Root Rot Academy: Term 2

by Watson, Rhea

  Trust restored.

  Had it ever truly faltered?

  No.

  I had faith in her.

  “Jack,” she whispered frantically, clawing at my sleeve as she skirted around in front. “Sir, please don’t—”

  “Your wands.” Spear-wielding sirens closed in on the walkway, a few tattooed like their king, many scarred and ravaged by war. If they were demanding them, then perhaps they were unaware that witches and warlocks didn’t need a conduit to cast. Wands only neatened the spellwork, but we were perfectly capable of charming and hexing with hands alone so long as we could get out the incantation.

  It would be messy.

  Bloody, even.

  But powerful—raw.

  I held Alecto’s amber gaze as I handed my wand over to a siren with his hand outstretched, fingers webbed and talons sharp. She had it in her to be bloody, powerful, and above all else, raw.

  Stubborn as ever, my submissive kept her wand trained on the surrounding sirens. No matter how many raised their spears and knives to her, she didn’t flinch, didn’t budge, unwilling to surrender the weapon many of our kind relied on all our lives.

  But then Alice shrieked, her cry shrill and pained and horrid, not a sound I ever wished to hear from a child again. Brin had sliced her cheek wide open, red gushing down her face and pooling in the water around them. Eyes shimmering with unshed tears, cheeks stained with rage, Alecto hurled her wand at the lake, then held up her empty hands as further proof of her submission.

  All the while seething at Brin, her aura no longer prickly and panicked, but strong and centered.

  Determined.

  Good. She needed that mindset if any of us were to survive the next hour.

  But when our eyes met again, she faltered. Gone was the warrior woman, the fury hell-bent on burning this place to the ground. In her stead was my little one, struggling, confused, desperate for my guidance.

  Not this time, little one.

  “Jack,” she whispered shakily, eyes wide to keep the tears from cascading down her face. “Please… I need you. I-I can’t do this without you.”

  Her uncertainty cut deep, the panic, the fear stirring every Dom instinct inside me to fix, protect, and defend.

  Maybe it wasn’t just the Dominant in me who felt that way for her.

  Maybe… Maybe it was just me, Jack Clemonte, warlock, headmaster, man, who couldn’t stand to see this witch—my witch—in distress.

  And maybe it was just sentiment, the calm before the storm, reveling in a connection, in what could have been, before it was brutally severed.

  “Get in the water, Headmaster, and swim for the altar,” Rìgh ordered. Over Alecto’s mop of wrangled curls, I finally spotted the altar in question. Barely visible, an onyx platform rose just above the sloshing dark water, smooth and glossy and unassuming. When I didn’t immediately react, one of the nearby sirens jabbed his spearhead at my calf, its bite jagged and cruel, its tip slicing open my pant leg.

  Alecto shook as she glowered down at the guilty siren, her jaw clenched so tight every muscle flared, and I grabbed her by the chin—rough and harsh, as I might in a scene. The contact shattered her concentration, and just for a moment it was her and I locked in each other’s gazes, trust paramount above all else.

  “Save Alice,” I told her, Dom-voice engaged—if only to calm her. She blinked up at me, tears glistening on her lashes like diamonds, and then as the siren jabbed at me again, she nodded. Her head barely moved and she didn’t say a word, but she understood the objective.

  We didn’t matter anymore.

  The only one who mattered was already bleeding, terrified and trapped with a monster.

  Alice had to get out of here alive—we were inconsequential.

  That was our lot in life, at the core of this profession.

  And I…

  I was fine with that.

  For myself.

  Not for her. Should have shoved her back through the portal when you had the chance, old boy.

  “We’re wasting a leap day,” Rìgh growled, hisses and snarls reverberating through the cave. “Move.”

  An eerie calm washed over me—acceptance—and I gave Alecto’s chin one last squeeze. Her hands snapped around my wrist, but she wasn’t strong enough to keep me. She tried, clinging tight as I withdrew, and when we finally broke apart, the whole world came crashing down around me, ears stuffed with cotton, a low whine screeching between them.

