Page 75 of Darkness and Deceit
She exhales, chest heaving, and nods. “I need to check on him.”
“I know.”
I walk with her partway down the path before she slows.
“Go,” I say. “Before Vaughn accuses me of kidnapping you.”
She smiles tiredly. “Thank you, Simon. Really.”
I brush her hand with mine, letting my thumb graze her knuckles. “Anytime.”
She hesitates. And then, surprising us both, she rises onto her toes and presses a soft, sure kiss to my lips. It lingers long enough to ruin me. Then she’s gone.
My fingers lift to my lips, still tingling.
I don’t move. Not yet.
I watch her go, the weight of what just passed between us sinking deep into my bones. When I glance over, my bear is still there. Still watching, like he’s waiting for me to catch up to something he already knows.
Twenty-Four
AUGUSTUS
The Balance hums wrong.
It is not just the ground that is scorched or the air that stinks of ash and blood. Something deeper has shifted. Like a thread pulled loose at the center of a tapestry. We keep moving, keep patching, pretending it can hold. But I can feel it unraveling.
I felt it before the attack. But afterward, it deepened, like something split wide.
The magic here used to hum. Now it feels… splintered. Like something is bleeding into the ley lines. Something that does not belong.
And if I am honest, it is not just the realm that is fracturing.
It is also me.
Mara approaches without a sound. She has always been like that—so still, so composed, as if her magic steadies every step, her deep blue robes shifting with the breeze. She stops beside me on the wall overlooking what is left of the forest.
The scent of burnt wood and rot claws at the back of my throat. The trees that once stood proud now lie twisted, blackened skeletons. The academy survived, but only just. The forest—once a sanctuary—a sacred place where everypotential Protector goes through their Shadowing, has become a graveyard.
I speak first, if only to break the silence before it devours us. “Three senior Predators confirmed dead. Kenna O’Reily, Joshua Donovan, Yu Maki.” Their names taste like ash on my tongue. “There may be more. Some have not been identified yet and some are still missing.”
Mara does not so much as flinch. “No losses among our Keepers.”
I glance at her. She doesn’t sound relieved. Only resigned. As if our survival was inevitable, while theirs was expendable.
I want to say that loss is loss. That these Protectors died shielding their fellow students and us. That their deaths matter. But I bite it back.
Instead, I nod. Though the motion feels like betrayal.
It did not used to.
Before coming to Obsidian Academy, I would have believed in everything she said without question. The Keepers’ word was gospel. Our duty to the Balance was absolute. But now… every breath here feels like it is pulling me in two directions.
The truth is, the Rogues did not come for the Keepers.
They came for the academy.
They came forher.
