Page 50 of Gothikana

Corvina nodded, and the other girl walked away to her friends, leaving her alone.

She didn’t want to be here in the middle of all this conversation. She didn’t want to go up to her room all alone knowing her mind was going to play with her again, with shadows or voices, she didn’t know.

Taking her skirt in one hand and a deep breath, she slowly exited the door she’d come in from and went outside in the cold, fresh air. A few students were still milling around even though most had left, a giant pool of dark blood staining the ground on her right.

Corvina took the blood in, the ache behind her eyes getting worse, and moved away from the people. She needed quiet, but she couldn’t go into the woods, not after what had just happened. She didn’t have any problem admitting to herself that she was scared. Something was happening to her or around her, neither of the scenarios boding well for her wellbeing.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she mindlessly followed the cobblestone path in the direction away from people. A thick layer of fog had rolled in from the woods, staying close to the ground, wrapping around her ankles as she moved. The sounds of the night came to her the farther she walked toward the entrance, darkness wrapping around her even with the small, obscured lights that lit the path.

She reached the entrance and turned to look at the castle, a shiver going down her body. The giant, stunning architectural marvel she’d thought beautiful at first sight in daylight months ago seemed foreboding in the night. The tall turrets looked deadly, an air of gloomclinging to its stone walls. Small lights added more to the ominous glow than curbed it, the light eclipsed by shadows all around.

As the cold wind helped clear her head a bit, for a moment she contemplated, seriously contemplated, leaving. Ever since she’d stepped foot on this ground, something had been happening to her. After she’d had herself tested at the institute, she’d spent months at her little cottage with only Mo’s voice for company, and that too occasionally. Something about this place had triggered not only the frequency of Mo’s voice but added to the mix a bunch of foreign voices she’d neither heard before nor recognised. Add to that, she’d never, not once, seen the kind of shadows she’d begun to see at the castle. The dark that had always been her friend had become a stranger, and Corvina didn’t like that. These things were either in her head and she was losing her mind, which meant she needed to leave and go to the institute again, or they weren’t in her head, which meant something awful had been happening in this place for a long time and she should leave.

Corvina didn’t know which option she wanted to be truer.

‘Verenmore.’ The deep voice from her side made her turn slightly to look up as Vad came to stand at her side. ‘This castle has always been something else.’

Corvina blinked in surprise, watching him light up a cigarette as he watched the castle. ‘Then why stay?’

He didn’t reply.

They stood in silence for long minutes, he smoking quietly and she lost in thought before she turned and started to walkagain.

‘I never intended to stay this long,’ he told her eventually, joining her without invitation. His scent mixed with the nicotine in a comforting concoction, and she inhaled deeply, letting it fill her lungs.

‘I don’t know if I’ll stay at all,’ she admitted and felt his silver gaze sharpen on her.

‘Because of Troy?’ he asked as they took the curve in the cobblestoned path to a part of the grounds she’d never been on, one that led to the faculty and staff quarters.

Corvina gripped her elbows. ‘I don’t understand what happened with him. He wasn’t suicidal, at least not from what I knew of him. He was fine this morning, happy. It’s just… out of nowhere.’

Vad finished the last of his cigarette, mashing it in a metal dumpster a few feet farther, before turning to her, his face sombre, the light from the side highlighting the streak of white.

‘If I show you something,’ he asked her seriously, ‘will that stay between us?’

Corvina straightened at the severity in his tone. ‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘Come with me. And be quiet.’

They walked farther up the path, the cobblestones wet and shiny and clicking against their feet as he took them to the other side of the castle. The towers here looked newer than hers and much lower down the incline, the flattened path turning to low stairs carved in the mountain to take them below.

He took her by her elbow to help her down, his grip firm and warm and encircling her arm entirely as she picked up her skirt.

‘Won’t someone see us?’ she asked quietly, looking around the empty area and the mostly darkened building up ahead. It looked to have the same stone texture as the rest of the buildings on the grounds, and the same grotesque gutter gargoyles sticking out from the walls. However, it had only three floors and a steep, blue-tiled roof.

‘This path isn’t visible from anywhere,’ he informed her as they made their way down. ‘Not from the top of the campus, and not from the faculty towers.’

‘Okay.’ She carefully took the final step down before they were back on the flattened ground again. He took them around the side to what looked like a heavy wooden door with a huge brass knocker with a demonesque-laughing face.

Vad pushed it open with one hand splayed wide over the knocker, covering the entire demon thing under his palm. The door was heavier than it looked, creaking on the metal hinges as it cracked open enough for them to enter.

It was completely dark, only the glow of the moonlight filtering in through the wide expanse of a series of arched windows on the left. In the light, she saw it was a huge, cavernous room, almost like a hall. There was another door right opposite her — from the other side, she was assuming. Two wooden pillars went from the floor to the high, arched ceiling, supporting its weight. A fireplace sat on the right with some heavy furniture before it, a long corridor opening on the side.

He took them to a set of stairs opposite the corridor and climbed up, Corvina following his lead. They passed the first two levels, allquiet and still, and emerged on the third floor, the highest in the tower, with only one dark door at the very end of the landing.

Taking out an old iron key with a distinctive pattern on top, she watched as he pushed it in the slot under the bar, and turned it once. A click shot loudly through the silence, and Corvina’s heart began to pound harder as she realised she was moments away from entering his room, his very own lair.

Her grip on her elbows tightened as he opened the door and entered, leaving it wide for her. A switch flicked on, bathing the room in muted warmth as the lights were illuminated. Corvina stood on the threshold, taking the space in.

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