Chapter 47 Wren
WREN
The monster that Wren Loughty had become entered Headmaster Silas’s office. With each step forward, the old wood beneath her feet blackened and decayed, leaving a river of rot in her wake. But Silas didn’t stir. He remained glued behind his desk, watching.
Nestled in his hand was a box.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” His voice carried in the silence.
He set the box down on the desk and the darkness inside Wren purred.
But before she could reach out and claim it, Silas snatched it back.
He stood up, slowly, his eyes never once leaving Wren.
There was something blazing in his dark brown eyes.
A faint, almost nonexistent part of Wren recognized it.
Understood it. But this thing she had become—this parasitic monster—paid it no mind.
“Hand it over.”
When Wren spoke, it was her voice and the Soulless One’s twined together.
A distorted rasp that shook the walls of the office with an unseen force.
Silas stared at her, examining her with that look—that foul, pathetic look.
What was it that was lurking behind his eyes? She knew the word, deep down. And yet…
Silas made his way around the desk. The words he spoke next burned her from the inside out.
“What has he done to you?”
Wren cocked her head. When she laughed, the windows rattled.
“The Soulless One didn’t do anything. It was you who made me this way. Your corruption. Your betrayal.”
“Has he sowed his soul so deep into yours that you can no longer see reason?”
“How dare you?” Wren spat out. Her shadows billowed out of her, twisting in the air from all directions.
“No…” Silas muttered, shaking his head. If he was at all concerned by the display of power in front of him, he gave no indication.
“You’re right. I am no saint, Wren Loughty.
I am far from it. I am a sick man drowning in power.
I take, and take, and take—and yet…it’s not enough.
It will never be enough.” His voice cracked and he inched closer.
“Tell me. If you destroy Blackwood…what will grow in its place? More destruction? More chaos?”
“Something pure,” Wren replied without hesitation. “Something cleansed of your corruption.”
Silas tilted his head.
“You don’t truly believe that…do you, Wren?”
The Soulless One’s voice bellowed inside her.
brING IT TO ME.
“Wren.” Headmaster Silas extended a pleading hand. “Look at me.”
But Wren couldn’t tear her eyes away from his other hand. From the box clutched in his palm. It called to her. It belonged to her. It belonged to them. Silas must have sensed that she was beyond reason. That no amount of pleading and placating would change what Wren had set out to do.
“I saw potential in you…was that so wrong?”
At this, Wren’s eyes snapped up to his face. Her response was a distorted snarl.
“You took my life from me.”
“And I gave you this.” Silas gestured to the room around him. To the shadows billowing out of Wren. “Magic. Power. A purpose.” He stepped closer. Close enough that Wren could snatch the box right out of his hands if she could find an opportunity.
“Greatness is born from sacrifice,” Silas whispered reverently.
“Do you truly regret it? Do you truly wish it would all go away?” Wren pondered his question.
A part of her faltered, but she silenced it, pushing it down further.
“I know how the magic makes you feel. How it calls to you.” Silas splayed his free hand upon his chest. “I gave you that, Wren. I gave you that freedom.”
Silas was right. Wren had never felt more complete, more wholly herself, than when she first tasted magic.
When that first inkling of power had coursed through her veins upon awaking outside the gates of Blackwood Academy.
But Silas was also wrong. Because though Wren knew that the magic she’d been handed at Blackwood had given her a sense of purpose—she also knew that she would have thrown it all away if it had meant getting her sister back.
“You take, you take, you take…” Wren whispered, head cocked, “…and now it’s my turn.”
Her shadows sprang into action. But Silas moved quickly, countering her attack with his own blazing shield of light. They crashed together in a fiery explosion of magic—shadow and light thrusted together, a balancing act on the precipice of destruction.
The Headmaster of Blackwood Academy was strong…but the catalyst of destruction was stronger.
Wren pushed forward. Her shadows pressed against Silas’s shield and a crack splintered down its side.
And another. And another. With each step forward, his defenses weakened, his power hers for the taking.
Her eyes landed on the box and a feral hunger tore through her soul as she pictured the ring nestled inside.
With one arm extended, shadows bursting out of her and keeping Silas at bay, Wren snaked another set of shadows to the right, curling around the box and tossing it in her direction.
