Chapter 34
Terra
“Ihate this fucking place,” Kai says on a low breath. He shudders and shakes his head to try and stop his bodily reaction to the snake.
“Do you really hate serpents that much?” I tease with a meek smile.
Kai throws me a scowl. His face is pale and he looks like he might vomit. “They are vile, Terra.”
I flinch as a scream echoes through the forest ahead. It could be Frederick torturing or killing someone. He’s the only one of us who seems so eager to do so. “I thought this was my favorite class, but I take it back,” I murmur.
For the better part of thirty minutes, we ride in silence to listen to our surroundings. I have no doubt in my mind that we’re going to finish last, but I’m finding it hard to care. The only thoughts in my head at the moment revolve around Edgar. He won’t speak with me or let me try to make amends, even though he’s the one who attacked me. I miss him.
Kai’s dark horse comes to a stop and he looks back at me. A faint smile coasts his lips as he mumbles, “They waited for us.”
“Seriously?” I block out the sun with my hand and spot Raine and Finn at the bottom of the next ravine. They’re perched on their Shadows and talking casually. How long have they been waiting?
As we draw closer, they notice and lift their heads. Finn’s eyes shine with relief to see us, and Raine nods and grins at me.
Finn leans back like he’s exasperated as he mutters, “We were really fucking worried about you guys. What took so long? We’ve been waiting for like?—”
“Shut up, let’s get going now that they’re here,” Raine cuts Finn off. I frown when he jerks his head for me to come to him. “Ride with me. We have to catch up.”
I take one look at Raine’s terrifying, black, bony dragon and shake my head.
He barks out a laugh and dismounts, walks up to Amser, and lifts me from its back by my waist. My eyes widen at the strength he still has. I press my hands on his shoulder as he lowers me.
“It’s okay, you’ll love it,” Raine whispers against my ear. The warmth of his breath sends a shudder through me and all I can do is nod. “Just like the ziplines.”
A bright sunset with birds flying toward the sun paints itself in my head as I remember how he showed me his city’s sky not so long ago.
“This isn’t our last zipline, is it?” I murmur softly back, brushing a tuft of his black hair behind his ear and pressing a kiss to his neck.
He chuckles but doesn’t answer my question, just looks down at me and tips my chin a bit with his fingers. “After you, my lady.”
Raine’s dragon has a low, vibrating energy around it as if it is constantly searching for fates to ruin. Its skull is enormous, with two icy pits for eyes that chill my blood. Black smoke rolls from beneath its bones. Only Raine’s warm hand against my back keeps me walking toward it.
He smooths his hand over the muzzle and his Shadow lets out a low hum. Amser responds in kind as it fades back inside my bones. It clearly seems to trust the beast. At least one of us does.
We sit at the base of the dragon’s neck, Raine behind me with his arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Finn has Kai on his phoenix and has to continuously bat Kai’s hands away from the flames.
“All right, ready?” Raine says loud enough for Finn and Kai to hear. They give him a nod, and within seconds the dragon is lifting its wings, curtains of smoke and bones. One vicious beat later, we’re taking to the sky.
The air is cold against my cheeks and the only sound I can hear is Kai screaming from a couple hundred feet to our right.
“Holy shit!” I shout, clinging to a spinal bone. This isn’t like zip-lining at all. No harness or rope or line. Just one big bone to keep you in place.
Raine laughs behind me and grabs my hands, prying them away from the bone.
“Raine, stop it!” I laugh-scream and that only gives him more amusement. He burrows his lips into my skin where my shoulder meets my neck.
“I want you to feel everything up here. The wind between your fingers—the way your heart will rush when youre here with me.” Raine slides his hands out behind mine and the wind threads through our fingers.
“Why are you talking like this?”
He waits a moment to respond. The seconds feel like an eternity.
“I want you to remember me this way. As a nice guy, the one who wanted you to be safe and warm. Not the cold, cruel man you met in Barkovah. When you think of me I can only hope you’ll imagine the sky, the rush that I sent through your soul. That will be enough for me.”
Tears stream down my cheeks and I let my head fall back on his shoulder. His hands slide away from mine and trail back to my torso, sculpting my form. He sends chills up my spine as he grabs my waist firmly, digging his fingers into my hips and pulling me close against him.
“You’re more than the sky, Raine. You are the wind, the earth, the blood in my veins. I will never forget you.” I choke out the words. He responds with tears that wet my skin.
Our sentimental moment ends abruptly as a black shard pierces Finn’s phoenix, severing its head clean from the body. We don’t scream, not even Kai—the shock and fear are still too tangible for us to react properly.
Finn’s mouth opens in a silent gasp. It’s Raine who responds first, cursing under his breath. The dragon dips and swoops beneath Finn and Kai to catch them as the tendrils of Finn’s Shadow return to his veins.
Kai lands awkwardly on the spinal bones and coughs violently. Finn uses momentum and lands perfectly on his toes, crouching to absorb the shock from the fall.
“Who the fuck attacked us?” Kai hisses behind us.
Raine grits his teeth and says in a lethal tone, “I’d bet a thousand coin it was Frederick.” His grasp around me tightens and I scream as his dragon head dives straight toward the ground.
The wind throws my hair back violently and the approaching trees make my blood turn to ice. “Raine!” I shout but he doesn’t let up.
Finn calls out from behind him, “There!”
