Academy of Falling Kingdoms Box Set

by Marisa Mills

  The roar of water echoed through the chamber, and I noticed wooden wheels along the walls, spinning under the force of the water falling from above.

  “That must be what’s turning the pillars,” I pointed.

  “No wonder they’re getting out,” Alexander said, blowing dust off one of the crystals. This place is falling apart. Another five years, ten maybe, then it would all crumble.”

  Lucian stepped lightly towards the center of the chamber, his claws ringing musically on the smooth stone beneath us.

  “Is there a demon in every crystal?” Tatiana asked, crouching at the base of one of the pillars. She tilted her head and her hair spilled over her shoulder. I followed her gaze, counting the spinning cylinders that stretched into the distance.

  “How are the sealing sigils still working?” Jessa asked. “Usually, demons can only be contained for a few years before they need to be transferred into a more solid substance, like metal or a harder stone.”

  “They probably aren’t,” Alexander replied. “But it’s possible that the Ancients had access to more powerful sigils that we’ve since lost.”

  I leaned towards the pillar and rubbed my thumb over the sigils.

  They glowed brighter at my touch.

  “Careful!” Alexander exclaimed. “If you smear or disrupt them, the demons could get loose.”

  Lucian danced back on his feet. Really? He snaked to across the chamber and opened his mouth, unleashing a burst of fire towards the center crystal. It trembled under the flame.

  “What are you doing?” Alexander shouted. “You can’t just—”

  There was a sharp shriek and the noise of grinding metal. The main crystal flashed erratically, sending up a burst of white sparks. Slowly, the panes of gold and quartz in the columns began shifting, sliding apart and opening like roses blooming.

  “What have you done?” Alexander asked, with dread spreading across his features.

  Hissing filled the chamber, a roar loud enough that I could hear them over the sound of the rushing waterfalls. A handful of demons sprang forth as the crystals opened—night sky black and starlight white, large and small. They darted away in bursts of light and darkness. Lucian roared victoriously.

  The ground buckled and sent me sprawling to the cold floor. I fell into Tatiana, who scrambled onto her knees. Jessa leaned against one of the columns, struggling to keep her balance. Then there was a weightless sensation, and I could feel my heart in my throat.

  “We’re falling!” Tatiana exclaimed. The ground jolted again. Beneath us, the floor cracked and split. Alexander growled and stumbled towards the center crystal. He whipped out his pen and began drawing sealing sigils over the sections Lucian had disturbed.

  What are you doing? Lucian roared. He looked ready to pounce.

  “If we don’t seal them back, we’re all going to die!” Alexander exclaimed. “Don’t you get it? If we are falling, we can’t—”

  “We can’t fall all at once, or the impact will kill us all,” Tatiana said, stumbling towards Alexander and joining him at the base of the crystal.

  Lucian growled, and with a roar, he leaped towards Alexander.

  “Lucian, don’t!” I yelled. I put myself between them, my heart racing. Everything became still as I held my arm out, standing before him with my tangled hair and blood-drenched skirt.

  You would protect them, even after all they’ve done to you?

  “We have to keep them contained—just for now,” I said. “If we don’t, a lot of innocent people will die.”

  There are no innocent mages, Lucian growled. Not when their magic comes from the subjugation of my kind.

  “But think of all the people down below,” I said. “None of this is their fault. We need to give them the chance to leave the area. Now that we know the truth, maybe the Council will be able to do something.”

  That will never happen! Lucian snapped, lashing his tail. Nick discovered the secret as well, and look what happened to him. Someone wants this buried, Wynter. Now that you know the truth, they’ll come for you as well.

  I shivered, rubbing my arms in the glow of the crystals. Hesitantly, Jessa joined the others around the main crystal, hastily sketching the sealing sigils with her pen. Lucian sulked into the corner, but made no move to stop them. Demons screamed and roared the crystals began to close, trapping them behind panes of glass and metal. I hissed between my teeth at the throbbing pain. It felt like a hammer being smashed against the side of my head.

  Gradually, the quaking stopped as the machinery stabilized again. Alexander backed away from the massive device, the sweat on his face illuminated in the pink glow of the pulsing crystals.

