by Z Brewer
Contents
Connect with Z Brewer
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Prologue
Preview The Cemetery Boys
About Z Brewer
Also by Z Brewer
Connect with Z Brewer
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Copyright © 2020 by Z Brewer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To my Dearest Minions—
With undying gratitude for your support and unwavering patience in this long journey from one book to its inevitable other.
Chapter 1
The world around me slowed until it seemed that nothing was moving at all. Leaves of grass green, earthen brown, and pumpkin orange no longer fluttered from the trees to the battle-worn ground below. Anguished Healers, their eyes full of heart-wrenching concern, no longer hurried by to assist their Barrons as the battle all around them fell away. In my perception, nothing moved. All was still. Even my breath was so tightly locked inside my lungs that I began to question whether or not I would ever breathe again.
Darius lay on the ground at my feet, his once silver hair slicked back from his face, covered in rich, red blood. His blood. Too much of it. The palm of my hand was still wet with it. And shaking.
It was the only movement that I noticed at the moment that I realized that Darius and I were somehow, impossibly Soulbound—born at the same moment, bound forever together as warrior and Healer. Following that, I noticed my fingers, and how I couldn't keep them from trembling. How could we be Soulbound? I'd been told that the boy who'd been born the exact moment that I had, the Barron that I'd been Soulbound to, had died. Hadn't he? Or was Darius that boy? Were our souls bound in a way that linked us as Healer and Barron forever? It was impossible. Wasn't it?
A sound reached my ears. Soft and wispy, like the wind through the trees. It took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was my own gasp escaping my lips. Darius didn't speak. He simply watched me knowingly, as if waiting for me to wrap my mind around the actuality of our connection. I sputtered, and when words finally crossed my tongue, they were shaky. As trembling and uncertain as my fingers. "We can't be."
Darius held my gaze, his voice full of conviction. "We are."
My heart beat solidly inside my chest. Once. Twice. No words came.
Trayton was still standing just a few feet in front of where I was, his eyes haunted and locked on Darius. Wordlessly, I begged him to look at me, to give me something to hold onto. Something solid. Something present. Something real. Because whatever it was that Darius and I were experiencing couldn't be real. It just couldn't be.
But Trayton didn't move his gaze from his teacher, his friend. Maybe he couldn't. I didn't know.
"Kaya Oshiro." A man spoke from behind me. Not one I recognized. I didn't immediately turn around. I was certain that if I moved even a little bit, my entire world might come crumbling down. Barely a thread of sense was holding it together. "You need to come with me. Headmaster Quill insists."
At this, I turned to face the newcomer. He was taller than me by nearly a foot, tan, lean, and had a red Trace on his left cheek, near his ear. I couldn't really read the expression on his face, the emotions in his eyes. He didn't seem angry, but he didn't exactly seem friendly either. "Why? Can't it wait?"
It had to wait. Everything else in my life had to wait until I figured just what the fak was going on.
"No. I'm afraid it can't. I've been ordered to bring you to him." To my immense surprise, he reached over his shoulder, lightly gripping the handle of his katana, as if it had been explained to him that I might be a threat. "And if you delay or fight back at all, I've been told to use force."
Darius got to his feet and gestured to our new friend with a nod. His blood was beginning to dry on his forehead, changing from a rich red to a muddy brown. I could feel the blood on my palms drying as well. "Go, Kaya. This can wait."
"No, it can't." How could he expect me to hold off on asking how it could be that we were Soulbound, when I’d been under the impression that my Soulbound Barron had died years before? It couldn't wait. I needed answers, needed them now, and had yet to even form the questions in my mind.
Were Darius and I actually Soulbound? And how did that affect my bond with Trayton? Had Darius known the entire time I'd been at Shadow Academy? Had Trayton?
I looked at Trayton once again, and his pained expression answered far better than any words could have. Trayton hadn't known about any of this. But what about Darius?
Datrius met my gaze then, and I could see the twisted blend of anger and sorrow welling up in his eyes. His words came quietly, like careful footsteps on the surface of a frozen pond. "It's waited this long, hasn't it? Go."
I turned my attention back to Trayton, who was still standing as he'd been when I'd looked at him just a moment before. His eyes were downcast, staring in utter disbelief at the spot on the ground where Darius had just been lying. He was shocked, completely shocked, and seemingly frozen to the spot. The bandage on his neck was turning rust brown, matching the drying blood on Darius's head. On my hand. We were connected, it seemed. All of us. By blood.
"Trayton." His name felt foreign on my tongue, like something I hadn't said in a long time. Even though I'd spoken it not an hour ago. He looked at me, his daze broken at last, his eyes full of a hurt that I knew I could never heal. And though I hoped that he would say something--anything at all--to quell the tension that was building up all around us, he said nothing, leaving it entirely up to me. "I have to go with this guard now. Do you want to come with me?"
As if he hadn't heard a word that I had spoken, he locked eyes with Darius, his chest heaving in upset breaths. "You knew about this."
