Page 24

Warding was brutal that next day, leaving me with a splitting migraine as I forced my shield to cover my trembling fingers.

I was the only one without a quell in the entire academy. Six students were forced onto a boat as per their Serpent’s request while I was recovering in the infirmary, and I dreaded the next time I saw Archer, knowing I’d seen his dragon’s midnight wings fly in earlier.

I overheard Antonia whisper to Jace from a row behind us, “Ciaran is back. I thought for sure she was dead.”

Jace responded, “He’s still weak. You can blame the Blanche freak for that one.”

I whipped around. “What the hell do I have to do with Archer being weak?”

“Not you,” Antonia sneered. “But it’s nice to know you were eavesdropping.”

Myla gripped my shoulder. “You’re in no position to start a feud with people who know where you sleep.”

I shrugged her off. “Antonia, it must be hard.”

She grinned back. “What?”

“To be broken up with because a title is greater than love. But seeing as you called my dead brother a freak, I’d say Alaric dodged a bullet.”

Barred teeth hissed at me. “Let’s hope I don’t have your key today. Drowning seems to run in your family.”

My key?

Myla asked as we left warding, “Did your brother die here?”

I hesitated. “Yes. I think Archer placed me in Night because he had something to do with it.” I didn’t mention Bridger as my primary suspect. I knew she wouldn’t believe me.

“It makes sense. When my father passed, I felt like I owed him something. I’m his only child.

But I’m not from title. My mother could hardly afford to feed us—and here he was, living a life within golden ice.

She knitted traditional gowns for the visiting Serpents of Ravensla, but it was never enough. ”

Wishing for her triumph was my downfall.

There was something worse than loving your rival—it was the one person you trusted becoming one.

As much as I wished Myla and I were the same, we were two different stems. I knew her heart of gold would never turn slate gray on me.

But she’d grown with a hungry belly, a starved mind for what existed within my life.

And a bee would never sip from both our nectars.

A blaring siren had me nearly on my knees—

Pressing my palms to my ears, I cried, “What is that?”

Myla grabbed my elbow. “Bridger told me there’s an unplanned trial happening today. They call it the Trial of Despair. Apparently, more students should have failed by now, and this is a way they kill off the weak. He—he told me not to tell you. ”

I followed behind Myla’s grip, pooling beside the dozen students at the academy’s entrance. The sirens continued to scream, sending the wild griffins soaring beyond the clouded mountains manically.

I steeled as a violent tremor went down my spine. “All I have is a dull dagger,” I hissed. “Myla, I’m going to die!”

Myla unsheathed the dagger she’d won off me from across her ribcage, leaving her with only one. “Take it. I can use my quell.” She shoved the dagger into my chest. “I got you, Sev. You can trust me.”

Myla’s grip faded. My knees slammed into stone. Then her body collapsed, her curls sprawling over her face. I gripped the empty air, and the ground beneath me disappeared.

Slowly, I faded, sinking. My words hung in a shallow whisper, “Myla.” My body froze—panic dripping through my veins like ice.

Water and waves sloshed through my treading fingers.

Algae streaked across my line of sight, and wispy seaweed brushed against my ribs in a valley of green.

I hadn’t taken air in. My lungs began to burn and beg for oxygen seconds later.

I tried to untangle my foot, but a tight chain around my ankle stopped me from floating upward.

I felt the weight of whatever held me to the ocean floor tugging me down as I flailed my arms through the current and swam closer to the chain around my ankle.

My ears popped as I lowered—the daylight breaching from the surface, melting into shadows within the salted sea.

Without releasing air, I couldn’t swim any lower to see what I was tied to. I turned around, waving my right hand as my fingers tried to pry off the chains while I slashed the blade repeatedly into the metal. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t calm myself down.

Thirty-nine, thirty-eight. My lungs needed air.

Thirty-six . My throat started to close, and a metallic taste burned on my tongue.

This is how I die? By being chained to the sea’s floor?

My hair was a whisp of tangled tentacles sprawling before me.

The sun dimmed until the shadows of midnight velvet swallowed me whole.

Knox swam toward me, his arms cutting through the water with precision.

His hand slid down my body, fingers brushing my shoulder as he reached for the chain with the rusted key.

Bubbles escaped his nose in a struggle as he tried to force open the lock, but it wouldn’t budge.

His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him.

