The Chain

by Bella Forrest

  He devoured the book as rapidly as he could, knowing he only had an hour for lunch before he would be expected back at the poky little study room. To his slight disappointment, the text went over a lot of the same ground as the other books he had read containing Leander, including the notebook still in his possession. It wasn’t that he didn’t find it interesting, it was just that he wanted to know more; he was fed up with the brick wall of information he kept crashing into.

  Three-quarters of the way through the book, however, he chanced upon a bombshell. It was entitled Fields of Sorrow, and though Alex began the section expecting it to be more of what he already knew of that final battle, he realized quickly that he had entirely misjudged the chapter. Instead of explaining the details of what went on leading up to Leander’s last stand, it skipped straight to the end, describing instead the Great Evil that was released in the last moments, on the final day of the battle:

  Leander Wyvern, last of his kind, stood atop the scaffold as he was fettered in chains, his wrists shackled—roaring to the heavens, his eyes burned with a fearsome silver light; an unnatural, ungodly sight, terrifying to behold, though none could stop him crying out, nor the glow of his eyes.

  A firing squad took position before him, though their hands trembled as they raised them to strike. They were more scared for their lives than Leander himself. Golden light filled the air as the assembled squadron fired wave upon wave of golden artillery toward the great Wyvern, but Leander had fallen silent, the magic barely seeming to worry him. His silence was more frightening than the blood-curdling war cries many heard in their last moments, face-to-face with him on the battlefield. A peace had fallen across his handsome face, his burning eyes still wide, though glassy with concentration.

  With each blow of piercing golden magic, Leander’s eyes burned brighter, the glare blinding all those who looked upon him, until his whole body seemed to burn with the same glowing, crackling silver. Beneath his feet, the very earth shifted as liquid silver rose up from the death-soaked battlefield. Like phantom dust, it gathered and soared across the broken ground, swarming in the air around him, swirling like a tempest overhead.

  Desperate now, the congregated Mages let their magic surge toward him, but no matter what they did, they could not get him to stop. No spell could penetrate the light spinning around him.

  It was they who stopped, as a great blast, so loud it could be heard for miles around, exploded from the very center of Leander Wyvern. A bolt of unholy silver lightning shot from the sky, shivering violently through his body, sent from the swirling clouds overhead, and burst into the ground in a pulsing beam of pure energy that seemed to go on for eternity, channeled through the burning figure of the last Spellbreaker. The earth trembled and the ground cracked, though none were looking to their feet; they saw only horror as the mist of anti-magic cleared. The Spellbreaker and the tempest above were nowhere to be seen—they were gone, obliterated by the force of the final spell Leander had used against those who had persecuted his people, down to the very last one.

  How were they to know what he had done?

  The earth shook as wisps of shadowy silver, shot through with black, snaked away from the spot where Leander had been, undulating through the air and the grass, toward the Mages who stood before Wyvern’s place of death. As the silvery mist clawed at their flesh, biting through their skin and deep into their core, it began to dawn on them, what he had done. It moved like liquid, smothering the Mages in a poisonous mist as it snatched their essence from within, taking what it was owed.

  What Leander had done was mythical, unheard-of anti-magic—a spell they could never have been prepared for. A Doomsday spell, conjured from the book of its namesake; the tome had always been the source of legends, mere fairytales told to children to scare them at night. Only the nightmare had been released, myth rushing toward the fabric of reality—a Great Evil, ravenous for the taste of life magic, sated only by magical sacrifice. If not given willingly, the Great Evil took forcefully instead.

  They could not have known the price they would pay for taking Leander’s life that day, but Leander Wyvern released the Great Evil upon the Mages, in vengeance for what they had done to his people. It is said that when a void appears, that void must be filled with something, and Leander Wyvern ensured that it was; he left nothing to chance. He wished for the punishment of those who had ended his race to live on, long after he was dead.

  It was a wish that came true—the Great Evil prevails, and Mages know not how to rid themselves of it.

  Alex sat back, breathless, as understanding began to shape itself in his mind. The specifics were still hazy, but he was starting to get a better grasp on things that had seemed perpetually closed-off to him before. It was eerily invigorating to learn of what his potential ancestor had done as a last-ditch move of revenge against the mages. As he absorbed it all, Elias’s words came back to haunt him, though Alex knew they were as relevant to Spellbreakers as they were to mages.

  Altering the phrase to suit his newly gained information, Alex thought about what Leander must have been going through, his heart bursting with pride and horror, in equal amounts, at what the last Wyvern had done. Desperate people do desperate things, and people with nothing left to lose are the most dangerous of them all.

  Never had truer words been spoken.

  Chapter 33

  As the day came to a close and evening fell, Alex decided to go and visit Jari in the infirmary. His afternoon with Master Demeter had been as strange as the morning, though he hadn’t been able to focus on much after the revelations of his lunch break. They raced through his mind, refusing to be silenced. He figured a bit of time with friends might quiet it a little, enough to think straight at the very least.

