Chapter 27
FLORENCE
My heart pounded as I hurried down yet another hallway behind Kage, Regan’s limp form draped across his arms. Where was Medra?
Had she gone back to our tower or to Drakharrow?
If she was with Blake, I’d be less worried about her.
Yet part of me hoped she’d be there in our room, waiting for me to get back.
I reached for Regan’s wrist, counting the throb of her pulse.
“How is she?” Kage asked, sounding tense.
“It’s faint, but it’s there,” I answered.
We turned a corner, and I froze. Here, curtains had been ripped down from the hallway windows. Someone had smashed the hanging lanterns off the wall. A small fire was burning in the spilled puddle of oil.
Kage’s jaw tightened.“Keep your eyes on my back, Shen. Move fast.”
I tried, I really did. Until a boy’s scream broke through the silence.
Five paces ahead of us, in an alcove off to the side, a group of girls in torn purpleand-gold gowns crouched low over a supine blightborn boy.
Their shoulders jerked. Their heads dipped and rose.
They were feeding. The boy’s scream cracked, sliding into a gurgle.
“Shen,” Kage said, his voice low. “Move. Now.”
I realized I’d stopped, frozen in horror. The girls’ backs were to us. They hadn’t seen us yet. “But—but that boy …”
“He’s gone. We can’t save him. I can’t help him. All I can do is get you and Regan out. Now move!” Kage barked.
The Avari is right. Listen to him.
But maybe if you just …
Nyxaris roared. I jumped. Go now. Listen to the wolf. Get to your tower. I’ll meet you there.
“Not a sound, Shen,” Kage commanded, looking at me as my lip trembled. “Eyes on my back. Follow me. Don’t look.” He started moving again.
But as soon as we’d passed by and turned the next corner, a sob ripped free from my throat. Kage paused at the next junction, shifting Regan a little in his arms. He glanced at me. “There was nothing you could do. You can’t save everyone.”
“I know,” I said, hiccupping. “But their clothes. The girls were in gowns. They’d come from our …” I trailed off.
Kage’s eyes were hard and resolute. “If we fall here, the same thing that happened to him happens to everyone in Avari. You’re our only rider. We need you.” He started moving again, then threw a last command over his shoulder. “Steel yourself.”
I nodded, choking on guilt and grief, but doing as he said. They needed me? How could Nyxaris and I possibly help with … whatever this was?
We took the next corner at a trot—and nearly collided with Professor Rodriguez.
He was holding someone in his arms, too.
The dwarven girl I’d seen the Bloodguards feeding from earlier.
Behind him streamed at least thirty blightborn First Years, disheveled and bleeding.
Some were being carried, others leaned against a friend’s shoulder.
Most were wearing nightclothes. Some clutched candlesticks.
A few had knives. One brandished a battered, sharpened broom handle.
Kage halted. “Rodriguez.”
“What the fuck is going on here tonight, Tanaka?” Rodriguez snapped, blunt as a brick as always.
“Something bad,” Kage retorted.
Rodriguez’s lips twisted. “Bit of an understatement, but I suppose that sums it up.”
“Where are you headed?” Kage asked. “What’s the state of the First Year tower?”
“The First Year tower?” Rodriguez shook his head. “The First Year tower is lost. It’s been overrun.”
“Overrun with what?” I asked, my voice small.
The professor looked past Kage to me, then back to Kage. “Surely you’ve seen what we’ve seen. Students. They’ve all been infected with …” he shook his head “ … with something.”
“Infected how?” Kage demanded. “Some of these students are highbloods. How is that possible?”
“I have no idea how it’s possible. But it’s obvious, isn’t it? Something is stripping away their rationality, heightening their hunger. They’re like animals.” He glanced behind him, then lowered his voice. “I think the ball may have been where the outbreak began. The infection spread from there.”
Kage’s face hardened. “Which means it either came from or has been carried back to Veilmar. Where my family is.”
Rodriguez nodded. “Seems that way. Look, I need to get to an infirmary—now. Several of these First Years were injured in the attack. The girl in my arms was already wounded. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
“What happened to the First Years’ healer?” I asked.
Rodriguez shook his head grimly. “He’s gone.”
Kage’s jaw tightened. “Follow us. The Avari tower has an infirmary—and reinforced doors.” He raised his voice. “First Years, stay close and stay silent. We move as one. Form pairs. Those of you with weapons, eyes sharp. Let’s move.”
Rodriguez took up a position at Kage’s side, angling Dani higher.