  “Tell Lucian we’re sorry,” Tatiana murmured.

  I felt the flutter of wings behind me, as Lucian hovered over my shoulder.

  “I promise, we’ll find a way to free them,” I said.

  An empty promise, like all the others.

  “What’s he saying?” Jessa asked.

  “He’s not happy,” I shrugged. “He doesn’t trust mages.”

  Alexander stepped towards us, pushing his golden hair away from his face. Blood and dirt stained his fingers and streaked across his chin, but he’d never looked more handsome.

  “My father won’t rule forever,” Alexander said sternly. “I know I’m only a prince, sixth in line to the throne, but I vow to you, we will figure this out, in my lifetime. I will not rest until your people are free.”

  Big words, for such a small prince, Lucian said grudgingly. But he slowly folded his wings and drew in a deep sigh.

  A light, feminine chuckle sounded behind us, making me spin.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school, children?”

  Twenty-Four

  TIME SEEMED TO STOP. THE woman standing at the chamber’s entrance was achingly familiar. She smiled, the gesture as friendly as ever. My mind raced, as I tried to find some logical reason for her to be there.

  My voice shook, and I stumbled over her name. “Celeste?”

  I looked behind her, expecting to see the king’s guard or the other members of the Council, but the entrance was dark and empty. She was alone. Her pale blonde hair was swept into a tight bun, and her violet eyes shone in the near darkness.

  “Why are you here?” Alexander asked, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Celeste stepped into the chamber, her boots slapping faintly on the marble floor.

  “I’ve spent years trying to open that door,” she said, her eyes lifted towards the vaulted ceilings and the spinning towers of augmented stone, studded with gold and crystal.

  “Thank you for that; I suppose. Of course, I’ll have to kill you all now.”

  This had to be some kind of terrible dream or dark magic. Of all the people I might’ve suspected—Dorian, King Gregory, Du Lac—Celeste wasn’t one of them. She’d always been so kind to me, so friendly and open. Like Professor Gareth.

  Celeste took a step forward, raising her arms. The silvery sigils tattooed across her arms seemed to shift and glow, and swirls of magic sparkled around her, rising up towards the ceiling. Although I had no sword, I moved into a fighting stance. Beside me, Alexander crouched into a defensive position.

  “Stay back!” Alexander snapped.

  He drew his sword, the ring of steel filling the chamber. Celeste drew her pen from beneath her blouse and placed the tip of it against her wrist.

  “You can’t fight us all,” Tatiana said bravely.

  I had a feeling Celeste could, though. We were just students, fledgling mages compared to her. And even though I had Gwen’s charm, I didn’t know exactly how it worked. Celeste paused and smiled benignly, flipping her golden pen between her fingers. I stared at the symbols on her arm, wishing I’d paid more attention in sigils class. Behind me, Lucian hissed, gathering like a thick cloak around my shoulders.

  “Shall I start with you, Alexander?” Celeste asked. It was surreal to hear the mort
al threat from her lips, as calmly as if she was addressing us at the Academy.

  “You can’t,” Alexander said, his voice strained. “My father—”

  “I imagine your father will blame it on the demons, Your Royal Highness,” Celeste said, adding a mocking curtsey. “After all, there isn’t anyone else to blame it on.”

  I felt sick. “I don’t understand. It was you, all this time? But why?”

  “Of course, you don’t,” Celeste said. “Do you even know why this vault opened for you?”

  “I…” I trailed off. I shook my head and curled my hand tightly around Guinevere’s charm. Behind me, Lucian shifted anxiously. Alexander reached into his pocket, drawing out his pen, but I didn’t know what good that would do against Celeste, a grand mage and a member of the Council.

  “I have Gwen’s charm,” I said. “That’s all.”

  “So you do,” Celeste said, “but the charm alone wouldn’t work here. Only one thing would, and that’s the blood of Nicholas Armenia. Haven’t you wondered why Dorian chose you? Who you really are?”

  “I’m nobody,” I said. “You were at the forum today, you must have heard. I’m a fraud and a thief, that’s all.”

