Chapter 23 #2
I reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner. Looking back, I noticed a wall had come up, closing the way behind me.
A narrow tunnel stretched out ahead, dimly lit by the same sickly green glow that threaded through the rock.
This had to be the next stage. I knew from Dad’s speech that I had to be quiet. I let my basilisk instincts take over and padded forward. My suit-clad feet were silent on the cold stone. I slowed my breathing and made every step I took deliberate.
I focused on my matebonds thrumming in my chest without thinking, and before I knew it, the tunnel opened into a wider hall.
The walls were carved with runes that writhed at the edge of my vision if I tried to focus on them for too long. I kept my gaze slightly unfocused, attention locked on the floor ahead, on the rhythm of my steps so I didn’t think too hard.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Nothing happened as I moved deeper.
It felt like I had walked for hours, and maybe I had.
Time didn’t feel right down here. Fae magic wasn’t something I would ever pretend to understand. The air didn’t move. The temperature didn’t change. All that shifted was the thickness of the silence clinging to my skin and the way the green lines in the walls brightened or dimmed.
I took another step, and a faint buzz tickled against my skin.
Don’t think too loudly, I reminded myself.
The ward’s buzz dimmed.
I kept moving.
Eventually, the stone walls narrowed again, funneling me into a tight passage just wide enough for my shoulders. A faint drip of water echoed somewhere far ahead.
As my foot hit the wet stone, it sent a strange ripple down the tunnel, like a pebble dropped into a still pond. It rolled outward, bounced off something, then came back.
Voices burst around me, inside my head.
“I love you…”
My own voice was repeated back to me as flashes of moments between myself and my mates crossed my mind.
I took another step, and another memory slammed into me.
“—who ripped the DNA from my veins and duplicated it to murder us.”
The words slammed through me, louder, along with the memory behind them of me venting my frustrations about what the humans had done.
I winced, taking another step before falling into a contentment I hadn’t expected.
“You let aphrodisiac venom slip into the sauce when you were stirring it.”
“Aw, venom baby, I’ll fix that. I’ll make you fall deeply in love.”
“If you stab me again, pretty little poison, at least aim higher.”
“You can’t blame yourself for everything that happens around you. You’re not poison, lethal darling. You’re the antidote.”
“Little vixen, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Clever, viperling.”
“You’re mine, honey drop.”
My mates’ voices layered over each other as I sped up. Their love, their teasing, and fond memories replayed like a sweet video.
But after all of that, as I neared the end of the tunnel, darker memories seeped in.
“Why didn’t you answer my call, Rune?” Darian’s voice hissed, echoing down the corridor. “Who are you with? Who are you fucking?”
My hand curled into a fist, and I kept going.
“Please, I just want to help.” Jonas’s voice.
A second later, the echo of his neck snapping against steel as he hit that door wrong.
I flinched as if I’d heard the crack for the first time.
Another step.
“You were just going to leave me to die.” Vel’s voice choked before she crumbled under my mom’s venom. “They saved me. The humans saved me—”
The echoes of my memories, good and bad, multiplied until the corridor felt stuffed with ghosts who were only made of the past.
I forced myself forward, step after step, letting the memories crash and roll over me but not stick. I didn’t let them slow me down.
The longer I walked, the more detached the memories became. They started repeating, looping, and losing that emotional bite.
Eventually, the corridor opened, and the memories cut off abruptly.
I stumbled slightly at the sudden quiet.
Ahead, the space opened into a broader hall lit by higher, brighter runes, casting a soft green light on rows of iron doors lining either side.
It took me a moment to realize that they were cells.
I’d made it into the penitentiary.
I moved along the wall, keeping to the edges where shadows collected despite the runes’ glow. I didn’t look directly into any of the doors.
“Rune…” The voice slithered along the floor toward me.
I clenched my jaw and kept going.
“Why are you up there, little basilisk, and I’m down here?”
I ignored that, too.
The hall bent left, then right, and left again. The turns were tight enough that I had to angle my shoulders.
A shadowy presence waited ahead, around the next bend, quiet and still in a way that felt more dangerous than anything I’d experienced down here yet.
I slowed my steps to nearly nothing, rolling my weight from heel to toe, heel to toe. Every muscle in my body hummed with an instinctive desire to run.
The figure sat on a low stone bench carved directly from the wall.
