Chapter 30
The air outside hurt Audra’s cheeks, chapped her lips almost instantly, yet her eyes watered less from the harsh slap of wind than from lingering frustration, shame, and horror.
She drew her coat tighter and eased the strap of her satchel higher on her shoulder, so it didn’t bite into bone.
A quick glance back and she saw Arcane Guild streaming out of the botany building, Wilder in front, her quick strides eating up the distance on the cobblestoned footpath.
Her friend raised a hand, signaling her to wait.
Audra turned forward, pretending not to see, and stepped off the path, hurrying into the closest building. She slipped through a side door into a vast room and pulled the door closed behind her, before latching it. She pressed a hand to her forehead, the room spinning.
What was that?
That shouldn’t be possible, what she’d done. It had been dark, wrong, so so wrong. And she’d used no charcoal or blood or even a finger to trace an incra in the air—How had she …
She’d known it all her life, hadn’t she?
How she’d never been content at home in Salt Hollow—despite two loving parents, a happy home, she’d always wanted to run run run.
Always, her selfish desires had clung to the corners of any happiness, leaching it before she could ever truly bask in it.
She was rotten inside, and now, it was leaking out of her.
She didn’t want to think about how or why she’d been the one to conjure something so nefarious …
she didn’t want to think about the fact that she’d almost killed someone …
Sure, she’d jested about it many times in her life, even fancied killing her most despicable patrons from time to time, but she’d never actually worried that she would act on it before—this was just confirmation that there truly was something devastatingly wrong about her.
She shied away from the knowledge, refusing to address it, even now that it was literally clambering to get out of her.
She wouldn’t think of it.
If she didn’t think it, it wouldn’t be true.
She stepped away from the door, surveying the massive room.
Where was she?
The ceiling, which might originally have been the color of milky coffee, was black in most places, so coated in soot.
And most everything else in the room was covered with coal dust. She took a step farther inside, into the intense lingering scents of sweat, burning coal, sweet, metallic metals, and a multitude of waxes—the mixture of such strong scents unfamiliar and instantly overwhelming.
She gazed around at the vents on the ceilings, the flumes, and the three, four …
seven forges, all lined in a row on the far wall.
Tools and weapons in various stages of completion were neatly poised on racks hanging from soot-covered chains secured to massive hooks drilled into the ceiling.
On the wall by the main door were rows and rows of protective eyewear, leather gloves, and aprons.
The incras that might be scribed into each piece of protective equipment came unbidden to her—and then, their opposites, the glyphs she would have to use to achieve the same end: heightened protection against heat, molten metals, sharp edges.
So, this was where Forge Guild spent most of their time, and yet, the hearths were lit low, the building empty today.
It must be their Sanctum Day. They would all be at temple right now, kneeling on beautiful pillows as fae priestesses chanted in a foreign language and shouted at them to Repent! Convert!
Audra glanced at her timepiece.
She had at least another hour before Forge initiates would trickle in to light the forges, work on their crafts, and their own version of practicums and portfolios.
She wandered closer to the middlemost forge, running a finger across the gleaming horseshoe-shaped counter, one of seven that encompassed each forge.
She’d never been inside a smithy before, yet she didn’t need knowledge of them to see that each hearth was impressive, each workstation expansive—and for Holyvere Academy to have seven of them.
Or maybe more. This could be just one room of many.
“I’ve been waiting for you to be alone.” A deep, rumbling, disembodied voice shattered her musings.
Audra whirled, her heart fluttering in her throat. In the corridor, a lone figure stood tall and imposing, silhouette visible only in broad shoulders, a tapered waist, and long legs. Behind, casting the figure in shadow, bright, wavering streams of light, whirls of violet and blue.
She took a step backward, unaware she’d even done it. “Wh … wha …” she barely managed to stammer, her jaw working though no other words managed to form.
She wasn’t terribly far from the door she’d just entered through.
A few steps back and she would bump into the glass.
She could slip outside and, if she ran, probably catch up with Wilder, who by now was used to Audra’s moods, clingy and jumpy one day, needing solace the next, would’ve taken the hint that she might need a moment alone, and headed directly back to Central Main.
“No need to be frightened. Is this the first time you’re seeing a Veilway?”
Audra’s mouth went dry.
She’d been afraid that was what the shimmering light was.
The portal to the underworld was just as Scholar Haile had described, and yet her description had done it no justice.
The Veilway took up the entire width and height of the corridor and was blindingly bright.
She could not see through the shimmering lights to the other side, and she was glad for that.
She did not want to know what the underworld looked like—what horrors she would witness from just a single glimpse.
The figure stepped forward, just enough until he was no longer cast in silhouette, honed from shadow.
As the lamps encased in iron sconces lining the walls of the forge cast glowing wisps that danced, illuminating each artful curve and angle of the figure’s face, as though he were featured artwork in a gallery—
Audra’s mind spun, arrested, shuddered. Her bones turned to water; her stomach lurched, and her breath faltered as she drank in his form.
Peerless posture—a harmony of elegance, fortitude, and unmitigated serenity.
Polished buckled leather boots, tailored woolen trousers, a matching vest, a long coat with golden buttons, sharply pointed lapels; the coat appeared to drink the light, dyed somehow an unfathomable, impossible black.
A delicately linked golden chain hung from a thick, muscular neck, resting upon a broad chest. Golden rings on each finger matched the earrings cascading down pointed-tipped ears, looped around twin horns protruding through his hair, and the shining septum ring beneath a strong nose.
Lustrous mahogany skin, full lips, and ink-black eyes, shimmering like twin moons reflecting on a midnight sea.
The full lips parted into a languid smile, showing white teeth and diamond-crusted golden adornments clipped to each pointed fang that winked in the torchlight.
Him.
The demon from her nightmares.