Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
No one comes for me the following morning. Even though I convulsed on the ground mid-battle yesterday while Rook futilely screamed for help, everyone is eating breakfast in the Grand Hall like it is just another day under Lux’s sun.
So yes, I should be relieved that no one’s going out of their way to annihilate me.
However, they also don’t want to be the first one to make eye contact.
None of the initiates or upperclassmen look up when I enter the hall and pick up a tray.
It’s as if they’re better off if I don’t exist. Falcen’s absence this morning was tough enough.
I’m not sure I can handle a day where everyone pretends an Elite wasn’t slayed in front of their faces by one of their own.
But they didn’t see the corruption.
They don’t know how Heathan was so filled with it, it was ripping through his skin. With claws. And scales. And—damn him to Nox, I wish Falcen were here so I could figure this out with him.
I shuffle forward in the breakfast line.
The Hollows serve delicious fare this morning, like baked cream buns, roasted stonefruit, buttered oatcakes and soft cheeses and breads.
I take one of everything, completely famished after yesterday and having no way to know when they’ll cook such a lovely spread next.
It doesn’t escape me that we’re offered such abundant, visually indulgent, and high-calorie meals, balanced with tasteless ones, because it won’t be long until the only nourishment we’ll require is souls.
“Thank you,” I say to the Hollow who places a roll on my tray, though he doesn’t acknowledge me.
Now laden with food, I turn to face the vast space of the dining hall, tables filled with students talking in hushed voices that create a constant, droning undercurrent. The high ceiling amplifies every scrape of cutlery against bowls, every murmured conversation.
Where do I sit?
Every spot I look at seems to fill up the moment I notice it.
I spot Rook in one corner, hunched over her food with her usual high and tight ponytail.
She’s in conversation with another female initiate with bright red hair and a smattering of freckles on her fair face.
Rook catches my eye for just a second before looking away, and the message is clear: Not today.
My chest tightens. Yesterday, she was kneeling beside me in the dirt, asking what was wrong. Today, she can’t even hold my gaze.
Even Davrin, who usually takes any opportunity to antagonize me, pretends to be fascinated by something in his bacon when I glance his way.
Fine. If no one wants to sit with the girl who collapsed during an Elite death match, I’ll eat alone.
Most of the tables are already full, crowded with cliques I’ll never be part of. The only open seat is near the eastern windows, at the edge of the hall where the sunlight hasn’t yet reached.
I set my overloaded tray down and pull out the bench, scraping it loudly against the stone floor. Several heads turn briefly before snapping back to their conversations with unnatural speed.
Ignoring them, I take seat and start shoveling in food, because it’s the only chance I’ll have to refuel before another grueling, and likely terrifying, day ahead.
I’ll get you out.
Those were some of Falcen’s last words.
Ember stirs restlessly beneath my ribs at the remembrance, a dull warmth that threads with my heartbeat. She’s been eerily quiet since yesterday, since Falcen’s kiss. I’m not sure if she’s scowling or regrouping, same as I am.
I touch my lips absently, still feeling the ghost of his mouth against mine.
When did this happen? When did I start caring so much about the man who kidnapped me from my village and dragged me into this hell?
Maybe it was when he stood between me and Heathan, or when he told me the truth about my necromancy instead of turning me in.
Or maybe it was simply the way he looked at me sometimes, when he thought I wouldn’t notice, with complete bafflement and pride.
The ache in my chest isn’t just Ember’s restlessness. It’s a lot more human than that. I miss him. His scowls, his reluctant almost-smiles, even his brutal honesty. The academy is more dangerous without him here. It’s like I’ve lost my only shield against the evil closing in.
Is Falcen safe outside these walls?
What if he doesn’t come back?
The thought slices through me with unexpected sharpness. Hunting nether drakes is a death sentence. And unnecessary. What does the Master Keeper need them for, anyway? What if Falcen is lying broken somewhere in the northern territories while I sit here eating cream buns?
Then ask her.
The shock of hearing Ember makes my cutlery smack against my ceramic plate, startling nearby tables who don’t linger on me very long. Oh, it’s just the pathetic late-awakener who swoons at the sight of violent death, they’re probably thinking.
“Ask who?” I murmur before thinking, then quickly scan around to ensure no one’s listening to me talk to myself like a lunatic.
Mara, Ember says with obvious exasperation. The drake. She told you that you could call on her if you ever needed her.
I nearly choke on my stone fruit. You cannot be serious. I last saw Mara hundreds of miles away in the Blightwoods. How exactly am I supposed to ‘call’ her?
The same way I’m speaking to you now. The same way you reached into Heathan yesterday.
My appetite vanishes. I push my tray away. That’s different. You’re inside me. You reached. And Heathan was just a few feet away.
Distance is meaningless to souls that are connected. Ember’s voice takes on an unusual tone. Drakes are soul creatures, like you. We exist beyond the physical constraints of your world.
So you’re saying I could just ... what? Think really hard at her and she’ll hear me?
Not think. Reach. Ember thrums with impatience. Like this.
Without warning, a searing heat blooms behind my sternum. Darkness fills my vision as Ember surges forward.
“Head down. Don’t let anyone see your eyes.”
Falcen’s warning follows right behind, to look weak, to stay scared, to keep Ember under lock and key. Yet here I am, practically glowing in the middle of a crowded dining hall.
I hunch over, gripping the edge of the table as Ember’s heat spreads through my limbs. Stop. You’re going to expose me!
