enough to break up with her.
“How long were you and Olivia together?” I ask, feeling like a parent grilling her child.
“A little under a year.” He lowers his head, a shy smile playing on his lips.
“I was a self-study from the province of Holm. I only joined Gorhail two years ago, and she offered to show me around. She was so kind, and when Overseer Delaney promoted me to Magister a few months ago, Olivia planned this big celebration. No one ever cared enough to do something like that for me.”
She must have loved him if she was celebrating him. She loved him, and he still tossed her aside for someone else. She loved him, and he was the reason she ran away to her death.
I smile, but it’s empty.
“Well, I’m going to get ready, and you’ll pick me up?” I ask, now certain he won’t say a thing about my breaking curfew.
“Of course.” His eyes travel the length of my shirt, then back up, pausing at the House crest. “Is this blood?”
Archyr stabbed me a few hours ago; of course it’s blood.
But I frown and glance at my shirt, thanking the skies that the low morning light and the black of the fabric swallow the maroon of the dried blood.
But then, I notice it. In the bottom corner of the House crest is a smidge of rust that leans to black. How did he even notice?
“Oh.” I laugh, desperate to sway him away from my rocking boat of lies. The metallic tang of blood wafts through my nostrils, and I tense. “I cut myself getting the tags off my shirt earlier.”
Lorne reaches for my hand, but I press it to my side.
He stares at it for a moment, then nods and begins to walk away.
Right as he reaches the end of the hallway, he stops and turns around.
Stray rays of the rising sun soften his features, and I pity my sister for not looking past his good looks to see the rot within.
“I loved Olivia. I know you don’t quite believe me yet, Viola, but I really did love her. ”
My room is eerily still when I finally step inside.
The cloudy skies framed by the window bask the room in a quiet glow, and a part of me wants to sink into my bed, hoping it’ll swallow this nightmare.
It’s been one week since I last saw Olivia alive, and none of it feels real.
Olivia’s murder. Me at Gorhail. Working with Archyr.
I flip the light switch on, and a deep sense of unease curdles within my stomach.
Everything is intact, down to the sweater I threw across the bed yesterday, the notebooks I neatly stacked, and the three pairs of shoes scattered across the floor.
Neatly folded in a corner is a single black dress that Delaney must have had sent from the house.
Olivia had the same in pink. Long sleeves, a light flare at the waist reaching just below the knees.
Grief clutches my heart. I hate how it comes in waves, at the glance of a dress, the scent of a flower, the laugh of a stranger. And yet, I still question my place in this grief.
Sighing at the dress, I turn around and head straight for the shower, desperate to scrub away the remnants of my blood and my integrity. Before magic ruined my life, I never deceived anyone. Soon, I’ll start to question even myself.
My fingers unclasp the cuff. The cold metal sits in my palm. Dark red—almost brown—streaks line the filigree. It’s twisted, a symbol of all the blood this magic has spilled. In a few hours, I will watch the earth swallow my sister’s body as she watches me live the life she died for.
When I look at the mirror, my hand flies to my mouth. The cuff slips from the other hand, meeting the floor in a clang. The foggy mirror reads the words I’ve been hearing in my waking dreams. He whom you seek lies in the catacombs. But below it are new words I’ve never heard before.
I know who killed your sister.