Page 88 of Darkness and Deceit
Unsure of what else to do, I do the only thing I can think of. I press my lips to hers. She jolts—just for a heartbeat—and then her lips move against mine. It is clumsy, unmeasured. But gods, it quietseverything.My glow begins to brighten, but I ignore it, pouring all of me into her through my mouth.
Her lips part for me, and the taste of her is everything I have not let myself feel until now igniting all at once. Her hand fumbles up the back of my neck, pulling me closer, the points of her nails pricking my skin as if to anchor herself in this moment, to keep from being swept away. The voices recede, fading into a dull hush.
We break apart but stay close, foreheads pressed together, both of us panting.
“I’m sorry—” Lilith starts.
“Do not be,” I interject before she can finish. “It helped, did it not?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
She lets out a shaky breath, and leans into me. I cup her cheeks, wanting to memorize every line of her face, every fleck of purple in her eyes, everything.
After a long beat, Lilith finally collects herself. “We should, uh, look around.”
With my glow lighting the way, I navigate toward the veins of obsidian that snake through the cavern walls. As my hand brushes against the stone, I feel a subtle vibration—not a physical tremor, but a magical pulse. I trace this invisible current upward along the arch, studying the interwoven sigils etched into the surface, studying how they twist together. They remind me of Rogue marks… but older.Cruder. These were carved in pure desperation.
“This is… old magic.Forbiddenmagic.”
I don’t realize I’ve clenched my fists until my glow flares wildly and then dims again.
Lilith glances at me. “Augustus…”
I can’t stop the words that follow.
“This was a sealing site,” I bite out. “A place where they dragged the Dual—him—and used soul magic to trap him. That is what we are feeling. Therecoil. The voices. The horror. It is soaked into the very stone.”
Her breath catches.
I shake my head in disbelief. “To hide something like this—beneath the school, near the students—it is abhorrent.”
A shudder ripples beneath our feet and dust and rock rain down from above. “We should keep going,” Lilith mutters and I follow without hesitation.
The walls ripple as more faces twist violently in the stone, their mouths stretching in grotesque, open-mouthed wails. Rocky arms claw toward us, fingertips jagged and desperate. It’s like they’re trying to pull themselves free from their prison,to escape their endless sentence. We keep moving. We have no choice.
The path finally widens again and we step into a massive chamber that appears to be the heart of this cursed cave. As we step inside, the screams abruptly stop. I should be relieved, but instead, my stomach twists violently in response.
Silence like this is not a relief—it is a sign of a predator lying in wait.
Chains hang from the ceiling. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Their metal lengths stretch from above and anchor into the walls, into the stone floor, into the forms of trapped souls.
This is where they did it.
Lilith’s voice breaks the silence. “What on earth...” Her hands are balled into fists, still covered in stone dust. Her gaze shifts rapidly from one chain to another. “This is... this is where he?—”
I nod.
This is where they kept him. This was the cost. A horrific price to pay to keep him contained. And even that wasn’t enough.
The space hums with something ancient and angry.
Lilith spins to face me. “Beneath the academy?” Her voice echoes across the chamber. “What is wrong with them?” She whirls, stalking toward one of the chains. “What the fuck were they thinking?”
She kicks it hard. The chain rattles violently, slashing through the air as if to punctuate her rage. “This was a time bomb!” she shouts. “And they still trained us above it? Let us live here like it was safe?”
Her magic flares, lashes out as she slams her hand into the wall, cracking stone, and shredding her knuckles.
“No wonder the Rogue attacks haven’t stopped,” she mutters. “It’s not just us they’re after. It’sthis.”