  Stepping into the room that had been designated to Jari, he saw that the boy was once again enjoying the attentions of Helena, though it wasn’t just Helena by his bedside. To his surprise and delight, he saw the others were there too, clustered around Jari’s narrow bed on various chairs they’d managed to pilfer. He couldn’t put into words how pleased he was to see them, despite the weight of his new knowledge. It was a relief, knowing their presence would mean he wouldn’t have to worry too much about the things he had been finding out; they were his distraction and his sanctuary, regardless of the seedlings of mistrust he still felt toward Aamir. He didn’t want to think about that; he just wanted to be a teenager for a bit.

  Besides, who was to say what he was feeling wasn’t Elias’s intention all along—to divide and conquer, siphoning him off from the herd, as it were? He almost hoped that was the case, because he wasn’t sure he could take any more suspicion. It was eating away at him, driving him a little mad, wondering what was real, what was fake, who was trustworthy and who wasn’t. Nor would he put it past Elias to think of something like that, assuming Alex wouldn’t notice the game being played.

  The others were mid-conversation as Alex approached, and they seemed just as relieved to see him.

  “Where have you been?” asked Natalie sternly.

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “We waited for you at lunch, but you didn’t show,” Ellabell chimed in, her brow furrowed.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t think we had the same lunch-breaks, so I just went off for an hour, did some reading.” He flashed Ellabell a conspiratorial look, making her look of concern deepen.

  Although he didn’t want to keep what he had learned a secret, he also found he didn’t have the energy to talk about what he had read in the book—right now, he just wanted to have a normal conversation and hear about their days.

  “So, how have things been going?” he asked, smiling in readiness for the onslaught of their tales.

  “We had several new lessons that we have never had before—they were good, but they were different. The work here is very hard!” Natalie beamed, clearly in her element. “The teachers are pleasant, and they are extremely encouraging, but it was difficult to keep up. Wasn’t it, Ella
bell?”

  Ellabell nodded, though she appeared somewhat distracted. “It was pretty tricky. The students are younger than us too, and it was just nuts watching them do everything so easily. I think we did okay, though.”

  “Yes, we did fine. The teachers seemed pleased with us and said it will only be a short time until we are more advanced,” agreed Natalie. “We learned so many new things!”

  “Did you find out what Barrier Combat is?” asked Alex.

  “It is a very strange thing—it is dueling within a chamber that is filled with magic, so your own magic is suppressed, and you have to figure out ways around it. I believe it is to test our skills in any situation,” explained Natalie, still grinning. She had evidently had an interesting, eye-opening day.

  “That sounds pretty cool,” Alex remarked, meaning it. It made sense, to teach the students how to fight in any scenario; he just wished they had something like that for him, so he could practice how to fight in different settings and situations.

  “It was,” Ellabell smiled, sharing a slice of Natalie’s enthusiasm.

  “Everything is so different here! It is all new and exciting, and there is so much to learn. They have taught us, in one day, how to focus magic and go beyond the basics. It is truly wonderful to be learning so much. And they care about learning, and they want us to do well. It is most refreshing!” Natalie enthused.

  The excitement they exuded made Alex feel a little disappointed with his own education. So far, Demeter had only told him stories and histories—nothing remotely useful in terms of practical applications. Still, he had to hope that would be coming and that today had been more of an orientation session. A getting-to-know-you kind of thing. He wasn’t sure he could take history lessons indefinitely.

  “How about you? How did you get on?” asked Aamir.

  “My teacher is a little bit… kooky, shall we say,” chuckled Alex. “Master Demeter? Any of you have him?”

  The others shook their heads, which puzzled Alex, making him wonder where Alypia had dredged the peculiar Spellbreaker-loving man from.

  “We just went over some histories and things. Nothing quite as interesting as what you guys are learning,” he said a little bleakly.

  “I’m sure it’ll pick up, man,” encouraged Jari. “It beats being cooped up in here with nothing to do!”

  Alex smiled. “I guess it does.”

  “How’re things with you?” Jari turned to Aamir.

  He shrugged. “It’s strange. A bit like with you, Alex, only more focused on the magical side rather than the anti-magical,” he began. “My tutors, Master Garai and Mistress Winter—do you have them?”

  Natalie and Ellabell nodded in concurrence.

  “They have been going over school things, mostly.” Aamir paused, as if wondering whether or not to elaborate. “Well, not even school things. They’ve mostly just focused on the Ascension Ceremony.”

  The room went still.

  “What about it?” pressed Alex.

  “Just how important it is to everything they do here,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, I’ve not been drinking the Kool-Aid,” he assured them with a smile, seeing everyone’s worried faces. “I think they just wanted me to understand, so I pretended I did. Then they went over the behaviors and spells from the winners and losers of the last few years—they have it all written out in these huge scrapbook-type things, with lists and lists of spells used and successes and things of that nature. It is very peculiar, but fairly interesting too. After a few hours of that, they took me on a tour through the tunnels beneath the arena. You know, the ones the combatants come out from and get taken back into… if they, you know, lose.” He looked as baffled as the rest of them did, as he relayed the day he had had.

