Chapter Fifty-Three
FIFTY-THREE
My head spins from the force of Xavier’s blow. But it’s nothing compared to the confusion and feeling of betrayal that makes my chest ache. He hit me – Xavier hit me. My friend. Xavier is my friend but he …
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Tilly hisses, reaching down to help me up but as she does, he lunges for her and slams her head into the wall.
All I hear is a sickening crunch before Tilly’s body slumps to the ground beside mine.
Her curly hair covers her face from view, though when my eyes flick up to the wall there’s a definitive red patch that makes my stomach drop.
The cry that erupts from me is laced with a deep sort of pain. One that my body knows well.
‘Guess there’s no need to be quiet any longer. He’ll be down here soon anyway.’ Xavier’s face contorts in a sneer, making him look almost unrecognisable.
I leap to my feet, blinking through the thudding ache at my temple.
I’ve taken hits before; I’ve been taking them for weeks on end in combat training.
I can handle a punch to the face. It’s the shock of his disloyalty that has my body shaking now, and the fact that Tilly hasn’t moved or made a noise.
‘What have you done?!’ I shout standing in front of Tilly’s limp body.
‘I did what I had to.’
‘What – are you insane? And who is coming?’ I ask, frantically looking between him and Tilly, not knowing whether I should run to her or stay standing here, in between her body and him. Please be okay. Please, please, please.
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ He doesn’t sound like himself. His voice is detached. Cold.
What is happening right now?
‘Who, Xavier?’ I cry and shove at his shoulders, pushing him back with force.
I need more from him. A reaction, just something.
I shove again and his eyes flare back at me.
He grabs my wrists, one in each hand and lowers his head to bring his nose down to mine.
This time I can’t stop the burning tears that trickle down my cheeks.
Because the eyes staring into mine are not ones I recognise. In fact, there’s something strange about them – in particular the black ring around the outer edge that I’ve never noticed before. The person whose fingers are digging into my skin is unfamiliar to me. This is not my friend.
‘He’s going to help me,’ Xavier says in a deathly quiet voice with a lick of desperation. ‘He’s going to make them stop. He promised!’
‘Who?’ I beg, a sob working up my throat. ‘Who promised?’ My voice trembles.
‘He saw my potential. He said he’ll take them away. I won’t get hurt ever again if I tell him everything. If I keep you down here until he gets back.’
‘Xavier …’ I gasp, blinking through my tears. ‘Y-you betrayed us.’
‘No!’ He exhales harshly. ‘I saved myself.’
‘You have to let us go. Please, Xavier,’ I plead, hoping I can get through to him.
Something is wrong. This isn’t him. I might not have known Xavier long, but I know what he looks like when he smiles.
I know the deep sound of his laugh and the way he holds his stomach when it’s real.
I understand his struggles with magic because they’re so similar to mine, and the way he needs a pencil in his hand, or he starts to fidget. ‘This isn’t you. We’re your friends!’
His cold eyes blink once. ‘I have no friends.’ A tendril of air shoves me back as he releases my wrists, sending me careening toward the wall, but I hold my hands out and catch myself before I make contact.
‘Did he tell you that?’ I ask, pulling a deep breath into my lungs as I stand up straight and face him. ‘Because if he did, then he’s a liar. Can you really trust a liar, Xavier? Because we are your friends. We care about you. We’d do anything for you.’
‘Stop! Just fucking stop!’ He crowds me into the wall.
‘He’s going to come down here and he’s going to punish you both, and then he’s going to give me what he promised, and I’ll be free.
’ His fist slams against the stone beside my head, making me jump.
The sleeve of the robe he’s wearing has slid down his forearm, exposing the raw bumpy surface of his skin where he was burnt as a child: over and over.
I feel his eyes follow my line of sight to his exposed flesh. The pain that bleeds into his expression will haunt me for the rest of my life. It all starts to make sense.
He’ll make them stop. I won’t get hurt again.
Stars … He’s still afraid of them, of his family.
‘They’re not here.’ My words come out slowly, consoling, as if speaking with a small child. ‘Your family can’t hurt you here, Xavier.’
He rips his gaze from his scars to my face. ‘They hurt me every day, Arianell. In here.’ He taps at his temples. ‘I’ll never escape them unless I’m stronger than them. Unless I can kill them myself. Only then will I be free. Only then can I finally fucking rest.’
His hair starts to stand from all angles as a breeze kicks up once more, playing with the ends of mine. Lifting singular white strands and whipping them around my face and neck.
I see Tilly’s foot move in my periphery, and I swear my chest caves in with the relieved breath I exhale.
I need to buy her time to get up, to dig for the strength to run out of here.
But Xavier must have seen it too because his face twists into a snarl.
I watch in horror as he lets go of me to get to her, but this time I stop him.
My fist flies up and collides with his cheekbone. When he bends, bowing from the force, I use his change in height to ram my elbow into his nose, sending a crimson spray of blood onto the stone floor and down his mouth and chin.
He falters a few steps back, hands clutching at his face. Tilly groans. I see her push herself up into a sitting position.
‘Tilly, you need to get out of here!’ I warn quickly. ‘Get out and find Nicks. Tell him everything. Hurry!’
