Chapter 25
Elias
This little fucking prick.
If he weren’t a Nova, I’d pull his bones from his flesh one by one until he begged me to kill him. I know Emerai and Dr. Cein have been waiting for Sully to find another suitable vessel after what happened six years ago, but I thought they’d learned that this one is different.
It cannot be tamed.
Nekane’s eyes fall to the ice below us as he mutters, “You guys seeing this?”
Kallos and I look down as well.
The lake is coiling with black scales, and large oval-shaped eyes the size of a full-grown human stare up at us. Sully is a serpent this time around? I suppose it’s better than its prior form.
“It’s just a snake, Nekane,” I say with little interest and step toward Edgar.
Nekane scoffs and Kallos only stares down with a perplexed expression.
Edgar turns on me and lashes out, his power precise and lethal. Almost as perfect as when Terra nearly took Arthur’s head clean off.
I raise my arm and block his attack with the back of my hand, leaning forward as he leaves himself vulnerable. I grab his neck with one hand, squeezing the little fucker’s throat until tears spill from his eyes and I see the fight go out of him like a light.
“Listen, Edgar, and listen well. If you try to kill your sister again, I will gut you so slowly, so agonizingly, that you’ll beg me to take you apart joint by joint.” My words draw a deep fear into his eyes, but I’m not sure he’s got the message yet. I drop him and he gasps for air. My foot comes down on his head and he screams as I press my boot against his ear, crushing the other side into the ice. “Do. You. Understand?”
He cries and gasps for air. “Yes! Yes!” He squirms beneath my boot and sobs as blood spills beneath his head.
Kallos crosses his arms at my choice of treatment, but I seem to be the only one who remembers how vicious Sully truly is. How twisted and cruel. I lift my boot and glare at Edgar as he clutches his head.
Nekane laughs as Edgar stands, tears and blood staining his cheeks. Okay, maybe Nekane remembers too.
“Get him out of my sight,” I say to Kallos before stalking back to the shore.
“Elias, the four of us need to speak tonight. Meet us after midnight at the Broken Rock,” Kallos says with a grim tone. I don’t turn to look at him, but I nod. Edgar lets out small grunts of pain as Kallos helps him walk back to the courtyard.
What a fucking mess. We haven’t gone to Broken Rock since the night before the first Blood Crowns exam. The memory sets my teeth on edge and I shudder it away.
As I approach the shore, students move to the side, watching curiously as I approach Arthur and Terra. She looks up at me with deeply pained eyes. Raine is curled around her like a blanket, but for some reason, it doesn’t bother me like it did before. Even Velis accepts his Shadow, lingering close to the edge of my skin curiously.
I’ll have to sort that out another time.
“Is Edgar okay?” Terra asks innocently.
I won’t lie to her. “I doubt it.”
She shakes her head and lets tears stream down her cheeks. What’s with all the crying? She shouldn’t have turned her emotions back on. I sigh and open my arms to her. Her eyes widen, but she only hesitates a moment before releasing her hold on Raine and molding herself to my chest. I secure my arms around her.
Raine levels me a look, not angry or jealous, but curious. I just smirk back at him.
She’ll always choose me when it comes down to it.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, sweetheart,” I whisper to her softly and she nods into my chest.
My room is cold, but after I light the fireplace and stoke the flames, the temperature quickly rises. Terra stands in the center of my room, staring at the floor, her mind somewhere distant.
I brush her hair back. Her clothes are soaked and freezing. My fingers trail softly down the skin of her neck and goosebumps rise over her arms. I’ve never wanted to be so gentle yet brutal with someone in my entire life.
“You need to get out of these clothes or you’ll freeze,” I murmur, watching her eyes lift to mine and brimming with tears once more. She nods. I have no clue what to say regarding her brother. What do I know about comforting people? I usually just kill them. Comfort is complex and foreign to me.
I slowly unzip her tactical jacket and slide it off her shoulders. It falls heavily to the floor. Steam rolls from her bare skin. I swallow hard—of course, she’s not wearing a bra. I force myself to look away and grab a spare blanket to drape over her shoulders before I remove her pants.
She holds the blanket firmly over herself and presses her lips into the soft fabric. I have her sit on the edge of my bed as I find a towel to dry her hair with. Then I settle behind her and rub the towel over her wet strands. She startles me when she finally breaks the silence.
“He was really trying to kill me, wasn’t he?”
My hands stop moving and I lean forward, resting my chin on her shoulder. Her skin is hot and smells of cypress. I shut my eyes and murmur, “Yes, he was.”
