Chapter Twelve
“What?” I asked, flabbergasted, suddenly feeling faint.
Alaric tucked a stray curl behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek. He was about to say something when the chamber door slammed open. We both turned to see Elias and Seraphine glide into the room, followed by three other younger Bloodwrights who must have been around Alaric and my age.
“What the hell is going on here?” Dr. Duvall’s smooth voice echoed throughout the room, her murderous dark stare focused on me. Elias followed quickly behind, worry and anxiety whirling behind his eyes.
“We felt a power shift,” Elias explained as he came closer.
The three younger Bloodwrights stood back, evaluating the situation from afar.
Two of the younger Bloodwrights looked like twins, a boy and a girl with identical freckles, strawberry-blonde hair, and gray eyes.
The other girl was tall and slim with an exquisite face; she reminded me of the perfume models I’d seen on advertisements in Times Square.
Her dark, raven hair hung past her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were focused on where Alaric’s hand had just barely brushed mine.
I realized she was the same girl I had seen at lunch a few days ago.
“A power shift?” I turned to focus my attention on Elias and Seraphine. “What do you mean?”
“The wards in this chamber flickered for a few moments, and Seraphine felt her illusion fall. We feared there had been a breach,” Elias explained, wringing his hands together, ink splotches staining his fingertips.
“There was no breach.” Alaric stepped forward in front of me, almost as if he were shielding me. “Mari came into her power. She dissolved both the illusion I created along with Seraphine’s.”
Dr. Duvall’s already pale face turned sallower, her eyebrows hitching up in disbelief. “Impossible. Not even Richard could make a dent in dismantling one of my illusions.”
“How did it happen?” Elias stepped forward, pushing Alaric to the side so he could get a better look at me, his wrinkled, gray eyes wide in wonder. “Tell me everything that happened.”
I looked at Alaric hesitantly, but he merely nodded, encouraging me to explain what I had done.
As I walked Elias and Dr. Duvall through my training with Alaric, the other three Bloodwrights moved in closer, led by the raven-haired beauty whose eyes never left Alaric. Interesting.
When I got to the part about the death echo of what must have been a Bloodwright execution, what I assumed was another test by Alaric, Alaric grabbed my hand, forcing me to look at him.
“What do you mean by the death echo test?” His voice was strained, fear and confusion clouding his eyes.
“Well, when I rounded one of the corners of the maze trying to get some space between me and the shadowed Stonebound, I brushed my hand against the wall and then found myself within what I assumed was a death echo you had planted . . .” My voice trailed when all eyes locked in on me, the others’ concerned and pale faces telling me in no uncertain terms that whatever I had experienced was not normal.
“No, Mari, that was not one of my illusions,” Alaric finally spoke. “You must tell us exactly what you saw, what you heard.”
I hesitated, my eyes glancing to the others, noting that the tall raven-haired had finally torn her eyes from Alaric and was glaring daggers at me. I turned my full attention to Alaric, trying to ignore the eyes of the others in the room.
“Well, it looked like a chamber like this, but I got the feeling it was much, much older. There were dozens of robed Bloodwrights standing in a circle, and at the center was a badly beaten man, chained to the ground by magic. Another hooded figure stepped forward and slit his throat,” I explained, my voice choking on the last word.
A chill rushed through me at the memory.
“Did he say anything?” Elias moved closer to me; so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.
Alaric slapped his hand on Elias’ chest, pushing him back a few steps, and commanded, “Give her space.”
I licked my lips nervously. “Uh, not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘uh, not exactly’?” Dr. Duvall mimicked my voice, clearly irritated with my very existence.
“I mean, I heard the man’s voice, but I think he was only speaking to me,” I explained. “He said, ‘Blood remembers. Blood returns.’”
Alaric and the other young Bloodwrights seemed confused, but Elias and Dr. Duvall visibly tensed, clearly recognizing the words.
Alaric noticed too and turned his attention to our headmistress. “What does it mean?”
She schooled her features into a mask of indifference, shrugging. “Could mean anything. Could be nothing at all.”
“What color were his eyes?” Elias asked, still awestruck, and ignoring the daggers that Seraphine was glaring at him.
