Chapter 47 Wren #2
“You want to know what true weakness is?” Masika asked.
“It’s turning your back on the people you care about.
It’s greed. It’s being blinded by vengeance and retribution.
” Her eyes raked Wren’s face, and something softened.
She shook her head in pity. “And the Wren Loughty I know is stronger than all of that. Which is how I know that this”—she gestured to Wren with a defeated wave—“isn’t her. ”
Wren’s mouth twitched. She narrowed her gaze.
“You don’t know me,” she growled. “Not anymore.” One of her shadows slithered away from Silas, slowly trailing toward the group standing by the doorway.
“I’m only going to warn you once more. Leave.
Or I won’t hesitate to strike you down.” As the shadow approached Masika, Irene stepped forward, placing herself protectively in front of the other girl.
“Go on,” Irene chuckled, a smile spread over her lips. Silver shards of light crackled in her palms. “I’ve always wanted to leave a mark on that pretty face of yours—just give me a reason.”
“Enough!” August’s voice sliced through the room. When his eyes met Wren’s, a piece of her resolve splintered. Those gray eyes. Even devoured by the Soulless One’s shadows, they stirred something inside her.
She should eliminate him. He was a distraction. A disease.
DO IT.
But she didn’t. Wren didn’t move.
It was the slightest hesitation. A moment of weakness.
And it was exactly what Silas had been waiting for.
Wren sensed the moment he moved behind her, hand extended, prepared to strike. But luckily, Wren moved fast. Faster than Silas had anticipated. And when she turned to face him, she shot her own arm out, ravenous shadows bursting out of her.
She tried to beat him to it. To move faster than him.
But ultimately, neither of them beat the other.
They moved as one.
NO!!!!
Around her, the world exploded.
Wren glanced down at her hand plunged into Silas’s chest, at his hand plunged into her own, the two of them connected, shadows and light twisting between them, and she knew, with bone-chilling certainty, that this was her end.
Someone was screaming behind her, but it didn’t matter.
They couldn’t stop what had already been done.
Wren Loughty met Headmaster Silas’s eyes.
“I wonder…” she whispered, her voice clear, soft, “when your soul shatters and oblivion finally takes you…will you scream?”
Silas smiled.
And then—suddenly—she saw it. That thing lurking behind his eyes. The thing she’d seen hidden in his face since the moment she first walked into the office. Engulfed by the shadows, she hadn’t been able to recognize it…unable to feel the emotion beyond the darkness and hate and anger.
But she saw it now. Clear as day.
Remorse.
“I could ask you the same thing, Wren Loughty.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Eyes locked together. Wren understood him now—the tarnished, broken man withering beneath Silas’s facade. The fear. The terror. Silas had never been a god. He was just a man. And as with all men before him, his time had finally run out, his power expired.
Wren smiled back.
And then, together, they ripped each other from existence.
Darkness. Sweet, blissful darkness. The warm embrace of oblivion wrapped around Wren, pulling her deeper, inviting her home. But then…something else. A voice. That stubborn, unrelenting voice.
Open your eyes, Wren.
And then she was rising, thrown out of oblivion, thrust back into reality.
Pain.
She felt it all around her. Consuming her. Ripping her apart.
Wren woke up screaming. She was lying on the floor of the office. Above her, August was kneeling, eyes frantic as he spoke her name like a whispered invocation.
Wren, Wren, Wren.
She turned her head, slowly.
Beside her, Silas lay sprawled on the floor, vacant eyes staring up at the ceiling. She reached out, but as her trembling hand touched his cheek, his skin came apart, piece by piece, fragment by fragment, until the Headmaster of Blackwood Academy vanished before her eyes.
Destroyed. Gone.
Finally, finally gone.
But why hadn’t Wren met the same fate? They’d each ripped the core of the other’s soul out.
She’d felt it. The moment it happened. The burning flame inside her extinguished.
Yet here she was. Her flesh still intact.
Her soul…no. Her soul was barely there. Fading.
Hanging on by a thin, almost invisible tether.
But what was that tether? What was holding her in place? What was keeping her from drifting into oblivion? It didn’t feel like a part of her soul. Didn’t have the familiar essence she had come to recognize.
But it was familiar. That anchor. It felt like firm hands holding her. Warm. Tender.
“August.”
His name slipped out of her mouth, voice rough and raw. He reached out, cupping her face gently with his hands. “What is it?”
“It’s you,” she whispered back. She was certain of it now. A piece of August’s soul. It was inside her, the tiniest sliver, but it held on with all its might, holding her steady, unwilling to let her go.
August cocked his head in confusion.
“What is it, darling?” He brushed strands of damp hair away from her eyes. “What’s me?”
Wren laughed, but the sound was wrong and broken.
“Were you…ever going to tell me…that you put a piece of your soul inside me?”
August’s face fell. His bottom lip trembled, tears welling in his eyes.
“I just wanted to save you.”
“And you did.” She reached out, cupping his face with her hand. “But it can’t hold on forever.”