Their head turned toward me.
I kept walking but stopped breathing.
The shadowy figure’s gaze swept the hallway as if they couldn’t quite focus.
“Name,” the guard whispered.
Their voice wasn’t loud, and it didn’t echo.
My tongue tried to move.
The urge to answer was sharp, almost reflexive.
I dropped my gaze to the floor and continued walking. The urge to respond clawed at my rib cage.
“Name,” they repeated, still soft and patient.
The silence stretched.
“Not you, then,” they murmured.
They stared down the hall behind me, toward some invisible figure only they could see.
“Name,” they called again, but not to me. They spoke past me, through me.
Slowly, I stepped sideways, keeping to the very edge of the wall, the wards buzzing faintly against my shoulder. The figure kept turned toward that now-empty stretch of corridor.
Every step felt as if it took an hour.
The buzzing against my skin grew sharper where I brushed the carved symbols, but nothing happened.
I slipped around the next corner, knees nearly giving out as soon as the figure wasn’t in my line of sight.
I pressed my back against the wall, sucking in air through my nose. My heart hammered in my throat.
I didn’t know why I wanted so badly to answer it, but I didn’t care to find out, either.
I pushed off the wall and continued.
The hallway widened into a circular chamber with a low, domed ceiling that swallowed the green light and turned it a ghostly pale color. There were no cells, doors, or runes.
Just a pedestal.
And on it was a book.
The visitor’s book
It didn’t look like much. No arcane glow or aura. It was just a thick leather book.
I moved closer, scanning the surrounding floor. No trip runes. No obvious wards. Just a faint hum in the air.
Up close, the cover was ridged and layered, like a stone that had once been liquid and solidified mid-movement. It didn’t feel like parchment; it felt like a fossil.
There was a pen next to it.
I wiped my wet fingers on the side of my suit. Then, I reached out and laid my palm flat against the cover.
The magical hum rose from a vibration to a low, bone-deep thrum.
My magic recoiled instinctively.
The book was cold until warmth pulsed beneath my hand, matching my heartbeat.
A slit appeared down the center of the cover and spread wide, the volume unfolding to reveal thick, off-white paper. Each page was filled with eight house names.
I flipped gently forward until I found what had to be the current section—names that weren’t crumbling or fading, but hadn’t yet sunk into the page completely.
The space I found to write was small. Barely wide enough for a word.
My hand trembled.
I picked up the pen and wrote: House of Twilight.
The letters shimmered, then sank a millimeter into the page, as if the book were accepting them.
Magic flared over me, through me, around me, and a single, faint feeling brushed my consciousness.
The book closed on its own, pages folding back into the stony cover. I placed the pen down and pulled my hand away.
I exhaled slowly before a door appeared, the slit-like portal I’d gone into at the bottom of the pit.
Taking a deep breath, I held it and walked in.
I hit the icy water hands-first this time, slicing through like a spear. The memory the door had taken of Aura rushed back, unfortunately.
Dad never said the memory would be gone for good…
The maw was still open, but it had moved in more than when I originally went in. I swam up. The teeth slid past my skin without touching.
Finally, I broke the surface, gasping into the bright, warm air. My hair was plastered to my face,
Hands reached down as I swam toward the edge.
“Got you.” Jesper’s warm fingers clamped around my forearms and hauled me up onto the grass.
I rolled onto my back, breathing hard, water dripping off me as my heart pounded wildly in my chest.
The morning sun had just cleared the horizon, and I noticed only minutes must’ve passed versus my hours down below.
Time moved differently there.
A mixture of affection slammed into my ribs so hard from my matebonds that I let out a startled wheeze that turned into a laugh.
“You’re first,” Slater said, dropping to his knees beside me. “Venom baby, you’re the first one to pass.”
Zuko knelt on my other side, his fingers brushing my cheek, eyes scanning me head to toe like he expected me to be missing a limb. “Pretty little poison, you did it. I knew you would.”
Dimitri’s gaze was darker, red irises blown wide with something between hunger and fear. He pressed the back of my hand to his lips, fangs resting lightly against my skin. “Lethal darling, I have never been so proud of you.”
Koa hovered above my head, eyes bright with embers glowing faint along his irises. “You’re incredible, my little vixen. You’re so incredible.”
