Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Fox
All the remaining students and members of staff are gathered in the Great Hall, and all of them are staring my way expectantly, waiting for me to speak.
I don’t want to scare or alarm them unnecessarily.
But it’s only fair that I’m upfront, that I tell them the truth of what’s coming. They deserve that, after all.
Habit has me lingering in the shadows of the raised platform of the Great Hall.
But I take a deep breath and step forward into the light so that everyone can see me more clearly.
Briony and the others are lingering at the back of the stage.
The only person missing is Fly, who’s still too upset by the events of today for a meeting like this.
“Thank you,” I tell everyone gathered. “I know it’s late, and I’m grateful for you all coming here.
I’m grateful that you’re all still here, full stop.
” I pause. “I don’t know all of you that well.
But I know enough to understand how brave you are, and how determined you are to see things change in this realm.
” I fix the students before me with a hard stare.
“Change never comes easily. It always comes with a fight. And unfortunately, I’m afraid to say, that fight has come sooner than we hoped, although perhaps not sooner than we predicted. ”
I wet my lips. People are whispering among themselves now, and I curse myself for being so cryptic. I should have gotten straight to the point.
“The Empress is on her way to the academy,” I tell them. “I can only assume she intends to arrest Briony Storm, the three Princes, and most probably me too.”
This causes more whispering. Everyone knows that Briony is the Princes’ thrall. One or two know more than that, that they are fated mates. No one knows about my connection to Briony, or hers to me. We’ve kept it a secret all this time, although perhaps it’s become more and more obvious.
“It seems the Empress predicts that we will resist arrest. Not only that we will resist arrest, but that others” – I sweep my gaze over them all – “might help us. It is because of this that she has raised an army.”
There are gasps at this. I guess we all knew the elite guard would come, but an army is something else altogether.
“She has no intention of letting us resist. She will arrest us by force. Arrest us and kill us.”
There’s more whispering now, so I raise my hand and my voice.
“Please. Silence. There’s more you ought to know about this situation before you decide whether you want to fight alongside us or not. You have a choice.”
“A choice? What fucking choice do we have?” a boy, Stanley Chandlers, calls out from the back of the hall.
“You’re more than free to leave. Anyone who doesn’t want to remain can leave.”
“And where the hell would we go? How the hell would we get there? There isn’t exactly a train waiting at the platform to take us away.”
He has a point. It also isn’t my concern right now, particularly as I have no sympathy at all for the little shithead.
“If you don’t want to leave, you can remain.
You don’t have to fight with us, that is your choice.
” The shithead scoffs but remains where he is.
I motion for Briony, Beaufort, Dray, and Thorne to join me.
“We are fated mates,” I say to the astonished crowd.
“Fate has connected me to Briony Storm, Briony Storm to me. It’s also connected her to Beaufort Lincoln, Dray Eros, and Thorne Cadieux.
“I think this shows you, perhaps more than anything – anything at all – that this is our fate. To change things. To alter the realm forever. To make it a better place for us all. Not just the few.”
“But an army,” one of the few remaining shadow weavers seated in the front row says. “How are we going to fight an army?”
There are murmurs of agreement. Several people nod their heads, others look up at me expectantly.
“We’ve already discovered the old spells that once protected the academy when it was a castle that belonged to the lumomancers. We’ve re-awakened those spells. They will do much to protect us. They will give us time to prepare.”
“Prepare how?” the shadow weaver asks.
“That’s why I’ve gathered you here. We have a plan. When combined, our powers,” I motion to Briony and the Princes, “are far greater than anything this realm has ever seen.”
“Greater than the Empress’s?”
“Yes, I believe so,” I say, perhaps more confidently than I actually feel. “If we can fight her one on one, I believe we can defeat her.”
“But you said she’s bringing a whole army with her.”
“I did and we need to weaken and disperse that army. This is where all of you can help. I need the remaining shadow weavers to come forward and go with Dray Eros. We have a plan to lure the army away from the Empress and for this we will need your help. “
The shadow weavers glance around at each other, then stand and file forward. Dray beckons them toward him.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ve got some fun planned.”
The shifter skips off, the nervous shadow weavers following in his wake.
“Now,” I say, “are there any among you who have experience of fighting?”
I glance at the students from Iron Quarter. Several of them nod and I tell them to go with Thorne Cadieux.
That leaves just the kids with no fighting experience at all. But they still have their part to play.
“The rest of you will go with Beaufort Lincoln,” I say. “Members of staff with me.”
The students file out in two different groups, one behind Thorne, one behind Beaufort, leaving me, Briony, and the handful of teachers alone in the Great Hall.
There’s Professor Cornelius, the potions mistress, the botany professor, the astronomy teacher, and to my utter surprise, the Titan twins. Those two always seemed so loyal to Veronica, and even more loyal to the Empress herself. I’m surprised they haven’t fled already.
I step down from the stage and stalk toward them.
“Are you really here to help?” I say, my voice booming around the hall now that it’s almost empty. “Or are you here to sabotage?”
The twins look at each other with their usual vacant expressions, then back at me.
The taller one shrugs. “We’re here to help. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You’re not Veronica’s little spies? Or maybe the Empress’s?”
The other twin snorts, and I scowl at them. They have good jobs here at the academy. They spend their days bullying students in a way I’ve always suspected they get some kind of sick kick from. Why would they want to give that up? Why would they risk their lives for it?
“We want to change things,” he says, “the realm hasn’t been fair to us either.”
“I find that hard to believe.” The two knuckleheads can’t have done well during their trials – they don’t possess enough brain cells. And yet here they are, teaching at the academy.
