“As Legacies,” Cynthia takes over, “we take our responsibility to educate and guide those who might beconfusedabout their place on the hierarchy seriously. So let us make something perfectly clear here: powerless peasants who forget their place don’t have the right to eat in the Great Hall. They don’t have the right to locked doors. They don’t have the right to speak unless spoken to.” She ticks off each point with a finger, and Lyra cuts in.
“And they most certainly don’t have the right to disrespect their betters without consequence. So, Nyx Byrke, what do you think the consequences should be for a worthless, base-born whore who thinks the rules don’t apply to her?”
My hands are trembling by the time she finishes her mean-girl monologue. Not in fear—which would be the appropriate response—but unmitigated rage.
“I think it’s embarrassing for two grown-ass women to act like they’re still in middle school.”
Cynthia responds with perverse glee. “I was hoping you’d make this fun.” Lyra wiggles her fingers at me before looping her arm through Cynthia’s and dragging her back to their table, but not before throwing me one last cruel smirk over her shoulder.
I don’t sleep well that night. The one reprieve I get the entire weekend is when I wake up at dawn and jog the dewy, deserted paths around campus to stave off the growing restlessness. Otherwise, I stay in my room, reading up on Legacies past and present.
Curiosity turns to dread. Dread turns to horror the more I learn how they’ve altered the course of history: kingdoms reduced to ash in the name of Wrath. Soldiers sacrificed asfodder for nothing more than lines on a map to sate the endless appetites of Greed. Women exploited for the Pride and Gluttony of men, over and over andoveragain. Millennia of suffering, etched into memory with each generation at the hands of weak men with wicked hearts, tempted by whispered promises of power and glory. Legacies built of bones and consecrated in blood.
Every day after that revelation reveals more than the last. I’m no longer able to hide behind the veil of willful ignorance I’ve desperately clung to. I walk the campus paths and the biting cold sinks into my bones, but it’s the aura of “otherness” that sends chills down my spine. The Foundation Stone no longer gleams, it looms. A sentinel, searching for secrets hidden behind too-wide smiles and hungry eyes. Shadows follow me around corners, nipping at my heels. When I step outside, it’s like I’m back in Lynden—my body tensing from the preternatural instinct that danger lays just out of sight, waiting to drag you into the darkness.
So I respond like I’ve always done: watch, and learn.
Learn and adapt.
Adapt and survive.
I learn that only the most powerful pure-blooded sinful demons have the ability to transform into heinous forms reminiscent of their demonic progenitors, created and corrupted in the fires of Hell.
Elemental demons like the Heirs are a different breed entirely. As descendants of the angels that Fell alongside the Devil, they were resistant to the same corruption the sinful demons faced. Instead of twisted masses of sinew and teeth and claws, they became the monsters that fueled human legends: the gargoyles of House Aeris, the werewolves of House Terra. The Leviathan of House Aquae. It’s hard to imagine Thane transforming into giant snake the size of a football field, butfrom this point onward, I won’t question it, or any of the other fucked up things I see.
I can’t survive here if I hide from the truth.
Finally, the fire-wielding demons of House Ignis. Instantly, the memory of Roth’s black eyes as his hands wrapped around my throat on my first day makes my heart stutter. Whereas the sinful demons bred for purity, the elemental demons bred for power—a pedigree designed to create the perfect predator. As both the Heir to House Ignis and the Legacy of Wrath, Roth is the shining example of their success. With his mother’s fire, his father’s Wrath, and a healthy dose of witch ancestry, he’s… fucking terrifying. And from what it sounds like, the other Heirs are just as formidable. Even Luther, though he’s technically the spare.
I’d never mistake him for anything but lethal, especially as I face him yet again on Thursday. It feels like my body only just recovered from the beating he gave me last week, and I brace myself for whatever he has in store. He grunts instructions at me, but otherwise we don’t talk. I don’t bring up his little stunt, and begin to suspect that my silence bothers him as class goes on, which is ironic considering he doesn’t say more than five words to me the entire hour and a half. By the time Carrick signals the end of the period, he’s practically vibrating and I’m close to tears with pain, skin already mottled with bruises, but fuck him. He’s not worth it.
He hates me when I talk?
He hates me when Idon’ttalk?
Pick a fucking lane.
It’s not until I limp into Brandt’s office afterwards that I feel like I can take a breath for the first time since last weekend. The tea he serves again barely takes the edge off the worst of my aches and pains, but anything is better than nothing.
“How are things, Nyx?” I peer over the rim of my teacup with a look that draws a rueful smile out of him. “That well, hmm? If it’s any consolation, it could be much worse.” Laughing under my breath despite the pain in my ribs, I start to relax as the tea begins to take effect.
“I’ve gotten through the list you sent me last week. Sorry again about missing our session. Here’s my paper.”
He brushes my apology away as he takes my homework. “It’s no matter. Did you have any questions from the reading? Or from your classes this week?”
“Not really. The readings you assign usually cover any questions I have from classes.”
“Excellent. So,” he steeples his fingers, elbows resting on the arms of his worn wingback chair as he looks at me expectantly, “what did you make of your first elemental rotation? Did Professor Payne review any of the fundamental principles?”
“You know, I’ve been calling him ‘Professor Handlebar’ this whole time.” Brandt chuckles, sipping his tea. “He mostly just yelled at everyone while I tried to avoid getting my ass lit on fire.”
“Ah yes, his method of instruction is somewhat unorthodox, however no student’s ever died so he must be doing something right.” He shrugs, and I snort at how death seems to be the litmus test for success. “No signs of your magic, I take it?”
“I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be looking for.”
“It differs between affinity, Order, and so on, but most describe the initial feeling as a buzzing in the back of one’s mind, an itch under the skin.”
“Sounds delightful,” I murmur.
