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I clench my fists. “Knock it off. Do you even hear yourself? What do you think our parents would think of you right now?”
That strikes a chord in his conscience—his entire face falls into shock, then hatred, and deep, painful rage. Tears fall from his reddened eyes and I instantly regret what I said.
“Fuck you,” he says through gnashed teeth. Edgar drops his head. I slowly approach him, but when I hear his maniacal laugh growing, my very marrow curdles inside me. He throws his head back, tears and snot falling down his chin as he laughs hysterically. “You know what our parents would think? They’d think you’re a fucking whore, Terra. Living your best fucking life while everything is anything but fine. So you tell me. Who’s lost their mind?”
Edgar lowers his chin and his glare burns into my skin as I choke out a few tears. A knot twists in my throat; I can’t swallow it. It’s too fucking raw.
“You should’ve died with them,” he says venomously, his laugh instantly dying. He stares at me like he’s not even present. Then he lunges at me.
I raise my arms in time as he collides with me. One moment we’re glaring at each other with our teeth bared, tears crashing as we struggle on the bridge; the next, we’re falling over the edge. Raine shouts but my focus is entirely on my brother’s hateful expression. His power is out of control right now, wisping from the seams of his very soul. If anyone gets too close to him, they’ll surely be blighted.
Edgar clasps his hands around my throat and squeezes. I’m in survival mode and can’t spare a single moment to acknowledge the weight of what he’s trying to do. All my mind can process are his cold, bony fingers caging around my windpipe and strangling the air from me.
I grip his brown hair and yank his head to the side. The momentum shifts our fall so that he’s below me. Air leaves my lungs as I see the rapidly approaching ice of the lake. Everything is white and gray, everything except Edgar’s furious green eyes.
What have we become?
Our bodies slam into the ice. The pain and gravity steal the breath from my lungs. Instinct takes over and I inhale sharply before we fall through the shattered ice. My entire body convulses with the freezing water burning every inch of my skin. The frigid water stings my eyes but I can’t shut them. Fear keeps them open against the agony.
The moon shines bright enough to illuminate the ice cap above. The light blue water almost glows. In any other situation, it would be beautiful. A plume of bright red blood blooms like a terrible, morbid storm cloud beneath the ice. I lose my breath and bubbles escape around me as I spot Edgar’s limp body slowly sinking into the depths of the lake.
For a moment, I’m worried he’s dead, but his eyes open and the horrible turquoise glow pierces my soul. He opens his mouth like he’s screaming at me and darkness answers his call. It gathers throughout the lake, moving like an enormous snake in languid, spine-chilling motions. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Fear solidifies inside my veins and I try desperately to swim for the surface. Amser tugs sharply along my spine in warning, and I turn my head in time to see Edgar swimming after me with a manic smile, blood trailing in the water behind him.
I want to vomit. I can’t fucking hold my breath any longer.
Amser, help me! I call to my Shadow and it responds in kind. Angry and vengeful.
The ice above me explodes. Soft green and blue lights like an aurora in the night sky dance across the ice wall as I gasp for air. My breaths burn the inside of my lungs with each shuddering inhale I take.
Raine’s on the shore screaming at me. Armed Darkfly soldiers line the edge of the lake but no one dares to interfere. Raine is far away but I can sense his fear from here. He takes off running across the lake to get to me. I start sliding across the ice toward him; the sheet cracks beneath my feet and my heart bursts with adrenaline inside my chest.
An audience is forming on the bridge and behind Raine. Fuck, what if someone gets blighted? The Darkflies are useless; they stand and watch fearfully. Where are the professors? The headmaster?
Where is Elias?
Elias. The thought of him comforts me.
Amser disperses from my body as black dust and forms quickly into a large feline, bones on the exterior with shadows teeming beneath as the mass. I jump onto its back and Amser dashes across the ice, seemly not at all concerned about it giving way beneath our weight. We’re a hundred feet away from the shoreline and almost to Raine when I see a massive black creature under the ice, coiling and festering as I would imagine a trapped serpent trying to escape a tank it has outgrown would.
This is his power suppressed? If anything, the cast Kallos placed only made it angry. It’s beyond formidable. I cannot fathom how Edgar has even managed to keep it inside himself.
My lips are dry and my heartbeats pound so loudly in my head that I can’t hear anything else. Faster, we need to go faster.
The ice shatters in front of us and I’m thrown off Amser’s back, skidding across the ice and screaming as my skin burns on the cold sheen.
Edgar stands before me, holding his hand to me as if he’s trying to help me up. Blood pools beneath his feet and steam rolls into the air as the heat from his blood meets cold ice. “Face death boldly,” he says with wide eyes, like he’s absent, not even truly here.
“Edgar!” I scream at him. His eyes twitch and before either of us can do anything else, four figures appear on the ice in the blink of an eye. As fast as a lightning strike but as silent as snowfall.
Arthur, Nekane, Kallos, and Elias.
Elias’s back faces me. He turns to look down at me, cold gray eyes flickering for a moment with concern for my wounds, even though he knows Amser will heal them. Then his jaw sets with fury and he cracks his neck. “Arthur, take Terra to the shoreline. We can handle this.” His low voice has the same absence I heard in Edgar’s. Is it the Shadows?
I remember the field and the boy with hazel eyes who lay before me with every joint in his body severed, his eyes staring far away into death.
“Elias, don’t kill him!” I scream as Arthur scoops me up with one arm and practically teleports us to the shoreline. He grabs Raine with his other arm like we’re both weightless. Our feet are on the ground before I can even finish speaking.
