Page 77 of Trivium

“Don’t look at me like that,” Zeina said. “You’re not even supposed to be eating that stuff.”

Junie huffed a breath and shuffled her feet. Next to Zeina, Junie would be massive, but beside the older Hydra, she looked cute, petite even. Zeina wondered what it would be like to climb down into the cage and run her fingers along the thick scales on Junie’s spine. To settle with Junie beside Dahlia and Khan and let the warmth of the sun lull her to sleep.

Everyone at the Academy was afraid of the Hydra, but Zeina thought it quite unfair. Surely, if anyone had spent even a little time with them, they would know the creatures were incredibly intelligent and docile. Morning after morning, Zeina had watched them wake lazily, softly grooming each other and squawking in delight. In fact, Zeina thought people should be more impressed with how calm the Hydra were, considering they were caged like uncontrollable beasts.

Somewhere along the way, the family of Hydra had become her family. Every morning, she looked forward to visiting them. Zeina even came on rainy days when they were much more joyful, prancing and stretching out their wings to clean off the dry, Jarrian dust. Even the thought of going a day without them made her chest tight.

Junie squawked, snapping Zeina from her thoughts. Come down for a visit? June said into her mind.

“You know I can’t get down there. It’s too steep,” Zeina reasoned.

Junie blinked, her eyes pleading.

Sighing, Zeina mentally committed to practicing her climbing skills. Maybe if she worked on it, she could scale the wall. Carefully, she peered straight down the wall’s edge, sending a jolt of adrenaline to her stomach.

Maybe.

The drop was long. If she fell…

She wiped the image from her mind. Practice was all she needed.

It wasn’t until later, when Zeina was tucked away in hiding, that she overheard Professor Hashiluna and Professor Harlan discussing the Hydras’ impending execution; their work with them would be complete at the end of the school year. They spoke so casually about ending their lives. The cruelty sank deep into Zeina’s bones, drowning her spirit. It was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time…

Heartbreak.

53

LOVELEENA

For the first time since arriving at the Academy, Loveleena was truly on edge. Not because no one would talk about Park, which still angered her, and not because she was inches from a Soul Snatcher ripping her soul away, but because the secret she had been hiding for her entire life was seeping out of her.

Humans didn’t have magic.

Most humans didn’t have magic.

But she did.

And she had known ever since she was a child when it would spark in tiny bursts. It was Gina, her family cook, who had taken her aside one day and slowly, methodically, taught her how to control it enough to keep it at bay.

She had kept it a secret for years.

When Park disappeared, it surged up once again, bubbling below her skin. If she were ever caught, it would have been her immediate death. History wasn’t kind to humans that claimed to have creature magic. They were executed or deemed to have the creature sickness and sent beyond the wall. But the loss of her best friend made her reckless, and sometimes she would let it surface.

Usually to steal.

It was how she stole Ren’s dagger when she caught him at the Great Wall.

And how she stole many things she could easily afford.

Lady Shadows wasn’t just immune to her antics. Stealing the tully made her realize Lady Shadows was also immune to her magic. Something she would have to unpack at another time. The elders always seemed to guard a web of knowledge. One that you could never quite untangle.

Yes, she knew she had the gift of illusion. She could shift and shape reality around her to create false experiences. Distractions so vivid that no one could tell what was real and what wasn’t. But she had spent most of her life in denial. It was easier to pretend she didn’t—easier to control. She was so used to only letting it out in such small bursts; the illusion she created in front of her entire squad during shadows had been her biggest—and most uncontrolled—expression of it yet.

Mainly because the Soul Snatcher terrified her. Her body—her magic—reacted instinctively.

But there was no way she was going to let it happen again. She had to keep it at bay and the best way to do that was to pretend it didn’t exist. To distract herself, she focused on trying to figure out what the Soul Snatcher had meant when it said it was there to check up on someone.

Check up on who? It had to be someone in the Slayer shadow squad.