Chapter 27 #2
She gripped her quill and drew the incra—another from the abstract class; it could be used for many things, like increased fertility, health, and growth.
When she completed the last curve on the last line, she held her breath, eyes flitting between the text and her own parchment. Yes, it was identical.
This should work.
She waited.
Audra was just about to huff a breath of air in frustration as the vine lay limp, unchanged, when the leaves began to shiver and grow—no buds sprouted, but the leaves were growing in size, the vine thickening … This was something—
no no no
Audra brushed a thumb across the incra, trying to smear the glyph, even as she knew it would be impossible, that’s not how spells worked …
She watched, helpless, as the deep green of the leaves began to wither, the shine dulling, the pointed tips curling in on themselves—brown spots began to bloom, then turned to black, as though a blight had been introduced to them—at an accelerated rate, the circles of rot spreading across the leaves like fungal spores, until the affliction encompassed every leaf, and eventually spread to the stem.
Somehow, this incra that should only help, grow, or—if cast wrong, not do anything at all—had done the opposite again. She’d murdered the fucking ivy. Audra gripped the disgusting thing and lobbed it into the rubbish bin before flinging herself back, her head hitting the pillow.
She was useless at this. And they would be expected to cast more incras tomorrow, and every Lantern and Vault Day after, the incras only increasing in difficulty.
Both beginner spells she’d tried so far had done the opposite of what she’d intended. That was a sure fucking way to fail a class.
She pressed her palms to her eyes. If she struggled this much with beginning incras …
then there was no other choice. She refused to think about what it meant to be the only one struggling this much, the only one whose magic didn’t manifest properly.
Instead, she would find a way to cheat, to fake her skill.
Audra dreamed of the obsidian temple again.
The throne, crafted from twisted bone and shadow, no longer held an amorphous darkness.
A figure sat there, unlike anything she’d ever encountered, a being that radiated an ancient, unsettling power.
In her previous dream, the temple had been populated by ghosts, demons, and skeletons, yet the shadowed god remained oblivious to her presence, or so it seemed.
But this … this presence was different. It was as if the darkness itself had coalesced into flesh and blood.
Though Audra suspected, flesh and blood were inadequate terms for what he was.
The creature sitting on the throne was unlike anything Audra had ever seen.
She wasn’t sure if this … creature, somewhere between a man and a god, had replaced the shadowed death goddess or if it was Xoese wearing a face of flesh … He wasn’t posed like a god on his throne.
She didn’t think a deity would have such lazy posture.
His posture was languid, almost casual, as if he were sitting in a comfortable armchair rather than a monument to death.
He wore charcoal gray woolen trousers, long legs stretched out before him, hands thrust into deep pockets.
His skin was the color of deepest night, an obsidian hue flecked with shimmering points of light, like distant stars trapped within his flesh.
Two twisted black horns, reminiscent of the sacred antelopes of the Gobehel Plains, rose from his forehead.
Long, dark lashes rested against high, sculpted cheekbones.
His brow was furrowed, his gaze far away, engaged in what Audra could only imagine to be complex, sinister contemplation.
His eyes themselves, though, were what truly shook Audra.
They were ancient lakes with an unfathomable depth.
The eyes of a predator.
Audra uttered a soft, involuntary gasp, a mere exhale of breath. It was insignificant, a whisper in the vast emptiness of the dream, yet it was enough.
The creature’s head lifted, and his gaze locked onto hers.
The transformation was subtle yet profound.
His lips curved into a slow, awful smile, twin fangs—long and tapered, like sharpened daggers—revealed themselves.
They were too long, too sharp, to belong to any mortal man.
This was a creature born of nightmares, sculpted from darkness by Xoese, the goddess of death, herself.
And then, he spoke, cunning eyes never straying from her own, and she knew that she should’ve suppressed the gasp, should’ve stayed hidden, should’ve done all she could to conceal herself from this creature swathed in darkness.
“You’re late,” he said, his voice a low, resonant rumble that vibrated through her very bones.
Audra’s mind raced. This was a dream. Her dream. One couldn’t be late for their own dream.
“Late for what?” she managed to ask.
That languid smile twitched upward. “Not what. Who.”
“Who?”
The smile turned into a grin, white teeth flashing, fangs exposed. “Me.”
Audra’s response died in her throat as she awoke with a gasp.
Audra sat up, taking in the room barely lit by a lavender dawn. She squeezed her bare thigh, ensuring she was awake … that this was real. Her and Wilder’s timepieces rang in their fourth day of classes, the schedule restarted with Lantern Day.
“You’re late,” came a voice at the door.
“What?” said Audra, heart in her throat as she turned to look, terrified she would see that figure standing there—
“You’ll be late,” said Wilder, giving her a strange look. “Lazy bones, if you don’t get out of bed right now, you’ll be late.”
“Oh, right.” Audra unwrapped her braids, letting the scarf fall onto the quilt. She heaved herself out of bed and fastened the buttons on the plaid skirt, linen shirt, and cable-knit sweater, all the while wondering …
As she sat in the dining hall surrounded by her friends …
She wondered, as she strode across campus toward the sparring fields …
How was she supposed to focus, to succeed, when those eyes, those fangs, that voice seeped into her thoughts, no matter where, no matter when.
They lingered in her vision each time she closed her eyes. She heard his voice in the wind outside the window, in the shuffling of Wilder making her bed, in the voices of initiates as they debated the efficacy of various incras.
You’re late.