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“Help me save Edgar, please,” Terra pleads with a hushed voice.
Gods, I’m getting too soft.
“Okay,” I mumble as I press a kiss on her shoulder, fully intending to break that promise.
I carry Terra back to her room after she falls asleep in my arms. She’s had a really fucking hard day and all I can think about is crushing her brother’s head beneath my foot again.
Raine lifts his head from her pillow and watches me carefully as I set her down next to him. He opens the sheets and draws her in close to his chest, keeping her warm in my stead.
“We’re starting private tutoring tomorrow. Dawn, at the blight training grounds,” I whisper to him and he just nods drowsily before nuzzling his lips into the crook of Terra’s neck. Her soft brown hair hides her face, but I bet she’s smiling in her dreams.
I hope she isn’t too ruined when Raine’s clock runs out.
The door closes soundlessly behind me. I take my time walking down the east bridge, down the steps of Alkrose, and out past the courtyard, farther still into the forest beyond the blight training grounds.
The wind often whispers to me when I’m alone in this forest. I know not if it has a name or lore, I only know that the pines reach for me. They beckon to my soul and bring dreary reminders of a life I’ve long since left behind.
Why now? Of all times… Why does being around Terra make me so nostalgic? It is as if she’s warming that dead part of me and bringing it back to life. Even Raine gives me dark, haunting glimpses of the past.
My thoughts escape me as I stop before a wall of jagged rock. The minerals are so ebony that you’d hardly be able to find it on a moonless night. I lift my hand and let my fingertips brush along the edges as I walk around the broken rock.
Kallos and Arthur both look up at me as I turn the corner to the dip in the boulder. It makes a peak above, but below, it’s similar to the mouth of a cave. Funny, now that I’m older, our meeting spot looks much smaller than it once was.
Nekane leans against the far wall of the rock and smirks. If I close my eyes, I can see the three of them as hopeful young idiots. But I see the four ghosts of us that linger in the dark, wondering why we left them behind.
“You’re late,” Kallos quips as they all gather around a firepit in the center of the cave. The flames are blue and undying. No foliage or snow reaches this dark place.
“I was doing damage control,” I retort coldly. Arthur raises a brow at me and smiles like he knows all my secrets. I’m certain he does.
Nekane wraps his arm around my shoulder and lets out a chuckle. “You were going to crush that Nova brat’s head in, weren’t you?”
Kallos’s glower only grows more impatient as he mutters, “We only have an hour before the headmaster returns to the grounds.”
We silently sit on the old stone seats, looking attentively at Kallos. He was the one who initially found this spot for us to share all of our secrets and freedom plans. Being here now, I feel some of that hope returning. Perhaps we can still someday be free.
“I placed a cast on Edgar’s Shadow today in class. The power with which he fought his sister was a mere sliver of what he’s hiding beneath the surface and I fear that he will break the cast quickly. He shouldn’t have been able to use any of the Shadow’s power at all,” Kallos says dryly.
Chills crawl up my spine. “That was with a cast in place?” I say incredulously. Nekane looks as surprised as I am but Arthur firms his mouth into a flat line. He shares a look with me and I raise my shoulders.
“Arthur already knew?” Nekane’s brows pinch together and he sits up straighter with interest.
Kallos nods. “One of the other students knows too, Corvus. I wasn’t thinking rationally at the moment I placed it, given that Edgar will need his Shadow during the exam… but after witnessing Sully mere moments from breaking free of the cast, I’m more concerned about the other students.”
“I never expected him to attack his own sister like that,” Arthur mumbles absently, writing notes in that journal of his. “I doubt he’ll be able to break it as easily as you’re assuming, Kallos, but maybe we should each place one over Sully?” Arthur’s eyes grow distant and he frowns.
Nekane shrugs. “I don’t care what we do with that boy, but if we can’t keep him contained the headmaster might order an execution like last time.”
The three of them nod in agreement.
“I think we should kill him,” I say remorselessly.
Kallos levels me with a dark stare. “You know we can’t.”
“Why not? We have the Space Nova and the two Crescents; we are enough. They don’t need him,” I challenge Kallos and he stands, his golden eyes flickering with the light from the blue flames.
“He’s a human being, Elias. You may not remember what weight a life holds, but I do. I haven’t lost my heart.”
My teeth grit together and I clench my hands over my knees before standing as well. “Fine. If you want to try to save him, be my guest. But I hope you remember who is sent to slaughter the lamb when you’re finished with him. I want you to remember who has to fucking look the tortured remains in the eye and kiss them goodnight. Me. And when that time comes, and come it shall, I hope you remember who it was that had a heart, Kallos. Because I wanted to end it for him before he became like Midas.”
