Chapter 6
WINIFRED
His screams echo throughout Bloodstone Academy.
They never stop. Day and night, his screams still echo, and I know I will never forget the sound of them until the day I die.
I lie on the bed, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling, hating myself for staying here when I can’t go and stop it.
Help him. I know even trying would doom me to the same fate he is suffering from already.
The door opens and I sit up, preparing to defend myself and my bonded, but I relax when I see who it is.
The headmaster, my tutor and more recently…
a friend. Luke Parker’s red hair catches the light from the window, making it look like fire as his eyes find me, and as usual, he makes sure I’m okay.
I woke up from being stabbed, in his arms, while the only healer left at the academy tried their best to fix me.
I needed a blood donation and more spells than I remember to wake up.
Luke and Aster never left my side, never once sleeping or resting themselves.
That was a few weeks ago now, and I might be more recovered than before, but I still feel where I was stabbed every time I move.
Aster’s wolf lifts his head from the end of the bed, going to growl, but pauses when it sees him.
Luke shuts the door, but it doesn’t help with the sound of Vale being tortured above.
“Any luck?” I ask him.
When the Umbral Authority took over, it was easy for them to assume I’d been attacked with my injuries, and when they found my mother dead and my brother injured, they just thought I’d been fighting alongside them.
Luke, being the loyal headmaster they trust, wove lies pretty quickly to make sure we were safe.
The only concern I’ve got is if Lock wakes up and starts blabbing the actual truth, which he will do.
My brother is only loyal to himself, and I hate the bastard.
Luke rubs his hands over his face. “No. There’s no way to get to him. One of the Umbral Authority is with him constantly, and on top, the door is heavily guarded. Mindless patrol near the top floor continuously, and so does a legion of witches.”
“I can’t just sit here listening to them hurt Vale. What are they even doing to him?” I wince as another scream echoes.
“I’m not sure.” Luke looks up at the ceiling too. “I imagine they didn’t stay in power all this time by not having decent torture methods. Whatever they want, they haven’t got, or he’d be dead by now.”
Aster shifts back, naked for a second, before he pulls on joggers, and I drift my eyes away.
Slowly. I might be injured, but I still want to look.
Aster sits on the edge of the bed. “We need a new plan if we can’t get to Vale.
We should go to the others, to the shifters that escaped, and help them.
The longer we sit here, the more chance that all of them are sitting ducks out there. ”
“You may do that, Aster, but we can’t leave.
At the end of the day, the Umbral Authority trust us, and someone needs to be here, on the enemy’s side, ready to betray them at any moment.
I have never agreed with the Umbral Authority.
I never told you my own story. Perhaps it’s time to now,” Luke offers, pulling out the chair from the dressing table.
“What story?” Aster asks, not unkindly but untrusting. I think the only reason my bonded is okay with Luke being here is because I trust him. “You grew up in privilege and then became the headmaster of this shithole.”
“Privilege was not something I grew up in. My parents were from the Daygan clan, and my grandparents told me the truth of it all, of this world and the lie we live in. Lyra, who you know as the enchantress, I met her when I was a kid. The Daygan clan, my parents, were killed before I even came of age because we knew the truth, and Lyra was gone, her child taken, and the world as I knew it was over. I ran and I was not given much choice but to become someone else. I found a family who had no children; they saw me as the child they never had and adopted me. No one but them knew who I really was, and my life of ‘privilege,’ as you put it, began there. I had to make myself important for the few remaining of the Daygan clan. For my real name, my blood and clan. Everyone left was broken by what had happened. I was left with no one and nothing but a need for revenge. I knew it was them, so I did what I must. I became stronger and got accepted into the academy. From then onwards, I proved myself until I couldn’t anymore. ”
“I’m sorry about your clan. Juniper is all you have left, then.” I give him a sad smile. “And she barely knows the clan.”
“No one does. No one knows they were fighting to free everyone.” He clears his throat. “Aster, you look at me like you’re not sure which side I’m on. I’m on yours, I’m on Wini’s, and I’m on the side of freedom and peace.”
I look at Aster. “Luke will keep me safe, and you must get to the others. We will be here, ready and able for what comes next.”
