Chapter 47
Elora
Elora’s claws sank into familiar sand as she landed, the impact sending tiny crabs scuttling into their holes.
The cove looked smaller than she remembered—this hidden slice of shoreline where her life had fractured and reformed months ago.
Moonlight silvered the waves lapping at the beach’s edge, their rhythm unchanged despite everything else that had transformed.
Elora lowered her head, dropping her satchel.
The leather was worn from being clutched in her teeth during the long flight, the straps damp with sea spray.
She gazed across the water toward the mainland, where she’d fled with Viliam that night—terrified, broken, barely understanding what she was becoming.
Now a nightglider stood on this beach again. Only this time, it was her.
The absurdity of it caught in her chest like a trapped laugh.
How could so much change in such a short time?
That frightened, broken girl who’d fled across these waters could never have imagined returning as what she now was—wings folded against her back, claws still warm from the sand, deliberately stepping back into the nightmare she’d barely escaped.
A bell tolled in the distance, its deep resonance carrying across the water. Curfew. The sound would have sent an involuntary shiver down any of the apprentices’ spine, muscle memory from years of conditioning. She never knew those consequences.
Elora shifted forms, the heat in her core flaring as wings became skin. She shivered as the night air hit her bare shoulders, the Al’teran leaves inadequate against the Empire’s winter chill.
Darting to the cliff’s edge, she knelt beside a shadowed crevice between two boulders.
The satchel fit perfectly inside. Glass clinked against glass as she arranged the healing potions, their amber contents catching moonlight like liquid fire.
A bitter smile crossed her lips. Bringing the supplies inside would only slow her down.
The vials would serve no purpose in the coming confrontation.
Either Thorn’s life would end tonight, or hers would.
No potion existed powerful enough to alter that outcome.
Still, she might need them afterward, to mend whatever wounds she sustained before taking flight across the water again.
From the depths of the satchel she withdrew her brown cloak, pressing it briefly to her face. Pine needles, mountain air, freedom, all woven into its threads. With reluctant hands, she folded it carefully and nestled it beside the bag.
Someone had repaired the metal grate, securing it more firmly than it had been before. Elora gripped the edge with clawed fingers, her shifted form lending her the strength to wrench it open. The hinges shrieked with rust and disuse, the sound piercing through the silence and making her flinch.
Cold air rushed out from the dark tunnel. The air smelled of mildew and stale water, with something sharper underneath—chemicals from the alchemy labs that had seeped into the very stone of The Institute. Elora’s stomach tightened as she peered into the darkness. This was the point of no return.
The walls pressed in on either side of her now, her wings folded tight against her body as she crept forward. Her large form made the narrow passage feel suffocating, but the nightglider’s ability to blend with shadows was her only protection.
The ladder appeared ahead, metal rungs disappearing upward into a square of slightly less darkness. Elora shifted again, only partially this time, retaining her immaculate hearing, deadly claws, and sharp fangs ready to bite into anyone who caught her.
The storage closet above was mercifully empty. Elora eased the trapdoor open and slipped inside, her nostrils flaring at the sharp scent of cleaning solutions and dust. Outside, footsteps passed—a guard on patrol, moving with the measured pace she remembered all too well.
Light seeped under the door, a thin yellow line that seemed impossibly bright after the tunnel’s darkness.
Elora crouched in the shadows, waiting for the footsteps to fade.
The biggest challenge lay ahead—crossing from here to Thorn’s study without being seen.
The corridors would be lit, offering no shadows to disappear into. She needed a disguise.
She swept the shelves, cataloging their contents.
Cleaning rags. Empty bottles. A flash of gray fabric caught her eye, tucked behind a stack of towels.
Elora reached for it, pulling out what appeared to be a ward’s uniform dress.
Her fingers remembered this coarse cloth, remembered the way it chafed at her wrists and throat.
She held it against herself. It would fit—a bit loose perhaps, but that hardly mattered. The sight of it made her mind churn with memories of her days in this fabric. The humiliation of being stripped of her identity, forced into these shapeless garments that marked her as less than human.