  “Oh I know all about that,” Celeste’s laugh was as musical as ever. “Born and raised in the Scraps, by that despicable creature. Gabriel, wasn’t it?”

  I swallowed, conscious of everyone’s eyes on me. Cold terror gripped my heart. How did she know about Gabriel? No one in Reverie knew about him except for Dorian, and Alexander. Had he told her? Eleanor had been working with Celeste. What if all of them had been in this together?

  “That’s not…” I trailed off. “Did…did Dorian tell you about my family?”

  “Trying to learn if your dear count has betrayed you again?” Celeste asked. “Not this time, unfortunately. I knew the secret to getting into this chamber would be something to do with Nick’s heir, and I knew there’d been a child. Amelia sent her away, under the care of some woman she knew in the Lower Realms.”

  Some woman. That had to be Claribel.

  “I spent months in the Scraps, but you know how poorly they keep records down there. It wasn’t until I began combing through receipts in Reverie that I found a real clue; a tidy sum of money, from Eleanor Rosewood to one Gabriel Wilcox, dated just a few months after Gwen’s death. I thought I was so clever, for uncovering the Rosewood family secret; that Viviane was actually Gwen’s daughter. I spent years infiltrating the Council and the Academy, just so I could get close to her when she came of age. She was surprisingly slow, for a mage of such a noble bloodline, so I offered to tutor her. But I became suspicious when her blood wouldn’t open the chamber.”

  “Really, I have Eleanor to thank. We’d been working together for some time, when she mentioned that Dorian had brought home a girl from the Lower Realms, about Viviane’s age. So I went looking, and do you know what I found? No trace of any young mage from Argent, but a few people in the Scraps remembered a girl named Wynter, who until recently lived with her uncle Gabriel. The coincidence was too great to ignore, and in time I figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?” Alexander asked, with confusion on his face.

  “You see, Gwen never wanted her child to grow up in Reverie,” Celeste said. “She knew her family might come looking one day, so she made the woman swear to protect her daughter, and hide her from mages at all costs.”

  “When Eleanor came down looking for a baby of a certain age, she contacted Gabriel for his connections, and to negotiate a price. But when they came to Claribel’s door to take the baby, Claribel gave up her own daughter instead. Maybe she was just trying to give her daughter a better life in Reverie; or maybe she was acting on Gwen’s last wishes.”

  I flinched. When I was a child, Gabriel had told me stories about Sterling having a sister who’d been taken by a cannibalistic mage-lady, and as I’d gotten older, I’d dismissed them as just that—stories meant to frighten a lonely, little girl from running away. But maybe that hadn’t been all they were.

  “What are you saying,” I asked slowly.

  “Guinevere took a baby to the Scraps, and Eleanor brought a baby back to Reverie. But it wasn’t the same child. Don’t you see, Wynter? Viviane was never Nick’s daughter. It was you, all along.”

  ***

  I drew in a sharp breath. My entire world seemed to have stopped and started again. Nothing made sense anymore. My entire life had been a lie. Gabriel wasn’t my real uncle, and Briar wasn’t even my brother. Not by blood, anyway. My breath hitched. If Guinevere was my mother, that meant Dorian was my real uncle. And Eleanor! I had an aunt! I even knew who my grandmother was.

  “But why attack the Academy?” Tatiana asked, her voice shaking. “Why release demons?”

  “At first, I was only hoping to create some chaos to keep the Council and the nobility fighting with each other, while I searched for Gwen’s pendant,” Celeste said. “I thought perhaps it was in Viviane’s necklace, but when Viviane didn’t manifest any powers, I began looking elsewhere. I’ll admit that the venture seemed lost for a while, and then, I found you and Alexander leaving the Academy’s archives.”

  I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

  “You climbed through my office,” Celeste said. “So of course, I went to the archives to see what was missing. And do you know what I found?”

  “Letters involving Nick,” I said, “That I took.”

  “Yes,” Celeste replied. “They weren’t anything special. Little, sentimental things. I knew Gareth had the journal, and I assumed that had really been your goal. But then, you began sneaking around, muttering to yourself. I thought you or Alexander might be using the pendant to talk with demons,” Celeste continued. “So I put my spell over Viviane so she could keep an eye on you.”