“I will protect her with my life and soul, for it is hers if she wants what is left of it.” Luke doesn’t look at me, but my heart clenches. He walks out, shutting the door behind him to give me some time with Aster. My bonded.
As my eyes lock onto Aster, I slide out of the bed, feeling only a wince of pain as I walk over to him and wordlessly wrap my arms around his chest, squeezing as tight as I can without hurting my injury, and he sighs, holding me back just as tightly.
“Don’t say you’ll miss me, or I won’t be able to leave you. ”
“You know it anyway, Aster,” I murmur into his chest. “It’s always been you and me.”
“You and me,” he repeats, lifting my face with his hands and softly pressing his lips to mine. “I love you. Don’t do anything to risk yourself.”
“I love you too, and I won’t.” I feel my eyes filling with unshed tears. “How do I go sit by a brother’s side who tried to kill me, in black mourning clothes, and cry like he means something to me after what he did?”
“The same way you’re going to let me go, knowing that I’ll always come back to you, my bonded, in every lifetime.” Aster’s voice is soft.
“In every lifetime,” I whisper, leaning up and brushing my lips softly against his one more time.
He doesn’t take the soft kiss. Aster hardly ever does.
He deepens it, brushing his lips against mine.
I groan softly before letting go, because the longer I hold him, the longer and harder it’ll be.
“If Juniper’s there, just tell her I love her and get here as fast as you can.
Do something. Someone’s got to do something. ”
“Stay close to Mentor Parker. He’ll protect you and don’t get stabbed this time when I leave.” He tries to smile and fails. We are both too traumatized to joke about it yet.
“No intention of doing so,” I murmur. “Don’t get caught leaving.”
“The Mindless don’t know the woods as well as we shifters do. We grew up here. The woods belong to the shifters,” he reminds me. “Be safe.”
He kisses me once more before going to the door and walking out, leaving it open.
I shove on my boots and pull on a black cloak over my shoulders before joining Luke in the corridor.
He watches Aster walk down the steps before turning to me.
Vale screams, echoing louder in the corridor before going silent.
I hope he’s passed out; at least then he’ll be free from the torment for a short while.
We say nothing, but Luke’s fingers brush mine, almost trying to comfort me, I think.
Luke and I head down the steps and through Bloodstone Academy.
It’s nothing like I would usually expect it to be.
No students walk around. Every hall is empty and silent.
Mindless roar and crackle from outside every window, and there’s a feeling of doom, a deadness to the castle as we walk through it, heading to the healer’s quarters.
When we get there, the healer greets us at the door.
She lifts her glasses up her nose and frowns.
“I’m presuming you’re here to see your brother, not for pain relief. ”
“I’m fine. I barely feel it.” It’s a slight lie.
I think I’ll always feel where he stabbed me.
Mostly because I never thought he would.
I knew he wasn’t a good person. Lock has never been.
But there are lines you do not cross, and stabbing your sister is definitely one of them.
“I just wanted to see him for a bit. Sit by his side.”
“Oh, it’s good timing. I need to go and speak to our leaders about more medical supplies.
They want me to wake him up, but I don’t have the ingredients to even try.
” Vale’s scream echoes once more, and all three of us look up.
“I won’t be able to help them with their prisoner without more supplies either. ”
“Don’t let him die,” I almost beg of her. “It’s not fair.”
She whispers back silently, “This cannot continue on forever. Death would be a mercy.”
“I will come with you to talk of supplies.” Luke nods at me. We have been drugging my brother with a sleeping potion for a good week and plan to continue for a long time. He won’t be waking up anytime soon.
She walks out the door with Luke, shutting it behind them, leaving me alone in the empty healer bay, except for my brother.
A pile of bandages covers most of his skin.
His hair has been burnt off. He was once…
handsome, but not anymore. He got everything he deserved.
I look at him and I expect to feel something for the only family member I have left.
My mother’s dead. My father apparently is missing, and who knows if I’ll see him again.
I should feel something, but I don’t. Just emptiness when I stare at him. “Is it bad that I don’t care about you?”
I sit down in a chair at the end of my brother’s sickbed, and I pull a book out of my pocket. The Great Gatsby. My brother hates this book. Our tutor used to make us read it over and over again. It made him cry sometimes out of boredom. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it right now.
I smile a wicked grin before I start reading, hoping that he can hear every single word.