  Alex, however, found himself intrigued by what Aamir said, as he remembered the night of the Ascension Ceremony and the strange, hypnotizing horror of it, to have what was essentially ‘graduation’ so openly cheered and celebrated. Even they hadn’t been able to tear their eyes away from the scenes that had played out that night, as wrong as they knew the Ceremony to be. He thought of those poor, tortured mages, forcibly dragged away by guards to have their essences removed—from students to sacrificial prisoners in the space of one evening.

  Somehow, his remembrance of those guards turned his thoughts to the prisoner he had seen from the tower, brought in with the guards who had come back from Spellshadow. With Helena there, he figured it was as good a time as any to ask.

  “Helena, do you know anything about the prisoner who was brought into Stillwater today?” he asked.

  The others looked at him in surprise, clearly not having heard anything about a prisoner or anyone new arriving at Stillwater House that day. Neither had Helena, Alex thought, seeing the blank expression on her face.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know of any prisoner. Nobody told me,” she replied, seemingly perplexed.

  “When did you see them?” quizzed Ellabell.

  “I went for a walk before my first lesson. There was this loud trumpet, and I just followed it and happened to see someone being brought in,” he explained. “I think they came from Spellshadow.”

  Aamir frowned. “How do you know?”

  “The Head was with them… and so was Professor Renmark, only not the one we knew,” he sighed grimly.

  “What do you mean?” Jari chimed in, eyes filled with macabre interest.

  “Renmark is the new Finder.”

  Natalie gasped. “No—what do you mean, he is the new Finder?”

  The faces staring back at him were pale with dread. It had not been an easy thing for him to absorb either, and he had seen it with his own eyes. He felt a pang of remorse for Natalie, whose face showed more horror than the rest; she had known Renmark better than any of them, taking private lessons from him in dark magic, and he knew she had learned a lot from the professor, which had built a certain mutual respect between them, despite the hatred Renmark had incited in the others.

  “The Head needed a new Finder, so he chose Professor Renmark,” explained Alex. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, all raggedy and gray—the same state Malachi Grey was in… Only, weirdly, it seemed like he could see me. He looked my way.”

  Alex’s friends stared at him in confusion. “I have no idea why,” Alex shrugged.

  “So… does this mean Spellshadow is back in the Head’s hands?” asked Jari.

  Alex nodded. “I think it must—why would the guards have come back otherwise?”

  “Do you think they’re okay?” wondered Ellabell sadly.

  It was a question Alex couldn’t answer. He could only hope the students at Spellshadow were doing fine, or were in no worse state than they had been in before, though he imagined the Head must have implemented some new rules to try to prevent an uprising from happening again. What those new rules were, he shuddered to think.

  “Whatever happens, we know they aren’t dead, and as long as they’re alive, there’s hope,” Alex stated, trying to give courage to the drained faces of his friends. “One person who isn’t going to be okay, however, is that prisoner. Do you know where they might have taken them?” He turned to Helena, certain she could shed some light on the matter.

  “I don’t. I can find out, though.” Helena tilted her head thoughtfully. “Just leave it to me.”

  The group looked up sharply as the door creaked, disturbing their hushed conversation. At the far end of the room, a stern-looking wizard had entered, his eyebrow raised as he saw the congregation gathered around Jari’s bed. With slow deliberation, he looked from his watch to them and back again, tutting loudly.

  “Isn’t it time you were leaving? Visiting hours are long over,” he declared.

  “Just five more minutes,” Jari pleaded, but the dour medical mage could not be swayed.

  “Out—now!” he barked. The group said their swift farewells to Jari and scurried from the room with promises to come back tomorrow.

  Tho
ugh the others headed straight for their rooms, Alex waited until they weren’t looking and slipped away from the group at one of the hallway junctions, with other ideas on his mind. Aamir’s words about the tunnels had inspired him, bringing back memories of what the Gifting Ceremony entailed. With those recollections, a decision had come to him: he would use the cover of darkness to investigate the arena.

  Alex had a sneaking suspicion that the black bottles, or whatever fancy glasswork the Stillwater folk used, might be stashed away beneath the amphitheater, at the end of the tunnel where the losers were hauled away. It made sense; Helena had told them that the Gifting Ceremony happened beneath the amphitheater, so Alex figured that had to be where they stored the stolen essence, in the same way that the antechamber attached to the room with manacles was where they stored the pulsing black bottles at Spellshadow.

  The hallways mostly empty given the hour, he crept uninterrupted through the villa and out across the lakeshore, sticking as closely to the shadows as he could and making his way toward the vacant arena. As he walked along the eerie pearlescent shingle and up over the field toward the amphitheater, he felt a rush of dread. He became aware of the familiar sensation of eyes on him, making his skin feel hot and prickly. Someone was watching him.

  Glancing back toward the villa, his eyes scanned the exterior, but he saw no one. Turning his head away, he instantly snapped it back, unsure whether he’d seen a flash of something in the top room of the abandoned tower at the far edge of the building, the exact place he had watched the Ascension Ceremony from. He squinted, trying to make out a shape in the window, but if there had been something there, it was gone now. Turning back, Alex tried to convince himself it was a figment of his imagination—he would have managed it, too, if he hadn’t been able to sense the burning heat of eyes upon him still.