Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Malakai leads me down a narrow staircase that curves deeper into one of the academy’s spires and past crumbling walls with torches that burn without smoke. The farther we descend, the thicker and more oppressive the air grows, tasting of rust and old blood.
Torture.
The word doesn’t come to me through Ember, but by my own instinct. The academy tortures people down here. Or creatures, or Hollows … or Elites.
Falcen being tied down, leaking blood, his eyes glazed over with so much agony that he’d mentally retreated from it is an image that rarely escapes my mind.
And as I reluctantly follow Keeper Malakai down, down, down, I wonder if this is where they kept Falcen.
If this is why his tattoos turn black and slither across his skin, or why Heathan’s flesh hardened into scales and his nails into talons.
Am I next?
The thought gnaws at me. Falcen’s last words made it clear: my time here is running out.
Whether the Master Keeper wants to dissect me or destroy me, I’ll find out soon enough.
The Keepers and students might not know exactly what happened in the arena, but they felt it.
The way they avoided me in the dining hall proved that much.
Something different, something outside the academy’s brutal curriculum, wove through that arena while Heathan and Falcen fought.
And I was at the center of it.
My heart hammers against my ribs as Malakai leads me down the spiral staircase. We pass iron doors with small barred windows, some emanating sounds I refuse to acknowledge. Soft whimpers, ragged breathing, the occasional muffled scream. Ember twists inside me, but remains mercifully silent.
“Here we are,” Malakai announces, stopping before a door that looks identical to the others.
He produces a key from his robes and unlocks it, revealing a circular chamber.
I stop short in the doorway.
A dozen of my fellow initiates sit bound to iron rings bolted into the floor in a triangle formation, their wrists secured behind their backs, black silk tied across their eyes.
I spot Rook’s distinctive ponytail, Davrin’s perfect kneel with his chin up, and others whose names I’ve caught during our sessions. Petra, Markus, Thea…
Don’t give them names, Ember speaks up. It’ll hurt more when you watch them die.
Lux above, I scold. You sound just like Falcen. I can’t shut off my empathy like a torchlight.
You’ll have to learn, because this will only get worse for you.
I wish I could shut Ember off like a torchlight.
A scrape against stone draws me out of my internal debate, and my mouth gapes as the floor within the triangle of initiates slides open to reveal a deep pool of rippling water.
“Your fellow initiates have been waiting,” Malakai says, gesturing toward a pair of empty shackles at the top of the triangle.
My knees lock. I can’t look away from the water.
“What type of training is this?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Malakai’s hand clamps onto my shoulder, his fingers digging into my flesh with surprising strength for a man who looks like a scholar. “This is not a request, Initiate Holbrook.”
He propels me forward, and I stagger toward the empty shackles. As I approach, I notice each initiate’s perfect seated posture, shoulders straight, chins notched. Their attempt to exude strength is diluted by the blindfolds that render them helpless, vulnerable. Just as I’ll be in moments.
But they can probably fucking swim.
“You’re about to undergo controlled suppression,” Malakai explains to the room as another Hollow comes up behind me and forces me to my knees. “A necessary skill for any Soulren who wishes to advance beyond basic training.”
I glance once more at the water before the blindfold comes down, and I almost convince myself that I didn’t see large, black, oily shapes with glowing scarlet eyes breach the water before sinking down below.
“I don’t understand,” I say, because you better believe I’m stalling. “What are we supposed to do?”
Malakai sighs, as if my questions further prove the uselessness of remnants.
“When Soulren are tasked with entering the Void, they must be able to suppress their soul-magick. Our magick naturally flares around the Void, an instinctual mechanism to protect and defend ourselves, but it is one that will get you killed if you cannot learn to control it.”
The Hollow ties my blindfold so tight, the knot digs into the back of my head. But that’s nothing compared to the world of black I’m plunged into and the large splash that follows.
“Is there fucking water in front of us?” the initiate beside me whispers—Markus.
“Worse,” I murmur back. “It’s an underground water tank with some kind of creature in it.”
“Oh, Nox fuck me.”
“Shut up,” a voice hisses from somewhere in the triangle. Davrin, I think. “Do you want to get us all killed, Skid Mark?”
I strain against the iron clamps on my wrists, causing the attached chain to rattle. Without my vision, sounds around me are sharper. Nervous breaths, the shifting of bodies against stone, and most terrifying of all, the gentle lapping of water against the tank’s edge.
“Each of you will be lowered into the water tank in front of you,” Malakai continues calmly.
“Inside are a swarm of Void eels, creatures especially sensitive to soul-magick. They hunt by detecting magical signatures. Voidspawn are not just on land, and Soulren have only recently begun studying the waters in the Void. Your task is simple: remain submerged for three minutes without your soul-magick flaring.”
Panic closes my throat. Water. Void eels. Three minutes.
“If your magick flares, the eels will find you,” he says with the detachment of reciting the academy’s codex. “And I assure you, what they do to Soulren is ... unpleasant.”
I can feel Malakai’s smile through the darkness of my blindfold.
“I recommend against screaming,” he adds. “The eels respond to sound as well as soul-magick. The splashing, however, well, that can’t be avoided. Go still as quickly as you can and they might not sense you.”
A break in the water jerks my head up, sounding distinctly like a body being tossed into the tank. The drag of a chain follows, clanging when it reaches its maximum tautness.
An eerie silence follows.
Until it’s shattered by the first scream.
“Get it off! GET IT—”
The masculine voice cuts off with a gurgling sound, replaced by thrashing that sends water sloshing over the edge of the tank and over my legs as I kneel.
