Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
As soon as the Hollows’ shuffling patrol fades into silence, I ease the door to my room open and check the hall.
Empty.
Every instinct screams that this is the kind of night initiates vanish in, swallowed by the blood-stained walls of the academy.
Those same instincts tell me it’s only a matter of time until I’m gulped down whole, so why not break a few school rules first?
I slip back inside my quarters and lace my boots with fingers that won’t stop shaking.
A single thought gnaws at me. Sneaking through the academy at night, alone, after what I saw today. What am I doing?
You aren’t alone.
My hands still while cinching the laces.
“That’s not as reassuring as you think,” I whisper to the voice inside me.
But I don’t deny that my shoulders lower, and I breathe easier at the sound of Ember.
“Show me the corridor again,” I ask her.
Heat coils up my chest and into my skull as she presses into me.
Images unfurl behind my eyes: the eels’ memory of Falcen as a boy, black veins crawling beneath the plump youth of his cheeks.
Then an older version of him tied to a stone slab.
I ache for that child. I ache for that boy, and for the man who shoulders his ruin now while the academy’s poison chews him empty.
This all starts with that stone slab I accidentally pulled from Falcen’s memories when battling my own rising power. Falcen was tied to that slab, ichor dripping from his eyes and lips, the same poison that brings his veins to the surface, black and rotting.
My answers begin with that passageway they dragged Falcen down. The same one where Davrin disappeared with Keeper Malakai after the Keeper abruptly stopped the lesson.
I take a deep breath and return to the door, pulling my dark cloak around my training uniform.
If Falcen were here, he’d kill us, I muse to Ember.
The only problem is, it’s precisely because of his absence that I’m able to tiptoe out of my room unnoticed.
You’ve done worse, Ember responds.
Not helping.
The hallway outside lies empty, sconces dripping with soul-fire that cast no smoke, while the Resonance Academy pretends to sleep. But from behind heavy doors are sounds that don’t belong to dreams. Metal clanging, an initiate’s restless whimper, a scream smothered too quickly.
I slip down the spiral staircase, laying a balancing hand to the cold brick worn smooth by centuries of royals before Soulren took it over.
Shadows stretch like grasping hands between wall sconces, and I swear the gargoyles carved into the ceiling beams turn their heads to follow my progress.
This is madness. I’m doing this for Davrin Koll, of all people. I don’t even like him.
But I can’t unsee his eyes as Malakai dragged him away. The resigned success in them. The acceptance. And beneath that, fear.
Nothing that can make Davrin Koll afraid is safe to ignore.
The stairs plunge deeper, past the training halls and lecture wings, into stone that smells of old blood.
Marble falls away to rough rock. Brass fittings vanish along with the steady soul-fire lights.
The air grows damp, heavier with every step.
After weeks of being herded between corridors, I’ve developed a decent mental map of the upper levels.
But the lower ones remain largely a mystery.
Falcen never spoke of them, and the few times I asked Callie about the academy’s depths outside of the catacombs, her expression went distant and empty.
I reach another set of stairs, but halt when voices drift up from below. I press myself against the wall, holding my breath. Two Keepers pass beneath the stairwell, their dark robes monstrous in the low soul-fire light.
“—another failure,” I overhear one say. “The Master Keeper won’t be pleased.”
“Koll was the most promising candidate in years,” the second Keeper replies, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Such a waste. Not a single vein turned.”
I freeze, my fingernails scratching against the wall.
My heart thuds against my ribs as I strain to hear more.
“The compatibility was there,” the first Keeper argues. “His soul signature matched the parameters perfectly.”
“Yet he rejected the Binding.” The second Keeper sighs. “Three hours on the stone. The Master Keeper expected more from someone with his lineage.”
Their voices fade as they continue down the corridor, their navy robes swishing against the polished floor like venomous serpents.
I allow myself to finally exhale, replaying the Keepers’ brief conversation. Stone slab. Black veins.
I continue the spiral of steps below me, each floor marked by ornate landings with arched doorways leading to different sections of the academy.
Descending past the level where one can reach the Archive Spire causes a pull in my gut and a warmth between my thighs at the remembrance of Falcen both drawing out my soul-weapon in the most agonizing way, then ravishing my body the next second. It’s hard to believe it’s the same man.
But I’m learning there is so much more to the cold-hearted warrior than I initially thought.
