13. Asha
Asha
“Meaning?”
Tobin shrugs. “Who knows? But everything we do points to this.”
“SilverGate doesn’t want us opening the door to StormGate,” Leith adds.
“In case it unleashes Yseld again?” I ask.
“Possibly. We need to find out more about Yseld, the student. Who was she while she was here? What year did she crawl through the gates separating the two realms? What designation was she really? All these things will help us figure it out.”
“Sounds like a research project,” I say. “Do we have time for a research project? I have five days left.”
“Five days is plenty,” Tobin says, echoing Hale’s earlier confidence, which I decide not to hold against him yet.
“You said that about resting and eating too, and look where we ended up. Thrown into walls that also eat journals.” I push my plate away, appetite gone despite the mountain of food still sitting on it.
“Fine. Where do we even start? SilverGate doesn’t exactly keep a welcome plaque for the students it turned into evil syphon goddesses. ”
“Rest—”
“If you keep going with that, I will stab you with my fork,” I threaten Leith. “We—you especially—are not going back in there.”
“Then where?”
“Blackridge,” I say with an annoyed sigh. “I’ll ask Blackridge. He wants me gone. He’ll help.”
“He said he wouldn’t hinder, not help.”
“Look, if he wants me gone, we need answers. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want SilverGate to unleash itself on me and get everyone caught in the crossfire. He’d have Hale’s parents to deal with, amongst others.”
“He would,” Hale agrees with a puppy-dog nod. “Anna won’t be impressed.”
“Anna is never impressed,” Tobin drawls.
“Because she is the most impressive,” Leith adds.
“Shut the fuck up about my mother,” Hale growls.
“What? She rocks,” Tobin smirks, winking at me.
I smile back. They’re winding him up, and he’s letting them. It’s cute. It’s normal. It’s not my life.
Except it is. Somehow, in the space of a handful of days, this mess of fire and death and controlled silver arrogance has become exactly that. My life. I don’t examine that thought too closely.
Hale finally cracks a grin despite himself. “Fine. Both of you can suck my—”
“Focus,” I cut in before this devolves further. “Blackridge. Let’s go find him before the food coma sets in, and someone suggests a nap instead.”
“Naps are valid,” Hale mutters.
“Naps are how we ended up naked and wasting time.”
“Wasting time?” Tobin splutters.
Ignoring him, I stand, and the guys follow without complaint, which tells me they’re as unsettled by the journal as they’re pretending not to be.
We clean up after ourselves and head for the door.
The noise of the dining hall drops away behind us the moment we hit the hallway down to the admin building and Blackridge.
“What if he’s not there?” Hale asks, taking the steps two at a time because he’s a giant and he can do that going down.
“Then we wait.”
“You? Waiting?”
“I can be patient when it benefits me.”
“Since when?”
“Since four seconds ago.”
Leith makes a low sound that might be a laugh if he allowed himself the indulgence. Tobin says nothing as his silver magic hums faintly around his fingers like he’s still turning the journal’s words over in his head, testing them from every angle they’ll give.
We reach the admin building, and the air changes before we hit the door. Cold, sharper than the rest of the building.
We slip inside and head down the hallway to Blackridge’s office.
The door stands open. I glance at Hale. He’s already moved in front of me, shoulders set, fire simmering low under his skin like a pilot light waiting for permission.
“Professor Blackridge?” I call out.
No answer.
Tobin steps past Hale before I can stop him. Magic spreads from his palm and washes over the doorframe. It catches on something and holds there, humming.
“Wards are down,” he says.
“Why?” I whisper as goosebumps ripple over my skin.
“Because someone wanted in,” Tobin says.
“Or out,” Leith adds.
That definitely sounds more like it.
I step around Hale despite his low warning noise and push the door wider. The office looks the same as it did the last time I stood here. Nothing is overturned or broken.
“Out is looking more likely,” I murmur.
Leith moves past both of us, black tendrils sliding off his fingers and across the floorboards, searching. “No blood, or death recent enough to register.”
“Comforting,” Hale mutters.
I walk further in, and my new sight catches on something threaded through the room that shouldn’t belong. It’s duller than the wards running along the wall, older, like it’s been sitting there for years rather than woven fresh into the wards.
“There,” I say, pointing at something the guys can’t see.
Tobin follows my finger with his eyes, useless without my sight to guide him. “Where?”
“Behind his desk. Low, near the floor.” I move closer, crouching down until I’m level with it. The strand pulses faintly, purple threaded through grey. “It’s old.”
