Chapter 19 – — Professor Nestor, Architecture of Flesh #3
“You look like hell, girl.” Cael studies me with those vertical pupils. “Something eating at you?”
He fishes a muffin from his side table and hands it to Poppy to munch on, something he’d tucked away for her from breakfast.
I consider lying but decide it’s not worth the effort.
“I asked the headmaster for help with one of my patients. A young vampire with a corrupted wing. The one I told you about when we first met.”
“And?”
“And he said no.”
Cael laughs. A bitter, rasping sound. “Of course he did. Ashmoor doesn’t waste his blood on charity cases. Never has.”
“She’s only fourteen years old and desperately wants to fly again. I feel so bad for her. Her family hasn’t even come to visit her.”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s four or four hundred. That man hasn’t saved anyone he didn’t have a use for in over a century.” He shakes his head. “You want to know something about our beloved headmaster?”
I lean forward. “What?”
Cael starts to pet Poppy but his eyes go distant, seeing something far away. “I saw him once during the last cycle on the battlefield outside Thornwall. You know how many people died at Thornwall?”
I shake my head.
“Twelve thousand in three days.” He clears his throat.
“The fissure there wasn’t like the small ones you hear about, the ones that happen between cycles.
This one was a wound in the world, a tear in the sky itself, stretching across the ground and up into the clouds, bleeding black that smelled of burning flesh.
The cycles are always a little different, but that one... ”
I try to imagine it.
“Twisted creatures by the hundreds came through, swarming so thick they blotted out the sun. But the worst were the ones that came after. Creatures with no real shape. Just darkness and hunger. They didn’t walk.
They poured out and flowed across the battlefield like living shadows.
” He holds up his scarred arm. “And when they touched you, they didn’t just kill you.
They pulled you apart and fed upon you while you were still screaming. ”
My nose scrunches, and my stomach churns at the thought. It sounds more like a nightmare.
“There were others too, things that wore the faces of people you loved, whispering your name before they tore into you.”
“Gods.”
“Gods had nothing to do with it. Whatever lives on the other side of those fissures is older than the gods. And the twisted creatures aren’t mindless, girl. They’re organized.”
“How did anyone survive?”
“Most didn’t. Vanguards, Veilguards, civilians, everyone was dying for those three days. And then he showed up.”
“The headmaster?”
“He walked right through the carnage like it couldn’t touch him. The creatures that were ripping apart our best fighters didn’t even get close. I’ve fought in more battles than you’ve had hot meals, and I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. It’s like they were afraid of him.”
A chill works its way up my spine.
“What did he do?”
“He walked straight to the fissure, paying no attention to anything around him. He pulled out a small blade and cut himself open, blood pouring down his wrists and pooling at his feet.” He lets out a long breath.
“His blood seeped into the fissure, and the creatures started to retreat. The ones closest to the fissure dissolved, and the fissure itself started closing, sealing from the edges inward. The whole thing took only a handful of minutes.”
I hold my breath.
“How… I mean, I can’t even picture it.”
“That’s not the part that haunts me.” Cael looks at me, and there’s something cold in his eyes.
“When it was done, he didn’t collapse. Didn’t even look tired.
He walked away and stepped right over the wounded like they weren’t there.
Men and women screaming for help, reaching for him, and he never even looked down. ”
“He didn’t heal anyone?”
“Not a single one. Had enough power to close a fissure the size of a lake but couldn’t spare a drop for the dying at his feet.” Cael’s lip curls. “That’s your headmaster, girl. That’s the man you asked for help.”
All that ability to save people and he chose to walk away.
Who the fuck do we have looking over the academy training elite healers?
“That’s not the only blood mage I saw that day though.” Cael starts petting Poppy again as she coos in her sleep. “There was a young woman probably not much older than you.”
“Another blood mage?”
“One of the last of them, near as I can figure. She wasn’t like Ashmoor and stayed on the battlefield, tending to the dying soldiers. Must have saved more than two hundred.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I was too far away to see exactly what she did, but I saw her bleed. From her eyes. Her nose. Her ears. Blood running down her face.”
“That’s incredible.”
“When she was done, she collapsed dead, having given everything she had. Every drop. Two hundred soldiers lived because she decided they were worth dying for.”
I think about what it would mean to have that kind of power. That kind of choice.
“If blood mages were heroes like that, why were they hunted?”
Cael sighs, “Because people fear what they can’t control.
A blood mage doesn’t need external current and can’t be cut off from their power.
They can sense your blood, feel your heartbeat, some say even control you through your own veins.
That kind of power makes people nervous.
Easier to call them monsters and put them down than figure out how to live alongside them. ”
“But the headmaster survived.”
“The headmaster is smart and connected. He made himself too valuable to kill.” Cael’s lips twist. “Also too dangerous. Anyone who tried to hunt him ended up dead. Eventually people stopped trying. With time, most have forgotten.”
I imagine the headmaster, young and terrifying, walking through battlefields, sealing fissures with his blood, letting people die because they weren’t useful to him.
“The cycle is overdue, you know. Should have come again by now. It’s been over a hundred years. The fissures are becoming more frequent. More of them have been opening and closing all the time. The creatures coming through are stronger than they used to be. I’ve heard about the new crawlers too.”
“You think it’s really coming?”
“I think it’s already starting.” His dark eyes hold mine. “And I think a lot of people are going to die when it does, people who don’t have someone willing to bleed for them.”
Poppy shifts in her sleep.
“What about you, girl?” Cael asks. “Your parents must be proud. Daughter at Ashwell, training to be a Veilguard.”
The question catches me off guard. I look down at my hands.
“I don’t know how my mother feels because I haven’t spoken to her. And my father...” I swallow. “He died about a year ago.”
“Ah.” The sound is heavy with understanding. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a healer though, the best I’ve ever known.” My throat tightens, but I push through it. “He’d probably be disappointed in me right now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I can’t…” I stop and try again. “Since he died, I can’t... I freeze up when I have to cut. When someone’s bleeding out and I need to act, I...”
I shake my head, unable to finish.
“Your father,” he says slowly, “how did he die?”
My chest constricts. I can’t go there. I can’t see it. I can’t—
“He. No, I—”
My bracelet flares to life, distracting me.
I look down, and it’s not a soft glow. It’s a strong vibration.
There’s an emergency, and it’s Nella.