She caught it with her free hand.
When Silas noticed, a scream tore through him. Eyes widening in terror.
“Don’t!”
As soon as the box made contact with Wren’s hand…she felt it. A connection. A calling. The box knew her soul…recognized it. She unclasped the lock, opening it slowly, and dropped the ring into her open palm.
“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Silas roared through gritted teeth, desperately pushing against the wave of shadows holding him back.
Wren chuckled. She closed her fist around the ring.
“I think I do.”
FINISH HIM.
And she would…with pleasure.
But before Wren could shove the shadows through the core of Silas’s soul, tearing through his shield once and for all, a voice broke through the chaos, rising above the roaring wind.
A voice she would recognize anywhere.
“WREN!”
August had come barreling into the office, screaming her name, the door thrown open by an explosive blast. And he wasn’t alone. Four other students emerged seconds later. Four students she knew well.
Olivier. Emilio. Irene. Masika.
All of them…here.
But they couldn’t be. They shouldn’t be.
Something rose inside Wren. A desperate, screaming voice clawing at the back of her skull.
LET ME OUT! it seemed to scream. But it wasn’t the Soulless One.
It was…who was it? The voice was familiar.
She swore she knew it. The words were muffled, drowned out by the shadows swirling inside her, but still, she heard the broken call, the desperation in the words as they echoed helplessly inside her.
Please. Stop this.
And then it dawned on her. This voice. This desperate plea.
It was her voice.
“Get out,” Wren snarled. She wasn’t even sure who she was talking to anymore—whether her words had been addressed to the intruders standing before her, or whether she’d actually meant them for that voice, for that stubborn part of herself that was still clinging to her mind, begging to get out.
“Your actions will only end in more suffering.”
“Jesus…” Irene’s face fell. She stared at Wren as if seeing her for the first time. “You really have lost it.”
“Wren.” Emilio spoke her name slowly, tentatively, hands raised in appeasement. “We’re here to help you.”
The Soulless One’s voice roared inside her.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM.
Wren tore her gaze away from the group with a growl, zeroing in on Silas once again.
“Do you even know what he did?!” Her voice cracked, a dissonant roar threaded through her words. “He played God with our souls! He’s a murderer!”
Finally, Silas’s composure fell away. His own face contorted in rage. In fury.
“I gave you all what you wanted! Deep down! You all wanted this!”
Something in Wren snapped. A force lurching inside her. That voice. It clawed its way to the surface—the faintest fraction of a second—but still, when Wren spoke next, it was her voice that came through. Not the Soulless One.
Just her.
“YOU KILLED MY SISTER!”
As the words left her lips, the entire room sprang to life, a swirling vortex of wind bursting into the air.
Papers scattered. Books toppled to the floor.
Windows burst open, glass shattering. The portrait of Silas that hung behind his desk collapsed to the floor with a deep and resounding thud.
Grief rose inside Wren like a phoenix, and when she turned back to look at the others in the doorway, she saw the terror etched upon their faces… the horror.
Good.
Fear me.
“He killed all of you,” she spat out. “You weren’t chosen for Blackwood. He forced you into Blackwood. Your death was orchestrated by his hands, and then he stripped you of the choice you were always meant to have. He deserves to be punished. He deserves to feel our retribution!”
“You’re right,” Olivier whispered, voice cracking. “If what you’re saying is true, then he does deserve to be punished. But not at the expense of the afterlife. Not by destroying hundreds of innocent students.”
“How can you, of all people, believe that?” Wren seethed.
When Olivier furrowed his brows in confusion, Wren stepped forward.
“I sense your time is dwindling, Olivier. Mere hours before you’re torn from this plane of existence and thrust into the Ether for the rest of your pathetic eternity.
And it’s because of him. He did that to you. ”
“I know.” Olivier’s lip trembled, but he held her gaze. “But I’d rather perish than become like him.”
Wren chuckled.
“Then you’re weak.”
Masika stepped forward. “You’re the weak one.”
Wren blinked. She snapped her head toward Masika.
“Excuse me?”
“You think this makes you strong?” Masika scoffed, gesturing to the destruction scattered across the room. “Power? Your shadows? More chaos and death and hate?” Her voice trembled, but her conviction held, amber eyes blazing.