Chapter 20
The center of Bloodstone Academy looks like a room of red stars.
Wait, not stars—glittering, glowing drops of blood.
The floor is red rock, spiky, cutting into my cheek before I lift my head.
My ears are ringing, and I think I fell down the stairs when that voice spoke into my head.
I push down the sickness in my throat as I shakily climb to my feet and look around.
It smells just like a damp rock cave, but the scent of blood, the metallic tang, is heavy.
All I can see are red glowing stars, like a night sky in every direction, except for the small staircase behind me.
It’s beautiful here, but the scent of blood and death makes me want to run out.
My legs shake as I walk further into the room, knowing I have to do this to save everyone. To change things.
It takes me a second of walking before I find it.
The center. It looks like a glowing sphere of red liquid, and it’s dripping blood onto the floor.
It’s disgusting. The smell of metal is thicker here, and somehow I know it’s alive.
This is where the voice came from, and I’m not sure how my spell will react to this thing.
It will work; it has to. “I will bend to you and your spell. You are not the first to bind me here, infant of both races, but you are the one I wish for.”
My head pounds at the sound of her voice. “Who bound you here first, then?”
The screams of the Mindless still reach me down here, and I fight every instinct not to run up and get Kane and make sure he’s okay. I need to do this. All of this is pointless if I can’t put a barrier up around Bloodstone Academy. They’ll just come here and slaughter us.
“Once, there were five witches, all from powerful clans, who came here to study. They found me in the Bloodstone Forest, and they named me a mutation of a small creature. Something powerful and wrong. They took me to this castle and kept me down here, figuring out I needed blood to give them power. They took from me and fed me small creatures to begin with. They fed me shifters when the small creatures hid from them.” I swallow down the disgust, needing to hear more.
“Of them all, I preferred one more than the others…the witch with the name Daygan.” My clan.
“She was smarter and far more powerful than the others due to her blood. She gave me a drop of blood in exchange for power, and I fed. I poured power into her, and the others found out. They thought she had betrayed them, and the fallout shook this world.”
“The Umbral Authority are these witches, and the one you liked was my mother. The enchantress…” I figured it out easily.
The blood creature speaks again. “You are like her in many ways. Smart. Powerful. Dangerous. Yes, they were the witches who trapped me here over a thousand years ago. They made their clans keep the secret of their eternal life and, with the help of the goddess’s treasures, they had control of this world.
Your mother was trapped with me for hundreds of years until a shifter dragon found her.
He bonded with her in the forest, along with two others, and they ran.
When I sensed your birth, I spoke a prophecy.
I saw you here, Juniper Daygan, and knew you would end my pain.
The Umbral Authority hunted you, and they have never stopped.
They will not stop until you and the enchantress are dead. They know you’ve come to end me.”
I pull the spell out of my pocket and kneel in front of this creature.
“I will end your suffering, but first I need control of the academy. This spell will bind you to me.” It says nothing, and doubt echoes in my chest. Should I do this?
I don’t trust this thing or its stories.
The Mindless roar behind me, and I think of Kane fighting them alone, of Wini injured and my other bonded outside fighting.
I think of Rue, who they killed for daring to speak against them.
I begin my spell and close my eyes, chanting in Latin and letting my power flood this chamber.
“With your blood, you need not try to change me. End me, Daygan child, and stop this. Your fate is not here.” She breathes into my ear.
“Tell me, young one. Is your life worthless?” I ignore it and keep going.
Keep chanting the spell. I don’t dare stop; I’m so close now.
“Every spell for control needs a sacrifice, and this I will take from you as there are no others. Your mother knew this, and your father was the sacrifice meant to keep you safe. He died right where you kneel, and it changed nothing. You were stolen, and a mother’s cry echoed throughout the worlds. ” My father died here?
Tears pour down my face as the last word leaves my lips and the creature’s magic slams into me. The sphere, writhing with magic like tentacles, wraps around my waist, pulling me to it, flipping me over so my back’s pressed against the warm sphere. My arms and legs are spread out, and I scream.
“L-let me go!” I dizzily plead. “I can free you, just…l-et…” I can’t breathe, I can’t finish the sentence.
Stars dot across my eyes, and the room spins.
“KANE!” I try to scream his name, but it comes out like a whisper.
The room fades in and out, and it’s not long before Kane runs down the steps, blood dripping off his clothes.
“No!” he shouts, rushing across to me, and he is bounced back by a flash of red magic. Kane fights for me, again and again, but nothing works. He doesn’t get close enough.
“Kane,” I whisper, barely able to lift my head to look at him. “You need to do the spell. Call the enchantress. She’s our only hope. We need help.”
“Okay. Okay.” I feel amusement from the creature, its feelings mixing with mine as it drags me to death. It already took my father, took many lives, and my mother must be able to help stop it if it told me the truth.
Kane growls before he pulls the spell out of his pocket.
We worked on it together, along with the spare potion.
He throws the potion on the floor and begins the spell.
Just before he finishes, Fasrah laughs. Kane turns and we both see her hobble down the steps.
“You’re a fool. Are you trying to call the enchantress here?
Do you think she will stop us? She couldn’t at Juniper’s birth, even with the death of a dragon.
We still took her baby. She’s not in control, and she never has been.
Our army will wipe your names from existence and still win in the end.
They will come for what you did here. My death will stop nothing.
I’m only one member of the Umbral Authority. The rest will come for you—”
Kane walks up to her and snaps her neck.
She doesn’t collapse; her body shakes before bursting into blood, and the blood sucks right into the creature holding me.
It sighs in my mind. Kane begins the spell again, and I can’t help him.
I can hear my heart slowing, and I need to say goodbye.
“Kane, if I die from this, just…I want them to know. I want you and them to know that I have always felt alone growing up. So lonely. All I ever wanted was a family. Someone to have my back. To feel like I was included. And you did that. Every single year. Again and again. All four of you did. You gave me everything I ever wanted, and I will always love you for it.”
Kane finishes the spell, and the potion shimmers, growing into a whirlwind in front of him. He looks at me only with pain and desperation. “We will have forever.” He looks over me. “Take me and let her go.”
The room shakes hard enough to send Kane slamming onto the floor, and he is dragged to the sphere, just as I’m thrown to the ground.
“NO!” I scream, turning over and looking up at Kane as he winces in pain.
Just at that moment, Vale, Maz and Black run down the steps, screaming my name, but it’s too late.
The room shakes once more, and the dust swirling around the floor that’s meant to bring my mother to me doesn’t bring anyone.
Instead, it flies like an arrow straight to me, wrapping around my body and dragging me into what looks like a portal now.
The spell has made something new. I feel like I’m falling into darkness as the room explodes into rubble, and I’m dropped through a portal with a thump.