For a moment, Darius's eyes lingered on Trayton, and I regretted coming between their friendship--something that Darius generally seemed to close himself off from. Darius bent at the waist and retrieved his katana. When he straightened again, he took two steps toward Trayton, as if to pass him. "We can discuss it at another time."
With his eyes lighting up in fury, Trayton grabbed a handful of Darius's shirt and shoved him back, raising his blade to Darius's throat. His face was turning red. "You knew about this!"
"Yes. I did." Darius took a breath, followed by another, slightly shakier one. His eyes were on Trayton the entire time. Not on his blade, but on him. Something silent passed between them, though I had no way of knowing what it was. It was almost like they'd completely forgotten about my presence. Or maybe it was that my presence didn't really matter at the moment.
Time stretched on, and when their silence had been filled with the surrounding sounds of movement, Trayton returned his katana to its saya on his back. Though he refused to meet my gaze, I could see his eyes clearly. They looked shades darker than usual, and I wondered if it was a trick of the light. His voice sounded eerily calm when, at last, he
spoke to his former teacher, his former friend. "She's Bound to me, Darius. She'll always be Bound to me."
"And she's Soulbound to me." The words left Darius's lips in a near-whisper, but I heard them clearly, as did Trayton. That much was evidenced by the expression he wore.
Without responding, Trayton turned to the guard in charge of delivering me to Quill, all business for the moment. It was jarring to see him switch gears so fluidly. "I'd like to accompany, if the Headmaster hasn't specifically forbidden it."
An emotion finally did cross the guard's eyes--confusion--and I wondered if it registered with Trayton the way it had for me. He was confused why Trayton would ask such a thing, because the Headmaster would never forbid Trayton from doing anything. Because Trayton was his golden boy. Trayton could do no wrong in the eyes of Quill. But the guard didn't put voice it, and I didn't point it out. "Of course you're welcome to, Barron."
I glanced back at Darius as we were filing toward the south gate, but he was already moving away from us with purpose, and taking charge of the post-battle clean-up. By the way he dove back into his usual tasks, it seemed from the outside that he could have given a fak about being Soulbound to me. But I knew better. It had shaken him to learn that he'd been found out. And it had shaken him perhaps a bit more that he'd been found out by his closest friend. What's more, I wasn't about to let this go. He knew that much about me, at least. And maybe it scared him.
Or maybe I was completely wrong and he really didn't give a fak that we were Soulbound, and that Trayton and I knew it.
The guard who'd come to collect me knew it too. Not that I thought that mattered much. It did. But sometime between this immediate moment and tomorrow when the sun rose, the entire school would find out about Darius and I, thanks to rumor and speculation, and then none of it would matter much at all.
The trek back through the south gate and across campus to the Headmaster's office was surprisingly brief, though the scene was painted with too much red, too much blood. Everywhere I looked, I saw Healers assisting Barrons. It was their time to shine. As we passed the courtyard near Darius's cabin, I saw a young girl. She was lying too still on the cobblestone, staring up at the clear sky with unseeing, crystalline blue eyes. She couldn't have been more than fifteen, with pale blonde hair and the lightest of freckles dotting her nose. She lay on her back, one arm stretched out over her head, as if she'd been reaching up for something before falling backward onto the hard ground. Two Barrons lifted her somberly--one by her shoulders, the other by her feet--and when they did so, I noticed the large hole with jagged, teeth-like edges in her back. The girl was dead. Like so many people at Shadow Academy. She was dead, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it now.
I glanced at Trayton, and though his expression was one of anguish for the girl, his eyes showed no sympathy for me. He was angry, and I wasn't sure why. I'd had no choice but to throw myself into that battle. How many might have died if I hadn't joined in? As for Darius...I had no way of knowing that we were Soulbound, so he couldn't exactly blame me for that. I shook him off. Let him be mad. My thoughts, for the moment, were with the dead girl, and her soon-to-be-grieving family.
The guard didn't speak during our walk, and at first, Trayton didn't either. I was quiet too, at least on the outside. But inside my mind, my thoughts were rambling. Why did Trayton ask if he could come along, if he wasn't going to offer any kind of company at all? Was his plan to report to Headmaster Quill all that he had seen? To tattle on the fact that Darius and I were Soulbound? As if I’d known. As if I’d had any clue prior to the moment I'd realized that my touch had ripped him from death's clutches.
But Darius had known. It was written all over his face. My memory retreated back to the moment when he and I had met, back to the first time I'd seen him kill a Graplar. He'd gotten injured, and I'd stretched out my hand to pull the fabric of his uniform back, to get a better look at his wound. But he stopped me. Because he'd known even then that if I so much as brushed against his injury, he'd have healed completely, and his secrets would have been exposed. That he was a Barron, and that I was his Soulbound Healer.
It amazed me how well he'd lied, with his actions, his words. But not that he'd lied so much. Darius was a liar. A con man. A scoundrel.
And my Soulbound Barron. What a dek.