Hale crowds in behind me, close enough that his heat presses against my back.
Leith crouches beside me, black tendrils extending from his fingers towards the strand without quite touching it. “It’s not death magic either.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s none of your business,” Blackridge states from behind us.
I stand up quickly and spin, giving Blackridge a grin. “Professor.”
He holds onto his temper. “Miss Asha.”
“Sorry for barging in—”
He actually rolls his eyes at my attempt at an apology.
“Okay, not sorry, but still. The door was open, and you have funky magic floating around.”
“I’m aware. You should not be near it.”
“What is it?”
“Did you suddenly get a promotion, Miss Asha?”
I frown. “Excuse me?”
“Did you get a promotion to a level where I have to answer your questions?”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t need a promotion. I’m the highest level there is.”
“Not here, you aren’t. The days are ticking away, Miss Asha. Do speed this up, would you?”
If he’d thrown me into another wall, it would’ve hurt less. I raise my chin and glare at him. “I’m trying to, believe me. I need help.”
He moves around his desk, forcing us to move around to the other side.
He settles behind his desk and finally looks at me. “What kind of help?”
“The kind where you tell us everything you know about Yseld’s time as a student here. Who she was, how old, designation, whatever SilverGate hasn’t buried under three layers of memory theft.”
Blackridge steeples his fingers. “That information is restricted.”
“Everything in this place is restricted. That’s the whole problem.”
“Some restrictions exist for reasons.”
“And some restrictions exist because Yseld built them to protect herself. SilverGate is protecting StormGate, and we want to know why. The key has to be tied back to Yseld, who started all of this.”
“Protecting? What makes you think that?” he asks cautiously.
“It is hindering our attempts, covering things up, not making it easy to get me the hell back home.”
Blackridge studies me for long enough to become irritating. “SilverGate isn’t protecting StormGate.”
“Then what is it protecting?”
“Everyone here.”
Hale’s flames flare. “From Yseld?”
“From the gate.”
“That’s extremely vague,” I say.
“It’s extremely accurate. As you well know, StormGate isn’t a passive realm waiting behind a sealed entrance. It possesses authority. It chooses sovereigns. It preserves memories. It can reach through death magic and alter the systems surrounding it.”
Tobin goes still beside me. “It reached through Asha last night.”
I shoot him a vicious glare.
Blackridge’s attention cuts to him. “Explain.”
“We saw a record of StormGate choosing her before she woke on the battlefield. The realm stored the memory. It entered SilverGate through her connection to Leith.”
Blackridge looks at Leith with sudden focus. “What did you do?”
“Nothing deliberately.”
“That is rarely reassuring.”
“Look, SilverGate keeps jerking us around, and I’m done.
I don’t give a fuck about sovereign death, or hollow whatevers.
I am the goddess of StormGate. I was exiled, murdered, and dragged here by that crone you keep in a painting just hanging in the hallway instead of locked up in a vault.
I want to go home. You want me to go home. So help me.”
Blackridge remains silent.
Then he opens a drawer and removes a narrow silver key.
“Finally,” I mutter.
“This isn’t help,” he says. “It’s supervision.” He rises and moves towards the purple-grey strand behind his desk. The key touches the wall above it. Silver script spreads from the point of contact, revealing a door hidden in the stone.
Hale looks at me. “Another secret room.”
“At least this one has adult supervision.”
Blackridge gives me a flat look. “That description is generous, given present company.”
The door opens inwards. Darkness waits beyond it, broken by small silver lights suspended along a descending passage.
Blackridge steps through. “Stay close. Touch nothing, even if it begs.”
I exchange a glance with Hale. He is not impressed by that statement.
Hale stays at my back, while Tobin and Leith enter behind us. The door seals once Leith clears it.
The passage drops steeply beneath the admin building. Purple-grey magic runs along both walls, too old to carry the sharp brightness of Yseld’s power.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Storm magic.”
He doesn’t look back. He just keeps going. “You’re going to tell me that Yseld is a storm magic witch, aren’t you?” I ask dryly.
“No. There is no such thing. Like chaos, storms are not a magical system.”
I feel a burning gaze on the back of my head, but I keep my mouth shut. “So why did you call it storm magic?” I ask.
“Because it exists, like chaos magic exists. But no one can harness it. At least very rarely. It doesn’t have a system of users. Those who possess it are anomalies.”
I shiver at the word. “So it’s wild?”
“Yes.” Blackridge reaches the bottom of the passage and places the key against a silver plate embedded in the wall.
