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“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.”
“Just go, Elias. We’ll finish this discussion without you. I’d forgotten how insensible you are.”
Only, I don’t walk back to Alkrose just yet. There are four gravestones around the far edge of the broken rock. I bend a knee next to them, letting my fingers brush across the hand-engraved names and stare hollowly at them. Midas. Camil. Acadi. Serina. “Hello, old friends.”
“What are you two doing here, might I ask?” Arthur says in his calm, level voice. My eyes linger over his sharp jaw and I look away when amusement flashes across his gaze. Raine answers, “You’ll have to torture it out of me, Fernestian.” Arthur chuckles, which only fuels Raine’s hate fire more. I intervene. “Elias said something curious about the headmaster collecting hea—”
The light around us darkens in the blink of an eye and Arthur presses his warm palm softly against my lips. “Don’t say it here,” Arthur says with dread permeating his expression.
“Why?” I ask with bated breath. Arthur smooths his hand gently over my throat and down to my collarbone. His gray eyes linger on my lips as he slowly shakes his head. “Many ears in Alkrose lend themselves to the headmaster.”
“Where does the headmaster keep them?” The air is heavy and thick as Arthur regards us in silence. “The headmaster consumes them. There is nothing to find,”
“What is it that runs rampant through your mind, Terra?” I study his gaze and all I find is kind endearment. I hesitate, but say slowly, “Edgar… He’s never been a violent person, but I don’t know how we can ever face one another again.”
“I don’t know what to do.” He leans forward, pulling his knees up to his chest as well and resting his head on his forearms. “I’m remorseful to say I’m at a loss as well. I would tell you if I knew how to stop Sully. I promise you that.”
“Terra.” I break my thoughts and look up at Arthur. “Hm?” “The technique I plan on teaching you today might get a bit… involved. I’ve heard you aren’t foreign to it since you’ve been in Kallos’s class.”
“I won’t lie and say I didn’t expect something of the sort. Close contact with other strong Shadows makes Amser… intense.”
“I’m going to teach you a useful technique for the exam, remember?” A dark flicker flashes across his eyes and I swallow hard as his Shadow tugs viciously at mine. I sink my teeth into my lower lip to keep from moaning at the divinity of it. Stronger than Kallos’s, softer than Elias’s. Arthur’s lips twitch at the sensation, but he remains expressionless.
“This is called Shadow leeching. It is the act of borrowing another’s strength by leeching parts of their Shadow.”
A dizzy spell falls over me as his Shadow siphons mine like a glass of water and I fall forward. It feels as if his Shadow...
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“I just leeched some of your time magic,” he says in a low tone. My blood chills. I feel so helpless like this.
“Now, I want you to take some of mine. Draw it in, and once you can feel it building inside you, cut it off from the rest of me.”
“Arthur, what was that feeling? Did you feel it too when you took my Shadow?” I lift my head when he doesn’t respond. His eyes flick to me like he’s only now hearing me. “Hm? Oh, yes, I did.” That’s not enough. I press him. “What was it? You’re not my mate and yet, every time you touch me, I feel… lonely.”
His eyes drift to the floor. “Lonely, huh? That’s not how I would—” “Not lonely in the moment we’re together, but all those that follow. In the seconds you touch me, I’m filled with longing and so much sorrow… but after we part, I’m utterly lonely. Is that how you feel too?”
His weary eyes meet mine again and he nods. “I told you, time and memory are old friends. Never together, never apart. Alwa...
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“That’s dreadfully sad. Who says that’s how they have to be? Why can’...
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“I say so.” “That’s quite cruel, don’t you think? Who are you to force this tragic feeling upon us?”
Such a starved, carnal man. Lovely and lonesome. He’s made my heart realize what loneliness is too. And I consume his demanding kisses just as viciously.
Elias might have to make room for another man in my life. Our Shadows tangle hopelessly and my heart yearns for Arthur.
“We should stop.” “You started it,” I murmur against his lips and he sets his forehead against the desk with a groan. “Best we don’t get caught though. I’m not sure what Elias will think.”
“Elias doesn’t own you. Don’t let him be delusional enough to think that he does. You’re more than all of us, Terra.”