"You could have told me." I turned my head at Trayton's words. The side of his face that I could see was still red with anger. He didn't turn to face me, but he kept his voice low. I wondered if he did so in an attempt to keep our conversation more private, or if he thought speaking any louder might easily give way to shouting. I said nothing in reply, and after we'd taken a few more steps, he finally did glance in my general direction. "About you and Darius. You could have told me from the beginning."
"What do you mean? That we were training together? Because we haven't been doing that the entire time I've been at the academy." I was being facetious and I knew it. But if he wanted to argue with me over something that I had absolutely no control over, then he was going to have to work for it.
The side of me that was facing Trayton warmed suddenly, as if his temperature had just dramatically increased in heated response to my reaction. "You know what I mean. You could have told me that you're Soulbound. It would have hurt to hear, but it's important to be honest with one another. You could have given me that, at least. And why hide such a thing? What were you hoping to accomplish?"
I couldn't believe what he was saying. Was he seriously accusing me of being the mastermind of some twisted conspiracy theory that involved he and his favorite instructor? The idea was laughable, but neither of us was laughing.
As we neared the building that housed Quill's office, I grabbed him by the sleeve and gently tugged to slow his steps. Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be stopped. I knew he wouldn't really listen to what it was that I had to say--not with that defiant, still-fuming look in his eyes--but I had to say it, had to point out the obvious in the sea of paranoid chaos that had engulfed us both. "You think I knew about that before I even set foot on academy grounds, Trayton? You think I knew we were Soulbound and I became Bound to you for some mysterious, nefarious plan? That's fakked up. Not to mention, ridiculous. What reason would I have to do any of that?"
He tugged his sleeve from my grasp and narrowed his eyes. "You owe me an apology."
Stubbornly--but rightly, I thought--I set my jaw and shook my head. "I've done nothing wrong."
We entered the building and approached the door to the Headmaster's office. The guard knocked firmly on the door to Quill's room. From inside, Quill called, "Enter and be known."
What was Quill doing in his office, anyway? Not only was he a healthy Barron, complete with Soulbound Healer--as evidenced by the red Trace that I'd witnessed on the back of his neck--but he was the leader of this school. He should have been out there, defending his staff, his students, his fellow Skilled citizens. What was he doing, hiding away in a safe little room, far away from the action? Or was he just a coward?
Trayton placed a hand on the guard's arm briefly, as if ensuring he wouldn't move, before opening the door. As he stepped inside, he said, "A brief word with you, Headmaster, if I may."
I didn't have a chance to hear whether or not Quill was up for a chat with his favorite pupil. The door closed behind Trayton, muting his words.
Stepping forward, I reached for the door, but the guard moved between me and it, blocking my path. If I wanted to hear what Trayton and Quill had to say about me, I was going to have to wait for them to decide the time was right, and that I was privy to that information. The very idea of it sent fire through my veins. After a moment spent cursing inside my mind, I sighed and crossed my arms in front of me. If I was going to be yelled at, or get punished, I'd rather hurry up and get on with it, so that I could help the injured and locate Darius already. After all, he had some explaining to do, and was privy to answers that no one else was.
Namely, me.
Why did everyone in
my life feel that I would be better off if they withheld information from me? My parents had known that Graplars existed, but never bothered to really teach me how to face or kill one. Darius had clearly known that we were Soulbound, yet didn't say a word to me about it, even though we'd spent hours alone together in the woods. And Trayton knew that I would want to know whatever the fak he and Headmaster Quill were discussing behind that stupid door, and he still left me outside of it. When would they all realize that I could handle the truth?
By the time Quill's door opened again, I was fuming, all but convinced that he and Trayton had said just about all that needed to be said about me, Darius, and everything else that I'd ever done wrong in the eyes of the Zettai Council. But then Trayton exited, his shoulders slumped, his eyes rimmed in red, as if he'd been crying. It would take a lot to make a Barron weep, I wagered. A whole fak of a lot. And I could only wonder what it was that Quill had said to him to make Trayton so upset. I parted my lips, the question on the tip of my tongue, but then Trayton met my eyes with a scowl. He brushed by me, a newly born tension in his step, and I clamped my mouth closed again. We'd talk later, I was certain. And when we did, there would be bitter words on both sides.
"Enter and be known." Quill's voice called gently from inside of his office. The head guard looked at me, but didn't step away. It was as if he were waiting for me to make a break for it. As if I were even remotely afraid of Headmaster Quill.
I wasn't. I was, however, concerned about what influence he might have on my parents' lives and freedom. From the day that I'd held Quill's letter in my hand, welcoming me to attend Shadow Academy, his threat on my parents' lives had been clear. If I didn't go through the usual Healer's education process, if I didn't follow the rules like everyone else in Skilled society, if I didn't do what was expected of a Healer, then my parents' lives would be put in danger. He'd reiterated that threat time and time again, and I had the feeling he'd act on it. Not personally, of course. But Quill had guards. Plus, he had the backing of the Zettai Council. And I had nothing. So I stepped inside without a word, and closed the door behind me, shutting the head guard out.