Chapter 17: The Gathering Storm
The silence after the ritual felt heavier than the screaming chaos before it. Evan cradled Selene's limp form against his chest, her silver hair spilling over his arm like moonlit water. She weighed nothing—less than nothing, as if she might dissolve into mist at any moment. Across the ruined greenhouse, Kai stirred with a low groan, his fingers twitching against the shattered glass beneath him.
Aria was the first to move, her boots crunching on broken panes as she knelt beside Rowan. "He's breathing."
Rowan nodded, his earth-stained hands gentle as he turned Kai onto his side. The black veins had retreated, leaving only faint trails beneath his skin like fading bruises. His eyes, when they fluttered open, were his own again—sea-green and human and utterly terrified.
"What—" Kai's voice cracked. He coughed, spitting up a mouthful of black-tinged water. "What did you do to me?"
Isolde adjusted her cracked glasses with trembling fingers. "Saved your life. Probably."
Outside, the academy groaned. The rift might have stilled, but the damage was done. The north wing sagged like a dying beast, its stones crumbling where the roots had burrowed deep. And beneath it all, a new sound—a low, rhythmic pulsing, like a heartbeat echoing through the earth.
Selene's fingers twitched in Evan's grasp.
He nearly dropped her. "She's waking up!"
But when her eyes opened, they weren't the gray he remembered.
They were silver.
All silver.
And the voice that came from her lips wasn't hers.
"It's coming."
The first student disappeared an hour later.
A first-year from the Pyre Department, last seen heading to the dormitories. There was no struggle, no scream—just an empty bed and a single blackened vine curled on the pillow.
By nightfall, three more were gone.
Evan sat in the makeshift infirmary—what remained of the library's study alcoves—watching Selene stare blankly at the wall. She hadn't spoken since those two words in the greenhouse, hadn't so much as blinked. The others took turns keeping watch: Rowan at the door, Isolde flipping frantically through spellbooks, Aria sharpening stolen knives with grim determination.
Kai huddled in the corner, wrapped in a borrowed blanket, his hands shaking around a cup of tea he couldn't seem to drink. Every so often, he'd glance at Selene with something between awe and horror.
"It's not over," he whispered.
Evan didn't need to ask what he meant. The pulsing beneath the academy had grown stronger, a steady thrum that vibrated through the floorboards. Waiting. Watching.
Hungering.
Aria tested the edge of her blade. "So what's the plan? Wait for it to eat us one by one?"
"No."
The voice came from Selene, but the cadence was wrong—older, heavier, layered with echoes.
Evan reached for her, then hesitated. "Selene?"
She turned her silver eyes on him, and the words that came next stopped his heart:
"We wake Lucian."