Let me teach you, she persists. You need to know how to reach Mara. Falcen is in danger.
“I can’t do this here,” I hiss under my breath, ducking my head lower. “There are too many people.”
Then leave. Find somewhere private.
I push back from the table, abandoning my half-eaten breakfast. No one looks up as I slip away, which is a blessing. The hallway outside the dining hall is mercifully empty, and I duck into the first alcove I find with a small reading nook tucked behind a decorative column.
“Fine,” I whisper, pressing my back against the cold stone wall. “How do I reach Mara?”
Close your eyes.
I hesitate, remembering how quickly things spiraled out of control yesterday with Heathan. “If I do this, will you promise not to take over like you did in the arena?”
I promise nothing, Ember replies, but there’s something almost gentle in her tone. But I need you conscious and functioning for this.
Not exactly reassuring, but it’s the best I’m going to get.
I close my eyes and finally open up to Ember’s warmth. “Okay, what do I do?”
Think of Mara. Not just her image, but her essence. The connection you felt when you rode her. The trust.
Memories flood back. Mara’s massive, decaying body beneath me, her iridescent, sharp scales, the bones protruding from her face, the swirling onyx of her eyes. And that strange maternal energy that radiated from her as she carried us to safety. How her mind could brush against mine…
“I remember,” I whisper.
Now reach for her. Not with your hands, but with your soul. Imagine threads extending from your chest, stretching across the distance between you.
I focus on the sensation, picturing my magick flowing outward from my core. It feels ridiculous at first, like I’m playing pretend.
“I don’t think it’s working,” I mutter, frustration building.
You’re trying too hard.
I exhale slowly, letting go of my doubts. Instead of trying to force the connection, I simply open myself to it, remembering how Mara’s consciousness felt when it touched mine. That strange, ancient awareness that saw through layers of time like they were gossamer.
Then Ember’s heat intensifies. My fingertips tingle as if I’ve dipped them in lightning.
Mara, I think. If you can hear me, can you find Falcen?
The connection snaps into place like a taut bowstring released.
Little soul-wielder.
Mara’s voice resonates through my mind, layered with harmonics that make my skull vibrate. It’s not quite words, more like concepts wrapped in sound and sensation.
You reach across a great distance.
There’s no judgment in Mara’s mental voice, only curiosity tinged with what feels like affection.
Elite Render Falcen Reaves, I answer, trying to project the urgency I feel. He’s in danger.
A pause that stretches like eternity. Then Mara’s presence grows stronger, more focused.
The golden-eyed warrior with the blackened soul? Yes, I remember him. He burns bright with pain.
Before I can ask what she means, Mara continues.
He hunts my kin, but not willingly. The white-masked one pulls his strings like a puppet master. Your warrior fights against bonds that would break lesser souls.
The Master Keeper. Of course. But how does Mara know about him?
You see much from the sky, I venture to guess.
We see all, little soul-wielder. The academy’s tendrils reach far beyond its walls. Your warrior carries death-marks upon his soul, marks that call to the Void like blood calls to beasts.
Death-marks? My stomach clenches.
He fights it well, but the darkness grows stronger with each kill. Soon, he will face a choice. Embrace what he is becoming, or let it destroy him.
“No,” I whisper aloud, my hands clenching into fists.
Your warrior seeks my kind in the Thornspire Mountains. Three days’ flight north. But he does not hunt alone.
My head jerks up. What do you mean?
The bone-masked one sent others. Hollows that move with purpose, carrying chains wrought from soul-steel. They mean to capture my kind, not kill.
Capture? I lurch as the implications hit me. The Master Keeper doesn’t want the nether drakes dead. He wants them alive. But for what?
Your Elite knows this. He fights to warn my kin, but the corruption in his blood grows stronger. Soon he will not be able to resist the pull.
“What corruption?” I ask, though part of me already knows. Those corrosive tattoos of his, the way his pupils sometimes shift, the careful distance he maintains from everyone.
The same that consumed the scaled one yesterday. Your academy feeds its Elites to the Void, little by little, until they become weapons that cannot disobey.
Heathan. The black veins, the scales, the way he’d begged Falcen to kill him before he became something else entirely.
Can you find him? Is there a way you can help Falcen before—
“Initiate Holbrook.”
A deep, baritone voice cuts through my internal conversation like an icicle through flesh. I jolt upright, my connection to Mara severed as my eyes fly open.
“I—Keeper Malakai,” I stammer, smoothing my uniform as I duck my head and blink my eyes back to normal. “I was just—”
“Talking to yourself in a dark corner?”
“I wasn’t feeling well,” I say, remembering Falcen’s warning to appear weak. “After yesterday’s ... events.”
“Yes, you remnants are not worth the effort if you ask me. I much prefer training them young. More malleable that way, and less pathetic when it comes to watching a supervised match in an arena that did not even include a Void creature.”
Malakai adjusts his collar, the movement unhurried. “The Master Keeper has assigned your training to me during Elite Reaves’s absence. I’ve prepared a specialized drill for you and your fellow initiates today.”
It is only sheer and utter willpower that prevents me from shifting my weight or fidgeting while under this man’s scrutiny. The last time I was alone with Keeper Malakai, I killed a girl. Only Falcen’s intervention saved me then.
“What kind of drill?” I ask, unable to keep the foreboding out of my tone.
He responds with a closed-mouth smile. “This way.”