Page 19 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

The thought makes my stomach turn. I don't feel like two people. There's no other voice in my head, no sense of sharing space with another consciousness.

Just me, twisted into shapes that please others, performing roles written by prophecy and reinforced by punishment.

If I had a twin— if my parents really did what the Elder implied —would that twin have been male? Would he have been Nikolai, not as performance but as truth? Would he have claimed the throne without question, without the constant doubt that eats at me like acid?

Would he have been spared what happened in those years between prophecy and academy?

The memories threaten to surface—hands where they shouldn't be, words that cut deeper than any blade, the systematic destruction of everything soft in me until only sharp edges remained. I push them down with practiced efficiency.

Not here. Not now. Not ever if I can help it.

But the questions remain.

Is this practice common among the Fae?

Terminating inconvenient children to maintain single heirs?

It wouldn't surprise me.

We are not a kind people, whatever our beautiful facades suggest. Cruelty runs through our bloodlines like sap through trees—essential, nourishing, part of what makes us what we are.

If my twin existed, if he died or was killed because my parents wanted simplicity over destiny's messy truth, does that make me a murderer by existence? A thief of life I didn't know I was stealing?

Would his survival have meant mine never had to matter?

The thought brings unexpected grief. Not for the loss of a sibling I never knew, but for the possibility of insignificance. Of being allowed to be small, unimportant, free from the weight of prophecy and expectation.

Would it have stopped me from having to embark on this journey of self-hatred that led me to the academy? Would it have prevented the mockery, the touches, the ? —

I'm standing before I realize it, bare feet silent on shadow-earth.

My body moves without conscious direction, drawn by something between instinct and exhaustion. The others remain asleep—even Zeke's occasional eye-crack doesn't track my movement. The realm itself seems to part for me, creating a path that shouldn't exist.

Or maybe it recognizes something in me now.

The same brokenness that built it.

Each step takes me further from the fragile safety of our camp. The rational part of my mind screams warnings—this realm wants me dead, I'm vulnerable alone, danger lurks in every shadow. But rationality lost its hold somewhere between remembered prophecy and present despair.

My parents plotted and killed my sibling.

The truth of it sits in my chest like swallowed glass. Every breath cuts a little deeper, spreading damage that will never fully heal.

Would that sibling have been everything I'm not? Strong where I'm weak, certain where I doubt, male where I'm forced to pretend? Would he have been Nikolai in truth rather than performance?

Could he have risen to the throne without the constant fear that someone will see through the disguise to the frightened girl beneath?

I don't know when the tears started, but they trace hot paths down cheeks that feel too soft, too vulnerable for this place of shadows and flame. The salt stings where it touches lips bitten bloody from years of holding back screams.

The memories I've tried so hard to bury claw their way up.

The first time they called me wrong—not mistaken but fundamentally incorrect, a error in the universe's code that needed correcting.

The first time someone's hand lingered where it shouldn't, justified by my wrongness making me available for correction.

The first time I realized that being female in the Fae Court meant being less than furniture— at least furniture had consistent purpose.

The systematic destruction of every soft part of me, replaced with edges sharp enough to cut anyone who got too close.

And through it all, the constant refrain: Be male. Be what you should have been. Be anything but what you are.

So I became Nikolai.

Built him from broken pieces and desperate hope. Learned to walk like someone who owns space rather than apologizes for occupying it. Learned to speak in registers that commanded rather than requested. Learned to be everything I wasn't and nothing I was.

But here, in this realm that sees through all pretense, the performance falls apart.

I'm just Nikki.

Female. Weak. Unwanted.

A burden on companions who need strength I don't possess, carrying dead weight through trials that demand more than I can give.

The ground beneath my feet changes, heat rising through shadow-earth.

I look down to find myself at an edge I didn't know I was approaching.

Lava bubbles inches from my toes, molten stone that moves with its own current. The heat should hurt—should blister skin and sear lungs. But all I feel is numb recognition.

An ending.

The thought arrives with surprising peace.