‘Hell … no.’ She groans, clasping her head with a hand. When she pulls it back, her palm is painted red. ‘You backstabbing motherfucker,’ she spits, glaring daggers at Xavier.
A thin shard of ice soars past me all of a sudden, and spears itself right into his thigh, eliciting a scream from his lungs and knocking him back a few steps.
I whirl, finding Tilly getting to her feet, another six-inch shard of ice already forming inside the fist of her hand.
Her hazel eyes are locked on him, fury and hurt swirling within.
Something moves behind her, stealing my attention.
My mouth goes dry as two bent -over figures with pale bony bare feet turn the corner.
Their sunken eyes chill me to the core when in unison they raise their bony arms and point at us.
My fingers itch for the dagger beneath my robe, but I don’t get the chance.
A torrent of wind barrels toward me. It’s not that I necessarily see it coming, it’s more that I feel it.
And what I feel is something akin to the magnitude of Xavier’s magic when he tore the branch off a tree.
My eyes flare wide; I kick into action and grab Tilly by the waist, tackling her to the floor and out of the way of the force of their magic. Whoever they are, whatever they are.
The gust of air careens over our heads past Xavier and slams into the back wall, strong enough to incite rubble from the gaps between the stones.
It clatters to the floor in tiny plumes of dust. The strength of that blast was not meant to frighten two students for being in the wrong place.
That was sent to maim, to punish … to kill.
I yank my robe up my leg and unsheathe my dagger.
Just feeling the weight of it in my palm brings my thoughts to Sebastian.
Stars, this is what he warned me about. This is why he was so hell-bent on keeping me away from the academy.
From the darkness that lies beneath it. Does he know what’s been happening all these years?
‘Nice trick you had with the ice shards, Till. Any chance you’ve got more up your sleeve?’ I breathe, looking between Xavier and the two crones advancing on us. The former is limping; his hands balled into fists.
‘Thanks. Been practising,’ she admits through heavy breaths. ‘I’ll take on these creepy bitches. You have no element, but you can fight better than I can. So, you take Xavier. Try and incapacitate him if you can.’
There’s no time to answer. Together we spring into action. My wrist twists, brandishing my dagger at Xavier and hoping to spook him or cause him to fall back. He doesn’t.
‘Don’t do this,’ I warn him. Xavier hasn’t taken a single combat class since he’s been here. Agate students don’t need them. They’re never on the battlefield, always behind the curtain, within the tents, leaning over maps and war plans. Always the strategist, never the fighter.
Has he carved a wound into my heart with his betrayal?
Yes. Am I furious at him for hurting Tilly?
Of course. But I can also see the pain he harbours inside himself.
I hear the hidden meanings behind his words.
He’s afraid and fear can change a person.
So can the prospect of never having to feel that fear again.
Someone who has felt torture will go to drastic lengths to never go back to that place again.
To the dark memories they try to bury deep down inside but ultimately can’t.
Because it lives inside of them, especially when you have physical reminders of them every day. Just like Xavier’s scars.
Xavier hates what happened to him and the monsters that hurt him. That’s what’s fuelling him. That and the whispered promises of his so-called saviour. But I don’t have time to convince him that whatever he was promised is a lie.
I pivot on my heel when he lunges at me, twisting my body to elbow him in the middle of his back. ‘Xavier, I don’t want to—’
‘Shut. Up!’ he shouts, whirling around to swing widely at me, but I leap back and duck down. I flip my dagger in my hand mid-air, so the flat end of the pommel is facing the ceiling, and when I rise, I use the flat end to whack it forcefully into his chin.
His eyes glaze over from the impact, which lands so close to the soft spot on his jaw that probably would have knocked him out.
Blood stains his teeth, and he uses the sleeve of his robe to wipe it as it spills over his lips onto his chin.
I hear Tilly hiss and whip my head around to see her aim another ice shard at one of the crones.
The other is on the floor, her eyes open and unseeing, blood pouring from her nose into a small dark puddle that her cheek is resting in.
A shard protrudes from her forehead, still frozen, but it too is starting to create a puddle, staining the concrete a darker shade.
Fuck.
The second crone snarls at Tilly, exposing crooked teeth, and with a flick of her hand Tilly is lifted from the air and shoved up against the wall, feet hovering several inches off the ground.
The fingers of her right hand bend at an unnatural angle when both of her arms are pinned by her head by the crone’s magic.
The air around her is holding her in place, and I watch in horror as, with a series of sickening snaps, five of Tilly’s fingers break into disfigured digits.
She screams so loud, it bounces off the walls. Even Xavier stills, and there’s a flicker of what looks like recognition in his eyes … of regret. I swear I see that black ring dissipate, just for a blink, before it’s back and his face contorts with rage.
My dagger is raised beside my head in an instant.
I don’t think, I just act. My arm extends, my wrist flicks and the dagger Sebastian gave me soars through the air with precision and speed.
It lodges into the crone’s skull with a sickening thud, stabbing through flesh and bone and killing her instantly.
Tilly drops to the ground, clutching her broken fingers with her other hand and cradling them to her chest.
I run to her, willing to risk Xavier at my back to make sure she’s all right.
‘They always say if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,’ a deep voice berates, followed by the clipped sound of polished soles hitting stone.
My stomach drops as Bartollo Zain emerges from the shadows behind Xavier.