She reaches her hand up to my hair and threads her fingers through the white strands, stroking them back and leaning her head against mine.
“What do I do now? Everything is falling apart.” Her voice cracks. The sound presses deep into my chest.
I turn her around so she’s facing me, her soft legs intertwined with mine. Her rosy cheeks and pleading eyes are making me uncomfortable. That weight I hate so much settles back over my heart. As her eyes dip down to my lips, I have to wrestle the Shadow’s hunger inside myself.
“Do you want me to kill him?” Her jaw drops and she’s about to yell at me before I crack a grin. “I’m kidding.”
Terra’s face shifts from shocked to relieved and she starts laughing. I wasn’t kidding, Sully needs to be dealt with, but it’s nice that she finds me funny. At least humor seems to be helping her mood.
“He hardly even looked like himself. His eyes are different, and I don’t mean the fractures. I mean inside. There was something bad. Evil.” She tucks her knees into her chest and rests her chin on them. The blanket is draped over her back but her front is open to me.
I smooth my thumb over her cheek. “His Shadow has corrupted him, Terra. He doesn’t have long before it takes him completely, especially if he keeps letting it sink further into his soul. Either the headmaster will have his heart or Sully will. I doubt there is an in-between for him.”
Her eyes flash up to me. “What do you mean the headmaster will have his heart?”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that, but I guess she would’ve found out sooner or later anyway. “Haven’t you been curious why our eyes are gray?” I tap the side of my head and she stares into my soul, nodding. “Headmaster Emerai has the Shadow that Keeps. It collects the hearts that have been replaced by the Shadows, and once it has, you’re basically enslaved to it. Fernestia controls you so long as Emerai has you.”
Terra sits up more, jaw trembling, nails digging into her knees with anger. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Raine’s eyes are already starting to fade and?—”
“Why would I? Look at my eyes, sweetheart. You give in or you die like lambs. It’s better that the students don’t know. Trust me, it’s just… easier this way.” My throat tightens as the images of my fallen comrades flash through my mind. Terra catches the falter in my voice.
Her face softens and she leans in closer, the blanket slipping off her shoulders and pooling around her waist. “Arthur told me you’ve blighted people before.” My eyes widen at her admittance and unwelcome pain spreads through my chest. “Who did you have to kill, Elias? Sometimes I can’t tell if you genuinely are a psychopath or if you’re just doing what you’re told.”
She wants to be cruel? I like this side of her.
“I killed them all, Terra. Just as I did the people in the field. Just like I would have killed you if it weren’t for us being mates.” My hands rope around her throat, but there’s no fear or disdain in her eyes. A dark and lustful grin pulls up at her lips.
“You can’t hide the pain in your eyes, Elias. You’re not as heartless as you try to be,” she whispers against my lips as she stares into my hollow soul. I swallow hard from both the aching wound in my heart and her closeness. “They were all your friends, weren’t they? The ones you blighted.”
A crooked, weak smile spreads across my lips, my eyes dry. “The only ones I ever had.” For a moment Terra just looks at me with so much sympathy and understanding, I hate it. I desperately need to escape those pitying eyes.
But she won’t let me run away—she leans in and presses her lips against mine. I want to push her away. My chest aches and the emotions are drowning me, but her soft lips are a comforting place to fall.
I don’t do vulnerable, and yet the moment her mouth opens for me, our tongues feverishly seek one another.
She unzips my jacket and lifts my undershirt up, pressing her bare breasts against my chest, making me groan with every soft slip of her skin on mine. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close. She’s still cold from the lake.
My lips pull away from hers and she gives me a confused look. “Don’t try to fix me—some things are meant to be broken.” I pull the blanket back up over her shoulders and lift her up off the bed, carrying her to the fireplace and sitting with her in my lap for the warmth of the flames to reach our faces.
I’m meant to be broken.I stare emptily at the fire as old friends greet me in my conscience. They never leave—not for long. Arthur keeps them fresh in my mind, as punishment, I think.
“Help me save Edgar, please,” Terra pleads with a hushed voice.
Gods, I’m getting too soft.
“Okay,” I mumble as I press a kiss on her shoulder, fully intending to break that promise.
I carry Terra back to her room after she falls asleep in my arms. She’s had a really fucking hard day and all I can think about is crushing her brother’s head beneath my foot again.
Raine lifts his head from her pillow and watches me carefully as I set her down next to him. He opens the sheets and draws her in close to his chest, keeping her warm in my stead.
“We’re starting private tutoring tomorrow. Dawn, at the blight training grounds,” I whisper to him and he just nods drowsily before nuzzling his lips into the crook of Terra’s neck. Her soft brown hair hides her face, but I bet she’s smiling in her dreams.
