Chapter 33 #3
Finnley turns to reprimand his brother, but Rhett shakes his finger back and forth.
He grabs both professors and pushes them.
The alchemy professor’s wide eyes are going back and forth between the two men.
Sweat trickles down his brow, and the vein in his forehead is popping out.
Professor Huntsal is screaming behind her gag and digging her heels in the sand.
“Come on now, don’t be shy,” Rhett says in a cheerful voice as he puts them directly in front of my eyes. “The party is just starting.”
“Whatever you’re thinking about doing, please don’t—” I start.
Rhett quickly grabs Hunstal’s head, twisting violently before she crumples to the sand. The alchemy professor tries to run but doesn’t make it far. Rhett throws a dagger, hitting him directly in the back of the skull. He’s dead before he hits the ground.
“WHAT THE FUCK, RHETT?” Finnley screams, walking over and punching his brother in the face. “What is fucking wrong with you?” He stares at his brother as if he doesn’t really know him.
I look at the dead professors. The sand around them is changing from amber crystals to crimson shards. “You’re both monsters,” I whisper, bringing my eyes back to them.
“I’m not, Nori. You know I’m not,” Finnley pleads, shaking his head in refusal.
“It was us who took our mother, Nori, not the wraiths, from Harkin House. I had no other choice. She grabbed onto a fellow resident and wouldn’t let go, so we ended up having to take both,” he says.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know Rhett was going to kidnap you.
I was finding another way!” he declares, dropping to his knees in front of me.
Yaretta pulls my head back.
Another friendship built on lies. An abundance of death lingers in the air.
Today would have been a good day to stay in bed.
Ambrose walks up behind Finnley, blood dripping down the side of his temple. He runs his eyes over me, taking in each wound. He looks up at Yaretta before moving over to Rhett and Eryk, who are both watching him with wary expressions.
“You’re dead. You’re all dead,” he says in a lethally calm voice.
There’s a trail of decapitated monsters in his wake.
A scoff comes from above. “How are you even here? I saw you at the academy,” Yaretta flings at Ambrose, her grip tightening in my hair.
His lips curl. “You don’t think Kingston and I knew we were being watched?” he growls. “You and Eryk make piss-poor spies. What you didn’t count on was the fact we had a siphoner in our midst.”
“Lies!” she screams, yanking my head farther back. “The academy alerts the students when one manifests!”
“Not if it’s kept hidden”—He grins—“Suppressed.”
I can feel her sharp fingernails digging into the tender skin of my scalp.
“All he needed was something of yours,” Ambrose says. “A hair, fingernail, anything that matches your genetic makeup to cancel or sway your manifestation.” He shakes his head at her in mock disappointment. “It was easy enough to find in your room.”
I internally flinch at the thought of what Ambrose was doing in her room. Even if it was with ulterior motives, the method was the same.
“You asshole,” she hisses. “I would have given you everything!” she screams, cutting deeper into my flesh.
His eyes narrow in on the blood dripping freely down my shirt. His jaw ticks, but he stops talking.
Rhett steps up beside Finnley, who has distanced himself from Ambrose as nonchalantly as possible.
His glare drops to me. “To be fair, my brother didn’t want you to die, Nori.
He’s weak in that regard,” he says, turning to look at Finnley.
“We learned of an ancient book through our research on Liminals after we found out about you. A book that could converse with a Liminal through a blood offering, one that knew endless information of the dark arts. The problem was,” he explains, rubbing his bottom lip, “we couldn’t touch it to open it, even if we had your blood.
Only certain dark wielders or a Liminal can touch it.
Only the Liminal can converse with it. Which is why”—he dangles my bag in the air—“I brought it to you.”
He dumps out my bag, and Silver falls into the sand. “You can share all of its secrets with us before you die.”
Ambrose’s pale face narrows in on Rhett. I can see him open and close his palms, itching to incinerate the man.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the last wraith crumble to the ground.
Kingston walks over, his hair dripping with sweat. His sword hangs loose in his grip, bloody gore and bits of decayed flesh hanging from the blade. He’s now shoulder to shoulder with Ambrose. Two soldiers who hate each other, but with fury in their eyes for the same enemy.
Kingston’s eyes fall to the dagger under my chin.
His lips pull up, and his canines flash in the sun.
“Well, this little reunion has been fun and all, but we should really be going,” Eryk says, nervously looking around at his dead army. He was content to stay in the background until now. “It seems this was just one big misunderstanding.”
