Secrets of Alkrose (Alkrose Academy, #2)

by K.M. Moronova

“It was punishment for my defiance when I was a student like you; a reminder of my actions.” I don’t show him any emotion. “Why make you a professor then if you're so defiant?” I ask, spotting Corvus walking toward us. “Because I still have much to lose,” he whispers sadly before straightening and smiling at Corvus.

“We knew we would meet it again.” Kallos looks at Arthur with scrutiny burning through his gaze. “Do you care to explain to me why I was not made aware that this Shadow was in the castle?”

Arthur flinches under the weight of Kallos’s tone. “Apologies, Kallos. I should have informed you.” He sets his hand on Kallos’s shoulder. “I was hoping Edgar wouldn’t reveal Sully until after the second exam. I thought it might be safer for everyone⁠—”

“I placed a cast on him,” Kallos interrupts sharply and Arthur’s eyes widen with horror. “You did what?” Arthur asks but it doesn’t seem ...

“Kallos, did you even think about how Edgar will be able to fight in the second-semester exam with a Shadow cast placed on him? He’s a lamb to the slaughter now,” Arthur says hopelessly and looks at me like I’ve lost all purpose.

“Shit. It didn’t even cross my mind.” Corvus shoots me a worried glance and I can’t help but feel damned. How am I supposed to have hope of saving what’s left of my nation if I’m dead after the second exam?

It hurts a bit, to think that I was not gifted with a beautiful power. Instead, I received a Shadow feared even among the professors. Something so malicious that I fear it beneath my veins. Am I that rotted?

But I can see it clearly now—I don’t have the heart of a hero. I have the heart of a weak man. One that craves revenge because it feels better. It soothes that gaping and starved darkness that only desires for others to suffer as I have suffered.

I was never meant to have a bright, beautiful god inside my bones. Only the darkest, most greedy deity would call my soul to its own.

Corvus gives me a sympathetic look. “You know, you don’t have to fight your demons alone.” He raises a hand to his chest. “We have all been mortally wounded inside. We can try to heal together. You don’t have to⁠—”

“Shut up!” I shout, teeth bared and hands tightly clenched at my sides. “I don’t need to fight my pain. I don’t need to heal. I don’t want to heal.” I face Corvus with rage burning inside me. “I want to make them pay for what they’ve done.”

I make my way back into my entirely too-large, empty room and stare at myself in the mirror. At Sully. It stands there behind me, observing me in silence with the same shattered eyes I have—turquoise lines that etch over my irises.

It’s quieter after Kallos placed that cast on me, but Sully still whispers all the same. Fuck. I was hoping it was gone. One cast cannot get rid of me. In fact, let’s put it to the test, shall we? Sully says as it grins.

Corvus shakes his head. “In theory, no. But I can still sense it lingering just beneath his skin. Honestly, he’s dangerous. I think Kallos made a good decision, but I don’t think it’s going to hold his Shadow as long as they were hoping.” Corvus looks at me with sympathy and regret. “Terra, I saw what his Shadow can do with minimal effort and it’s fucking horrifying.”

“Really? Because you don’t look fine, Edgar,” I say with worry eroding my voice. “Have you been speaking with your Shadow? I think you need to stop, you look… You look—” My eyes trail him up and down, taking in his frail state. “I look what?” he says slowly in a monotone voice. I stiffen my resolve. “You look like you’re losing your fucking mind.”

“You think I’m losing my mind?” he says with that fucking eerie smile. “How about I help you find yours, Terra.” 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.

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?”

“You should’ve died with them,” he says venomously, his laugh instantly dying. He stares at me like he’s not even present.

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.

“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.

“Arthur, take Terra to the shoreline. We can handle this.” His low voice has the same absence I heard ...

“I’m going to fucking kill that little⁠—” I cut Raine off with a hard glare. “It’s not Edgar. There’s something wrong with him.” My voice quivers as my entire body trembles. “Yeah, he’s almost not even human anymore, Terra.”

I tremble mindlessly as I watch the three instructors circle Edgar like he’s a wild beast. “He’s still my brother.”

This little fucking prick. If he weren’t a Nova, I’d pull his bones from his flesh one by one until he begged me to kill him.

I know Emerai and Dr. Cein have been waiting for Sully to find another suitable vessel after what happened six years ago, but I thought they’d learned that this one is different. It cannot be tamed.

Nekane’s eyes fall to the ice below us as he mutters, “You guys seeing this?” Kallos and I look down as well. The lake is coiling with black scales, and large oval-shaped eyes the size of a full-grown human stare up at us. Sully is a serp...

“Listen, Edgar, and listen well. If you try to kill your sister again, I will gut you so slowly, so agonizingly, that you’ll beg me to take you apart joint by joint.”

I drop him and he gasps for air. My foot comes down on his head and he screams as I press my boot against his ear, crushing the other side into the ice. “Do. You. Understand?” He cries and gasps for air. “Yes! Yes!” He squirms beneath my boot and sobs as blood spills beneath his head.

Kallos crosses his arms at my choice of treatment, but I seem to be the only one who remembers...

I brush her hair back. Her clothes are soaked and freezing. My fingers trail softly down the skin of her neck and goosebumps rise over her arms. I’ve never wanted to be so gentle yet brutal with someone in my entire life.

“You need to get out of these clothes or you’ll freeze,” I murmur, watching her eyes lift to mine and brimming with tears once more. She nods. I have no clue what to say regarding her brother. What do I know about comforting people? I usually just kill them. Comfort is complex and foreign to me.

“He was really trying to kill me, wasn’t he?” My hands stop moving and I lean forward, resting my chin on her shoulder. Her skin is hot and smells of cypress. I shut my eyes and murmur, “Yes, he was.”

“Do you want me to kill him?” Her jaw drops and she’s about to yell at me before I crack a grin. “I’m kidding.”

“He hardly even looked like himself. His eyes are different, and I don’t mean the fractures. I mean inside. There was something bad. Evil.”

“What do you mean the headmaster will have his heart?”

“Haven’t you been curious why our eyes are gray?” I tap the side of my head and she stares into my soul, nodding. “Headmaster Emerai has the Shadow that Keeps. It collects the hearts that have been replaced by the Shadows, and once it has, you’re basically enslaved to it. Fernestia controls you so long as Emerai has you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Raine’s eyes are already starting to fade and⁠—” “Why would I? Look at my eyes, sweetheart. You give in or you die like lambs. It’s better that the students don’t know. Trust me, it’s just… easier this way.”

“Arthur told me you’ve blighted people before.” My eyes widen at her admittance and unwelcome pain spreads through my chest. “Who did you have to kill, Elias? Sometimes I can’t tell if you genuinely are a psychopath or if you’re just doing what you’re told.”

She wants to be cruel? I like this side of her. “I killed them all, Terra. Just as I did the people in the field. Just like I would have killed you if it weren’t for us being mates.”

“You can’t hide the pain in your eyes, Elias. You’re not as heartless as you try to be,”

“They were all your friends, weren’t they? The ones you blighted.” A crooked, weak smile spreads across my lips, my eyes dry. “The only ones I ever had.”

“Don’t try to fix me—some things are meant to be broken.”

I’m meant to be broken. I stare emptily at the fire as old friends greet me in my conscience. They never leave—not for long. Arthur keeps them fresh in my mind, as punishment, I think.

“Help me save Edgar, please,” Terra pleads with a hushed voice. Gods, I’m getting too soft. “Okay,”

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.

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.

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.”

“He’s a human being, Elias. You may not remember what weight a life holds, but I do. I haven’t lost my heart.”