A wrenching gasp tears from my throat. My heart hammers violently against my ribs. I jolt upright. Horror and dread collide as my mind scrambles to understand. My limbs are sluggish as I search frantically for burns, for the charred flesh that should be there.
The familiar clutter of my dorm room greets me. Everything is eerily still, painfully ordinary. But it feels wrong; sharper, louder, brighter. Mocking me with its normalcy.
A laugh from the hall has me fumbling through my nightstand for my dad’s old goblin blade. I sit holding it like I know how to use it as the seconds pass. My breathing becoming erratic.
The room feels too small. I need fresh air. Without grabbing shoes, I open my door and peek into the hall. The fluorescent lights give nothing away. On tiptoes I head to the stairwell, out into a parking lot.
No, I need nature. Rocks bite into my soles as I rush to the small park and fall to my knees. I rip at the grass until I smell it.
Real. This is real.
I’m alive.
Tears splash down my cheeks as I gaze at the moon. I wipe them away. The cold from my bracelet jolts up my arm.
It was a gift of friendship from Anita. But she was never my friend. It was always a shackle.
With the blade still in my hand, I attempt to unfasten it. When it doesn’t come off, I try to pry the fastener with the knife. Still nothing.
A sickening hum vibrates beneath the surface, leeching into my bones. It wasn’t there before. It’s fighting me. Trying to get me to stop.
I brace my arm against a rock.
“Please work.” My hand shakes as I bring the blade down to my wrist. The first strike sends a brutal jolt through me, the blade skitters off the metal with a desperate clang. Sparks flare, and a searing cold shoots through my arm, making my muscles spasm and my breath hitch.
“Come on!” I cry, choking on the frustration that burns in my chest. I swing again, harder this time, but it fights, pulsing against the blow. The enchantment surges through my arm, numbing my fingers and dulling my grip.
The next strike is wilder, reckless. I pause for a moment as the blade wavers in my grasp, my trembling fingers barely able to hold it steady. I could miss and stab myself in the wrist. The risk is worth it. I swing again. The clash of metal echoes through the night, layered with the rising whine of the shackle. Another strike. A frantic roar splits the night.
With one last ragged swing, the blade bites deep. The shackle gives a shrill protest before crumbling apart with a deafening crack. The severed pieces clatter against the rock, striking with a weight that seems to reverberate in the very marrow of my bones.
The fight is over.
I slump against the ground, gasping for air as the night spins around me. My stomach lurches with a panic so sharp I don’t realize what’s happening until I’m retching into the grass. Bile sears my throat as I convulse, gagging and spitting into the dirt. It tastes like decay. My stomach tightens as it’s purged. My body rejecting whatever that shackle held.
When it’s over, I wipe my mouth with a trembling hand, my whole body shivering as I stare at the ground, ashamed, furious, and breathless. I barely recognize myself. Magic surges in to fill the void inside of me, feral and relentless, flooding my veins until I’m shaking with its force.
I thought I was weak. I was not.
A sudden chill prickles along my wrist, and I rub at the skin, expecting warmth. But it’s cold. Unnaturally so. My attention locks onto it and the truth stares back at me. Etched into the soft skin of my inner wrist like a brand, the shape is unmistakable. A long, curved blade arcing over a thin handle. The scythe. Death’s signature. The mark of someone who’s cheated the grave.
Most people think it’s just myth. An old ghost tale whispered around campfires. But it isn’t a story. Not this time. It’s real. I died.
And if I died, Lazlo did too.
I heard his neck break.
The thought of him hits me like a thunderclap, dread crashing in so hard it feels like the ground tilts beneath me. I reach for the mate bond that tied us together. Hoping, against all reason, that it will still be there. But there’s nothing. Only the steady, traitorous pulse of life where there should be none.
Doubt crashes in. If I’m alive and he’s not beside me, what did it cost him? Did he trade himself to bring me back? Did something go wrong? We both go to Thornfell University. Maybe he came back too. So why does it feel like I’ve lost him?
The terror builds inside me until a primal scream tears free, jagged and thunderous. The cry for what I lost echoes into the night. My body seizes from the force of it. A burst of magic erupts from my core, violent and unstoppable, slamming into the world around me. Trees bend away. The air distorts.
I gasp as the power surges higher, wild, raw and completely out of my control. My hands clench, nails digging into my palms with the effort to hold it in. But it’s too much. Too powerful.
I give in, letting it pour out of me in waves until it finally runs dry. When the last remnants fade, a strange calm settles in their place. I’m shaking, terrified by the storm I’ve unleashed. The fury inside me is a living thing, and I have no control over it. No way to rein it in. I’ll never let them control me again — not Vivien, not Anita, not anyone.
No apologies, no playing it safe. From now on I’m going to be the real me. The version I found in that dungeon.
“Excuse me, miss,” a man’s voice makes me jump. A security guard stands there, eyes narrowing as he surveys the wreckage around us. Spiritborne, maybe a shifter. Definitely someone who can sense magic. Crap. I unleashed a ton of it. All my resolve crumbles as the magnitude of what I did hits me. “Are you alright?”
I glance around at the devastation. The trees are bent and twisted into grotesque knots. The grass has been torn up, displaced like a carpet ripped from the floor. Flowers, unnaturally large, bloom with vibrant, feverish color.
“I’m sorry, officer.” I swallow hard, trying to keep the panic from creeping up my throat. This is bad. Really bad. “I—I lost control.”
He stares at me with a predator’s eyes for a long moment before taking a step closer.
“Ollin,” he says, offering me a hand. His voice is warm, touched by a low, steady accent that somehow makes everything feel a little less broken.
“Ad—” I begin, but quickly catch myself. “Thea,” I declare, my voice steady now as I take his hand, letting him help me to my feet.
He inspects the mess around us then at me. His eyes turn gentle.
“You look like you’ve had a rough night. Maybe you should head inside while I take care of this. We only have a few hours till the nightblind wake up.” His smile is small, tender, and almost rueful before he releases my hand.
“I—I.” The words catching in my throat. “Are you sure?” Suddenly overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation. I know he should be keeping me here. This was a huge error, magical destruction on the nightblind side of the school. I don’t know what kind of trouble I’m in, but I’m sure it involves paperwork, magical probation, or worse, a call to Vivien.
He lets out a soft, understanding sigh. “I think whatever caused you to do this amount of destruction was punishment enough.”
“You have no idea,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
He cocks an eyebrow, then winks. “Looks like a prank to me. Damn fairies again.”
I’m surprised by the lightness in his tone, as if he’s trying to make me feel better. He gives me a small smile before stepping back to assess the damage, his hand already reaching for the phone on his belt, no doubt to call in backup.
“Thank you, Ollin.”
“Get that hand fixed,” he tells me. I glance down and see I have a death grip on the knife, the blood trickling down between my fingers. The pain strikes as soon as I see it, but I bury it where I’ve been burying pain for months.
I head into my dorm room and stare around at this home that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. The clothes that are little lies of who Adora was.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, a small, insistent sound that drags me from the edge of whatever spiral I was about to fall into. I grab it without thinking, fingers clumsy and cold as I fail to unlock the screen.
What the hell is my PIN? Fingerprint still works.
The GhostChat notifications blur past. Then I see the date. September 14th.
No.
They took me over winter break. Was I in the dungeon nine months?
No. The year. I already lived this day.
So was it a premonition? I’ve never had one before.
I examine the room like it holds the answers.
As if sensing the question, the scythe on my wrist tingles.