Chapter 16 #6
He raised his staff and threw a series of spells her way, but this time around, Lesya was ready. She raised her hand harness, not flinching as all of the spells came toward her, and she dispelled them back toward him. He was shocked. He stood back, avoiding his own spells.
“So, you’ve learned how to parry,” he said. “Interesting. Parry this,” he said, and sent a fireball toward her.
She did not need to parry it. She just jumped to the side, remembering that dance with Cassian, and watched as the fireball evaporated in the air.
And now it was her turn, but she had to provoke him. So she sent a lightning charge through the air, not toward him, but toward his feet, singeing the ground.
“Why, you little—” Professor Barrowhane said, and broke into a sprint toward her.
And that’s when she did it. She pushed on him with alchemical sympathy, manipulating the gravity around him. He flung through the air and crashed into the wall, his staff falling beside him.
For a few seconds, he did not move, and then, when he opened his eyes, he looked up at her, standing towering over him, her hand held out.
“Wanna go for round two, Professor?” she asked.
“Get out of my class,” he said through gritted teeth. “Get out of my fucking class and never show your face again.”
* * *
She had no problem following that order. If she was gonna learn how to duel, she was gonna do it with Cassian instead of this sadistic old man.
Later that month, she chose another elective, the study of Aladrian magical history, to make up for this subject that she had passed up on.
And it was during that study of history that she learned more about Aladria, about Lynsfeld, about the Necromancy War, the old gods, the rivalry between House Solaris and House Balthazar.
But all of that felt inconsequential against what was actually happening in her life.
She had found Cassian.
Every free period, they were together. Every weekend, they would go to Crook Haven.
Every morning, they would meet in the library, but it was not any of those times that she cherished with him, because those were bound by circumstance where she had to be formal with him, so that nobody else would know that she was in a relationship with him.
No, it was the time she spent with him in that little forest clearing every Saturday, dueling and dancing, and then later on, after every duel and dance, going into Riovan’s shack with him.
They kissed in the beginning, in those little rendezvouses.
Slowly, they realized that they could do more than just kiss.
She wanted to touch him more. He wanted to explore her body.
There was a conversation around that, a conversation that ended with them taking their clothes off and rolling on the mattress, feeling each other’s bodies with this newfound consent.
Those were the memories that her mind used to cushion itself against all of the torture that Professor Elara Moore was inflicting upon her in that cold, dark dungeon cell.
* * *
Lesya was half conscious, her body riddled in blood and cuts.
“Tell me, then,” Professor Elara said. “Before I use this”—she produced the vial of truth serum—“you have one chance to tell me before I take this harsher measure. Do you know Aeternumancy? Are you the prophetess of Aeterna?”
Lesya grew conscious for just a small spell and said, “All my life I looked up to you. You were kind to me, and yet here you are, no worse than a barbarian.”
Professor Elara Moore averted her gaze and pursed her lips.
She finally unstoppered the vial and poured it down Lesya’s throat.
It burned, and it made her reckon with every horrible thought she had, all the things that she wanted to hide coming to the forefront of her mind and to the tip of her tongue.
“Are you an Aeternumancer?”
“Yes,” she screamed.
“Did you raise Freya from the dead?”
“Yes,” Lesya screamed.
“And do you intend to join Mortandagh?”
“I don’t know,” Lesya said, and was surprised at her own sentence because it was a truth even she didn’t know.
“Where is Cassian Veilmonte?” Professor Elara Moore asked, slapping Lesya across the face.
“He’s dead,” Lesya said, tears trickling down her face. She hadn’t cried during the entirety of the torture session, but now, remembering Cassian laying there, she wanted to do nothing but weep with the deep grief that she was finally beginning to accept that Cassian was dead.
“He’s dead!” Lesya said. “He’s dead,” she repeated. “Elias killed him,” she wept.
“Was Cassian Veilmonte working for Mortandagh?” Professor Elara asked.
“Yes, he was,” Lesya said. “He was reporting everything. They know all about where you’re hiding, what you’re planning, and where you’re holed up. Viktor is going to come for you now, and when he does, you better pray to all the gods you know that he grants you a swift death.”
Lesya said this and broke into insane laughter. The laughter petrified Elara Moore, and she ran out of the cell, closing it behind her, leaving Lesya to her own mad thoughts of love and loss and grief and the raising of the dead.