Page 49 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Lysithea

T he arrogant, manipulative bastard. He thinks he can just snap his fingers and put me back in my box. He’s right, but that is why it stings. I’m a gnat compared to him.

The pain in my arm is a sharp, insistent reminder. The black veins are darker, angrier. They crawl towards my fingertips. The grimoire’s progress was the only thing holding this poison at bay. Without it, the clock is sprinting towards my demise.

He wants to control me, but I can’t fight him head-on. He’s ancient, his power woven into the very foundations of DarkHallow. But I am a Nox Siren. Darkness is in my blood. He pulled me through the shadows to get me here. It’s a two-way street.

I close my eyes, shutting out the faint moonlight from my window.

I reach for the shadows in my room, listening to them.

I search for an echo. A resonance that I find, and I wrap the darkness around myself like a cloak.

I step into the deepest shadow in the corner of my room and let the darkness swallow me whole, only to be spat back out exactly where I came from.

“Damn you,” I roar, hoping the guys are at least back to themselves and not still encased in stone.

But who knows? I can’t sense their power through the brand in my locked-down cage; I can’t sense anything.

I’m alone, dying, and Blackgrove doesn’t seem to give a shit.

He doesn’t want us to complete the Tenebris Vinculum, that’s obvious, but he must know what will happen to me if we don’t.

Surely if he is trying to protect me, he will let us finish what we were dragged into?

The corruption burns through my veins like liquid fire, black tendrils spreading beneath my skin with each heartbeat. I press my palm against my chest, feeling the darkness creep closer to my heart. I don’t know how long I’ll have left when that happens.

I have to get out of here. I inhale deeply to calm the raging anxiety and have a look around.

Blackgrove’s containment cell isn’t just a simple cage.

The walls pulse with suppression magic so thick I can taste it.

It’s metallic and bitter, designed to drain power from creatures like me until we’re nothing more than empty shells.

Runes carved deep into the stone glow with malevolent light, each one a shackle around my abilities I’m only beginning to understand.

Knowing he did this to my bedroom in a matter of seconds is frightening.

He is far more powerful than I could’ve imagined, but it makes me wonder if that was the case, how did his team fail?

Was I actually correct and not just being arrogant when I said it was down to me?

The suppression fields press against my consciousness, making it difficult to think, to breathe, to be anything more than the terrified girl they expect me to be. But terror has become a familiar companion, and I’ve learned to use it rather than let it use me.

I close my eyes and reach deep into the well of power that’s sitting in my soul, watching, waiting. The Nox Siren abilities that terrify the professors, that make other students avoid me like the plague.

The shadows in the room respond to my call, thickening until the air feels solid. But the suppression fields push back, sending spikes of agony through my skull. The runes on the walls flare brighter, and I cry out as the magic turns inward, using my own power against me.

Pain flares through my chest as another wave of corruption surges toward my heart. The grimoire’s call echoes through the brand, urgent and desperate, and while I waste time in Blackgrove’s prison, the corruption continues its relentless march toward my death.

There has to be a way.

I stop fighting the suppression fields and let them drain me. Let them pull at my power until I’m dizzy and shaking. Let them think they’re winning.

Then I dive deeper.

Past the Nox Siren abilities I’ve been learning to control. Past the shadow magic and the scream that can shatter minds. Down into the part of me that predates understanding, that exists in the space between life and death, where my kind have always dwelled.

The suppression fields can’t touch this. They were designed for known magics, catalogued abilities. Not for whatever I truly am.

The darkness that rises from this deeper well isn’t the controllable shadow I’ve been learning to wield. It’s hungry. Ancient. It recognises the runes on the walls as chains and decides it doesn’t like being chained.

I open my mouth and scream.

The voice that can call forth nightmares, that can reach through the veil between worlds and drag things back that should stay buried. The sound that proves exactly what I am, what I’ve always been, even when I tried to pretend otherwise.

The suppression barriers shatter.

Magic explodes outward in a shockwave that sends alarms shrieking through the academy.

The runes on the walls crack and go dark, their carved lines bleeding blood that steams in the sudden cold.

The room’s walls split under the force of power that should be impossible for any student to wield.

But I’m the last of my kind, and my kind were never meant to be caged.

The backlash hits me like a hurricane. The corruption retreats in response to the massive power expenditure, the black veins disappearing almost completely. The grimoire feels me coming and is pleased.

I’m free.

I step through the wreckage of Blackgrove’s containment, my shadow snake writhing around me. The academy beyond is chaos. Students flee in panic, professors shout orders. None of them tries to stop me. The power radiating from my skin makes the air itself recoil.

The brand pulls me forward, leading me through passages I’ve never seen before. I follow the pull of our magical connection.

They’re doing the same. Wherever they were, they are back and heading straight for me.

I round a corner and see them rushing towards me, the chaos around them, the shrieking alarms causing mass panic.

“The grimoire is calling. Can you feel it?” Dathan says without preamble.

I can. It’s been pulling at all of us through the bond, urgent in a way it’s never been before. Like it knows time is running out.

“Then we don’t have time to fuck about. We have to finish what we started, whether Blackgrove wants us to or not.” I follow the grimoire’s increasingly urgent call.

“Where are we going?” Verik asks, but he’s already moving with me, his arm around my waist, squeezing me to make sure I’m real.

“Down.” The certainty settles in my bones like ice. “Deeper than we’ve ever been before. We have to bypass the ex-maze. I thought Blackgrove had the grimoire. He doesn’t. It vanished to protect itself.”

“Now it’s calling for us,” Dathan says.

Verik pulls me to a stop as the ground in front of us opens up. Steps slam into place, one by one, the booming echo hurting my head. “Guess we’re going down.”

Evren pushes his way to the front and leads the way. I’m grateful for his stoic nature, which allows him to just get on with it. All of them, really. If we had to stand here and debate our actions, we would be wasting even more time.

The pull is stronger here, in the oldest parts of DarkHallow.

Stone that predates the academy’s official founding, passages that appear on no map.

The grimoire wants us to go into places that feel less like an academy and more like a tomb.

The steps vanish behind us as soon as our feet leave them, causing us to move quickly.

Above us, the alarms stop suddenly.

We’re descending into the parts of DarkHallow that the official academy pretends don’t exist. The walls around us shift from worked stone to something older, smoother. More organic.

Whatever waits in the depths below, I’ll face it with them, because the alternative of me dying stubborn and alone isn’t an option. The trust in these guys goes up a notch, and then again. I have no choice. I need them, they need me, the Tenebris Vinculum needs us all.

The grimoire’s call grows stronger with each step downward, and I feel something vast and ancient stirring in response. Something that’s been waiting far longer than DarkHallow Academy has existed.

Something that’s been waiting for me.