Chapter 44 #2
The crowd hesitates, a ripple of uncertainty shivering the lower ranks of students and then echoing back to the bottleneck of assembled Keepers.
Voices climb the octave range, some with nervous laughter, others with a hum of unease.
Malakai is the only one who seems genuinely amused, and he takes his time to pivot toward the monarchy’s decrepit roost.
“Ah, your former Highness,” Malakai croons. He dips his head, a gesture so mocking it almost circles back to polite.
Davrin doesn’t even twitch. If anything, the purple light coiling up his neck intensifies, splintering his jawline and cheekbones in a glow that makes even the ghoulish torches ringing the arena seem anemic.
His posture is so perfectly composed that I have to remind myself he’s still technically alive and not just a puppet marionetted by a Void creature.
“You seem surprised,” Malakai remarks to the king. “Did you not pay the same tithes of flesh and soul as the rest of us? Or have you convinced yourself that royal exile means exemption from consequence? Was the fall of your queen not enough?”
The king’s mouth wobbles, but his voice is gone. The adviser at his shoulder leans in, frantic, but his whisper looks like a venomous rebuke, not solace.
Malakai pauses, allowing the pessimistic chuckles from students and faculty to spread across the arena.
Then he smiles, thin as a razor. “Time and attrition teach us what tradition cannot. Your armies, oh king, are bones now, lost to the wastes. Your queen’s lineage?
A memory, if even that. Your throne? Dusted and locked in a tower.
You see, I don’t regret your collapse. I am simply grateful the academy was there to sweep up what pieces remained of Vehloria worth saving. ”
The crowd murmurs, some of the younger students trading glances as if they’ve only heard fragments of this history in lessons. Even Davrin stops circling.
“You would have us believe,” Malakai continues, “that the academy is the villain. That our methods are monstrous.” He glances around, making sure every eye in the amphitheater is upon him. “But what is more monstrous than extinction? Is it truly so perverse to want to outlast annihilation?”
I whisper, “Yes,” but I’m the only one who hears it.
The king’s voice finally returns, trembling but full of the bluster that once ran an empire. “You are damning every soul in Vehloria.”
Malakai’s tone sharpens. “There is no longer a king and queen because royalty failed us. They clung to tradition while our borders shrank. They let sons and daughters march into the Void armed with superstition and prayer to our sibling gods. We have survived not because of crowns, but because the academy endured. And it will be the academy that saves you now.”
He raises a hand, and Davrin takes a knee in the center of the dais. “With each generation, the number of Soulren drops. We could have surrendered to entropy—that was your strategy, wasn’t it? But instead, the Master Keeper offers you salvation.”
The crowd rustles, some leaning forward with greedy anticipation, others shrinking back, repulsed but unable to look away. The youngest students, children boarding in the elementary halls, seem most conflicted, their faces knotted in fear.
“The only thing that matters is power. The only thing that endures is transformation.”
Malakai raises his hand again, and with a snap of a gesture, Davrin rises. His eyes are pure, swirling amethyst now, no hint of white left at all.
Not even Malakai seems prepared for the sight. He hesitates, just for a moment, the only pause in his entire monologue. It’s enough to remind me that everyone here is human. Even the monsters.
Two patrolling Keepers notice me, exchanging glances before the one on the right peels away from his station and ghosts into the crowd. I choose that moment to slink down and run as fast as I can under the stands, aiming for the one place Falcen must be if he’s not here.
Where the Void creatures are kept.
Malakai chooses that moment to proclaim, “Our royals are now kept as tokens of a bygone age, dressed in velvet and seated in their box so the rest of you remember what failure looks like.”
Vehloria’s former king falls silent. Thalamew slumps back into his seat, his lips gone chalky, his gaze unfocused. The princess curls inward, arms wrapped around her chest, hair shrouding her face. I can’t tell if she’s weeping or just praying for all of this to be over soon.
“What we call the Darkening is not Void corruption, as one might think,” Malakai declares as I creep under the seats of Vehloria’s people.
I’m not worried about them noticing me anymore.
They’re too rapt, their focus on Davrin and Keeper Malakai.
What I am worried about is how to get past the students, my classmates, standing in a line closest to the gate Davrin emerged from, and where I need to go.
“For years,” Malakai drones on as I go through all the worst-case scenarios in my head, “we have studied the Voidspawn’s soul essence.
We have learned to refine it, to purify its putrid spread, into something wieldable.
Our breakthrough came when we discovered certain Soulren could withstand the Darkening process.
Most candidates failed to bond with the soul of a Voidspawn.
Their bodies rejected the union, their minds fractured under the strain. ”
Gasps and murmurs abound. Students nudge each other, pointing at Davrin. In the noble boxes, a woman leans forward, her jeweled mask catching the torchlight as she murmurs to her companion.
I take that moment to dart behind the line of standing initiates, crouching as I scuttle behind the backs of their legs. Falcen’s face flashes in my mind. His scales, his pain, his desperate fight to remain himself.
I’m coming, Falcen. I will get you out of here.
Ember chooses that time to stir, wrapping her heat around my vocal cords and squeezing until I whimper.
Rook turns at the sound, her attention immediately lowering to the crouched, dirt-crusted form trying to sneak behind her.
“But Elite Rider Koll has shown exceptional compatibility,” Malakai teases as Rook’s eyes turn into slits when they reach mine.
A long, thin line slashes across her throat from when I almost decapitated her.
When her hand drops to her side, flexing as if to summon her twin soul-knives, blood pounds in my ears, drowning out Malakai’s speech.
If she raises the alarm now, I’m finished.
I’ll fight through anyone who gets in my path, but I can’t take on every student, every Keeper … and Davrin.
“For too long…” Davrin calls out, and my head snaps toward the sudden sound of his voice replacing Malakai’s. Rook does, too.
“We have feared the Void,” Davrin speaks without effort, but his voice is unnaturally loud. “We have cowered behind our walls while creatures pick at our borders. We have watched our brothers and sisters succumb to mania and death.”
Rook looks back at me, as if reminded that the very corruption Davrin speaks of is crouched behind her. I press my finger to my lips, pleading with her silently even though I expect her to scream for the Keepers, to expose me after what I nearly did to her in combat practice.
Malakai continues, “What you witness today is the culmination of decades of research, and gratitude goes to our Almighty Keeper for his endless determination to save Vehloria.”
The crowd erupts in applause.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth to Rook, pointing at her throat. “Please.”
She glances around, checking if anyone else has noticed me. No one has. All initiates face the center of the arena, too riveted by Davrin to notice who’s scooting behind them.
Rook turns to me again, nostrils flaring. After a curt nod, she focuses back on the arena, joining in on the applause, and stays there.
Allowing enough time to let out a relieved whoosh of breath, I press on, a few silent inches at a time.
“But a speech alone cannot suffice.” Malakai says this loud enough that the applause and cheers die down. “Today, we demonstrate the true potential of what we’ve achieved.”
Ember flings an alert at my chest, hot and fast. Pausing, I look between the legs of an initiate in time to see Malakai raising his hand. “Bring forth our subject.”
The arena gates groan open. Four Hollows emerge, dragging something—someone—between them.
My mouth drops open. I nearly collapse into a heap, screaming.
I’m too late.