  Head held high, I marched to the end of the walkway with all the dignity I could muster, then eased into lake water so cold it sucked the air out of my lungs. At the sight of a few sirens smirking, accustomed to the frigid temperatures of the Atlantic, I steeled myself and pushed off the walkway, then front-crawled toward the floating black platform in the middle of the lake.

  Swam toward my death.

  And their salvation.

  Gods, help us.

  26

  Alecto

  “Get in the water, witch.”

  “I’m fucking going,” I snarled, panic making my words sound fiercer than I felt. Trembling, I crouched at the side of the walkway, then slowly slipped into the—holy fucking gods—frigid siren-filled lake. All the air whooshed out of my lungs as soon as I was in waist-deep, and I choked down a breath, fear ramping up.

  Mind muddled with a million racing thoughts, it all just blurred to white noise. I’d been brain-dead since I woke up this morning, exhausted from the term, from exams and projects, from crack-of-dawn harvesting and the roller coaster that was my personal life, but this shoved everything aside. The fear should have centered me, two people I cared about at risk—

  No. That felt… too simple. Two people I cared about. Callous. A young woman who had so much potential, wooed and tricked by a siren, was this close to having her throat slit. The warlock I depended on, looked up to, felt so deeply for that his absence felt like losing a part of myself, was about to be sacrificed in some batshit ritual.

  And I couldn’t breathe.

  Couldn’t think.

  Could barely speak.

  The second I let go of the limestone edge, my wand fuck only knew where, the nearest siren—male, bare-chested and muscular, dangerously handsome with jet-black curls and seaweed-green eyes—snagged my wrist and yanked me into the open water. My leather boots, already crap in a high-stakes situation, had started to harden against the cold, which made treading water feel like doing egg-beater kicks in syrup.

  Like Alice, my captor yanked me flush against him, his flesh nearly as cold as Bjorn’s, his teeth just as sharp, and then held a knife to my throat. I flinched with a sharp gasp, knocking the back of my head into his chin just to get away from the metallic kiss of silver, and he snaked an arm around my waist to prop me above the surface. Below, his black tail beat in slow, even back-and-forth movements, effortlessly cutting through the murky water and keeping me from drowning.

  It would be so easy for him to do it—kill me. Slit my throat in a second. Shove me down and hold me under until my lungs filled with freezing liquid and I just… faded away.

  No.

  Fuck no.

  If they thought I’d just sit here scissor-kicking like some meek, cowed victim—they had chosen the wrong witch. Nobody was having their blood drained tonight for some stupid ritual. Brin would never touch Alice again, never make her scream and cry and beg.

  We were getting the hell out of here.

  We…

  Gods, adrenaline was so not helpful in life-or-death situations—not unless you just needed to run. Here, as I tried to think, plan, focus, it left me shaky and scattered, but as Jack hauled himself onto the altar in the middle of the lake, I did my best to center everything.

  Because he was actually going through with this—for us.

  So we could get away.

  A willing sacrifice…

  Nope. No, the world wasn’t about to lose a treasure like Jack Clemonte just so some siren freaks could grow legs.

  Fuck the
se guys.

  Teeth gritted to stop them from chattering, I scanned my surroundings and focused on my breathing, on slowing my hammering heart.

  Okay, Alice was there, in front of the altar with Brin.

  That Rìgh guy was on his way over, trailing after Jack like he had all the time in the world suddenly.

  After a few frantic glances left and right, I estimated maybe fifty sirens total in the cave, most situated on either side of the walkway.

  Might take me—my eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the distance from this spot back to the limestone, an above-water home base that I could claim and defend—maybe six or seven strokes to get over there?

  Okay.

  Okay.

  Tentative plan brewing—

  Alice squealed, and even at a distance, her panic bled into me. My eyes snapped in her direction, mama bear mode fully engaged, and I found her gawking in horror at the platform—at Jack on his back, splayed out like he was already a corpse.