“We were students here once,” the taller twin says. “There was this girl…”
He trails off, and the other twin takes over the story.
“She was meant to be ours. Pretty little thing. Funny, she was too. But not that smart. Pretty tiny. We helped her where we could. But she never scored very many points in the trials. At the end of the year, she got sent back to Slate. And, well…”
The first twin pulls up his sleeve, and I stare, gob smacked, at the dark marks of fate painted across his wrist.
“She was your fated mate?” I ask.
I can’t imagine that, to know you have a mate gifted to you by fate out there in the world, and to be torn apart from them.
“Was,” the other twin says. “She died. Not long after returning to Slate. Nasty flu that year.”
“And so you want to tear the system down?”
He shrugs.
I wonder if I’m looking too deeply into the hearts of these men. Definitely expecting too much from their puny little brains.
“Okay,” I say. I swing my gaze around to the other teachers.
“The Empress is most likely to approach the academy from the moorland. That’s where I’d launch an attack.
The forest and the slopes of the Highlands protect too much of the academy on its other side.
The moor side is its vulnerability. We want to weaken her army before it reaches the academy, ensure their powers have already been drained before they reach the academy grounds. How can we slow them down?”
“The dragon?” the potion mistress suggests.
“The Empress will blast that creature out of the sky first chance she gets,” Cornelius says, making Briony gasp.
“It’s our best weapon,” one of the Titan twins says.
“Which is why the Empress will target it first chance she gets. Best we hide him away until we’re sure we really need him.”
“What do you think, Briony?” I ask her. “It’s your decision.”
“He’s still a baby.”
I nod. “Okay, then what else?”
“Some kind of physical barrier,” Cornelius suggests.
“I can help with that,” says the botany professor. “I can grow vines and bracken.”
“Like right out of a fairytale,” Briony says.
The teacher gives her a stern look. “There’s no such thing as fairytales, Briony Storm.”
“We can move some of the equipment that way too,” the Titan twins say.
“It won’t withstand shadow magic for long,” I say.
“No,” Cornelius agrees, “but it will slow them down and they will have to use their powers to get through. Every little helps.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding, and the botany professor and the Titan twins leave immediately to get to work.
“What else?” I ask.
“I already have several potions brewed,” says the potions mistress, “for emergencies like this.”
“You do?” I say.
“Better to be prepared,” she says.
“What exactly do they do?”
She taps the side of her nose, beckons the astronomy teacher, and they leave to do whatever they intend to do.
“That just leaves me, Cornelius, and Briony.”
“What else can we do, Cornelius?” I ask.
Cornelius sweeps his clouded eyes around the Great Hall.
“If only we had more dragons,” he says, his eyes dropping to the floor, obviously thinking of the skeleton that lies in the crypt below.
“Oh,” Briony says. “Actually we do – well sort of. We have two more firestones.” She shakes her head in the next moment, dismissing the idea. “What use would that be, even if we can get them to hatch? They’d be baby dragons. It took weeks and weeks for Blaze to grow as big as he did.”
“Then we’ll just have to make do with what we have. I assume the dragon’s somewhere nearby.”
“Out in his cave,” I tell them.
“I’d make sure he’s well hidden,” Cornelius says.
That sets Briony running toward the door, already calling Blaze’s name.
Then it’s just me and the old professor standing in the cold Great Hall, the candles flickering around us.
“Do you think we have a hope?” I ask Cornelius.
“Truthfully,” he answers, “I don’t know. I can’t predict the future any more than you can.”
I think of Beaufort and his vision, one that seems hopeful. Maybe he can. Maybe this will work out. Although I do not 100% trust it.
“I think you have fate on your side,” Cornelius continues, “and fate is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Although, perhaps love is the most powerful of all the forces.”
“You think so?”
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do for that woman, Fox?”
“No, nothing at all.” He smiles at me. “Cornelius …”
“What is it, Fox?”
“It’s one thing to bring the system crashing down. But then what? What comes next? Chaos? Or maybe something much worse?”
“Maybe,” Cornelius says, considering me, “but I think that’s for the people of this realm to decide, don’t you?”
I follow Briony’s scent and find her out on the field with the dragon, whispering to him quietly as she strokes her palm up and down his snout.
“Okay, sweetheart?” I ask.
It’s been a long and difficult day for her. She’s still so young and has already lost so many people in her life.
“Not really,” she tells me truthfully. “All I really want to do is curl up in my bed and pretend none of this is happening. But I don’t think I’m going to have the chance for that, am I?”
“There’ll be time to grieve afterward, Briony,” I say. “And we’ll do it properly. A proper service for that girl. A proper way of remembering her.”
“If we make it out of this alive, Fox,” she says, leaning her forehead against the dragon’s nose.
As always, he’s watching her intently.
“We will get out of this alive, sweetheart.”
“She’s bringing an army, Fox. A whole army of shadow weavers.”
“Beaufort saw it, Briony. The future. All of us together.”
She shakes her head. “His visions aren’t that clear, Fox. I doubt he can be sure what he saw.”
“I still think we can win. If we all work together, I think we can do anything, Briony. Even bring down an Empress.”
“I’m going to try, Fox. I’m going to try for Amelia and for Clare.
And all the other students who have died at this stupid academy.
All the others that have suffered. All those that have been killed by demons over all these years.
So much unnecessary suffering and so many pointless deaths. I’m going to try. For all of them.”
“That’s all we can do, sweetheart,” I tell her. “That’s all we can do.”