The air gets colder the farther I descend, the levels giving way to rough-hewn rock that occasionally glistens with moisture. My cloak catches on the jagged edges, and I tug it free.
One more flight down, and I’ll be completely underground, with the stairs opening into the vast circular chamber hosting the Void eels.
It’s different at night. By day, it reeks of brutality.
Now, it feels older than the academy itself and sacred in a way that repulses me.
Without the sweat-stench of initiates and Malakai’s satisfied smirk, it feels almost abandoned.
The tank itself is a perfect triangle cut into the floor, its edges worn smooth by centuries of scrabbling hands and dragging chains.
Any bloodstains from our session have been scrubbed clean, and even the chains that bound us to the floor are neatly coiled against the wall, awaiting the next batch of victims.
I edge closer to the tank, my soft-soled boots silent against the stone. The water is unnaturally still.
Nothing betrays the deadly creatures lurking beneath.
For a moment, the water makes me think of the creek that ran behind my grandmother’s cottage in Belgrave Village, the one she always warned me to stay away from.
“The current is stronger than it looks, Verily,” she’d say, adjusting her weathered apron with hands spotted by age and herb stains. “And you’d float about as well as one of my cast-iron skillets.”
I never took it as an insult. It was just another truth about me, like my green eyes or my inability to keep plants alive despite Gran and my mother’s best efforts.
The Holbrook women never needed to learn to swim.
If the task wasn’t necessary, it just wasn’t done.
In our sparse, overworked section of the realm, there was simply no motive to jump into water because nothing around us was deep enough to try.
If only Grandmother could see me now, standing before a tank of soul-hungry Void eels in the bowels of the Resonance Academy.
The girl descended from a line of crop pickers, not plucking greyberries off the vine or nursing thorn-pricked fingers, but breaking curfew to rescue a boy who’d probably sell me out in a heartbeat if our positions were reversed.
What would she think of what I’ve become? Of Ember living inside me and the necromancy that flows through my veins? Gran, who spent her life doing back-breaking work in the vineyards, would hardly recognize her granddaughter, who can steal souls and commune with Voidspawn.
She would hate me. Reject me. Fear me.
I press my palm against my sternum, feeling Ember’s warmth quiver in response.
“She’d be ashamed of me,” I whisper.
Kneeling at the edge of the tank, I peer into the black depths. The dark water reveals nothing, not even my reflection. It’s as if the tank contains liquid Void rather than mere water.
“Hello?” I whisper, feeling utterly ridiculous. “I’ve, uh … returned.”
Nothing happens.
I’m feeling absurd calling into a tank of Void creatures, like some drunk village fool tossing tokens at a wild hound.
Except I’m not drunk, just desperate, and the creatures at the bottom of this well have teeth sharper than the razors Keeper Malakai uses to maintain his perfect shave.
The water ripples.
A sleek head breaks the surface, serpentine and elegant with a bulbous eye that reflects the torchlight in swirls of iridescent crimson.
The eel undulates, revealing more of its scaled body, easily the thickness of Falcen’s thigh, and a deep prismatic black that reminds me of oil slicks on cobblestone.
“Oh,” I breathe. “You’re ... beautiful.”
The eel threads through the water sideways, water cascading off its glossy scales. It studies me with a one-eyed intelligence that makes my skin prickle with forced bravado.
“I’m wondering if you have any more information that might help,” I say, glancing over my shoulder to ensure I’m still alone. “Before I go any farther down that corridor. About Falcen Reaves and what they did to him. And what I’m fairly sure they’re about to do to Initiate Koll.”
The eel dips beneath the water, then resurfaces with a graceful arc that sends droplets scattering across the ground. Two more eels join it, their bodies intertwining in hypnotic patterns as they observe me every time their heads glide sideways over the surface.
One swims closer.
“I’m not sure if you can understand me when I’m not using my magick. It seems to only blossom when I’m cornered or about to die,” I whisper. “I realize I’m bargaining with a very intimidating fish that could eat me in two bites.”
The eels make a collective sound, a clicking noise that vibrates through the water and into the stone beneath my palms.
To my shock, I understand it, or rather, Ember translates the meaning directly into my mind.
One bite.
“Right.” I shuffle awkwardly on my knees, then correct myself. “You could eat me in one bite.”