  And the sight broke my heart. Jack was infallible in my eyes—always had been. A strong protector. A thoughtful intellect. A caring man who genuinely wanted to do what was best, what was right, for the kids in our supernatural communities who were struggling.

  I might have grown into a healthier, more functional adult without years of drinking and screwing around if I’d had a Jack Clemonte when I was a struggling kid, heartbroken and forever grieving the loss of parents I barely remembered.

  This was wrong.

  So fucking wrong—

  “No!” A shriek ripped up my throat, carrying with it my fear, my outrage, when Rìgh rose from the depths, ripped open Jack’s sleeve—and slit his wrist with a trident prong. Up and down, straight as an arrow, he slashed at flesh, tore it apart, and let his sacrifice’s life force drip all over the altar.

  Then he was on the move again—headed for the other wrist.

  And I lost it.

  Careful planning went out the window, and its ashes paved the way for instinct to take charge. For raw, untamed rage to drive me.

  I spun around in my captor’s arms, knife be damned, and clamped onto his rugged jawline.

  “Everto!” The ejection curse pounded out of my palms in a surge of bright green light, one that ripped him away from me and hurled him clear across the cave. Before I could take my first stroke, however, a hand snapped around my ankle, clawed fingers gritting in deep, and dragged me below the surface.

  All the pent-up aggression teenage-Alecto had always imagined unleashing on the monster who left her to burn sparked to life, and even though I couldn’t see in the black nothingness, I could feel. Teeth bared, I folded over and latched onto my attacker, slashed at exposed skin with my nails and climbed along his steely body until I found his face.

  The siren dragged me deeper, down, down, down until my ears popped.

  Until I thought I might die.

  Until I found his eyes.

  I didn’t hesitate: I stabbed my thumbs into the sockets as far as I could go, screaming bubbles at him, fueled by a lifetime of fury. Benedict Hammond hadn’t killed me that night, and some fucking siren wasn’t going to now. Even when something sharp slashed across my arm, then into my waist, I pressed through the pain until I was down to my last knuckle, thumbs-deep in the bastard’s skull.

  The second he loosened his hold on me, I was gone, kicking hard for the surface, guided by the shimmer of floating yellow orbs. A few feet from salvation, my lungs were about to burst, but I fought on, determined not to die tonight.

  I barely processed the first breath, gasping as soon as I breached the surface, on autopilot as I gulped down just enough air to spit it back out at the hazy outlines of sirens closing in. Even with black spots dancing across my gaze, I fired off hexes, defensive spells, curses that I would never dare utter under ordinary circumstances.

  We all knew them, but civilized witches and warlocks never went this dark—unless their lives were on the line.

  And mine was.

  Alice, Jack—they were worth the smudge on my soul, the marks left behind by breathlessly shrieking incantations to tear flesh and split skulls and burst eardrums. When I had enough space to move, I did, exhaustion weighing me down almost as effectively as my stupid boots.

  But I pushed. Kicked and splashed, focused on the limestone walkway, vision completely tunneled, unable to hear anything above the crash of water all around me. The second someone entered my eyeline, I fired off a few more everto spells, hurling sirens all over the cave.

  By the time I reached the walkway, I barely had the strength to swim anymore, let alone drag my body out of the lake. Sure, I did it—no other choice, little one, keep fighting—but I did so with a sob and a groan, rolling onto dry land to gasp and pant, to feel my heartbeat slamming between my ears.

  To paint the white stone red with my blood.

  Ugh, gods, the cut on my side was really starting to sting—

  Light-headed, I rolled over with a groan, the gash just above my right hip feeling like it was being ripped open even more with the slightest movement. Difficult as it was to focus, I did my best and scanned the lake for my people, and while Alice was nowhere to be found suddenly—shitshitshit—Jack was still on the altar.

  Limp.

  Head lolled to the side away from me.

  That gave me the strength to push up on shaky legs. All around me, warrior sirens had started to regroup, swimming closer to the walkway, spears up and expressions grim.

  At this new height, I saw him better.