Would it be better this way? To simply step forward and let liquid fire solve everyone's problems? No more burden for them to carry. No more Fae weakness slowing their progress. No more constant reminder of how even my own realm considers me abomination.

Gwenivere hates me now—or at least the Guardian part does, responding to ancestral fury I had no part in creating but must bear the weight of regardless. The marks we share mock what they once meant. Love twisted into obligation, desire transformed to endurance.

And I'm so tired of enduring.

Tired of performing strength I don't feel. Tired of being two people who are both wrong in different ways. Tired of carrying prophecy that damns me whether I follow it or fight it.

The lava calls with the voice of ending. Not death—that's too simple. This would be erasure. No body to bury, no memory to mourn. Just absence where failure used to stand.

My foot moves forward.

Another inch and gravity will decide what courage can't.

Another inch and ? —

Something holds me back.

Not gentle. Not careful. A grip around my wrist that feels like being claimed rather than saved.

I don't want to be saved.

"Let me just die with an ounce of dignity!" The words tear from my throat, raw and desperate.

I turn to glare at whatever force denies me this one choice in a life stolen by others' decisions.

Gabriel.

Not the child we've grown accustomed to but an adult version—what he might have been if development hadn't been arrested by sharing space with his sister.

Taller than me, features carved from the same impossible beauty as Gwenivere but sharpened into masculine angles. His silver hair falls past his shoulders, and those impossible eyes hold depth that speaks of centuries despite the youth of his borrowed form.

He looks wiser. Colder. Ancient in ways that have nothing to do with time.

Yet his hand remains firm around my wrist, denying me the ending I've chosen.

The sight ignites fury I didn't know I still possessed. He must hate me too—another judge in the endless trial of my existence. Gwenivere's hatred makes sense now, filtered through memories of Fae cruelty. But knowing the source doesn't ease the sting.

"Let go," I snarl, tugging against his grip.

He doesn't release me. Doesn't even acknowledge the attempt.

I grit my teeth, pulling harder.

"Let go!"

His response comes in a voice that matches his adult form—deeper than the child's piping tones, carrying weight that makes reality pay attention.

"You really want to ruin your destiny before it unravels?"

The question triggers bitter laughter that hurts my throat.

"Why do you care?" The words drip venom and desperation in equal measure. "You hate me. Let me die while I still have the strength and conviction."

I pull again, expecting resistance.

His expression remains effortless, as if holding me back from death requires no more effort than breathing.

The fury builds.

How dare he deny me this?

How dare he pretend concern when everything about me represents what his realm despises?

"Let. Me. Go!"

I pull with everything I have, expecting the same immovable resistance.

My hand slips free.

The momentum sends me stumbling backward toward the lava's edge. My arms windmill desperately, seeking balance that doesn't exist. The heat rises to meet me, eager for flesh to consume.

My hand shoots out instinctively, reaching for something, anything to stop the fall.

Gabriel watches with cold assessment. He's a child again—the transformation happening between one blink and the next. Six years old with ancient eyes, observing my descent with the detachment of someone watching inevitable physics play out.

"Fine," he says simply.

The word carries no emotion. No regret. No satisfaction. Just acknowledgment of choice made and consequence accepted.

This is how I die—not in battle or glory but because a child decided my request for death was worth honoring.

Time slows as gravity claims me. My eyes lock with his, this child who holds power enough to stop this but chooses not to. Who gave me exactly what I asked for with the literal interpretation cruelty of the Fae.

Is this what I wanted?

This ending that feels less like choice and more like another's decision made for me?

My gaze drops from his face, following the line of his small form.

That's when I see it.

The collar of his shirt has shifted during our struggle, revealing pale skin beneath. And there, etched in light that matches my own hidden mark, is proof of everything Zeke suspected.

A bond mark.

Identical to mine.

Gabriel— twin of Gwenivere, brother who shouldn't exist in the same body, prince of shadows and flame —is bonded to me.

Not to Nikolai.

To me.

To Nikki.

To the female form everyone says is worthless.

The mark pulses with recognition as our eyes meet again, his widening with something that might be surprise or might be plan fulfilled.

Time resumes its normal flow.

I fall.