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He was up before I knew it though, his energy back on, the gathered students watching in nervous awe as we continued to fight.
Suddenly, a loud crackle and then a boom erupted from down the hallway.
Wesley and I both froze, turning toward the sound as we breathed hard.
It had come from fou
r doors down.
From the portal room.
As we all watched in silence, sparks flew out of the door and flashes of light lit up the hallway. A moment later, several figures emerged and came sweeping through the hallway.
Students immediately backed up to press themselves against the walls, watching the robed figures whose feet never even touched the ground. Those who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of the corridor, like me and Wesley, were pushed back by a gust of magic unlike anything I’d ever felt. It didn’t slam me against the wall, but the force of the power that moved me out of the way made a shiver run up my spine.
As they passed, one of the newcomers turned their head toward me, but all I could see was glowing blue eyes from inside the dark shadow of his hood. Goose bumps erupted over my skin, and I rubbed at my arms as the tall man turned away. Angela, a girl I knew from several of my classes, put her hand on my shoulder and pulled me back even farther until we were both pressed tight against the wall.
“They’re messengers of the gods,” she whispered, awe and fear in her voice. “They are some of the oldest and most powerful mages in existence. Some of them live with the gods in the godly realm, and some of them are very old. People say that most of them are barely even human at all anymore.”
Several of the school admins, including the dean, hurried down the hallway, stopping to bow in front of the visitors. Their groveling obsequiousness made my stomach turn. I mean, sure, maybe we should be grateful to the gods for giving us magic, but it wasn’t in my nature to bow to anyone.
“Welcome,” Dean Frost said, her tone totally different than the one she took with us. “If you would follow us this way, we’ll go to a meeting room where we can speak in private.”
“I wonder what they want,” Eden whispered, sidling up beside me. She must’ve been on her way to class. “They don’t come to the earthly realm just for anything.”
I watched as the messengers followed the admins down the hallway toward the meeting room. Several of our professors started to shoo us back toward our classrooms, trying to break up the gaping crowd.
Messengers of the gods, huh?
Curiosity burned in my gut. My mind replayed the conversation I had overheard between Miss Avery and Dean Frost after the Gods’ Challenge last semester.
They aren’t happy about how it went. They expected far more from us than this.
I was almost positive the “they” in that sentence referred to the gods themselves. And the thing they’d expected more of? Death.
Yeah. Fucked up. Give people magic then kill them for it.
But if these were messengers of the gods, then maybe they were here to discuss the challenge. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the preliminaries were coming up soon and now they were here. It had to have something to do with the Gods’ Challenge, and the fact that all of those people had died. The messengers could be my key to understanding what exactly was going on here.
Biting my lip, I shot a glance at Eden, who was talking in whispered voices with Angela.
I knew I had to sneak off. I had to try to find a way to eavesdrop on the meeting, and I couldn’t risk her getting into trouble with me. As she and Angela stared after the messengers, I stepped back and hurried down the hallway into the crowd of people heading to class. Wesley had disappeared in the crowd too, and although I kind of wanted to finish our fight, this was way more important.
When I emerged through an archway into a common area, I slipped around the corner and hid, allowing the rest of the students around me to continue moving on. Once the hallways were quiet, I stepped out, trying to find the best route to reach the messengers.
As I headed down the hallway in a new direction, a heavy a hand fell on my shoulder. My heart leapt in my chest, and I spun around, hands rising to attack.
But it wasn’t one of the messengers, or a professor, or even Wesley.
It was Merrick. And he was flanked by the other two men. They were all standing in almost identical postures, their chins tilted down and their eyebrows lifted.
Gods. They really do share a fucking brain sometimes.
I let out a breath and shook my head. “Fucking hell. You could’ve said something. You scared the shit out of me.”
Merrick crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, like you could’ve said something?”
My brows pulled together. “What do you mean?”
