It doesn't make any godsdamned sense, but that's hardly the problem right now. The problem is that our keeper vanished in the middle of a deadly combat training, and I'm losing my mind, thinking that every corpse we come across is hers.
She's dead.
You lost her.
As it should be,the voices in my head taunt.
My ears start to ring, and my vision blurs. But finally, Baelfire stops in a clearing, and we all stare.
The grass is utterly colorless. Not like dead, yellowed grass—it's pure white. Nearby trees are in grayscale. It's as if any vestige of life or color has been drained away, including from a legacy corpse nearby.
"S—Silas! Baelfire! Professor Frost, you have to help me.Please!"someone wails. "It hurts!"
We all look over to see a redhead crawling towards us from a cluster of rocks. She's bleeding profusely from her head at a rate that tells me she won't live long. She slumps to cry into the grass.
"She was just supposed to be a w—weak little asscaster," she sobs. "Please heal me—you have to heal me! I can't die this way, I don't deserve this…"
She dissolves into nonsensical weeping. I crouch beside her.
"You're talking about Maven. You saw her cast?"
The redhead rolls over as well as she can, nodding quickly and brushing tears and blood off her hysterical, wide-eyed face. "Listen to me. Listen. You can't fucking trust her! That bitch has been lying this entire time. You have to believe me, her magic wasn't normal! I think she was using?—"
I reach out and twist her head, snapping her neck.
Everett flinches and scowls at me. Baelfire swears and rubs his face.
"Couldn't you at least let her finish whatever she was trying to fucking say first? Or you could have tried to heal her enough so she could tell us what happened here and what direction Maven went. Fucking merciless cutthroat."
As if being merciless is a flaw.
"She was past the point of healing. I was putting her out of her misery efficiently," I mutter.
It's a partial truth. I was also keeping the redhead from saying anything more about Maven's casting. If she saw Maven cast, then I couldn't leave her alive. I know my blood blossom is hiding something about her magic, and I can't have rumors about it spreading around Everbound.
Baelfire calls me a dick before inhaling deeply and leaving the clearing, following Maven's scent. Everett and I follow.
The coach blew the whistle outside of Everbound Forest several minutes ago, but none of us give a fuck about not completing this stupid training. We were attacked so frequently that this was less of a structured exercise and more of a free-for-all shot at trying to kill our quintet off, which only led to us leaving a trail of bodies in our wake as we searched for Maven.
Finally, we burst out of the edge of the forest. Coach Gallagher sees us and storms over, barking that the training isn't over and we can't go back inside. He's still mid-sentence when Everett flicks his hand in the coach's direction and freezes him solid, pushing over the frozen instructor as we pass.
"There goes your chance at being the teacher's pet," Baelfire mutters, still leading the way.
"He's my coworker and a dick. Always has been."
I glance at Everett. "When we get inside, we'll keep searching for Maven. You should go to your office or whatever the hell it isthat you do here. Just keep yourself and your curse well the fuck away from her."
Never before have I felt bad for the privileged, famous heir of the Frost fortune. What was there to feel sorry for? Even if he was a brooding, arrogant grouch, by all appearances, he had everything.
But the look of stark misery on the elemental's face as he halts to let us go on alone actually makes me pity him for a fleeting moment. I despise my curse more than anything, but at least my mere feelings can't put Maven's life at risk. She's taken center stage in my life so completely that I can't imagine having to resist her for her own good.
As soon as we step into the castle, Baelfire turns right down the hall that will take us to our quintet apartment. I'm surprised Maven would go there since she's avoided it so heavily.
I keep up easily, still clutching my blood-soaked crystal as I look around for anyone who might try to catch us unawares. Although our mere appearance seems to be enough to turn most legacies off from the idea of approaching us. Blood still drips down my chin and neck, drying from the last person I drained. I'm sure I look as mad as I feel as blood magic swirls around my fingertips.
Meanwhile, Baelfire snarls at anything that moves into his line of sight, and his eyes are still partially shifted. He's also covered in blood and dirt from a fight with a griffin shifter that didn't end well for the griffin.
As soon as we step into our quintet apartment, Baelfire drops to his knees and clutches at his head with an infuriated roar. The fire flickering under his skin and smoke rising from his nose as he barely resists a shift confuses me until I test the air and realize what set him off.
