Page 25 of Darkness and Deceit (Obsidian Academy #2)

Twenty-Two

LILITH

I squeeze Kai’s hand one more time, then gently set it back on the blanket. His chest rises and falls shallow, but steady.

“I’ll be right back,” I whisper, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “I promise.”

With one last glance over my shoulder, I slip into the hall.

The chaos hasn’t stopped. The corridor outside pulses with low voices and the shuffle of exhausted feet scuffing over stone. The air reeks of antiseptic, smoke, and something coppery that won’t quite fade.

Healers move between cots pressed haphazardly against the walls, their arms full of vials and gauze. Magic sparks from their hands in soft flickers, crackling like static in the dim light. A student whimpers behind a cracked door—a sound caught between pain and panic.

Still, I keep walking. Step by step, breath by breath. If I stop now, I’ll unravel.

The deeper I go, the more the academy feels wrong. Tilted. Like the stone itself remembers the screams. The walls pulse faintly with leftover magic, and outside the nearest window, the forest still smolders—charred black and skeletal beneath the morning sky.

And through it all, the Keepers drift like ghosts. Not helping. Not healing. Just watching silently, like vultures waiting for something to die. I pass one on the stairs with his hood drawn low. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, simply turns his head slightly to track me as I pass.

I don’t even spare him a glance.

Funny how fast they moved in.

While the rest of us were still bleeding, the Keepers claimed the old astronomy annex and threw up their sigils like it always belonged to them.

Now the entire east wing hums with that magic, the kind that makes the hairs on your arms raise, and makes your skin itch.

I’ve come to associate it with the Keepers.

When I reach the end of the corridor, I find two Protectors flanking the door to the astronomy annex, their expressions blank. Of course one of them is Vaughn’s brother, Kieran, I think. The other I don’t recognize. I meet their eyes and don’t break stride.

“I need to speak with Augustus,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. Even. But not soft because I’m not asking.

Kieran tilts his head, clearly considering whether or not to deny me entry. I stare him down for so long, I swear my eye begins to twitch.

Finally, he steps aside when the door clicks open on its own.

Inside, the furniture is minimal. There’s a long table with old scrolls laid across its surface, shelves stacked with artifacts, and faintly glowing ward sigils pulsing along the walls.

Augustus glances up from where he’s seated near the center. Mara is with him, her posture perfect, robes flawless. She doesn’t look surprised to see me. But she does look annoyed.

“Lilith,” Augustus says. He rises, tone cautious but not unkind. “This isn’t the right?—”

“No,” I cut in. “I’m not here for permission. I’m here for answers.”

Mara’s brow lifts, barely. “You presume much.”

“You hide more.”

The silence thickens like molasses.

I step further into the room, my boots echoing across the stone. “Kai is… barely hanging on,” I say. “Your people flinched when they saw him. You all knew what it was. And still you said nothing. You think I haven’t noticed the way they whisper when they think I’m not listening?”

Mara doesn’t speak. Augustus’ jaw tightens.

“I’m not asking for your power. I’m not asking for your blessing.

I’m asking for the truth. Because I watched that flame crawl through him.

I felt what it did. And your Keepers stood there like it wasn’t their problem.

So either they didn’t know or they didn’t care.

Which is it? If you know how to stop it—or even slow it—I need that knowledge. ”

“You are not entitled to Keeper archives,” Mara says coolly.

“No,” I agree. “But I’m still a Protector. And Kai is my mate.”

That strikes something. Mara’s gaze sharpens.

“I’ve been marked since the day I got here,” I continue. “Questioned. Watched. And through all of it, I haven’t asked for anything. But I’m asking now.”

Augustus doesn’t look at Mara.

He looks at me.

“I will see what I can find,” he says, quiet but firm. “Give me until morning.”

It’s not enough. But it’s more than nothing.

“You’ve bought yourself a few hours. After that, if Kai slips further and you’re still sitting on your hands, I swear to the Balance you’ll regret it.”

And damn the fucking consequences. Kai would do it for me. Now it’s my turn.

Mara’s lips press into a thin line. But she doesn’t stop me when I pivot to leave.

Good.

I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but at some point, sleep caught me anyway. I’m curled up in a chair beside Kai’s bed, one leg tucked under me, blanket half-falling off my shoulders.

The room is quiet and still. Kai hasn’t moved an inch. His chest is still rising and falling. His hand is still resting between mine. But he hasn’t stirred. No flutter of eyelids. No change in his breathing.

Not since before.

Gods, what if he never wakes up again?

I stroke my thumb along the edge of his hand, memorizing the shape of it like it might fade. I tell myself he’s going to wake up, but the silence stretches so long it starts to feel like a lie.

What if I never get to tell him how much he truly means to me?

The door clicks open behind me, and I turn, expecting the healer making her morning rounds, or Simon and Vaughn checking on us.

But to my surprise, it’s Augustus who steps into the room, still in his blue Keeper robes.

He’s all sharp lines and quiet power, with dark, neatly tousled hair and a face that would be almost boyish if not for the constant restraint carved into it.

His expression is carefully blank, stoic in a way that makes it hard to tell what he’s thinking, but not unkind.

His eyes flick briefly to Kai, then to me, calculating and unreadable.

“I said I’d return by morning,” he says, holding something wrapped in silk cloth the same color as his robes. “And I don’t break my word.”

I shift in my seat and rise slowly, keeping one hand on the back of the chair. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he sets the bundle gently on the empty cot near the far wall and begins to unwrap it. I cross the space—wary, but curious.

Beneath the cloth is an object about the size of a book. It’s thin, metallic, with faint runes etched across the surface. It pulses with gold light once, like it’s sensing the magic in the room and responding to it.

