Page 57

After a long six-hour flight, we were back in Galthyn.

My legs throbbed as I dropped down from Naraic.

The afternoon sun hung below the clouds.

Ciaran and Naraic flew away mere seconds after we had touched the docks.

I tugged at the leathers clinging to my clammy spine.

There were a few awkward seconds between Archer and me as we walked down the docks silently and toward the academy doors.

“You have a trial in two days, Severyn. I hope I do not have to drag your body from the bottom of an ocean again,” he said.

I spun to face him. “Does that mean you’ll kiss me again?” My fingers slacked at my sides. We were nearing the Night hallway, and those halls seemed narrower, or Archer was closer to me than Damien had ever been.

Archer scoffed, and a shadow pinned me to the academy’s wall. He got close. “Severyn Blanche, I am your Serpent mentor. If you were anyone else, you’d be dead.” Shadow dusted to ash as my palm raised. “You’re against me for combat tomorrow. Try not to moan in your sleep too much.”

The door clicked open with a flick of my wrist. “I intend to do just that,” I said, whisking into my room and closing the door. I still heard his soft breaths through the iron. I waited—hoping he’d come inside.

It was only empty thoughts with no substance.

But then, the crush of reality weighed on my shoulders.

Damien had lied to me. It was more than despair…

it was suffocation. And starving those feelings would take a while to shrivel.

Archer and I couldn’t exist within these walls.

He was a Serpent, and I stayed a na?ve first-year.

But it was that soft knock behind me that made my bones melt. I knew that knock too well, and it still sent every nerve in my body on overdrive.

I opened the door, meeting Damien’s grin. He shifted his hands to the pocket of his slacks, and of course, he wore that shirt I liked on him. Of course, he’d come here minutes after I had arrived back.

And I swallowed hard as I let him in foolishly.

I mustered up my best shield. Tightening that flame around my mind as he stepped closer to me. “Hello, Damien,” I said.

“Where did you go for three days?” he asked. “Are you hiding from me?”

I could feed his satisfaction with the truth. “I was in Ravensla with Archer. I met Kian and your father.”

This seemed to shock him. I got the feeling he wasn’t used to being kicked out of my mind, but slowly, that brute force halted.

“You flew to Ravensla with Archer? That is a big trip, and Naraic is still injured from Skyfall.” He smiled. “But I’m happy you’re home. ”

I know what you did to Everett . My jaw clenched, withholding the passion, the fury in my blood to yell at him. His eyes glanced at my bare neck, and that smile halted.

“Your pendant is gone,” he said.

I acted surprised, widening my eyes. “Shit, it must have fallen into the ocean.”

Hurt, pain, and anger flickered across his face. Had Archer gotten it wrong? There was no way he could be this cruel and lie this convincingly.

It took everything in me not to embrace him because, as much as I dreaded this moment, my heart yearned for it.

But my fingers began to tremble, just as my father’s had when warding became too much.

I knew, at any moment, the fire encasing my mind would simmer.

I steadied my breathing because one heavy exhale would blow out that ash.

Damien brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, and slowly, that ash crumbled into shattered glass. “Is that all?” he asked.

And then he shoved himself into my thoughts, and gradually, I felt all those moments I had lived in the past three days slip out of the wall of fire I’d built.

Some parts were missing, the spoken words blurred, but everything was there: his father’s attacks on my mother, Kian gaining his shadow, the illusionist masking as Klaus.

A scorpion hissed at the final moment, even causing Damien to step back.

His wild eyes burned, not with rage but with desperate curiosity.

“I’m impressed, Severyn. You held that shield longer than before.

” He released that strand of hair with a grin.

“I’ll be here at dawn to walk you to class, as always.

We’ll need to do extra training for the trial in two days.

Most first-years use those days to train their quells, but I suppose you aren’t like most first-years. ”

He turned on his heel, pausing at the doorway. His grin widened. “Shadow quells cause nightmares. You may want to burn a lantern while you sleep.”

My lungs begged for air as I collapsed onto my bed.

Fucking mind readers.

The following day, Damien did as he said. At dawn, he stood by my door, waiting as twilight streaked the sky. I dressed in warmer leathers, strapping knives to various limbs, including the two daggers Archer had gifted me. I grinned at Damien in silence as we left for warding class.