I swore he was crying. His eyes were wide with panic, desperate, as his hands fumbled with the key. His gaze locked on something behind me, and for a fleeting moment, I saw the raw anguish in his face—a helplessness that made my chest tighten.

I twisted, my heart slamming in my chest, to see Everett—chained, like me. The sight of him, so close yet so unreachable, shattered me. Knox swam toward him, every stroke frantic, the water thick with desperation. He reached for Everett’s leg, fingers trembling.

The key slid into the lock. It fit. And with a snap that echoed in the deep, the chain shattered.

The sound of it breaking felt like the final straw. I wasn’t the one he could save.

I was the trial. The test of burdens—how loss would destroy him, whether grief would ruin him, and how much his mind would stray. A leader could never crumble. I was Knox’s test.

Ten... nine... eight. I lost count. I glanced toward the daylight as a cloud rolled over the sun, the saving grace I yearned for, but darkness had already become my home.

The shadows and souls of the academy students now surrounded me.

And soon, the Blanche family tree would have new ink bled onto its pages—my cause of death: drowning .

Bright flickers below caught my eye, shimmering within the inky debris. A familiar freckled face met my gaze. Klaus. He hadn’t aged a day since he left us that snowy morning.

Had death already claimed me? Tears salted the sea as I reached for him.

He smiled, then pointed upward. “Breathe, Severyn. You need to breathe.”

I cupped his cheek, knowing the air in my lungs had been squeezed dry.

I hadn’t seen those tawny golden eyes in over two years.

Finally, I understood my father’s search for something to match my mother’s eyes—autumn’s warmth had no wrath over that hue in Klaus.

No griffin feather could ever resemble them.

I shook my head, rattling the chain in waves.

“Yes, you can,” Klaus urged. “Come on! Breathe! Breathe for me. You need to survive to find me. I need you to breathe so you can find me.”

“I miss you,” I whispered those words, my last breath slipping away before I sank beneath the weight of the chains. Seaweed curled around my limbs, dragging me to the sea floor. My cheek pressed against algae and fish bones.

For the first time in a week, I felt peace as Klaus lay beside me. He looked too young to be here, too innocent to have lived through these trials. I knew he was my age, but in that moment, I felt like a child again. Starved—not just for air, but for time.

I deserved to live. Klaus deserved it more.

I wondered about the ghosts of the academy. Did they stay here, stranded in the depths? Did they believe they had won the Serpent title?

Klaus pointed again to the surface, tracing shapes in the algae and seaweed with his finger, showing me how the light shone through. I wished for his eyes, that ability to see beauty in chaos. That half-grin had me wondering if I had only joined the academy to see it again… even if it wasn’t real .

Maybe I’d lose my mind to stay here. Grow gills and fins, just to see him for a moment more. I’d climb mountains to chase that strayed mind—fighting for a second to count his freckles worthy of a galaxy.

“Find my name, Severyn. Find it within flesh and bone, where a heart beats beside it.”

He squeezed my hand, but nothing but the current slipped through my fingers, a stark reminder that Klaus was gone and my mind was playing tricks on me.

Perhaps I was mad.

Another Blanche failure. I could hear the town gossip—the months of silence at the dinner table as Mother lit two candles before each meal, silently sobbing.

Cully was destroyed, while Father stared at the serpent crown in his office, wondering where he went wrong.

His body slowly giving up, wards broken, the cries of snow beasts breaching through.

His golden ring lost in the shallows of the academy forever.

Charles married, making Father proud, producing an heir for the Serpent title.

No one would mention me again. No one would dare dwell on the failures.

Klaus turned to me once more. “It’s time to breathe.”

I parted my lips, feeling not water, but cool air and softness. It rushed through my lungs, expanding my ribs. I opened my eyes to see Archer staring at me, water beads dripping from his hair. He pressed his lips to mine again, and another wave of air filled my lungs.

I shoved him off. “Did you just kiss me?” I spat salted water, my eyes burning as more liquid poured from my mouth.

“No,” he said, choking on the words. “I saved your damn life. You weren’t breathing.” He wiped his chin, his drenched tunic clinging to his chest, showing every rippled muscle .

In his hand, a similarly shaped key that Knox had held glinted, rusted from the past trials. And seven others lay scattered by his feet, each shaped differently.

The screams started all at once, drowning out everything else.