“It’s called a tether scryer,” Augustus says quietly. “Keeper-forged. It’s meant to assess out-of-control tether magic. Usually used on newly bonded Predators or Preys who’ve undergone trauma. It’s old—a relic, really. But it may help us understand what’s happening inside him.”

“Will it hurt him?”

“No,” Augustus replies. “It’s passive. Diagnostic only. But… it will respond to whatever is happening in the bond.” He hesitates. “And in you.”

My stomach knots. “Me?”

“You’re part of this too, Lilith. Your bond with Kai may be the only reason he’s still tethered at all.” He meets my gaze. “But if the flame has corrupted that bond, even partially, this device will show us.”

I shift my gaze back to Kai. He’s still. Too still.

“What do I need to do?” I ask.

Augustus doesn’t answer right away. His fingers are steady as he unwraps the device, but his jaw flexes once like something inside him is grinding gears.

“Nothing, yet,” he finally replies. “I’ll handle the placement. But I wanted you to be here when I started. So you can see what we’re up against.”

I give a small nod of permission.

Augustus moves with precision, laying the tether scryer across Kai’s chest. The metal hums faintly. Then it glows.

A halo of golden light spreads outward—then fractures. Tendrils of deep blue corrupted energy slither along the edges like frost over glass.

I suck in a breath. “That’s?—”

“His magic,” Augustus finishes. “Or what’s left of it.”

My fingers twitch at my sides—drawn to the soft hum of the scryer, to the magic threading through the room like a low, endless breath. I barely realize what I’m doing until my hand brushes the rim of the device.

The golden light fractures again, deeper this time, pulsing once… twice.

A low hum threads into my chest like someone tugged a string inside me I didn’t know was there. The pulse spreads to my fingertips, like warm static, like a name I haven’t learned but already know.

Blue splinters crawl across the surface like veins of frost cracking through glass, threading outward from the center.

And then something else ignites beneath it.

Purple light.

Four distinct threads flare from the core of the scryer. One is tangled with the corrupted blue.

Kai .

But the other three burst outward in different directions. One arcs toward the tower where Vaughn’s probably brooding on the rooftop, smoking through his second cigarette. Another veers off like it’s reaching for the dormitories. Simon’s room, maybe, if he even slept last night.

The last... I feel before I see it.

It pulls toward Augustus.

The scryer isn’t just reacting to Kai anymore.

It’s reacting to me .

I feel it deep in my chest—like the magic isn’t pointing at me.

It’s anchored in me.

But even as I stare, something flickers at the edge of my vision. Something gray and faint. Another thread? It’s not fully formed or solid like the others. It’s just… hovering like it hasn’t yet decided if it belongs.

“Stop.” Augustus’ voice slices through the air like a slap.

I flinch and rip my hand back.

The purple threads vanish.

The scryer steadies, its surface dulling, as if none of it ever happened.

Only the gold and blue remain, flickering against Kai’s chest.

Augustus doesn’t look at me right away. When he does, it’s… calculating.

“What was that?” I whisper.

He shakes his head once. “An echo, maybe. A false flare from your resonance with him.”

“That didn’t feel false.”

“Magic is not always precise,” he replies quickly. Too quickly.

And that? That’s not like him. Keepers don’t guess. They don’t dismiss what they don’t understand.

Unless they’re afraid of what it means.

I clear my throat. “The other threads… they felt real. Not just possible. Like they’re already inside me. Why haven’t they… snapped? Or whatever it’s called when it happens?”

Augustus finally looks at me, really looks, and for the first time, he hesitates.

“Because not all bonds awaken at once,” he says. “Some require mutual acceptance. Others form under pressure. Grief. Magic. Sometimes… it’s simply a matter of time.”

“So they’re dormant?” I ask.

“That would be the closest Keeper term, yes. Dormant. Potential, but unrealized.”

“Can they stay that way forever?”

“Some never awaken,” he says, carefully. “Others flare open when least expected. And some… are waiting for the right spark.”

My pulse jumps. The right spark. The right moment. The right person .

Augustus steps closer to Kai, studying the flickering golden light threaded with blue. It almost looks alive, writhing beneath the surface like lightning crawling through storm clouds.

He swears under his breath. “This is just as I feared… it’s rewriting him.”

“Can we stop it?”

“I don’t know.” His jaw tenses. “But at least now we know what we’re up against.”

A beat of silence stretches between us. I study Kai. He’s still fighting, even like this. I can feel it.

Augustus’ head tilts slightly. “You’re stable,” he says.

I frown. “But I feel?—”

“Afraid. Angry. Reckless,” he finishes. “But your bond has not frayed. If anything…” He pauses, watching me, thoughtful. “It has grown stronger. That might be why the flame has not consumed him fully. He is still anchored.”

I lower my eyes to Kai, to the scryer still pulsing faintly against his chest. I reach for his hand again. This time, I swear—I feel the smallest twitch in his fingers.

Not much, but it’s enough.

My breath catches, hope threading through the fear. I don’t speak it aloud, don’t dare break the moment.

Behind me, Augustus begins rewrapping the scryer in its cloth. “I’ll report to the others,” he says quietly. “But if anything changes… let me know right away.”

“I will,” I say, without looking away.

He lingers, just a breath longer than expected. “For what it’s worth,” he says softly, “I’ve never seen a tether hold this long under such strain.”

I don’t respond.

I don’t need to.

Because deep down, I already know?—

It’s not simply the tether that’s holding.

It’s us .

He leaves with the door clicking softly shut behind him.

And I stay right where I am. Fingers laced with Kai’s. Waiting. Watching.

Holding on.