I hope she isn’t too ruined when Raine’s clock runs out.
The door closes soundlessly behind me. I take my time walking down the east bridge, down the steps of Alkrose, and out past the courtyard, farther still into the forest beyond the blight training grounds.
The wind often whispers to me when I’m alone in this forest. I know not if it has a name or lore, I only know that the pines reach for me. They beckon to my soul and bring dreary reminders of a life I’ve long since left behind.
Why now? Of all times… Why does being around Terra make me so nostalgic? It is as if she’s warming that dead part of me and bringing it back to life. Even Raine gives me dark, haunting glimpses of the past.
My thoughts escape me as I stop before a wall of jagged rock. The minerals are so ebony that you’d hardly be able to find it on a moonless night. I lift my hand and let my fingertips brush along the edges as I walk around the broken rock.
Kallos and Arthur both look up at me as I turn the corner to the dip in the boulder. It makes a peak above, but below, it’s similar to the mouth of a cave. Funny, now that I’m older, our meeting spot looks much smaller than it once was.
Nekane leans against the far wall of the rock and smirks. If I close my eyes, I can see the three of them as hopeful young idiots. But I see the four ghosts of us that linger in the dark, wondering why we left them behind.
“You’re late,” Kallos quips as they all gather around a firepit in the center of the cave. The flames are blue and undying. No foliage or snow reaches this dark place.
“I was doing damage control,” I retort coldly. Arthur raises a brow at me and smiles like he knows all my secrets. I’m certain he does.
Nekane wraps his arm around my shoulder and lets out a chuckle. “You were going to crush that Nova brat’s head in, weren’t you?”
Kallos’s glower only grows more impatient as he mutters, “We only have an hour before the headmaster returns to the grounds.”
We silently sit on the old stone seats, looking attentively at Kallos. He was the one who initially found this spot for us to share all of our secrets and freedom plans. Being here now, I feel some of that hope returning. Perhaps we can still someday be free.
“I placed a cast on Edgar’s Shadow today in class. The power with which he fought his sister was a mere sliver of what he’s hiding beneath the surface and I fear that he will break the cast quickly. He shouldn’t have been able to use any of the Shadow’s power at all,” Kallos says dryly.
Chills crawl up my spine. “That was with a cast in place?” I say incredulously. Nekane looks as surprised as I am but Arthur firms his mouth into a flat line. He shares a look with me and I raise my shoulders.
“Arthur already knew?” Nekane’s brows pinch together and he sits up straighter with interest.
Kallos nods. “One of the other students knows too, Corvus. I wasn’t thinking rationally at the moment I placed it, given that Edgar will need his Shadow during the exam… but after witnessing Sully mere moments from breaking free of the cast, I’m more concerned about the other students.”
“I never expected him to attack his own sister like that,” Arthur mumbles absently, writing notes in that journal of his. “I doubt he’ll be able to break it as easily as you’re assuming, Kallos, but maybe we should each place one over Sully?” Arthur’s eyes grow distant and he frowns.
Nekane shrugs. “I don’t care what we do with that boy, but if we can’t keep him contained the headmaster might order an execution like last time.”
The three of them nod in agreement.
“I think we should kill him,” I say remorselessly.
Kallos levels me with a dark stare. “You know we can’t.”
“Why not? We have the Space Nova and the two Crescents; we are enough. They don’t need him,” I challenge Kallos and he stands, his golden eyes flickering with the light from the blue flames.
“He’s a human being, Elias. You may not remember what weight a life holds, but I do. I haven’t lost my heart.”
My teeth grit together and I clench my hands over my knees before standing as well. “Fine. If you want to try to save him, be my guest. But I hope you remember who is sent to slaughter the lamb when you’re finished with him. I want you to remember who has to fucking look the tortured remains in the eye and kiss them goodnight. Me. And when that time comes, and come it shall, I hope you remember who it was that had a heart, Kallos. Because I wanted to end it for him before he became like Midas.”
Arthur and Nekane share a grim look. Kallos shakes his head furiously at me and turns his back. “Just go, Elias. We’ll finish this discussion without you. I’d forgotten how insensible you are.”
Low blow.
I leave without another word, not letting Kallos’s cruel words sink too far into my chest.
Only, I don’t walk back to Alkrose just yet. There are four gravestones around the far edge of the broken rock. I bend a knee next to them, letting my fingers brush across the hand-engraved names and stare hollowly at them.
Midas. Camil. Acadi. Serina.
“Hello, old friends.”