21. Zane

ZANE

Athud vibrates in my head, unsettling me from the depths of sleep and leaving me disoriented. Rolling over, my mind groggy, I pull Raven’s sleeping form against my chest, hugging her tight as my nose nestles in her hair.

She spent the entire night worried about the captive griffins, another layer of stress to the already-building pile, and we were left none the wiser on how to solve the matter. I expected her to pull away and isolate herself in her own thoughts, but when I whispered some bullshit about the handbook, she smiled softly, placed her hand in mine, and let me usher her to my room.

As much as I wanted my fill of her luscious curves and stunning body, I kept my stiffening cock at bay and wrapped my arm beneath her, softly stroking her hair until she fell asleep. I wasn’t far behind her, a rarity these days, and I wasn’t taking it for granted.

Another rapid burst of thuds in the distance disturbs me even more and I blink into the dead of night, irritation curling in my bones.

“What the fuck is that noise?” Raven groggily asks, snuggling further back against me, and I press a kiss against her exposed shoulder.

“I don’t know, but it’s driving me insane,” I admit, and she hums in agreement. “Go back to sleep, I’m sure it’ll stop.”

As if hearing my certainty, my bedroom door swings open, ricocheting off the wall and I blink at Eldon standing in the open space. “Someone’s at the door,” he grunts as I wince at the bright light coming from behind him and wipe at my tired eyes.

“Of course there is,” I grumble, still quite set on digging deeper under the duvet, but Raven is already slipping out of my hold and shuffling across the floor.

Fuck.

I guess I’m going too.

Dramatically tossing the sheets off, I don’t bother to throw on a t-shirt and just march into the lounge in only my black boxer shorts. Brax is leaning against his doorframe while Creed hovers by the door, ready to open it. Eldon stands by the sofa, Raven steps up beside him, and I slow to a stop next to her just as Creed opens the door.

The tension in the room is thick. I almost expect to see a haunting creek and for sinister music to start playing, but when the door is opened fully, it’s Leila we find on the other side in her black cloak with a gold mask hanging in her right hand.

“What the fuck?” Brax grunts. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Seemingly not one to waver under his intense stare, Leila rolls her eyes and sighs. “I know, and I’m sorry about that, but well, we’re about to go and I had a gut feeling that even though Sebastian was given the order to round you up, he wouldn’t.” She looks around at each of us and sighs again. “And by the looks on your faces and disappointment at the time, I’m going to assume I’m correct.”

“Wait, what is it you’re here to tell us?” I ask, wiping a hand down my face, the sleep that was still clinging to my limbs slowly disappearing as I become more alert with every breath.

“About the outing,” she offers before snapping her fingers. A scattering of five golden masks appear in front of her with a neatly stacked pile of cloaks beside them.

“When?” Raven asks, frowning down at the unwanted outfits on the floor.

“Now. Let’s go.”

* * *

Black joggers.Black sweater. Black combat boots. And a weird as fuck black cloak topped off with a garishly gold mask. I feel ridiculous, nevermind how bad it might look on top of that.

“Is this really necessary?” Eldon grumbles from beneath his mask as we silently trudge through the academy grounds in the darkness.

“I don’t personally think so,” Leila admits, staying one step ahead of us as she leads the way. “But I also understand that if we want to remain anonymous, then it’s what we have to do.” She shrugs, not bothering to turn around, and as annoying as it is, that makes sense to me too.

“Where is it we’re going, exactly?” Raven asks as we find ourselves at the top of the stone steps that lead down under the main academy building. The same ones it felt like we escaped from the last time we were in the presence of the Guild. It’s weird that the cause seems to be for good, but there’s a strange undertone that I can’t put my finger on. Which inconveniently means that we’ll only find out more by inserting ourselves further into the Guild.

“We’re heading to the outpost,” Leila explains as she leads us down the steps. When we reach the bottom, I clear my throat.

“Which outpost? You know there’s more than one, right?”

I can envision her rolling her eyes behind the mask, but to my surprise, she does manage to answer me calmly. “The outpost, at Shadowmoor. Where everything went to shit last time.”

An open gateway awaits us as we step into the now-familiar room with the golden table. Uncertainty wars inside of me for a moment, but when Leila steps through without a backward glance, I find myself doing the same before Raven can consider going next.

If there’s danger lurking, you better believe I’ll face it first for her.

My surroundings shift in the blink of an eye and the gloomy landscape of Shadowmoor drapes over me once again. There are dozens of people in black and gold, confirming that the Guild is here, but I focus on the crumbled buildings in the distance. It’s like I can still feel the smoke in my lungs, the fear in my veins, and the overwhelming sense of helplessness, just as I did at that moment.

A hand on my back pulls me from my thoughts, and when I turn around, I know it’s Raven. “You okay?” she asks, and I shake my head. I’m supposed to be asking her that.

“Always with you by my side, Dove. Are you okay?”

“I will be when you stop with that sweet talk,” she whispers, making me grin beneath my mask. Eventually, she’ll learn that there’s plenty more sweet talking where that came from because I mean every fucking word of it.

“Nightmares, gather around.”

“Come on, quick,” Leila mutters, waving us to follow her to where the large group has already formed.

It’s hard to know who the hell is who under these damn masks, but I make sure to keep beside Raven.

“Why are we even here?” Eldon asks, nudging Leila, but before she can respond, the figure at the front of everyone, the one with a copper mask on, speaks.