“Was Yseld an anomaly?” I ask.
“She was classified as one.”
The plate absorbs the key. Silver light travels through the stone, exposing rows of script that my new sight separates into several distinct magics. Silver belongs to the academy. Purple sits under it. Grey threads bind both together.
Blackridge presses his palm to the plate. “Her recorded designation was syphon.”
“You said the surviving records didn’t mention that.”
“These records didn’t survive.”
The wall opens.
Cold power rushes over me. Hale catches my waist before it pushes me backwards. I resist the pressure and glare into the chamber beyond.
Hundreds of silver plaques cover the walls. Names burn across them in different colours. Some are bright, while others have dimmed until I can barely read them. Grey magic joins every plaque to a black pillar in the centre.
A narrow chain hangs from the top of it.
Something moves inside the pillar.
“Touch nothing,” Blackridge repeats.
“Yes, you mentioned the begging.”
“It may use other methods.”
“Threats?”
“Promises.”
“Those work better on me.”
He ignores my joke. Probably for the best.
We enter. The chamber responds to my presence. Purple light races through the plaques and converges on the black pillar.
The chain swings.
No air moves in the chamber.
Blackridge turns sharply. His eyes follow the purple light as it floods the pillar. “Get back into the passage.”
The plaques start speaking.
Hundreds of voices whisper names across the chamber. The sound presses against my mind, demanding recognition.
Tobin sends silver magic around us. “These aren’t memories.”
“Designations,” Blackridge says. “The academy recorded every anomaly it couldn’t classify safely.”
A plaque near my shoulder flares gold.
Anaxandra.
My name enters my mind without sound. “My name.” I stare at the plaque, but the letters have already changed into script I don’t recognise. “It showed my name.”
“Say it,” Tobin demands.
I open my mouth.
Ash floods my throat.
I cough, doubling over while Hale holds me upright. Grey powder spills onto the stone, but the moment it lands, purple magic drags it towards the pillar.
Blackridge slams his hand against the plaque.
Silver power covers the plaque, smothering the gold flare.
My name vanishes from my mind.
I feel the loss this time. A violent absence opens inside me, and fury rushes in to occupy it. “You erased it.”
“I contained it,” Blackridge says. “Move.”
The pillar cracks.
Grey light forces through a narrow split, revealing an eye inside the black stone. Purple burns through the iris. It fixes on me.
“Is that Yseld?” Hale demands.
“No,” Blackridge replies. “It’s the designation system.”
“Your filing system has an eye?”
“It adapted.”
Of course it fucking did.
The chain snaps tight. Every plaque falls silent except mine.
Chaos Sovereign.
The designation drives through my skull. My marks ignite gold and purple beneath my skin. Black power answers from somewhere inside my chest, travelling towards the pillar in thin threads.
Leith seizes my shoulder. Death magic cuts through the connection before it reaches the stone.
The eye turns towards him.
First Death.
Leith jerks, but his grip stays firm.
Tobin’s barrier contracts around us. “That isn’t his designation.”
Blackridge sends silver power through the floor. “It records authority, not identity.”
The plaque beside Leith brightens. Ancient script runs across its surface, then resolves into words I can read.
Hollow Sovereign.
Leith stares at it. His expression becomes dangerously empty.
“Well,” I cough. “That seems important.”
The eye inside the pillar closes.
Every light in the chamber goes out.
Hale’s fire erupts at once, illuminating the plaques in violent gold. Blackridge turns towards the passage, but it has vanished. Silver light catches on the solid black stone where the entrance stood seconds ago.
“Oh, excellent,” I mutter. “The filing system locked us in.”
Blackridge drives his palm against the wall. Nothing happens.
Hale’s flames rise higher. “Tell me what to burn.”
“The pillar.”
He stares at me.
“What?”
“You said the pillar.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t listen,” Blackridge says. “It heard you.”
“It can hear us?” Tobin asks.
“It categorises threats.”
“Burn the pillar,” the voice says, and this time I hear it.
It’s using my voice. My voice. My real one.
I stare at it with envy and loathing.
The chain above the pillar lowers. Link after link descends into the crack, and grey magic spreads across the floor.
Blackridge strikes the sealed passage with enough power to shake the chamber. The wall absorbs all of it.
“What happens when that chain reaches the bottom?” I ask.
“It selects an anomaly for containment.”
“And how does it choose?”
The chain stops.
Blackridge looks at me. “Authority.”
“Of course it fucking does.”