Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
athena
The crowd stared up at me like I wasn’t real. Like I wasn’t one of them.
I’d never seen most of the cadets here tonight. Most were ones and twos from the other bunkhouses.
But even the threes who knew me stared at me with a new twinkle in their eye—like I truly was about to put on a show for them.
I stepped closer, and when the putrid odor wafted off the three men—a mixture of their own filth and fear—I swallowed my disgust. I clamped my mouth shut and forced a smile to my face.
What happened next was a mystery, but I’d survived weeks in those wretched dungeons.
I’d survived a fight at Director’s mansion.
I’d even survived a fake claiming and gotten away with it.
I could survive the next few minutes.
This high off the sea’s surface, the wind whipped my hair around, loosening its updo.
Every few seconds, we were hit with a spray of mist, and the three naked men would shiver more violently.
I looked away, but during my few seconds of distraction, Director joined me on the stage.
“Go ahead, child,” she coaxed with a cruel smile. “Show them what you were born to do.”
I froze, my fake smile fading. Was I dense? Was I the only one who didn’t understand what she was asking of me? “What?”
“Kill them,” she ordered, one brow arching. “They made it their life’s mission to destroy us. To tear down what we’ve built. It’s only right that they die by the hands of the power they attempted to eradicate.”
As if we were on a fucking game show, the crowd roared to life once more. Had they all gotten so drunk that they didn’t realize how absurd this was? She wanted me to…to…
Sinner barreled through the crowd.
Shit. My stomach lurched.
He was going to kill them. Yep. I’d seen that look on his face before.
Eyebrows furrowed. Fists clenched.
Pupils so black I could have sworn his phantoms swarmed behind them.
“She’s not killing anyone,” he ordered. “No fucking way.”
The cadets around us fell silent.
One of the men whimpered.
Director stepped closer to Sinner.
Trepidation swamped me.
She still wore that same wicked smile, but her energy had changed. Like she could snap at any second.
Holding his stare, she said, “In a moment, the shields will drop the force they’re holding on our esteemed four. She’ll have the freedom to wield her power on those three men—and only those three men.” She stepped closer to him.
Panic crept up my throat and my knees wobbled.
“I will count to three. If your claimed plays shy, if she doesn’t bring these three traitors to their deaths, I assure you, they will suffer in much, much worse ways. Ways that could take days.”
Her voice was hushed now—enough so that only Sinner and a few cadets close by heard what she’d said.
I shuttered.
“One,” she counted.
“Two.”
Time froze and I broke into a cold sweat. I couldn’t do this. Could I? Did I really have a choice? I didn’t see a way out of this—I couldn’t—
“Three.”
The shields dropped their hold on me. My power rushed back, mixing with the adrenaline already flooding me.
I had an instant to decide.
Kill them? They were at the hands of the Ministry. They were already dead. I could make their deaths swift and less painful.
Or—could I use my power elsewhere? Could I send it outward to—
No. Even at the thought, my mind hit a wall.
As if the shields were controlling the space where I could direct my power, ensuring I didn’t use my magic on anyone but these three men. They were smarter than I’d given them credit for.
Time was running out.
I surveyed the men before me. Maybe they were murderers. Maybe they’d kidnapped children. Maybe they’d attacked women. Maybe they were the worst of the worst, though it was hard to believe they could be as terrible as Director.
Yes. I’d do these men a favor by giving them a swift death, wouldn’t I?
I looked up at Sinner. One split second. One last decision.
He mouthed one word, his expression dripped with a desperation that broke my heart.
Sorry.
I looked away and imagined the three men at their worst. Imagined them murdering and slaughtering innocents—imagined them doing literally anything other than shuddering in fear, blindfolded before me.
Liquid seeped along the boards beneath my feet, approaching my black dress.
Piss from the man on the right.
I lifted the hem, my hands no longer shaking.
And I let my magic tether out—let it kill them swiftly. Painlessly.
Die. Die. Die. Death awaits you—go now.
One body hit the ground.
I kept breathing.
The second fell shortly after.
The third took just as little effort.
All three bodies slumped on the floor.
My heart beat. Beat. Beat.
I looked up again—but not at Sinner.
I scanned the crowd around us.
Not a single cadet moved. Not a single one spoke. The cheering had ceased.
Some gasped in horror.
Some stared like they wanted to run up and kiss me.
Director’s smile widened. A real smile this time.
It made my stomach churn. Inhaling deeply. I gathered up my power and imagined Director dying like those three men—imagined her falling onto the naked bodies, joining them in their demise of piss and fear and death.
But the shields shut me down before I could send that tether out again. The weight came back, crushing every instinct. Dulling every ounce of power.
“There she is.” Director approached the stage now that the shields were working again.
Coward.
She wouldn’t last one second in a room with me and she knew it.
Not now.
Not with Sinner by my side, wielding my gift.
She clapped.
And the crowd joined in, stuttering back to life and breaking into revolting applause.
I didn’t want to look at what I’d done.
I’d used my power when I fought at Director’s mansion—to save Margaret. To get out of there alive.
But Sinner had been wielding my power then, too. We were a team.
Using my power like this? In such an irreversible way?
I hadn’t done that since…since…
My dead family members flashed in my mind.
Mother. Father. Kylar. Jasmine.
I forced myself to look.
The bodies were piled together in the middle of the wooden stage, unmoving in the puddle of urine. How noble, to die as entertainment during the Ministry’s Bellum Partium.
As I kept my focus on them, ensuring that I would remember the details of this moment, I caught a glimpse of a black symbol on one of the twisted limbs—a symbol I’d seen before.
I stepped closer to get a better look.
The crowd still roared around me with no signs of quieting down.
But my mind went silent.
It couldn’t be…
The triangular rune with one line crossed over another. And it was on the calf of the tall, slender man.
Still holding the hem of my black dress, I used the toe of my shoe to roll the body over so I could see his face.
The blindfold slipped off in the process.
And my heart cracked in two.
He was not a random earthly who’d been attacking mystics. In fact, he wasn’t an earthly at all.
The man in front of me—the dead man now festering in death—was Leon.