Drecken’s magic shimmered faintly around his fingers. “I knew you would pass, viperling.”
I smiled at them.
My dad stood a short distance away, near the edge of the gathered professors. His expression was still headmaster-serious, but his eyes were dad-level proud.
“Rune Bloodwyne,” he called. “You pass.”
Mom smiled at me. “Congratulations on becoming an official agent, Rune. You’re assigned as a spy to Jesper Wyvernheart’s squad.”
The words hit like a physical thing.
I’d done it.
Dizzy with sudden, fierce joy, I turned back toward my mates and threw myself into their arms.
“My turn,” Dimitri murmured, kissing me softly.
“Be safe,” I murmured against his lips as a hum rippled through the air near the pit.
He walked toward the edge and jumped.
Minutes stretched as Dad sent more and more students into the depths.
At one point, four of my mates were underneath.
I felt familiar emotions through my matebonds that I had felt during my trial. I stayed near the pit’s edge, unable to stray too far. Drecken and Jesper stood on either side of me, hovering close as we waited.
At some point, another splash echoed from the pit.
Dimitri burst from the water a second later, dark hair with the white spot plastered to his forehead. He was breathing hard, eyes glowing a feral red.
He caught the lip of the chasm with one hand and hauled himself up before I could reach for him.
The instant his feet hit the grass, he looked for me.
I slammed into his chest, and he caught me, arms wrapping around me so tightly I squeaked.
He buried his face in my neck for a moment, cool breath shuddering against my skin, before pulling back just enough to look at me. “You were right all along.”
“About what?” I asked, breathless.
“Being stubborn,” he said, his lips quirking faintly. “I had feelings for you moments after seeing you.”
I laughed, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth.
Dimitri had graduated and become an agent. Mom assigned him to be a spy on Jesper’s squad with me.
Slater erupted from the water in a dramatic, spinning motion on the back of a very large Snakey.
As Snakey demanifested, Slater dropped next to me, dripping with water. He landed in a crouch and popped upright, arms thrown wide. “I did it, venom baby!”
I smiled, relief pouring through me. “You did.”
He bounced over to me and swept me into a soggy hug.
Mom assigned him as a tech specialist to Jesper’s squad.
Zuko surfaced next, climbing out of the pit with water sluicing over his scales before they retracted back into his skin.
“You did it,” I murmured as he pulled me into a hug.
“Of course I did. Gotta keep up with my pretty little poison,” he mused.
He was assigned to Jesper’s squad as a torture expert.
Koa was the next fourth-year to surface. He emerged in a rush of steam, his phoenix flames flaring beneath the water as he forced himself upward. When he crawled out of the pit, his flames heated him from within, making the water evaporate off him with a hiss.
I hit him at a run, nearly knocking him over as I tackled him into a hug.
He laughed, breathless, clutching me back.
Mom assigned him as a healer in Jesper’s squad.
We’d done it.
All of us were where we were meant to be.
Not everyone made it back. We lost nine students.
Eleanor, Lorian, Raze, Ominous, Ivy, Solon, Sylver, Cora, Nym, and Katie all passed.
As the last fourth-year was hauled, coughing and exhausted, out of the pit, Dad stepped forward again, voice carrying over the courtyard.
“Year-four, if you are standing here, you have completed your final trial. Sabine, the agent coordinator on the Supernatural Council, has already placed you in your squads with your position. You are no longer merely students. You are agents.”
“Rest,” he told us. “Tonight, you celebrate. Tomorrow, you will face your last House Gauntlet. After that, you will be part of the raid against the human facility.”
My heart surged.
The humans had been bold enough to attack our formal and incapacitate our students. They slaughtered villages, stole children and adults, and weaponized my venom.
It was almost time for us to walk into their facility and end it all for good.
I looked over at my mates and felt the raw feeling of love, excitement, and retribution through the bonds.
A slow smile curled my lips.
As always, the victory didn’t last long before more breaking news struck the News Sector.
“Fate Hollow is being attacked by humans,” Mom called out, urgency in her tone. “The majority of our agents will be going to lend support. Jesper, gather your squad, all new graduates and the new fourth-years, and begin the raid on the human facility.”
“Consider the House Gauntlet cancelled once again,” Dad muttered under his breath.
A ripple of emotions flooded through me, but one stood out the most.
Anger.