I frantically search the approaching ground, eyes locking on five racing Shadows, one much larger than the rest, riding a snake similar to Edgar’s but significantly smaller.
“That asshole can’t go one day without trying to kill someone,” Kai grumbles as the dragon spreads its wings and stops the descent. My entire body feels like jelly and my stomach curls. I’m never letting him convince me to do this again.
Kai hurls off the side of Raine’s Shadow, and a few seconds later, we hear the men below shouting.
“Did you seriously vomit on them?” Finn laughs and Kai only groans with distress.
“Oh, we’ll do more than that. If they want to fight, we’ll give them a fight,” Raine says in a low tone that makes me happy to be up here and not down there. I’d hate to find out what this Shadow can do to its opponents.
Kai protests, “Oh gods, please don’t make it nosedive again.”
The only reply is the dragon’s immense screech piercing the sky. It’s so loud that my hands abandon the safety of the bone and shield my ears. Then comes the blinding light. It’s bright blue, like ice on a frozen lake. A ball of pure power begins to form in the skull’s gaping jaw, growing bigger and increasingly daunting until all the sound in the world vanishes in an instant. A thin line of blue splits the sky and then the mass of power blasts from the dragon’s mouth, wicked and horrible, scorching the trees. The pine needles shrivel and vanish like they’ve been hit with a bomb.
“You’ll kill them!” I shriek, hardly able to hear my own voice over the roar of power crashing into the earth.
I turn to look back at the three men; their faces are shocked, horrified, and nervous. I don’t think Raine knew the extent of his own strength, based on the sweat that rolls down his temples.
We don’t speak, mainly because none of us can fucking hear, until the lake is back in view. The sun is already dipping behind the west mountain.
Finn and Kai are back on his phoenix—it’s bright in the sky like a beacon. For some reason, even though our lives are filled with nothing but bleak and morbid things, I feel hope when I look at him.
Finn must feel my eyes on him because he turns and looks back at me, his black strands of hair blowing in the wind and amber glinting in his flashing eyes.
“There’s Edgar.” Raine points to the lake. I narrow my eyes at the depths of the blue water. Every inch of it is filled with the enormous snake, coiled tightly beneath the water’s surface. Edgar stands on the shore with Arthur—the first to finish. Corvus’s raven is just landing; he waves at us.
We land in unison and await the arrival of the remaining students. They come trickling in slowly. Still no sign of Frederick and his goons.
The longer we wait, the more dreadful the air becomes. I elbow Raine and he gives me a knowing look. “I think you killed them,” I whisper.
Finn and Kai’s faces visibly pale but Raine only smirks. “If I did, then they wouldn’t have lasted in the second exam anyway.”
We fall back into silence.
I keep eyeing the lake, knowing what lies beneath the tepid surface. It’s disturbing because, from land, you wouldn’t be able to tell his Shadow is there, coiling and festering beneath the dark water.
Finally, the remaining portion of our class arrives, Frederick and his comrades included. Their eyes are locked on Edgar and distrust dances behind their gazes. Frederick shoots Raine a glare but my companion only stands straighter.
Arthur waits a few more minutes, his arms crossed and eyes expectant. Elias is still out there. Did students actually try to escape? My heart sinks at the thought of Elias hunting them down.
“Do you think students tried to leave Alkrose?” I whisper to Finn. He looks at me thoughtfully and eventually nods.
“Yeah, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind,” he replies and Arthur glances back at us.
“I’m glad you didn’t. He might’ve been lax with Terra, but Finn, you’d have lost your head,” the professor says indifferently. He looks at me for a moment too long before returning to watching for Elias. The urge to brush my hand against his and feel that longing between us is almost impossible to resist. I clench my fists at my sides to keep control.
Finn frowns and Raine nudges his side. “See? Aren’t you glad I talked you out of it?” I level them both with a stern look.
Before I can say anything to them, snow crunches ahead and I turn to find Elias slowly making his way toward the group. His breath curls in the cold air, his white hair catching the last remnants of the sunset.
Arthur looks him up and down, probably noticing the same thing I am: for once, Elias is not covered from head to toe in blood. “How many strayed?” Arthur asks as Velis disappears into dust.
Elias cracks his neck and stretches. “Eleven.”
Arthur looks down grimly while Elias’s face is as impassive as stone. “Edgar and Corvus were the first to arrive. You both will have immunity for the first stage of the exam, the name of which will be announced tonight in the mess hall,” Arthur says before dismissing us to our Shadow Houses.
The five of us start to make our way back inside when Elias grabs my arm. “I need to speak with you,” he says in a hushed voice.
Raine and Finn glance back at me but I shake my head at them. Finn hesitates but follows Raine back inside.
“What is it?” I pull my cloak around my arms to edge out the cold. The sun is setting and the spring air has a bite to it.
He grabs my hand and leads me to the west side of the castle so we’re out of earshot of anyone. His hands are freezing. Eleven students, that’s how many he killed today. A shiver runs down my spine.
I don’t want to care about someone like him, vile and sinister. But how do you carve out a cancer that has already grown? I should’ve stopped his roots before they spread.
Elias leans me back against the cool stones of Alkrose and lowers his head so he’s looking straight into my eyes. I take a deep breath at his closeness and swallow hard.
“Two things: the headmaster knows the hearts are gone and the professors are going to place additional casts on your brother.”