  Saw the blood pooling in four distinct spots: around both wrists and both ankles.

  My heart cracked in two, visceral and very real pain gripping my chest, squeezing tight with no intention of ever letting go. Tears mingled with the lake water dribbling from my hairline, and I raised both arms, palms out on either side of me, righteous fury in my veins and a lifetime of hate in my blood.

  “Interficio!”

  An incantation I never thought I’d cast.

  A curse to murder—violently.

  Illegal.

  Spoken so naturally now, hurled at my enemies with a malice that actually scared me.

  Red surged from my palms like a tidal wave, washing over the water in either direction—massacring any sirens who dared stand in its way. As soon as my magic struck, bodies exploded. Literally. Chunks of flesh and bone and viscera pinwheeled around the cave like fireworks, the untouched sirens by the altar suddenly shrieking—scattering. Even good ol’ Rìgh hightailed it away from Jack’s body, darting underwater, the surface ripples showing the clan fleeing for small slits in the cave wall.

  They had honestly thought taking away my wand was enough.

  That removing a conduit killed the magic in my marrow.

  Fuck them.

  Teeth gritted, I surveyed the carnage floating around the walkway almost dismissively. Hope it hurt, assholes.

  Without an intact siren to be found, my fight or flight flatlined. Such a powerful curse took more than it gave, and I crashed to my knees, panting, aching, dizzy and on the verge of emptying my guts.

  Jack.

  I lifted my head, even though it weighed as much as a fucking mountain.

  Alice.

  I crawled to the end of the walkway, a bloody trail in my wake, my wounds on fire.

  It isn’t over.

  Not by a long shot. I slipped into the freezing water like a seal, instantly regretting not taking my boots off, then shoved my body beyond its limits as I kicked off into a front crawl. It wasn’t graceful by any means, arms everywhere, water splashing around me like thunder. It wasn’t pretty—but I got to the altar while Jack still drew breath, his chest rising and falling slowly.

  Too slow.

  Gods.

  It took two pathetic attempts to hoist my body out of the water, the altar slick with blood, not a handhold to be found. In the end, I had to grab at Jack’s unconscious body just to haul myself up. He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. Head to the side, eyes half-shut, they
had left him to bleed out on the onyx—as intended. The magic in his blood was supposed to… do something.

  How?

  On my knees, panicking, I took it all in with wide eyes and quivering lips. His life force wept all over the stone and into the water. Nothing around to collect it for a ritual—unless offering it to the water was the ritual.

  This couldn’t be legit. These fucking idiots had been grasping at straws here—

  Blinking hard, I went for his wrist and lifted it, the cut deep and oozing.

  “Coeo.” I wasn’t a healer by any stretch, even if I had a brain full of useless information about healing herbs and medicinal plants. But all professors had first-aid training, a certificate we were required to renew every three years. The coeo incantation merely sealed the wound and stopped the bleeding long enough to get the injured party to real help. With a flash of buttery-yellow light, my magic did the trick.

  For now.

  Incision closed tight, his black skin turned waxy and fresh—tender, the slightest nudge capable of tearing it open again. Growing more frantic by the second, I moved on to his other wrist, constantly watching his chest for movement, needing to see he was still breathing just to go on. Once I finished there, I moved down to his ankles.

  They had slit his Achilles tendons.

  The agony he must have felt, and not once did I hear him scream—

  I stopped holding it back, stopped trying to be brave. With a sob, I mended those, too, sealing the slit skin but hardly healing the torn tendon. Too complex. Too difficult. I couldn’t—

  Tears blurred the shadowy world around me when I finally sat back on my heels, and I grabbed at his shin for…

  For…

  Support.

  To feel his sturdiness and his might, to hold his steely muscle and pretend I was just as strong.

  Still chasing my breath, I snapped upright when the hairs on the back of my neck rose in alarm. The cave had fallen unnervingly silent, the water’s surface smooth and dark, the orbs flickering, their magic waning. Soon, the farther those sirens swam from this massacre, the orbs would go out entirely, plunging us into pitch-black.