“Initiate Dorian’s magick blazed too bright with his panic,” Malakai observes. “A pity.”
The thrashing intensifies, water slapping against stone in violent waves. Something wet and heavy hits the floor beside me, and I flinch away.
“What’s really fascinating,” Malakai murmurs, “is that the eels seem to work as a collective. Once one detects soul-magick, they all converge.”
Someone chokes back a gasp. It sounds like Rook, her breath catching on a hitch. The blindfold presses tight against my eyelids, but in its darkness, my other senses heighten to compensate. The splashes of water become roars, the ragged breathing of my fellow initiates thunders in my ears.
A wet, tearing sound follows, like fabric ripping, but wetter, meatier. Dorian’s screams morph into high-pitched keening that doesn’t sound human anymore.
“Somebody help him!” a girl cries out from somewhere to my left.
Chains rattle, and there’s a shuffle of bodies, but nobody is brave enough to help when they’re blindfolded and bound. What could we do? We can’t summon our soul-weapons with our hands tied behind our backs.
But I have something no one else does.
Ember! Help him!
It turns out, I won’t be needing Ember’s help after all. Dorian’s keening abruptly stops, and the water stills.
The silence is somehow worse than the screams.
“Perhaps I should mention,” Malakai says, the pitch of his voice betraying how much he’s enjoying this, “Void eels don’t swim to the surface unless drawn by soul-magick. Stay calm, suppress your magick, and you’ll float just fine.”
Chains rattle to my right as Markus struggles against his restraints. A grunt follows, then the sound of his body being dragged across wet stone.
“Remember,” Malakai reminds us, “three minutes. Suppress your fear. Harness your magick.”
Markus’s protests cut off with a splash. Water sprays across my face, cold droplets that make me flinch. The chain attached to his wrists clashes against the stone as it unspools into the tank.
For several breaths, there’s nothing but the gentle ripple of disturbed water and Markus’s labored breathing as he tries to stay afloat with his hands bound.
“One minute,” Malakai calls.
Markus’s breathing grows loud through his mouth, sharp inhales that reach the chamber’s ceiling. He’s struggling to stay afloat, the water sloshing with each instinctual kick of his legs.
“Two minutes,” Malakai announces.
A chuckle escapes someone’s throat.
The sound is quickly muffled, as if he realized he shouldn’t be laughing right now.
My heart pounds so violently that I’m certain everyone can hear it. Sweat beads along my hairline despite the chamber’s chill.
I’m next after Markus. I’m sure of it, because Dorian was beside him, and Malakai seems to be going clockwise around our macabre triangle. In less than a minute, I’ll be thrown into that water where I can’t swim, and the creatures will instantly feast on me.
Creatures that will sense Ember the moment I hit the surface.
My head draws up.
Can you sense the Void eels from this distance? I ask her.
Yes, but it is weak. Like I am eavesdropping on their mind instead of entering through a door in their skulls.
Will they be like the Void widow? Curious and interested in us?
Ember doesn’t respond. Rather, she stretches under my skin, reaching with invisible strands through my fingers and into the water.
“Thirty seconds,” Malakai calls.
Markus’s kicks grow more frantic. His exhales have turned into panicked groans. And with Ember’s attempts at connection, I think I can sense the eels below the surface, perking up at Markus’s increased splashes.
Markus fights the water now, his bound hands making it impossible to properly tread. I can hear him choking, swallowing mouthfuls as he struggles to keep his head above the surface.
“Markus, be still!” Rook shouts.
But it’s too late. I feel it before I hear it, a ripple of soul-magick that makes my skin prickle. Markus’s desperation has triggered his defensive instincts, and his magick blazes to life beneath the water like a beacon.
The water erupts.
Whatever was lurking in the depths surges upward with a sound like tearing silk. Markus’s scream pierces the air, high and keening. The chain attached to his wrists goes taut with a metallic shriek.
“No, no, no,” I whisper. My voice breaks on each word.
Stop them, I beg Ember. Stop the creatures from killing him!
Ember tries. I feel her strain against our connection, reaching through the water toward the thrashing mass of eels. But whatever she attempts fails spectacularly.
They are too hungry to stop, she gasps inside my mind. They’ve been starved after being captured. Consumed by bloodlust. I cannot reach them.
Markus’s screams grow weaker, more gurgled. His chains jerk violently, then suddenly go slack. The water stills.
“Unfortunate,” Malakai observes. “He lasted two minutes and forty-seven seconds. Quite respectable for a first attempt.”
I’m going to be sick. The bile rises in my throat as I picture Markus’s lifeless form bobbing in crimson-tinged water, surrounded by sated eels.
If there’s any of him left.
“Initiate Holbrook,” Malakai calls. “Your turn.”
The Hollow’s hands grip my shoulders, hauling me to my feet. My legs nearly buckle as terror floods my system. The blindfold makes everything worse. I can’t see the water, can’t gauge its depth, can’t prepare myself for what’s coming.
The Hollow drags me toward the water’s edge. My boots slip on the wet stone. My shackles clank rhythmically with each step.
“Perhaps you’ll fare better than your peers,” Malakai says. “After all, Elite Reaves invested considerable time in your training. It would be a shame if all that effort was wasted.”
I’ll sink like a stone. No amount of soul suppression will matter if I’m drowning.
“Remember,” Malakai says, and I hear the smile. “Three minutes. No flares. No screams.”
Ember, I need you.
“Wait,” I gasp, struggling against the Hollows. “I can’t sw—”
The Hollows’ hands press against my back and shove.