Chapter 44
Empty teacups, flagons of spirits, and candles burned down to nubs littered the long table in the corner of the music room.
Audra sat on the worn rug, her back pressed against the unforgiving brick of the far wall, Callum’s head heavy in her lap. Absently, without any conscious effort, her fingers threaded through the tresses of his copper-colored hair in a mindless rhythm.
Jenella, Cersha’s roommate and closest friend in Echinacea Guild, had been their sole visitor, quiet tears tracking down her face.
She’d given Callum a choked hug, deposited three bottles of bathtub whiskey on the table, and then she’d slipped back through the door before Audra could even thank her.
What had Jenella bartered to acquire three entire flagons? Maybe she had been the one to brew it.
Cersha’s friend, as though sent by his sister herself, had saved Callum.
He’d tipped all three bottles back, one after the other, swallowing in earnest, dropping each on the floor, empty. And still, it took forever for exhaustion to claim him, for his sobs to quiet, his broad shoulders to halt their shaking, replaced by the even rise and fall of his chest.
Dawn painted the narrow windows in shades of bruised lavender and gray.
Wilder sat beside Audra, her head pillowed against Lottie’s leg, where she curled up in the oversized armchair.
Audra was the only soul awake, and that was because she was searching for Cersha’s ghost, hoping that she would appear, shimmering in the dusty light of the unused music room, knowing exactly where to find them.
But wherever she’d been killed, whatever realm they’d transported her to …
her ghost had not returned to Holyvere Academy.
Audra hoped that meant she’d passed on to the deep sleep, that she was at rest.
But Audra would never know.
A cold, sharp fury coiled in Audra’s chest, a lethal rage that danced and curled around her heartbreak.
Her thumb brushed the dampness on Callum’s cheek.
She couldn’t fathom the chasm of his loss, the severing of his bond with his sister.
If it hurt this much to lose Cersha, a friend she’d only known for two months, what unbearable ache was it to lose the sister he’d cared for almost his entire life?
They’d been inseparable since she was born, before he was even a year and a half old—and now he was alone in a foreign realm, imprisoned in an academic jail that bore no kindness.
How was he supposed to find a way to keep on living when it must feel as though his entire world had shattered?
The fae would pay for their callousness. Just because the prophecy had bypassed Cersha, her death proving to the nobles of Zenaida that it was not she, nor any other fallen initiates that were their Heir, they viewed their deaths as expendable. Meaningless.
They would not retrieve her body from wherever she’d been sent. They offered no details of what led to her death. They wouldn’t even permit Callum to have her timepiece.
There would be no funeral for the fallen initiates today, no words spoken by the priestesses over their bodies, no honors or blessings given.
They viewed the initiates’ lives as mere footnotes in their relentless pursuit of the prophesied Heir … Every death brought them closer to finding the true Heir, and with it, Audra.
This place, with its glittering promises and brutal indifference, was a cage built on suffering.
Audra’s fingers stilled in Callum’s hair.
A promise solidified in the rising tide of her anger. Audra would make them face their casual cruelty. She would find a way to avenge every life extinguished in their ruthless games, to punish them for every unnecessary death from Margaryte to Cersha, and all in between.
In the silence between thoughts, she refused to think one … Would Cersha be alive if Audra had admitted the truth? Would Cersha have chosen to go to the Veiled Realm, if Audra had given her the option?
She wouldn’t ever know, and she refused to think of it.