The two men started forward, and I followed, the crowd of fright-ened First Years shuffling behind us.
My tears were drying to salt on my cheeks.
As we funneled through the castle, into the dark-ness, I prayed we could find some safety in this night of horrors.
The Avari tower doors slammed shut behind us, and two stern-faced Fourth Year wardens took up positions in front of it immediately on Kage’s command.
“All uninjured First Years—common room, now!” Kage’s voice boomed.
The First Years who had crowded around Rodriguez like chicks to a hen scuttled away, piling onto couches and sinking down onto the floor.
When only the wounded remained with us—four trembling First Years, three girls and a boy, Rodriguez with Dani in his arms, and Kage carrying Regan—we hurried up to the second floor and into the Avari infirmary.
The fact that each house had their own infirmary was a blessing from the Bloodmaiden.
Even though the First Year one had been overrun—a description that didn’t bear thinking about in too much detail—at least every house had their own facilities and healers.
As we entered, Healer Elycia, her silver hair coiled in prim braids around her head, looked up from where she stood mixing a draft and paled as she saw our procession.
“What’s happened? Here, put them here—quickly.
” She pointed to empty cots along one wall.
A lone patient already occupied one of them, a curlyhaired highblood girl with a bandage on her arm.
Elycia had clearly been tending to her before we barged in.
Now she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of her cot and peering with interest at the First Years, who began to sit down on chairs in the waiting area.
Kage laid Regan down gently on a mattress. Rodriguez put Dani on another, then immediately went over to one of the supply cupboards and began rifling through it.
I moved to his side. “Iron-wort tonic?”
“It’s the easiest thing to give her, yes. We need to boost her blood production over the next hour as much as possible. Healer Elycia should help the other students. I know she’s skilled in coagulation charms.”
“Regan’s lost a lot of blood, too,” I murmured. “Will she heal on her own?”
Rodriguez glanced at the headmistress. “I’ll talk to Elycia and take a look. She’s highblood, but some iron-wort might not hurt.”
I nodded. “Let me mix the draft for Dani. I know what to do.” I wasn’t a healer, but I’d recognized the ingredients and knew the right ratio to use. It was a simple-enough mixture. “You help the healer and see to the other students.”
I was still holding Neville. He’d been dozing in my arms, no doubt recovering from his earlier ordeal.
Now he jerked awake, his fur bristling. As I went to put him down, his muscles tightened, and he wriggled from my grasp.
Jumping down to the floor, he trotted over to where the injured highblood girl now stood beside her cot.
Elycia hurried over. “Jacklyn, get back in bed. I’m not finished examining you.”
“I feel fine,” Jacklyn protested, sounding slow and sleepy.
“Neville, what’s gotten into you?” I walked over as the fluffin kept growling.
Before I could even begin to process the way the highblood girl’s eyes were hazing over to a milky gray, she lurched forward, not at Neville but at Elycia. In a split second, her fangs were out and her jaw was open.
Things happened in the blink of an eye. One moment Elycia was opening her mouth to scream.
The next Jacklyn was crumpling to the floor, with Kage behind her.
He’d crossed the room and leaped the cot to get in behind her.
Now he held a dripping dagger in one hand.
The blood on the dagger, I saw, was a dark red, nearly black.
For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
“She’d been bitten,” Elycia whispered, staring at Jacklyn’s body.
“I thought it was a random attack, someone playing some sort of horrible prank after drinking too much bloodwine. She’d been walking back from the library.
She managed to ward her attacker off and get back here.
The injury was on her upper shoulder. She would have been fine.
Should have been fine …” The healer trailed off, her eyes still on Jacklyn’s body.
Then Kage looked over at Rodriguez. “You understand what this means? Anyone bitten is infected. We cull them or the tower falls.”
I looked over at the First Years, still waiting to be triaged. Their eyes were wide. One girl began to cry.
Rodriguez was between them and Kage in an instant. “We don’t know that. There may be a cure, an antidote—something to slow this down. We have no idea what we’re even dealing with yet.”
The Avari didn’t look convinced.
“Kage, please,” I pleaded. “Look at them.”
His eyes blazed. “I am looking. You think I want to do this? Did anyone even notice what was happening to Jacklyn? She changed in an instant. I won’t risk the tower. Another hour and they’ll all be just like her.”
“You can’t kill everyone who’s injured. We don’t even know for certain that they were bitten,” I said desperately.“What about Regan?”