He whistled low, his eyes glaring down at me. The chamber seemed to pulse, the walls moving, new stone benches and walls coming into existence. I stood quickly, pressing my shoulder against Alaric’s as the room continued to shift and change. Once it stopped, it looked more like a maze; the room seeming to never end on either side of us.
“How did the room grow?” I wondered, my eyes trying to look above the walls of the maze and find the exit we had just entered from only twenty minutes ago.
“It’s an illusion. Your goal is to find your way to the exit, but avoid the shadowed Stonebound,” Alaric replied simply, leaning against the newly formed cracked wall.
“Shadowed Stonebound?” I asked, eyes rising in disbelief. I barely survived a Stonebound stalking me last night, now I have to deal with a shadowed version?
Alaric rolled his eyes at my obvious panic. “It’s not a real Stonebound. It’s another illusion that Seraphine perfected a few years ago for training.”
“Are you saying once I figure out my powers I could create illusions?” I took in my surroundings, awestruck. It all looked so real, as if the small training chamber we had been in had always been a gigantic stone maze.
“Amongst other things.” The corner of his mouth hooked up in a crooked sort of smile. “Most Bloodwrights can learn to make simple, but temporary illusions. One of Seraphine’s particular gifts is creating an illusion and carving it into a space for the foreseeable future. Perhaps even after she has died.”
“Do all Bloodwrights have special gifts?” I asked, curious about what my particular gift could be. Or what Alaric’s was.
He nodded. “Mostly the most promising and strongest among us. Now . . .”
The air suddenly felt heavier, as if there were a rainstorm on the horizon. The space itself grew colder, frost appearing on the stone walls. Alaric glanced over my shoulder, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Run.”
I looked behind me and saw an exact replica of the same creature that had stalked and chased me last night. Its long body and bony joints stuck out at awkward angles, its head tilting as it strode towards me. But unlike the Stonebound from last night, who seemed content to follow slowly and watch from a distance, this shadowed Stonebound opened its mouth wide, letting out an earsplitting shriek. Its dark eyes narrowing in on me, the intent to chase and kill clear.
I took off running down the nearest corridor, leaving Alaric behind as I raced around one corner to the next. I could practically feel the Stonebound’sbreath on my neck as I continued to race down one corridor and then another, completely unsure of where I was, let alone where the exit could be.
“Keep your head.” I heard Alaric’s voice echo throughout the chamber. “Don’t lose yourself to panic.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered to myself as I took another sharp corner, my hand reaching out to touch the wall in order to steady me as I kept running at a breakneck pace. When my hand brushed against the stone, it felt warm, thrumming beneath my fingertips as if it were breathing. The red veins within the wall pulsated in time with the screeches of the Stonebound as it closed the distance between us. I took another sharp left, but instead of finding another dead end or another long corridor, I fell to my knees into another ancient stone chamber, the edges of my vision blurring, like I was in a dream.
I stood shakily, breathing heavily as I suddenly became aware that I was no longer being chased by the shadowed Stonebound, but rather surrounded by cloaked figures who stood around a singular man at the center of the room. The flaming torches that lined the room gave enough light to see the various bloodstains on the stone, primarily around where the chained man sat on his knees, his head lolled to the side. His chains were bright red and orange, glowing from within themselves, clearly created from Bloodwright magic.Was this part of Alaric’s test?
I stepped through the crowd, no one takingnote of me as they continued to talk in hushed tones, all seemingly in deep judgement of what looked like the forsaken Bloodwright who sat before them, bloody and broken. I finally made my way to the front of the crowd and almost retched at the sight and smell of the man before me. His face was unrecognizable; the swollen bruises and cuts making it impossible to decipher any distinct facial features beyond one eye, as the other was swollen shut. His chest was covered in a bloody sort of sigil that started at his chest and branched out to the rest of his extremities. The scent of death and decay made my stomach turn as I took in this wretched man. What could he have done that he deservedthis?
Another Bloodwright stepped forward from behind him, a red and orange dagger in his hand as he pulled the man’s head by the hair, placing the dagger at his throat, readying for the final blow. But before his throat was slit, his blood gushing down his chest and igniting the sigil carved into his chest, his one eye locked with me. The bluest blue I’d ever seen.
Blood remembers. Blood returns.
His words echoed through my brain, knowing this dying man had been speaking directly to me. Suddenly, the scene before me faded away, and I was back in the training chamber when the shadowed Stonebound charged toward me. In a last moment’s effort to defend myself, I threw my hands up in front of me as blinding warm light poured out of my fingertips. I braced myself forthe impact from the shadowed Stonebound, but it never came. I looked over my hands and watched as the illusion of the Stonebound began to dissipate, crying out as the light from my hands destroyed it. Within moments, the Stonebound was only a memory as the room faded back to what it was before, the light from my hands illuminating the entire space.
“You destroyed it.” Alaric’s voice sounded distant and entranced. I turned around to find him slowly moving towards me, as if he were afraid to startle me.
“Wasn’t I supposed to?” I asked, the adrenaline of both the chase and the vision dissipating as I realized I was safe again. The light from my hands faded, but there was still a gentle hum of power flowing through my fingers, the thrumming power similar to that of my ring.
Alaric was speechless, shaking his head as he walked in a circle around me, almost afraid to get too close.
“But I mean all of it . . .” he finally stuttered. “The entire illusion. Mine and Seraphine’s.”
“Is that bad?” I groaned, suddenly feeling less relieved and more anxious. The last thing I needed to do was give the New York Council any more reason to doubt or mistrust me.
“No, Mari.” He finally took two large steps toward me, towering over me. “It means you can destroy illusions. It means you might just be one of the most powerful Bloodwrights of our generation.”
“Yeah, okay.” I rolled my eyes. “Even more powerful than you?”
“Yes,” he whispered, eyes wide with reverence. “Even more powerful than me.”
Chapter Twelve
“What?” I asked, flabbergasted, suddenly feeling faint.
