I glanced down at Nebula's soaked skull cradled in my arms, and a surge of sorrow pierced me through the heart.
“I'm sorry, Nebula,” I croaked. “I'm so sorry.”
But Nebula didn’t manifest, and I was alone with the desert stars beginning to prick the night sky. I held him closer, the weight of loneliness pressing in on me again.
31
DEXTER
Dark magic could go fuck itself.
It took away everything I cared about—my sanity, my childhood, mysister.
Yet, here I was, about to place the dark magic infector on the academy campus I went to.
Everything’s really gone full circle.
The sandstone walls of Reform Hall loomed over me, and my gut rebelled against the task my dear parents gave me.
Pushing back the irritation flaming through me, I wedged the painting infected with dark magic under my arm as I searched for a good place to hang it. It needed to have a lot of foot traffic if it was going to spread everywhere.
Dread bottomed out in my gut at the thoughtof dark magic infecting the students here, but…I didn’t have a choice. It was this or immeasurable pain, and Iloathedtheir specialty of pain.
It was the entire reason why I stopped trying to disobey them.
As I reached the perfect spot in the lobby, I held the painting of the ominous castle with dark clouds rolling above up to the wall.
Pain splintered inside of me as I noticed the dark clouds start to drip with sinister magic.
“Fuck!” I gasped out as the dark magic within me clawed at my insides viciously as if trying to burst out and meet with the painting's cursed magic. The suffocating agony funneling through me felt like every nerve in my body was tearing itself apart.
My knees crashed against the rock floor, and the painting clattered next to me. I couldn’t breathe or move; I was frozen in anguish for a few moments of absolute fucking hell.
Dripping shadow magic formed sharp tendrils inside of my body and sliced and diced my guts—literally—as it clawed to get out of me and inside of the painting.
They’d said I absorbed the dark magic, and Ihad.But it was dormant, still lurking inside of me. I hadn’t expected it to show itself like this. I’d hoped to forget it even fucking existed.
“Dex?” a soft voice quelled the pain for the briefest of moments.
I glanced up to meet gorgeous red eyes, and my heart lurched. “Pandora,” I croaked her name as pain rattled my soul.
Fates, she was everything I was obsessed with—gorgeous and sweet, and I wanted to possess her completely. But she was terrified of me. Her eyes reflected a fear that matched the screams of my own soul.
But then, the air crackled with an all-consuming power, and her soul eater magic surged out of her in a heap of clouds. Her eyes turned black, and black, dense smoke billowed from between her parted lips. Unlike the last time I’d seen her magic at the surface, it swallowed the painting whole.
The dark magic inside the canvas writhed and dissipated under her magic, and the magic inside of me subsided as she devoured it.
What the…fuck? How did she just do that? Did she…stop the dark magic from attracting mine?
I slumped completely against the floor, too weak to do anything else. I couldn’t form any words.
Her magic fled the painting and moved toward me. I watched in horrified fascination as it parted my lips and slipped down my throat.
I couldn’t be afraid, not of her, and certainly not of death. But was this it? Dying at the hands of a gorgeous girl I couldn’t stop thinking about?
If that was what the Fates wanted, I’d happily oblige. Instead of death, though, I found a release I hadn’t known I needed.
The dark magic that had poisoned my body and laid dormant inside of me, a nasty fucking parasite, was consumed by her. She took away every fucking trace of it, and the corrupting of my soul sharing a body with it faded. I was lighter, so light I felt like I’d fly away. My psyche began to unravel, and my magic met its tune.
