Chapter 37
Arcane Guild, those who could walk, were ordered to the mediscribe—a small building in the front left corner of the grounds. The students who were still unconscious were carried there by a small host of guards. The deserters, well, Audra wasn’t sure what would become of them.
By the time Audra left the mediscribe, she felt better than she had in weeks—physically at least. Her mental health was shredded to pieces, but physically, she felt renewed, rested.
Late that evening, after dinner, she and Wilder slipped into the dining hall to scavenge what they could—a small bit of salted meat and bread left out by the kitchen staff for those initiates who hadn’t made it in time for the dinner service.
Wilder’s eyes were rimmed red. Audra could tell her friend needed to be alone to have a good cry.
“You go on. I have something to look into before I head up.” She pulled Wilder into a hug, squeezing her. “I’m so happy we are okay. As long as we’re together, we will get through this.”
Wilder sniffed, nodding. “I think I just need a hot bath.”
“Go for it.”
They parted ways in front of the dining commons. Wilder turned left to begin her trek up three flights of stairs to the Arcane Guild, Audra right.
She went to the basement, her steps hurried. But when she searched the corridor and called out to the ghost, the Basement Lurker was nowhere to be found.
She’d wanted to ask him if he knew anything about the trials—if there was any information that he could provide to give her and her friends an advantage. With disappointment, she doubled back.
She walked alone in the hallway; this late hour, even the servants had retired.
She began to feel a presence; her flesh prickled, the hairs on the nape of her neck raising.
The hallway stretched a mile before her, the shadows seeming to pulse.
Audra quickened her steps but halted beside a door. She tilted her head, straining her ears, but she did not hear anything that called to her—and yet, her body thrummed, her fingers ached to grip the handle, to turn the knob, to explore.
A sound from the floor above startled her out of a trance—as she had unknowingly clasped the handle—had even begun to turn the knob. Audra released the handle as though the cold metal had burned her.
During morning lectures the empty seats of her fallen guild mates were loud in their silence. This time they only allowed those who fled the sparring grounds, the deserters, to be killed. What if the next battle scenario it was anyone not up to snuff when it came to combat? That was Audra.
Whose chair would be voided next? Wilder’s? Lottie’s? Her own?
On top of these worries, thoughts of what sort of presence could call to her from behind that basement door, put her in a trance like that, plagued her all through breakfast and distracted her further during lectures.
Again and again her mind returned to the door, picking at it like an enflamed hangnail.
There must be a reason that she’d been so affected.
What if it related to her being the Heir?
What if whatever existed behind that door provided answers?
It was time she learned more about what her magic could do.
Only then could she ensure her friends remained alive to fill their seats.
Central Main was a quiet leviathan, with all the students studying in the library, their residence halls, training outside, or mourning friends. Audra decided to discover what was behind that door.
The call felt palpable the moment she stepped into the basement corridor, almost as if she were a magnet being drawn by an invisible string.
The door was nondescript, made of the same wood and with the same brass handle as the other doors lining the corridor, and yet, as she stood in front of it, her hand poised on the handle, it couldn’t have been more different from the others.
Something behind it buzzed, calling to her.
She twisted the handle, half expecting the door to be locked, but it twisted with ease, and the door swung wide.
She’d expected … She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—a storage room, maybe.
But there was no room, only a slim, dark passageway with stairs leading down.
Audra perhaps should have stood on the precipice a moment longer, should have thought twice about venturing into this unknown and surely forbidden section of the academy, but this curiosity, this desire, this need to explore was not a whisper but a pull.
She stepped over the threshold and heaved the torch from a sconce on the wall above the third step, pulled out her trusty quill and scribed the incra for ice. A spark, a whoosh, and flame ignited on the torch, casting light into the swathes of darkness below.
There was a labyrinth of passages beneath Holyvere Academy.
Compared to that of the upper levels of Holyvere, the air in these deep passages of the academy was a different creature entirely: ancient, heavy, a mix of damp earth and forgotten magic.