“I’m not here as his ward,” she breathed into the darkness, “I’m here to kill him.”
The dress would be her shield, not her prison.
The gray fabric slid over her leafy Al’teran garments with a whisper of surrender. Her fingers trembled as they smoothed the coarse material, every instinct screaming to rip it from her skin.
“This doesn’t make me his again,” she reminded herself, forcing her breathing to steady. “I choose this.”
She let her hair fall over her face; let her mouth fall into the permanent frown all wards wore. Just another shadow moving through The Institute’s halls, carrying out someone else’s bidding.
Except this time, the only orders she followed were her own.
Elora pressed her ear to the door, listening for footsteps in the corridor beyond.
Silence. She eased the door open a crack, peering out at the familiar hallway.
Oil lamps cast pools of yellow light at regular intervals, illuminating the polished stone floor and the rich tapestries that lined the walls. She stepped out.
She’d only made it twenty feet before movement ahead made her pulse quicken.
A group of wards approached, walking in perfect formation down the corridor.
Elora’s instincts screamed at her to hide, but there was nowhere to go.
Instead, she bent down quickly, pretending to retrieve something from the floor, her hair falling forward to shield her face.
“I dropped my...” she murmured, the words barely audible as she patted the ground with nervous fingers.
The wards moved past her without breaking stride, their footfalls hitting the floor in perfect unison. Not one of them glanced her way or faltered in their rhythm. Elora risked a look up through the curtain of her hair.
Each ward wore an identical black collar around their neck, the metal bands gleaming with a golden sheen that pulsed in time with their heartbeats. The magical aura emanating from the collars made her skin crawl—compulsion magic.
They continued down the corridor, their movements unnaturally synchronized, bodies held at identical angles. Their faces were blank, eyes forward, no hint of personality or awareness in their expressions.
Her stomach twisted. She knew exactly what those collars were—control enchantments, the kind that stripped away will and consciousness, leaving only an empty vessel that followed commands.
The empire restricted their use for good reason; prolonged exposure permanently destabilized the mind, leaving only mindless husks where people once existed.
Thorn had never dared to use such methods before. But then, he’d never been given a reason to fear ward rebellion until she’d escaped.
Elora straightened, forcing herself to move forward.
The corridor branched ahead, and she turned left, toward the stairwell that would lead down to Thorn’s private domain.
Her fingertips caught on the rough edges of the stone wall, each tiny ridge and depression a small anchor against the dizziness threatening to overtake her.
She stood before the heavy oak door that led to the lower levels.
Her fingertips brushed the cold metal handle, memories rushing back of every time she’d descended those stairs at Thorn’s command.
Her hand trembled. Guards might be waiting.
Thorn might expect her. The distance between her claws and his throat suddenly seemed impossible to cross.
Footsteps echoed from around the corner, their rhythm unnaturally precise. She held her breath and slipped through the heavy oak door, easing it shut behind her with barely a whisper of sound. The stairwell yawned before her, darkness swallowing the steps as they descended into Thorn’s domain.
This darkness was different from the corridors above—deliberate, not merely an absence of light but a presence of shadow. Only faint golden strips marked the bottom of the stairs where light spilled from beneath Thorn’s laboratory doors.
Elora stripped off the ward’s dress and closed her eyes.
Bones shifted, muscles stretched, her senses sharpening as she welcomed the beast. The darkness embraced her, cloaking her massive form as she crept down the stairs, each padded step silent against the cold stone.
At the bottom of the stairwell, she paused, ears swiveling to catch any sound. A click echoed from ahead. A door swung open, flooding a section of the hallway with harsh brightness.
A guard emerged, his Imperial uniform rumpled, one hand adjusting the fastening of his trousers. His face was flushed, his movements careless. He headed toward the light spilling from beneath another door at the far end of the corridor. Thorn’s study.
The scent of blood and antiseptics lingered in the air where the guard had passed.
Elora’s nostrils flared, a growl building low in her throat as she recognized the room he’d exited.
That laboratory—the one with the cold metal tables and gleaming instruments.
The place where Thorn had strapped her down countless times, drawing her blood for his experiments.