Page 1 of Soulmates

Prologue

Maddox shivered violently from his crouched position behind the tree. The darkness gave him the advantage of remaining invisible, save for the glaring weakness in the light fog coming from each breath that stuttered silently through parted lips.

The events from the last hours ran through his mind.

His best friend. His everything. How could this be happening?

Maddox’s breath hitched at the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps.

“Maddy?” Jake called out, his voice flat and dead, nothing like his usual deep, soothing tone.

Maddox swallowed back a whimper. Jake was only a few steps away; any noise would result in drastic consequences.

“Maddy!” he called out again. “You can’t hide from me, remember? I know you.”

And he truly did, because not even a moment after Jake spoke, he turned like he knew where Maddox hid.

Maddox jerked back and landed heavily on broken twigs and branches. Fireflies surrounded Jake, bathing him in an ethereal glow, and Maddox watched as he smiled. Gods, he loved that smile, and for a moment, Maddox could pretend everything was normal and that his lifelong best friend wasn’t trying to kill him.

He tried to close his throat around another whimper, but it was no use. Terror lanced his heart, pinning him to the spot as Jake stalked closer and then loomed over him. Razor-sharp, cold steel pressed against his throat. A sob escaped. “P-please.”

“Don’t bother begging, Maddy. It won’t help.”

“I…I’m sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry,” Maddox whispered.

“Too late for that,” Jake replied coolly.

“But I didn’t know!” Maddox brought both hands up, still mindful of the steel at his neck. “I’ll give it back, Jake. Whatever it is, I’ll give it all back.”

“Too late.”

“Please, please, I’m begging you, please let me go.” Staring into his eyes, Maddox searched for his friend, finding only emptiness. His tears flowed faster.

A broken plea.

The blade swung down.

Maddox cried out, fear coiling in his gut.

A root exploded where the sword hit—not an inch from Maddox’s thigh—with so much force it nearly vanished into the ground. Jake stared at it with curiosity.

Maddox’s breath shuddered around another involuntary whimper. The scent of his own sweat clung to his clothes, soaked from the run through the forest and the desperate terror over everything the night had brought. Hopeful relief rushed through him. Maybe his best friend didn’t hate him. Jake had swung at the ground, after all.

He could come back from this… They could come back from this. But Jake decimated that relief with his next words.

“Well. Isn’t this a fascinating twist?” Jake tilted his head in confusion, staring at the blade that had obviously missed its mark.

Chapter 1

The ordeal began with the challenge. A series of tasks that occurred each year as the final years prepared to journey out into the world as independent citizens. The idea of them as independent citizens was almost a joke. In reality, they were a bunch of twenty-three-year-olds whose only function for the past eighteen years was school. A group of mages who were supposed to be the elite magic users in the world. They were the most privileged, no question there. Thought to be the smartest, which they weren’t. The best trained? Debatable.

The richest was more accurate. Hated for that and feared for their knowledge. They were totally unprepared in the actual world, though most of them didn’t seem to know it.

Reinhold College was the most elite school in a society steeped in elitism. Hidden from the nonmagical world in Upstate New York, Reinhold added wards to keep anyone undesirable out. The magical community valued money, bloodlines, and class. How do the privileged distinguish themselves even more? Create a college that costs so much in money and social capital that only certain students can train there. The students who entered its ranks at age eighteen would have already attended the best schools, had access to the best programs, come from the richest families, and matriculated almost entirely among themselves.

Elite didn’t begin to cover it.

Reinhold grouped them into classes by age and then by type of caster—elementalists, voids, warriors, healers, and mimics. The students, though there was much discussion on the topic, didn’t know why those were the categories, despite water elementalists being excellent healers and fire elementalists being excellent warriors. Not to mention the deadly power of a void as an assassin. Privileged they may be, but informed they were not.

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