Audra, driven by this restless energy she couldn’t name, nor justify, ventured farther into the passageway.
The only sounds were her boots slapping on wet stones, the hiss and crackle of the torch, and the intermittent gust of an odd, incongruent wind.
Audra convinced herself this need to open that door was simple curiosity, or perhaps a hunt for hidden lore, but the truth was, she was suffocating.
Audra had spent her entire life surrounded by people, and yet, she’d always carved out time for herself.
Moments of peace, of contemplation, and she had none of that here.
Any moment she stole away for herself was always tainted with the knowledge that her peace would be interrupted, either by an infuriatingly determined demon, pestering spirits, other initiates, or the chime of her timepiece—every moment had a sense of urgency: enjoy this tiny bit of peace because any second it would be disturbed.
And the Zenaidans’ meticulous order, demanding schedule, perpetual administration of her every waking minute, hour—even permitting when she could sleep …
It was a suffocating cage that she was gnawing her teeth on, and this deep, lightless space offered the kind of fucked-up solace only someone utterly broken could enjoy.
She arrived at a crossroads, where the corridor no longer offered a straight-ahead option; she had to make a choice: left or right.
Long shadows danced along the stone walls as she held her torch high.
Both corridors looked exactly the same—nothing of note to tell them apart—and yet.
She cocked her head to the side, listening.
There—to the right … Something vibrated, a low, resonant note that thrummed not just in the stone but in the marrow of her bones.
Her feet longed to take her to it—a sort of call-and-response.
She turned, following the feeling, the sound.
She didn’t have to walk long before the corridor ended in a looming mahogany door with an arched transom. Though weathered and warped with age, she could see, from the remaining bits of chipped paint and plaster, that it had once been ornately decorated with utmost care and attention.
The ornamental handle was cold to the touch, and it took all her strength to release the latch. The door, swollen with moisture, took several tries, a bruised shoulder, and a frustrated shout of “Open up for me, fucker!” before its protesting hinges relented.
The door swung wide, and she stumbled inside, arms flailing. It was all she could do not to drop the torch as she regained her balance, though the flame was a pathetic thing against the gloom, chasing shadows in a frantic, losing dance.
But, there—a brazier!
She kissed the torch to the brazier, watching as a combination of incras glowed along the rim of the brass basin. A moment later, she gasped, stumbled backward into the wall, as a dozen other braziers illuminated the space all at once.
She placed the torch into a sconce and looked around in awe.
Cavernous ceilings, decorative columns, arches, statues, and skulls—so many skulls, piled high on every wall.
Sarcophagi, as far as she could see; most were simple, unadorned stone, but some were etched with scripture, embossed with family crests, or cut with precise stone visages of the soul taking the long sleep within.
That buzzing she’d heard in her mind … It was the bones.
She could feel every single one of them—every skull, tibia, finger bone. She knew immediately which bones had rested here the longest and which were the last to be laid to rest, before that door was shut for good.
And she knew, though didn’t know how, every one of these souls buried here, every last one of them, had met a violent, bloody end.
And yet, as Audra walked among the bones, she did not feel afraid—or no, that wasn’t quite right, she was afraid.
Afraid that she could feel the bones … frightened that she could pinpoint the caved-in section of a skull on the bottom of the nearest tower of them, even if she couldn’t see the skull.
Knew which bones in that sarcophagus would hold the jagged lines of scars, and indentations where weapons had nicked bone during the blow that took this life.
Afraid of that, yes, but not afraid of the bones, the bodies, the dead themselves.
The closer she came to a pile of bones, the stronger the knowledge became; it was as though it were something she’d always been able to do—like when her mother baked her favorite bread, Audra only had to look at it to know it would taste of rosemary and garlic, that inside it would be soft, the outer crust flaky.
Or when she picked up a book that she’d already read—she knew the characters’ names, the story itself.
It felt like that, only Audra had never read this book, and yet, she knew its story.
She huffed a laugh.
This was madness, this was … was this the power of the Heir?
Or was it just her power?
And how far did it go?