Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Beaufort
“I don’t want to waste my time fighting you, Kratos,” I say. “I don’t even particularly want to hurt you. So why don’t you do the smart thing for the first time in your life, follow the example of those soldiers, and disappear the fuck off.”
“I wonder what the reward will be,” Kratos says, cracking his knuckles like an oversized gorilla, “when I hand you over to your mother.”
There are shocked gasps across the crowd of ordinary students.
My parentage is not common knowledge. I’m surprised even Kratos himself knows.
He certainly knows it’s a crime to share that information, but I guess it shows just how confident he’s feeling in this situation.
All that dream rot he’s been snorting has addled his already incompetent brain, giving him a sense of bravado, and made him believe he could be as powerful as I am.
I look out towards the shadow weavers that stand behind him.
There are his bond brothers, Prentice and Nathan.
My friends: Elaine, Dahlia, Dallan, and Ashleigh.
Plus several of the other shadow weaver students too.
And there, right at the back, Henrietta and Lynette, lingering a little way away from the others as if they’re waiting to see how things play out – as if they don’t want to commit too early either way.
It almost has me smiling. The twins may be unhinged, but they’re far smarter than anyone else.
“You really want to fight me?” I say, squaring my shoulders.
“Yeah,” Kratos says. “I want to fight you. I want to defeat you. I want you to watch in chains as I fuck your thrall. I want to march you into the palace and see your head roll.”
The white wolf prowls to the edge of the stage, growling, snarling, and snapping its bloody jaws. Kratos jolts a little but holds his ground.
“You’re a fool,” Tudor mutters, shaking his head.
“You’re the fools,” Kratos says. “You really think you can start some kind of fucking revolution? You’ve had your head turned and your senses warped, all for a piece of shit slut from Slate Quarter.”
I know his words are designed to rile me. I know they’re designed to provoke a reaction – one I should suppress. I win this situation easily if I keep my senses and my wits about me. But his last words overstep a line, and the temptation to make him hurt is far too great.
I go to fire my shadows at him just as he does the same, and Briony cries out from the edge of the stage.
“Stop! Stop!”
It’s too late, though – our magic is already crashing into each other. Several of the other shadow weavers – Kratos’s bond brothers, some of the ones I don’t know so well, even one or two of my friends – fire magic at us too. The others look around in desperation, unsure how to react.
Soon, shadow magic is shooting in all directions.
Trees splinter, the ground pocks, fire roars, and the stage crumbles beneath my feet.
I hit Kratos in the shoulder as shadow magic skims over my own.
I smack someone in the arm; someone whacks me on the thigh.
I roar in anger and agony, flinging the force of my magic forward.
I hit Kratos again, searing his ear, but he retaliates, sending fire my way, and then, out of nowhere, a blinding beam of light roars up from the ground, up into the sky, ten times more powerful than any bolt of lightning.
“Stop!” Briony screeches at the top of her lungs.
And everybody halts and stares.
I’ve seen Briony’s magic plenty of times now. I know how powerful she is. But none of the rest of them have. And they stare in complete awe and stunned silence.
“You can’t beat us,” Briony roars. “We’re too powerful.
We survived the demon realm. We destroyed scores and scores of demons.
We brought down the wall that stands between our realm and the demons’ realm.
You can’t win against us. And I don’t want any bloodshed, not here, not now.
So either join us and right the wrongs your people have done to us, help us find a better way to live together… or get the hell out of here.”
Kratos really looks like he might be stupid enough to strike again.
But before he gets the chance, I let my shadows fly toward Briony’s light.
In front of me, Dray transforms to his human self and does the same thing, and Thorne and the Professor follow after.
Our magic combines, amplifying, dancing with light and shadow.
Darkness and brightness. It is really like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
And when I turn my gaze away from the impressive display of magic back toward Kratos, I find he’s gone. His bond brothers too, along with several of the other shadow weavers. It’s just a handful of my friends now, and Henny and Linny lurking in the background, whispering to one another.
“How about you, Henny?” I call over the noise of everyone chattering away.
She stands there, and I can almost see those discombobulated wheels spinning and grinding in her mind.
“Why would we help you, Beaufort?” she calls back, and the crowd falls silent, obviously keen to listen in to our exchange.
“Kratos isn’t wrong. What you’re talking about is treason.
” She giggles. “You’ve killed the head of the academy and, by your own admission, destroyed the barrier that protects us from the demons. ”
This has the crowd whispering once more. For a moment they’d been swept away in the display of our magic. Now the reality is hitting again.
“Why would we risk our lives to help you?” she says.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I call back to her. “Because the system as it stands now, the way the realm works, harms both you and your sister. You know it does. This is an opportunity for better things. For a new future, one without the threat of demons.”
She giggles again, although Linny looks uncomfortable, wringing her hands in front of her. Once again, I wonder how I never noticed that she has no powers. It’s obvious now I see it. There isn’t that aurora about her, that tingle in the air. It’s all Henny’s. It always was.