“Blue,” I replied. “The clearest blue I’d ever seen. Like the sky.”
Elias nodded, his hand going to his chin as he began to pace in thought. Dr. Duvall rolled her eyes, turning her attention to the three younger Bloodwrights.
“Celeste, be a dear and recreate the shadowed Stonebound illusion. I’d like to see Mari train, alongside your cousins.” Her voice soft as velvet, she reached her hand out to the raven-haired model, Celeste. Celeste smirked, her eyes weighing me and finding me lacking.
I internally groaned, blood rushing to my cheeks as I realized this was Alaric’s Celeste. Of course, she was also a Bloodwright.
“Of course, aunt,” Celeste purred, reaching her hand out to Alaric instead. “But only if I can power-share with Alaric. It’s been so long.”
A sharp, unfamiliar pang of jealousy flexed along my arms, my power humming right beneath my skin. I glanced at Alaric, who rolled his eyes in response and shook his head.
“How will you ever become the greatest of our generation if you don’t learn to rely on your own strength, Celeste?” Alaric quipped, taking a step back and standing next to Elias who still seemed to be lost in thought, mumbling to himself.
I fought a smile as the feline smirk on Celeste’s face fell pathetically. She stood up straight, her hands stretched out as dark smoke started to pour out of her fingertips.
Alaric’s voice whispered in my ear. “Everyone manifests their power in their own way. Celeste uses smoke, and it seems you use light.”
“And what about you?” I asked, turning to look into his eyes.
“I like fire,” he spoke, his breath fanning my face.
A chill ran down my spine as I turned to focus on the illusion Celeste was creating.
Her brow furrowed in concentration as her fingers seemed to paint shapes in the air before her, the smoke twisting and turning into a slightly shorter version of the shadowed Stonebound.
The smoke trailed from the Stonebound to Celeste’s fingers, and while her face remained stoic and calm, I noticed beads of sweat starting to form at her hairline.
“All right.” Dr. Duvall clapped, the sound jolting me as it echoed through the chamber.
She walked over to Celeste, pulling a blindfold from her pocket.
She wrapped around Celeste’s eyes, her illusion shuddering just a bit.
“Elara and Rowan, please step forward with Mari. The three of you must avoid detection while Celeste uses her illusion to hunt you down. You have five minutes.”
Elara scoffed, her gray eyes taking me in while her twin brother, Rowan, simply stepped forward, his hands at his chest in a prayer formation.
Seraphine clapped her hands together loudly again, but refracted light of a shimmering glow began to pool outward from Seraphine’s aura.
The room hummed, just as it had before when Alaric created his illusion of the maze.
The room was broken up into sections, and suddenly, all three of us were separated into individual corridors, but the walls continued to move, shrinking and growing at intervals.
The roar of Celeste’s shadowed Stonebound echoed through the space, but muffled, like we were behind a sound barrier.
I turned to the right, trying to get distance between me and Celeste’s illusion. All I had to do was avoid detection for the next five minutes. And not embarrass myself.
I moved quietly and slowly, trying to find a relatively good hiding spot.
I moved further into the next corridor, finding Rowan standing still, eyes closed, hands still clasped together.
He was mumbling something under his breath when I noticed the ground around him frost over, an icy ring moving outward from where he stood in an oval shape.
The shadowed Stonebound moved into the room from the other side, Rowan right in its line of sight.
The instinct to yell for Rowan to run stuck in my throat as the air around him suddenly froze too, encasing him in an icy bubble.
The Stonebound moved around Rowan, seemingly unable to detect him.
I slowly backed up, seeking a new hiding place when I walked right into Elara.
I spun around, surprised to find her smiling sweetly before she shoved me back into the room.
My fall caused the Stonebound to look directly at me.
“Let’s see just how special you are, Pollard,” Elara spat, turning on her heels and running in the opposite direction.
I turned to the shadowed Stonebound as it flickered, but made its way toward me, screeching once again. I held my hands up, the power I had used still pulsing beneath my fingertips.
“Please,” I begged to my fingers, to the power that thrummed within my chest. “Please, help me. Do something.”