  “But, at the final examination, she nearly killed Kris, what purpose would that have served?” I asked.

  “Why, to draw you out, Wynter,” Celeste said. “And it worked. You used the blood magic you’d learned from your demon to run through the crystals. That’s when I knew for sure you were Nick’s daughter.”

  “Viviane trusted you,” Jessa said. “Her mother trusted you. And you just…just…Viviane could have died!”

  “And the world would’ve lost nothing,” Celeste replied coldly. “Just a bastard from the Scraps, who thought she was a real mage.”

  My heartbeat quickened. Heat rushed through me, familiar and sharp. This was the same way I felt when Gabriel hurt Briar. That same fire.

  “How could you?” I asked.

  “I’ll admit that got a little out of hand,” Celeste said. “Who could’ve known that Viviane was capable of channeling such power? It seems all my lessons with her weren’t a waste of time after all. I didn’t expect her to crack the foundations of the Academy, or for you to plummet to your death. I was quite upset about it, actually. But then you survived, because of your demon, I assume. What a hideous thing.”

  Lucian’s claws scraped along the ground. I felt his long tail lash the air behind me. Lucian was strong; I knew that. Maybe he’d be a match for Celeste. Maybe together we would be. Celeste looked unimpressed.

  “I was very happy when you returned, Wynter, and it worked out much better than I could have planned. When the king visited the school, he was wearing Gwen’s pendant. I noticed it right away. But he went back to the palace before I had the chance to get it, and you know how well the royalty tolerates members of the Council.”

  “But then you decided to take Alexander into your confidence. I couldn’t have you scheming together. I couldn’t risk the king getting involved, not too early. So I followed you to the lake and released another demon. I also hoped that if Alexander got hurt, the king would return to the Academy and I’d get another chance to steal the pendant.”

  “You hurt Jessa with that demon,” I said. “You could have killed her.”

  “I didn’t ask her to interfere. She knows she�
��s terrible with magic and should’ve stayed out of the way,” Celeste replied, her eyes snapping to Jessa. “What is she really worth anyway? With her weak amount of magic? She’s barely a mage.”

  I closed my fists so hard that my hands ached. Jessa was permanently disfigured, her spine held together with mage tech, and Celeste had no remorse at all. My eyes burned, and I clenched my jaw. And it wasn’t just Jessa, Celeste had hurt so many others as well—Kris and Viviane, Tatiana and Alexander. And who knew how many other people had been hurt in the demon attacks?

  “Of course, it wasn’t all easy,” Celeste said. “Markus was determined to learn what was causing the quakes and the demon attacks, and he also knew Guinevere’s charm must be involved.”

  “So you set Du Lac after trying to steal the Rosewood jewelry?” I asked.

  Celeste shrugged. “I didn’t have to,” she said, “but it worked to my benefit. Markus is smart but unpleasant. It makes him difficult to work with. But do you know who no one suspected? Poor, sweet Celeste.”

  “And that makes you proud, does it?” Alexander asked. “That you’ve betrayed everything the Academy stands for, that you’ve committed high treason against the Crown of Reverie?”

  “Yes! Yes, it makes me proud! I don’t care about Reverie,” Celeste sneered, her warm façade cracking. “Tell me, Your Royal Highness. After Reverie launched its war against Aubade, what happened?”

  Alexander stiffened. “We ended the war. We agreed to peacefully end the conflict and—”

  “Oh, yes,” Celeste spat. “You agreed to end the war that you caused, that you began. Or perhaps, I should say your grandfather began. And my kingdom? We knew all along that the quakes weren’t the result of some curse. We told Reverie as much, and you still insisted upon attacking us.”

  “We made a mistake,” Alexander said, “a mistake that we’ve since made amends for.”

  “A mistake that destroyed swaths of the Lower Realms and killed thousands of our mages, including my father,” Celeste said, her violet eyes gleaming. “Not parts of the Lower Realms that Reverie controlled, of course. Why, we couldn’t have your nobles losing their silver mines or their lumber.”