“You think you could destroy the demons?” Linny asks.
“If we restore equilibrium to the realm,” Tudor says, “if we undo the great evil done, if we bring back the light, I think we can.”
“You’ve all lost your minds,” Henny says.
I smile at her. “Most probably. Just think what fun that would be, Henrietta.”
She holds my gaze, and I know she’s tempted. Linny, though, is still unsure.
“If you tear everything down, you really think you could build something better?” she says, clearly believing that we can’t.
She might be right. Maybe we’d unleash chaos. Maybe everything would fall apart. I remember once learning about the theory of chaos, that the universe is destined that way, always leaning toward disorder and mayhem. Maybe that’s what fate wants, and it’s chosen us as its instrument.
But I can’t help feeling that it isn’t so. That fate, if it’s given me Briony, must be a force for good. It must want something better for this realm and its people.
Linny whispers to her sister, who’s staring Briony’s way.
Then she shrugs and nods. I can’t help smiling.
I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do next.
We have no real plan, no real idea what the hell we should do.
And yet, right now, I think whatever we do decide to do, with fate on our side, is going to succeed.
In the next moment we’re swamped by all the students, every one of them firing questions our way.
Questions we don’t yet have the answers to.
We try our best, try to tell them what we’ve learned, what we’ve seen, what we’ve uncovered.
Giving them answers when we can. Telling them we don’t yet have them when we don’t.
Some offer ideas, some crazy suggestions.
Henrietta wants us storming the palace immediately.
But I think that’s more because she gets a kick out of the idea than because it’s a serious kind of plan.
Our little mate, caught in the middle, is clearly overwhelmed, and after twenty more minutes pass, I reach her side, shoo away the people crowding around her, and announce that we’re going to leave things there for now.
“We’re going to get some dinner and some sleep. I suggest you do the same,” I say, hoping with everything that’s going on the canteen will at least still be serving food.
Some of those in the crowd aren’t happy. They don’t want to let us go and still have more questions.
“We’ll talk again in the morning,” Briony promises, clearly exhausted.
“But what if the Empress launches an attack? What if she comes for us in the meantime? You let all those soldiers go and the other shadow weavers too. They’re gonna go and tell the Empress and all her guards what happened,” that short boy says again.
He’s seriously getting on my nerves, especially as he’s damn right.
But it seems Tudor has an answer to that problem.
“This academy was a castle before it was a school,” he tells everyone. “A castle that belonged to lumomancers. There’s old, ancient magic in the stones, ones that will protect a lumomancer that needs help, especially from attack.”
It’s clear not many in the crowd are buying this solution. I have to admit I’m one of them.
“So what?” the short boy says again. “If the Empress comes knocking with all her elite guards to cart us all off to jail, we’ve just got to hope that the castle steps in and doesn’t let her?”
The Professor’s eyes flash red, and the boy visibly cowers away.
But Briony obviously has her doubts too.
“How do we know it would? Do we need to activate it in some way?” she says.
“I don’t think so,” the Professor says. “But I’m going to go to the library now to find out everything I can, and I’m going to take you,” he points at Clare, who blinks rapidly, “and Professor Cornelius with me. Even if we find no way to activate that ancient magic, there’ll be other ways we can protect the castle. ”
Briony chews on her cheek but nods, and it seems to satisfy the other students, who one by one disappear toward the canteen. Soon, it’s just the five of us, plus Clare, her boyfriend, Fly, and a red-headed student who clearly has an infatuation for the tall skinny boy from Iron Quarter.
“You really think that will work?” Briony asks Tudor now that we’re alone. “You really think we’ll be safe?”
“Yes,” Tudor says with a confidence I don’t quite understand.
Briony is still unconvinced though. I think she feels the weight of everyone’s safety on her shoulders. She turns to her clever friend.
“What do you think, Clare?”
Clare goes to push her glasses up her nose, but they’re missing. She snaps her hand away, her cheeks blushing.
“I think Professor Tudor is correct.” The Professor snorts, clearly insulted that his idea was being brought into question.
“You found that tunnel into the academy. You were able to open that safe room in the library. I think there’s more to this academy than we realize, and I think it will keep us safe.
” A smug expression glides across the Professor’s face – one quickly deflated when Clare adds: “But I don’t think it would hurt to double-check.
So shall we head to the library now, Professor? ”
He nods.
“And then you’ll come to the tower?” Briony says to him, linking her fingers with his for a moment.
“I…” the Professor starts, and it’s clear from his expression that he has no intention of joining the rest of us in our tower.
“Fox,” Briony says. “This is how things will be from now on. All of us together.” She holds his gaze. “All five of us.”
“Then I’ll be there,” Tudor says before walking away with Clare and Clare’s boyfriend.
Briony hugs Fly, and then we’re walking – finally – back toward our tower.
And for now, at least, we’re safe.