“We’re at Shadowmoor’s outpost in the early hours of the morning so we can try and retrace the steps of that tragic day and see if there is something we can piece together. I apologize that meant pulling you from your beds, but if we want an uninterrupted visit, now is the best time.”

Silently, everyone around us takes their masks off and I slowly follow suit, along with Raven, Leila, and my brothers. It’s unbelievably stuffy under there. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with fresh air, but I swear it tastes like charcoal.

I look down at Raven to see her staring across the group with a frown. Following her line of sight, I grumble when I spot Genie and Sebastian standing side by side.

Fuckers.

Distracting myself from their presence for a second, I look around at everyone else. There are a lot of fourth years, including the one Leila isn’t too happy with, along with a few other students in the higher years. But there are also five or six first-year students that I recognize, I’m just not familiar with them.

“What I can’t seem to wrap my head around,” Raven murmurs, jutting her chin in Sebastian’s direction. “Is why Sebastian is here. Like, he’s not here to do good, and he definitely doesn’t care that there’s a hierarchy in our realm as long as he’s not at the bottom of it.”

“That’s very fucking true. Genie as well. They’re too happy with their heads wedged firmly up their own asses to see anything else. It doesn’t make sense,” I agree.

The sound of someone clearing their throat stops our conversation and we turn to see that the speaker behind the copper mask is Professor Barton himself. How did we not recognize his voice?

“I know some of you were here that fateful day, and I’m truly sorry if this causes any distress,” he announces, and I discreetly glance at Brax out of the corner of my eye, but he’s glaring straight ahead with his usual sharp jaw and no-bullshit expression. “It’s been with heartfelt anguish that I have announced death after death so far this year already. The only difference has been that the previous deaths were those of Guild members fighting for a cause. Whereas here, in Shadowmoor, there was no purpose, no warning… nothing but the deaths of unnecessary victims.”

Holy shit. I hadn’t considered piecing those facts together. As I glance at Raven and the others, I see the same realization on their faces too. There’s so much going on around us, and my father played a part in keeping us in the dark.

It’s frustrating, but I understand it, too, especially when they’re constantly reeling off deaths. We’re here now, and this is exactly what we have to be focused on. Silvercrest wants us to put our lives on the line when we graduate, even while we’re training, so doing this is no different.

“I’ve had some of the fourth years scour the buildings toward the back of the outpost and you’ll be pleased to know that even though they continue to look crumbled and derelict, they are, in fact, back in working order. A veil has been draped over them to make it seem like it’s as bad as it was left, to hopefully stop any further attacks.”

“Do we know who attacked?” Raven asks, but not out loud to Barton. She turns to Leila instead.

“They haven’t announced it,” she whispers back, her eyebrows pinching together at the fact, but Barton continues before I can press her further.

“We know the fireballs were being controlled with magical abilities, which is a first from our enemies. We had always believed their magic was weak, if it even existed at all, which is why we insist on combat training. That leaves us at a loss for what the focus of the attack was.”

“How long have we been so misinformed? How long have we believed this to be, that they are so weak in their magical abilities?” I ask before I can think better of it, and I sense a few members of the Guild frowning in my direction.

“Excellent question. I believe it’s not quite as simple as being misinformed. I believe it’s a fact that we’ve never been privy to,” he explains, but the fact still confuses me. “Come, follow me,” he insists, waving for everyone to follow his direction as he takes off toward the giant wall that still stands at the edge of the outpost.

Looking up at it as we get closer, it’s startling how tall it is. We didn’t really get close to it last time, so to see it from this angle is overwhelming. How the hell did they get fireballs over this? How the hell did they get anything over this?

“Are those steps?” Raven murmurs, lacing her fingers with mine as she sidles up beside me. I follow her pointed finger to see a very narrow and steep set of steps that lead up to the top of the wall.

“Holy fuck,” I mumble, eyes wide in the darkness as the moon offers a glimmer of an outline. “Are we…” My words trail off as the answer to my question becomes apparent. We’re taking the fucking steps.

It’s single-file width, with no handrail for support. Searching for one of my brothers, I spot Creed and nod for him to go first. I usher Raven forward then trail right behind her so she’s safely sandwiched between us.

With every step, it becomes colder, darker, and more unsettling. It feels like it takes forever to even get close to the top, and with one small look down, it’s like we’re miles away.

“Are you okay, Dove?” I ask, and she gives me a quick uh-huh without glancing back over her shoulder.

The top of the wall comes into view and I’m thankful to see a piped fence protecting the edge of the platform as Barton continues along the great width of it so there’s room for everyone. We’re high enough for the wall to come up to my shoulders, so I can see over it, and what greets me is nothing short of chaos.

Black and red. Red and black. Molten rock, lava, embers. That’s where the scent of charcoal is coming from. It’s as if nothing has ever lived there, been able to grow, or survive. It’s what you envision when you picture Hell itself. There were trolls here that day too. I never quite considered where they would come from, but this is… indescribable. Amidst the madness, I can see the outline of what looks like men in the far-off distance.

“What is this?” Raven asks, eyes wide as she gapes at me, but it’s Leila who manages to answer since I don’t have a clue either.

“That… is the Basilica Realm.”

“What the fuck is the Basilica Realm?” I grumble, swiping a hand down my face.

“The enemy.”