“Now, do you want to learn the technique or not? Take part of my Shadow.” Arthur lowers his lips back to mine and I try to focus on the Shadows inside us and not the hard bulge in his pants pressing against my core.
He stops and I’m tempted to let him know I’ve bitten Elias’s dick for playing this very same game. “I won’t continue unless you can learn this, Terra. It’s important that you know it for the exam,” he says in a perfectly annoying professor’s tone. Somehow that turns me on more.
I manage to messily sever a part of his Shadow that I still have a hold on, and the moment I do, his tongue resumes and my back arches up into him. A breath that is not my own coils inside my lungs.
“Good, now your reward,” Arthur mumbles, lips gliding down my stomach. His fingers are warm and he easily unbuttons my pants, sliding them down and pulling my underwear with...
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Students are in the hallway walking past the door as Arthur devours me, lapping at my center like an impoverished soul. He yearns for me; I can feel it in the way he grips my hips greedily, demanding more.
“Shall we go practice in the forest now?” he says academically, completely dismissing the relations we just shared. I quirk a brow. “You took some of my Shadow, and I ought to show you how to use it, shouldn’t I?”
“You truly are a delight, Terra.” I chuckle and look into his eyes. This close, I’m certain there’s a bit of green to them. Does he still have some sliver of his heart? “Arthur, what color were your eyes before they turned gray?”
“Green. Not emerald like your own, but a sage green. Dull but pleasant.” Arthur grins nostalgically. “I have no doubt they were lovely. Your gray eyes are beautiful too, you know,”
“Stop icing me out, Raine. You don’t let anyone in. Doesn’t it hurt? Aren’t you tired of protecting the things that infect your mind so feverishly?”
“You want in? The dark isn’t for pretty little things like you, babe.” His lips coast mine softly, sending goosebumps up my arms. “I’m adept in the dark—you aren’t the first man to take me for a walk through it.”
“I’ll let you in, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I trust you, Terra,” he says in a low, raspy voice as he scoops me up and carries me to the stairwell. Our lips crash together as he takes me to the homeroom. “Don't be sad when I’m gone. Promise me,”
“I won’t,” I lie.
“What is the dark to you? The dark for me… was Mara. She was one of the leaders in our misfit group,” he murmurs with his forearms pressed to the cushions around my head. “She was two years older than I was and she was a vicious woman. Cruel and greedy.”
“She took a liking to me and would beat me relentlessly. As we got older, she also took other things.”
“She gave me the scar on my jaw when I finally told her no. I was so angry and blind with rage—I took that blade she always cut me with, and I stuck it right into her fucking skull.”
“She didn’t even cry. She knew how sinister people like her were bound to die,”
“I told you that you wouldn’t like the dark—the wicked things of the past.”
“She took everything from me, but that didn’t mean I had to take it out on the world. I’m sorry for my cruelness, Terra. You’ve shown me that kindness, warmth, and trust can exist in my heart again.”
Raine, Elias, Finn, Arthur. They’re already finding their chambers inside my heart, locking themselves in. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to remove them.
“I’m sent here every day after class to try and get inside that godsforsaken city. Do you know what happens when I get inside?” I nod grimly. So this is where he’s been…
“Exactly. Skyfell, Void, whatever Heirahians are calling it. The fucking last city of Heirah will fall.” “I don’t understand, Elias. Why did you bring me here?”
“Because I think they’re going to send you here with me after the exam. The Blood Crowns is an extermination, and they want the Novas to be broken and whole, ready to deploy. With the two of us here, I won’t need to be in the city for the Void to reach the inhabitants inside. Our Shadows together will be enough to clear the entire city from this side of the wall.”
“I don’t understand, Elias.” I shift to put distance between us, but he grabs my arm and stops me. “I want you to be strong enough to stop me before they send us here.”
“How else? If it comes to that, I want you to kill me.” The corner of his lip kicks up in a tired grin. Bile crawls up the back of my throat and I shake my head. “I won’t—” “You’ll have to or the world will perish. This is the last stand for humanity, Terra.”
“What are the other options? What if I can’t?” I grit my teeth and look away so he won’t see my tears building. He laughs sarcastically and says, “If you can overthrow the headmaster and empress of Fernestia, then that’s a great start. Oh, and Dr. Cein, the master of the Shadows. Him too.”
