Chapter 85
Chapter 85
*Jiselle*
The world had erupted into chaos.
The air inside the trial arena crackled with energy, heavy and violent. Shouts bounced off the cavern walls, blending into the snarls and growls of wolves mid–shift. Magic cracked the stone beneath our feet, wild and uncontrolled, and overhead, the full moon burned a furious white through the volcanic crevice, watching it all unfold.
I didn’t even realize I was moving until I was ducking a rogue blade aimed for my head. Instinct took over. I twisted, grabbed the wrist holding the blade, and slammed my knee into the attacker’s gut. He staggered backward with a grunt– and I turned toward where Eva and Ethan fought.
Eva’s eyes were wild but focused, her hand stretched out, pointing past me.
“Behind you!” she shouted.
I didn’t think. I threw myself to the side just as another wolf lunged where I had been standing seconds before
Sentinel. She really was one.
I had no time to marvel. My blood sang, alive with the call to fight, to protect. I bared my teeth, dodging another swipe, my body thrumming with the strange, heavy magic swirling inside me.
Beside Eva, Ethan was a storm made flesh–fire in one hand, wind in the other. He blasted a pair of attackers off their feet with a sweep of his arm, sending flames roaring along the ground just enough to scare, not enough to kill. He wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to clear a path. To buy us time.
Then another figure dropped into our circle of chaos.
Max.
I froze for half a second. So did Eva, her gasp audible even over the roars around us.
Max was a blur of claws and fury, slamming into an instructor who had been charging at Eva’s back. Blood splattered the stone as the man went down hard, groaning, unconscious.
Max turned to us, face grim. His eyes locked briefly with mine–an unspoken truce–and then he took up position at Eva’s side without a word.
Eva gave me a frantic, questioning look. I shook my head. There wasn’t time to explain.
Across the field, I spotted Nate, moving like a shadow between collapsing rune pillars and bodies. His blade gleamed in the moonlight, his movements precise, deadly. But when he saw Max, his face twisted into something close to murder.
Later. I would deal with that later.
For now, we had to survive.
“On your left!” Eva called again, and I turned just in time to catch another student barreling toward me. I didn’t hesitate–l thrust my palm forward, channeling the strange thrumming power inside me.
The boy crumpled midair.
He hadn’t touched me. I hadn’t even brushed him.
He dropped like a stone, clutching his head and howling in agony.
My heart stuttered.
I had pushed pain into him. Without contact. Without a word.
The Ethereal mark on my chest burned hot under my uniform.
I could do this. I could weaponize it.
Another council–enforced instructor charged, his mouth twisted into a cruel snarl, and I didn’t think–I sent a second pulse
outward.
He collapsed too, sobbing and writhing, before scrambling away on all fours like an animal.
“Jiselle,” Eva breathed, awestruck. “You’re glowing.”
I didn’t stop to look. I could feel it–the silver light radiating from my skin in faint tendrils, like smoke.
The air grew heavier with each breath. I wasn’t sure if it was my doing or the mountain’s, but the ground trembled slightly, like the earth itself was responding to the shift in power.
Across the arena, Nate vaulted over a fallen student, his body a blur of dark motion. He tackled a rogue instructor, knocking the man to the ground and pressing his dagger against his throat. Blood sprayed, and the man coughed, laughing even as
he bled out.
1/3
Chapter 85
“You think you’re protecting them?” he croaked. “You’re protecting the ones who slaughter your kind. The council feeds on you. They kill your weak. Bind your strong. We’re here to end it.”
Nate stared down at him, and even from here, I could see the flicker of rage in his eyes.
The rogue instructor coughed again, crimson spilling from his mouth. “This school is a lie. You’re all just weapons to them.”
And with those final words, his head lolled back.
Dead.
I swallowed hard.
Eva grabbed my arm, hauling me back to the present. “We have to move. Now. They’re regrouping!”
I nodded, adrenaline hammering through my veins.
We fought like wolves cornered.
Eva stayed close to me, her farsight cutting through the battlefield, shouting warnings seconds before attacks hit. Ethan blazed through opponents, leaving trails of fire and gusts of wind to scatter the ones too slow to dodge.
Max fought like a man possessed, his fists and claws flashing, his eyes constantly scanning for threats to me and Eva.
Everywhere I looked, the Academy was tearing itself apart.
Students were fighting students. Instructors choosing sides. Some fought to uphold the Council’s rule–others fought to break it.
I saw Bastain.
He waded into the chaos like a battering ram, slamming a council enforcer across the arena with a single blow. His voice roared over the din:
“DEFEND THE STUDENTS! DOWN WITH THE COUNCIL!”
The students around him rallied, their howls rising into the air like a battle hymn.
Bastain wasn’t part of the betrayal. He was fighting for us.
Relief punched through my chest so hard it made me dizzy.
But there was no time to celebrate.
Because from the far end of the crumbling chamber, through the smoke and fire and howling wind, I saw them.
A group of cloaked figures.
Moving differently.
Not like the frantic chaos of the academy wolves.
No.
These moved with precision. With purpose.
Silent. Swift. Deadly.
They cut through the battlefield without hesitation, heading toward me like arrows loosed from a bow.
One of them–tall, lean, his face hidden behind a black hood–locked eyes with me across the broken expanse.
And smiled.
My blood froze.
He raised two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute–and then, without speaking, mouthed the words.
We’ve come for the Ethereal.
I staggered back a step.
“No,” I whispered.
Eva caught me. “What?”
“They’re here,” I rasped. “For me.”
The ground cracked under our feet as another explosion rocked the arena.
Nate appeared at my side instantly, blood streaked across his jaw, a snarl still etched into his mouth. “We have to move.
Now.”
I pointed toward the approaching figures.
He followed my gaze. His body stiffened immediately.
“I’ll hold them off,” Max growled, already shifting mid–run.
2/3
Chapter #5
“Hio” Nate harked, “tay with them Jiselle listen to me get to the upper tunnels flow
Another blast. Another scream.
Time was running out
I tightened my grip on Eva’s wrist. Ethan pressed close behind us, fire curling around his arms protectively
We had a choice.
Fight
Or rum
I glanced one last time across the battlefield–the academy reduced to smoke and fire and blood–and knew, deep down, that whatever was waiting ahead… there was no turning back
Not anymore.
“Gof” Nate shouted.
And we ran
Straight into the heart of the storm.
E
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