Professor Cain stood at the front of the classroom, drawing a large circle of chalk on the blackboard. His movements were deliberate, each line precise. Then, he turned to face us, his gaze sharp.

“I need volunteers to protect the circle,” he announced. “Severyn, would you care to defend it? Myla will use her ice quell to break through. It’s always fascinating when opposite quells clash.”

I nodded, stepping to the center of the room.

Myla joined me after a few beats, the tap of her leather loafers echoing on the stone floor.

Closing my eyes, I pictured the circle in my mind, every line burning with intent.

I raised my fingers toward the blackboard, drawing a flame tight around the chalk, each curve outlined in fiery precision.

My tether wavered as Myla flicked her wrist, shards of ice pounding against my fiery fortress. Ice collided with flame, steam rising in spirals as our quells waged war. But I held my ground, flames flaring brighter with every strike.

For a moment, I thought of Archer and the way his shadows had shielded me, protecting not just me but everything within his reach. I poured everything into the fire encircling the board, daring Myla to break through .

I flinched as her coldness reached my throat. It was… an eerily familiar suffocation, frost creeping up my spine.

I would not shatter.

I would not. Shatter—

The sharp, biting cold on my skin brought me back to that moment. My chest tightened as the ice crawled up my spine, and I couldn’t escape it. I was there again.

Hands roped around me, pinning me to the frozen earth. Their laughter echoed along the peaks. A wolf snarled, shredding what was left of my clothes. Tears crystallized on my cheek, freezing before they could fall. A dagger scraped along my thigh.

My blood didn’t boil—not yet. My scream was muffled by his glove pressed against my mouth. Winter, my home of ice, held me down.

“…the hounds can tear the rest of her clothes off,” said Callum.

The circle was a ring of fire. My fingers began to shake as an icicle dragged along the edge of my barrier. I felt that dry scream clinging around my throat as every part of me was frozen, including the tears that clung to my cheek.

I would burn.

Boiling tears clung to my lower lid as I melted that ice.

I burned the entire blackboard beside the circular cutout that fell to the ground, and even as Cain held my shoulders, I kept burning.

I seared that memory of Bridger and Callum.

I burnt their gaze that took in my frozen body, their greedy hands as they cut me, and laughed at Serpent’s daughter and all her failed glory.

And Myla had trusted him even after knowing what he’d done.

“Severyn, that is enough,” Cain choked. “You did what I asked. You protected the circle.”

Knox clapped three times, elbow rested on his knee.

Myla was in shock, but she was proud. I couldn’t read Malachi’s face, but it was something along the lines of fear, possibly because she had to sleep next to someone who could incinerate anything with their mind.

Damien always looked impressed with anything I did, and I hated that more than ever because I still looked at him for sickening approval.

I fisted the shadow relic on my hand, and a cool wave soothed over my burn.

Cain cleared his throat. “There is a level to warding, though. Could you live in a world where everything around you was dead and burnt? The entire world cannot exist in flames while yours thrives.”

I almost asked why not, but instead, I said, “I’ll work on my control.”

A nervous look stayed on his face as he watched me take my seat next to Malachi.

Damien raised his hand, and the Professor gestured for him to speak. “Could we practice quell sharing? With the upcoming trial, we might need it.”

Professor Cain tapped his bony fingers on his desk. “Quell sharing is more advanced. Normally, that is a third-year course.”

Damien crossed his arms over his chest, glancing sidelong at me, and I knew he was throwing my quell share with Archer at me. Knew he’d seen that kiss. That was no coincidence.

“I think we know each other well enough. And anyone willing to try should,” Damien added.

Cain drew out a long breath. “Very well. But we will go outside.” He glanced at the burnt blackboard, unwilling to risk his entire classroom turning into ruins.

The entire class emptied through the doublewide back doors and into the courtyard. A few students whispered, asking what quell sharing was.

Damien stood before us all. “Quell sharing is when your power combines with another student and creates something entirely else. Think of paint; when you mix magenta and yellow, you get red. That can be said for quells as well. Snow and rain create storms. It can also be beautiful and one of the most personal things you can share with another, so keep that in mind.”