“Good,” Professor Vexus tells him. “Now, without killing each other, I need you to focus on fighting with the goal of helping the prince get a better understanding of how this Arcana works in practice—”
I don’t think she heard thenot killingpart. She steps forward, punching outward, and a blast of molten fire blares so hard into the wall behind him it leaves a crater. A moment later the hole fixes itself by magic, but Draven is still looking between her and the shot he barely ducked. He grits his teeth, fists coming up defensively, and soon he’s shooting Sun power right back. She has far more experience though and channels it into a whip of liquid fire, flicking it to snap right by his head.
“Wait, show me how you did that,” he demands.
She stops, put out, but explains how she strings out the magma in her hands.
“Rune,” Wynter whispers.
I move over to him as he glances worriedly at Draven before turning to me.
“Did you get home all right? I … saw Morgan running from your Hearth across the lawns last night. He was missing at breakfast. No one’s seen him since last night.”
“I’m … okay.” What a lie. I fidget on the spot, resisting the urge to bolt. I hesitate, wondering if I should lay it out for him. But what if he doesn’t believe me, or believes Morgan? And if he tells the group … worrying about others leaving me is a burdenI haven’t carried in a very long time and the thought takes me off guard. “I don’t really want to get into it.”
“All right.” Wynter looks me over, checking for bruises, but everything on the outside has been healed. He meets my wayward gaze. “As long as you’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
A sense of relief presses through me. Maybe it was stupid to assume he wouldn’t believe me. I try to think of what I can say, his attention wholly on me, but—
“Rune.” Draven’s gaze snaps from me to Wynter, lingering on his face a moment, scrutinizing it as if he’s piecing apart a machine he doesn’t understand. His look softens as it returns to me. Existence narrows to the two of us. “I want you to try this.”
As I return to his side he walks me through the power, his magic pressing through the World, through the Sun until his other hand glows with holy, blinding plasma. He repeats the steps with me, his eyes narrowing as my magic sputters in response. A migraine forms, burning behind my eyes. Finally, the skin on my other hand smokes, the power sparking for a moment before I jolt and the flash of lit sulfur snuffs out.
“Damn it—”
“No, that was good. You’re releasing it.” His gaze consumes me, as he watches my mouth a heartbeat too long. He releases his stare, straightening up, and orders, “First-year, your turn.”
Wynter startles, walking ahead as the Sun Arcana moves over to Professor Vexus. The professor’s long-fingered hands hover on either side of her head, glowing, and her gaze turns distant. Then Vexus explains something to her. She leaves, a serene but withdrawn look in her eyes. I glare suspiciously at Vexus, worried whether I’d ever know if he did something like that to me.
Not if you keep up your wards.Draven’s voice pools inside my mind like a coiled snake. Startled, I focus on that mentalfirewall, shoving him right back out, but he retreats with ease, as if he’s letting me do it.
“I don’t know what I could teach you,” Wynter admits as he steps up to Draven. There’s no aggression in his shoulders or stance, his expression passive.
Draven holds his arms out to either side and says, “Humor me then. Try to control me.”
After a moment’s hesitation Wynter draws his Arcana, a green light blaring in his eyes as he faces off with Draven. The prince waits and Wynter’s Arcana lunges forward, snaking around Draven’s feet, then climbs up his body. I’m not sure what he’s attempting to make Draven do, but I wait, breath held, as he keeps trying. Wynter has the second most powerful Arcana, Judgment, and he can already do so much with it, whereas I’m struggling for the most meager showing of power. A ghostly wail begins to grow beneath whatever pressure Wynter applies, but it stems from the magic, not Draven. All at once Draven’s wings buffet upward, as if he’s casting the spell off. He lifts his hand and Wynter drops immediately to his knees, bowing low, as if an invisible puppeteer has pressed a giant hand against his spine, shoving him as far as he can naturally bend.
I shoot a warning glance at Draven, but then the haunting glow is gone. Draven releases Wynter, his voice dismissive as he says, “Thank you. You can go.”
Wynter looks to me only once, a fearful flutter in his gaze, before he moves to Professor Vexus. I swallow, uncertain, as I take his place in front of Draven. I open my mental shield just a fraction, an eyehole in a doorway.Did you bring him here just to ridicule him?
I brought him here to make sure he and the rest of your male friends remember where to keep their hands next time.Draven rolls his shoulders.
I thought they’re not supposed to remember these lessons.
He’ll remember only that he fears me.Draven summons the World, then Judgment, that glimmer of green light haunting his eyes, like a ghostly candle at the end of a long, dark hall. “Summon your gift.”
My magic pulls at the World, then Judgment follows, floating out of its box, hovering one over the other in front of my raised palm. This card feels different than the others, darker, more sinister. A weight of cruel intention.
His brows twitch together, eyes hardening at my struggle. “I need to use it on you, to teach it to you.” He waits and hesitantly I nod.
Then I feel it, the invasion of his magic wrapping around my limbs. A panic incomparable to anything else overtakes me as he moves me a step toward him before releasing me. I gasp out, hating the violation in that card, the sinister potential of it.
“There’s a reason this card sits one below the World.” He nods, as if he’s familiar with the chills that now wash across my limbs.
The echo of a complete loss of autonomy shivers through my entire being. Did his father ever use it on him? It was only a moment, but my “fight-or-flight” instincts are hissing for me to run.
He grasps my wrist, not painfully, but firmly. “Make me let you go.”
