Chapter 22 #3
In the end, she threw herself from Arcanna’s tallest tower, unable to bear the voices, the visions, the power that corrupted her mind.
A chill crawled up my spine. Would that eventually happen to Aiden and me?
Would we become unstable? Violent? Would the bond twist into something we couldn’t control?
I swallowed hard and forced the thoughts away.
No. I wasn’t letting myself spiral, not now.
I turned the page, and the library began to shift.
At first, I thought maybe Hemera was calling me to the sun realm.
But instead Arcanna appeared again… but not the one I knew.
Everything looked younger. The stone walls were uncracked, the air warm rather than stale.
Cadets proceeded through the hallways in the identical leather armor we donned, yet with a grace and assurance that seemed timeless.
The lighting was brighter, the magic humming like a living heartbeat beneath the floor. My breath hitched. This wasn’t a memory. This was the school only a few years after it was first built.
“Professor Vaelwyn!” a student called from the hall.
I turned toward the sound and froze. A woman stood there with olive-toned skin, long dark brown hair that nearly brushed the ground, and eyes a bright blue cutting straight through me.
Her black leather armor hugged her frame the way power clung to her: quiet, fierce, unrestrained.
Elyandra Vaelwyn. The lightning wielder.
One of the founders. And she was staring directly at me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. My heart stopped. She could see me?
“Professor?” the student asked, stepping through me like I wasn’t there at all. A ghost. I was a ghost here.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Elyandra repeated, still looking at me and not the startled cadet.
“I know,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “But I’m not sure how I got here.” She tilted her head, studying me with something between recognition and dread.
“You were brought here for a reason,” she said. “To see something.” She gestured for me to follow. The student blinked, confused and unnerved as Elyandra simply walked away, ignoring her entirely. I hurried after her, my steps silent, though the world felt too real for this to be a simple illusion.
“You bear the light of the Sun Goddess, don’t you?” Elyandra asked, not looking back.
“Yes,” I replied quietly.
“I figured.” Her voice softened, just barely. “You look like her.”
My heart stuttered. “You’ve seen Hemera?”
“I have seen them all,” she said, her voice calm, ancient. “Thanks to Zeus’s power.” We turned down a long corridor glowing with gold sigils etched into the walls. I stayed close.
“Have you been able to speak with him? Like… going to another realm?” I asked. She nodded once.
“Speaking to the gods is a rare gift,” she replied as we approached a spiraling staircase. “One that should not be taken for granted. Learn all you can from Hemera.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I will. Do you… do you know what darkness came out of Celetian?”
“No,” she replied, beginning the ascent.
“Just that whatever it was frightened the gods enough to want to control it. We locked it away at the base of Celetian. The magic there is strong.” We reached the top of a tall tower; the air sharp, wind tugging at her long hair.
Elyandra walked to the ledge with a calmness that made my chest clench. She climbed onto the railing.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I lunged forward, reaching for her. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she turned her head, her eyes burning with divine clarity.
“Remember one thing: When light forgets its name, and night no longer listens to the moon, the mountain will bleed shadow, and gods will fall like ash into the sea.” My pulse pounded.
“Wait, what does that mean?” I asked, voice cracking.
“The darkness will come again,” she replied, voice now unbearably sorrowful.
“The High King will be greedy, and Celetian will bleed once more. And when it does… the gods won’t survive it.
” She spread her arms, accepting the wind, the prophecy, the madness.
Then Elyandra Vaelwyn stepped backward and fell.
I gasped, and the world shattered. Darkness swallowed me whole before the library snapped back into existence with a violent jolt.
I landed hard against the table, chest heaving, a cold sweat slicking my skin.
The books were still open. Ryan still snored softly across from me. But everything inside me had changed.
I stumbled out of there so fast I nearly tripped over the threshold. My heart hammered against my ribs, my lungs refusing to draw in enough air. She just killed herself. Elyandra Vaelwyn, a founder, the one who could see the gods, had looked me in the eye before stepping off that tower.
Why the hell was I even having these visions?
Cold sweat slicked my skin as I braced one hand against the wall.
My other one clutched at my knee while I bent forward, trying to breathe.
The hallway spun. The torches flickered.
I pressed my forehead to the stone, swallowing back the rising panic, when a hand touched between my shoulder blades.
Warm. Anchoring. Recognizable. The bond flared in my chest in relief.
Aiden.
“Ruin, you okay?” His voice was low, steady, a quiet rumble that anchored something inside me. I nodded, barely, trying to swallow the nausea clawing up my throat. His hand moved in slow, grounding circles along my back, and my fire responded instantly, humming beneath my skin, recognizing him.
The memory of his mouth on mine flickered unbidden through my mind. So did the argument we’d had this morning. I jerked upright, stepping out of his reach, folding my arms across my chest like armor.
“I’m okay,” I said.
He didn’t seem convinced. “Really? Because you look scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I snapped, meeting his gaze head-on.
“I can feel the fear, Ruin,” he said, stepping closer. “So, stop trying to fight me and just tell me what the hell is going on.” His eyes flashed black, shadows stirring, and gods help me, I hated how I found his irritation hot.
I exhaled sharply. “I just… saw something.” He moved again, instinctively. I pressed back until my shoulders hit the cold stone.
“What do you mean?” His voice softened, concern threading through the edge. Real. Unmistakable.
“Why should I tell you?” I shot back, even as my pulse stuttered.
He sighed, dragging a hand through his dark hair.
The muscles in his forearm flexed, and my traitorous mind betrayed me, flashing back to the feel of his hands on me in that box.
Pinning. Gripping. Holding. I shoved the memory away before the bond could betray me.
“I want to help you, Rynlee,” he said firmly. “I was serious about that.”
I searched his face. “You’re not going to shoot me down? Tell me I’m crazy?”
“No.” His lips curved into the faintest smirk. “I won’t.” He crossed his tattooed arms over his chest, mirroring my stance. Leather stretched across his pecs, and I had to physically force my eyes away.
“Ruin?”
“Sorry.” I blinked, pulling myself back. “I found a book. On the history of Arcanna. And I had a vision.”
His brows drew together. “A vision?”
“Yeah.” I told him everything, the book, the founders, the shift in the library. Elyandra’s voice. The way the prophecy had repeated itself before she stepped off the tower. When I finished, Aiden let out a harsh breath and withdrew, like the ground had shifted beneath him.
“Holy shit,” he muttered. “So, the scroll wasn’t just a theory. It was a prophecy. A warning.” He didn’t look afraid, he looked focused. Calculating. Piecing together things he’d already suspected. “Meet me tonight,” he said suddenly. “Midnight. Our spot. Where the river meets the Glass Sea.”
I nodded. “Okay.” Then he vanished into the shadows without another word. I let out a long breath, pushed my hair back from my face, and trudged into the library to wake Ryan.
Later that evening, while standing in the greenhouse and crushing herbs mechanically, my mind drifted replaying that vision over and over again, but I snapped out of it wanting to focus on more pressing matters like the girl found dead.
So, I went back to what Jackson had told Luna and me after class.
“If used correctly, there are certain runes that can be magically enhanced to curse someone,” Jackson had explained, his words still echoing through me.
“Curses can be a wide range, from making someone feel unwell to, well… death. Clearly, whoever killed this student knew what they were doing.”