He looks around for Frederick.
Kingston throws what looks to be a piece of an arm at his chest. It rolls down and sticks to the sand. I can only assume it’s the only part of Frederick that’s left.
“Unfortunate,” Eryk says nervously under his breath, staring at the severed limb.
One minute, he’s speaking, and the next, Kingston is standing behind him, dragging a dagger across his throat. His dark, rimmed eyes never leave mine as he cuts into the flesh and bone.
Ambrose pulls a dagger from its sheath, throwing it with deadly precision.
It comes so close I can feel it slice along my cheek as it lands in the center of Yaretta’s throat. My hair slips through her fingers, and the thud of her body echoes across the pit.
Rhett raises his hands in the air. “Okay, let’s slow down a minute and talk about this.” He backs up, hands raised, until he hits the metal bars of a cell.
Ambrose runs over to me, removing the bindings.
I fall forward, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he whispers in my ear.
Everything in me feels broken. My bones, my will, and my heart all shattered.
Kingston steps toward Rhett. “Fix her,” he demands, venom in his tone.
That fucker isn’t coming near me.
Kingston’s attention slides back to me.
He makes one wrong move, and he’s a dead man.
“He’s a healer. He’ll make this right,” Finnley says, taking in the terrified way I’m looking at his brother. “I promise.”
“He’s the one who fucking did this,” I answer back, fury and pain saturating my words.
Rhett gulps and walks back over to me. His eyes are pinned to the dark wielder, the one whose eyes are burning with the need for vengeance.
Ambrose stands and hovers at Rhett’s back. A promise of retribution follows in his wake.
Kingston’s eyes track every movement, shadows stirring in his palm, waiting for his command.
Rhett places his hands on my back, causing me to jump and shiver uncontrollably. His touch is associated with pain in my brain, and I can’t undo it. Ambrose watches him with barely contained fury.
Warmth seeps through my limbs. Broken bones mend themselves, and torn ligaments fuse back together. The dull throb of pain throughout every vessel slowly starts to dissipate. I finally take a deep breath, void of discomfort for the first time in hours.
Ambrose pulls another dagger from a sheath at his thigh.
“Whoa, whoa,” Rhett says, holding up both hands as he shuffles back. “I fixed her!” he yells, stumbling over his feet as he retreats.
“Stop.” Finnley steps toward Ambrose. “Please, stop. He’s my brother. He’s all I have left.”
“I’m his brother,” Rhett says, frantically nodding in agreement. “He needs me.”
He doesn’t care about Finnley, though, just his own hide. I’m pretty sure deep down Finnley knows it as well. He looks at his brother with such disappointment. But through that lingering void is love. Unconditional. I know, at this moment, if it’s between Rhett and me, he’s choosing his brother.
I also know Rhett isn’t making it out of here alive. I’m pretty sure he knows it, too. He may be a Veil, a soldier, but even after graduating and enlisting, he’s no match for the two students standing in front of him.
Finnley looks at me with a small, sad smile on his lips. “Remember, Nori, we’ll die one day, but today is not that day,” he whispers to me as if we’re the only ones in this pit.
He walks over and joins his brother.
We’re all standing within arm’s reach of each other.
The best friend and man I grew to love who broke my heart, the dark major who never stopped believing in me, and the friend whom I instantly bonded with.
If someone had told me yesterday that this is where I’d be today, I’d never have believed them.
Finnley drops his head before raising it back up and looking at me. There is so much sorrow and regret in his eyes, but I can’t find it in me to feel any kind of forgiveness toward him.
He knew what he was doing, and he proceeded to do it anyway. He knew the cost.
Rhett reaches into his cloak, quick and deliberate, like a man filled with desperation.
Ambrose sees exactly what’s happening and lunges toward him. It’s all happening so fast that I can’t even shout a warning.
Finnley slams the hilt of a weapon into the back of his skull with a heavy thud.
Ambrose’s body folds forward, slumping in my lap before I can even get out a full breath. A scream tears from my throat as blood drips from the back of his head onto my legs. I grip the sides of his face, trying to lift his head, demanding he wake up.
Kingston’s shadows swirl around us as he heads straight for me.
One second, I’m cradling Ambrose’s head. I’m screaming, but I don’t know if it’s in my head or out loud. The next, the ground shakes with the force of a giant falling. I reluctantly pull my tear-filled eyes from the man I’m cradling in my lap.