Seff growls deep in his throat. Before I can say anything, he vaults into the pit, jumping high with his knees raised to his chest. He hasn’t even fallen all the way down yet when the pit shakes again, as if in retaliation. Valves open at the top level of the amphitheater structure, and the walls curve like giant gutters to direct the flow. The frothing water sweeps any reptile in its way.
The ceiling creaks again, letting out more dust. No, it isn’t dust. It’s too heavy, falling from above in a perfect circle.
“It’s salt!” I shout, then gulp a lungful of air, preparing for a scream.
But Charity is faster. “Don’t! Your sonic scream could bring down the entire structure!”
She swipes her hands to produce a purple shield that cuts off the salt halfway on its descent. The semi-transparent purple sheet flickers, letting some grains of salt fall. Charity grits her teeth in an effort to hold the charm, but without an anchor, it will give out any second.
Jean seems to have realized that too. She wooshes toward the pit in super speed. The meager foundations of the salt circle must have triggered a defense system, though. Jean bounces back from the edge of the pit as if spiked by static electricity. She bares her elongated canines in anger and rushes for a second try, but the shield above flickers out of existence and the salt falls around the pit in a perfect circle. The stronger circle throws Jean so far back that she crashes into the wall.
“Jean!” Awan runs past me to check on her.
“I’m sorry.” Charity wipes her sweat-beaded forehead. “I couldn’t hold it any longer.”
I want to tell her it’s all right, but my eyes are drawn to the bottom of the pit, filling rapidly with both snakes and water. That’s a sight I never thought I’d witness.
Seff is panicking—his dirty blond hair wet across his forehead and falling into his eyes, breath ragged, hands grasping for the ledge nearest to him. Vanessa seems to be keeping him afloat, not paying attention to the aggravated snakes using them as a life raft, twisting around their bodies.
“How do we get them out?” I squeak.
Charity dumps her backpack on the ground and starts rummaging through it. “I can break the salt circle with a charm. I just need the right herbs.”
I glance back at Jean, who’s groaning on the floor with her eyes closed.
“She’s concussed,” Awan says. “I’m on it.”
“Forget that. Don’t waste your strength on me. I’m a cold one; I’ll heal,” Jean protests, but Awan’s eyes already sparkle with that signature bronze sheen.
The protector leaps out of him and into Jean. Awan places a hand on her forehead, bronze sparkling underneath his fingers. “You can heal but not without time and blood, and we need you here now.”
I exhale with relief, then turn back to Charity. “What can I do to help? Maybe I can break the salt circle with a scream?”
“This place is too unstable for sonic blasts,” Charity says. “Get me a flame to light the herbs.”
I dash to the wall for the nearest candle. It’s thick and stocky, like all candles used for lighting at Elmwick Academy. I take it back to Charity, careful not to look at the flame for too long, but that plan fails when she hands me a bunch of herbs and says, “Start burning them. I’ll prepare the rest.”
The second I bring the dried herbs to the flame, my body stiffens. I’m snatched away from the present moment, staring into a layer of reality no one else can see. In it, there’s a different circle of salt, made of crystalline, pinkish-red pieces as big as sea salt. I hear the gentle sound each sticky drop makes before I see the blood falling on top of the tiny salt crystals.
My vision zooms out so I can recognize Vanessa standing in the middle of the circle, hissing a curse with her arms spread wide on either side. The blood oozing from her cut wrists lands on the salt in thick streams.
My stomach roils with dread. I pant, trying to push myself out of that horrendous vision, but one more detail pops into focus. A shiny box at Vanessa’s feet. The box she found inside the marble sphere in the pit. Then, there’s a flash of Vanessa falling backwards into the darkness.
I snap back into the present with a gasp, not knowing if the others noticed I had a vision. Not that it matters.
I move the nearly burnt herbs away from the flame. Charity works quickly on the other three bundles of herbs. We light them, and she positions two on the floor, then takes the other two—one in each hand—and draws elaborate signs with them, murmuring a charm.
“This is a strong rebound curse,” Charity says. “It uses your power against you. That’s why it rebounded Jean. It counteracted her speed.”
“Can you undo it?”
“No, but I can create a charm that protects someone from the rebound curse in one area. It will be like a door to get to them.”
My gaze drifts to Seff and Vanessa in the water, fighting to keep afloat with the snakes swirling around them.
The banshee mind is a wicked thing, but it hasn’t once led me astray. The vision I saw must have the answers. It can’t simply be a terrifying moment I will dread from now on. I close my eyes, trying to recall every detail of the vision. The salt. The blood. The box.
That’s it. If Vanessa exists in that future with the box by her side, then perhaps that’s how she gets out—with the box.
“You need to get the box!” I shout at them from above.
“I don’t know how things look from up there, but it’s not easy keeping afloat with a hundred vipers pulling you under!” Seff yells back.
“Vanessa! Do something! Control them!”
Vanessa’s head disappears underwater for a second, but then she comes back up, spurting and coughing. “I can’t focus. I need to keep still to worg. It doesn’t work mid-swim!”
Seff splashes in the water, trying to get the snakes off his body. “Climb up. I’ll give you a boost.”
“You’ll sink without me,” she argues back. “They can sense my presence, so they’re not attacking. If I get out, I don’t know what they’ll do.”
But Seff seems to have had enough of it. With wolf-quick reflexes, he hauls Vanessa up by the arm. She doesn’t fight him, but grapples for support. Seff takes a deep breath and sinks, then pushes her farther up so she can reach the next level of the amphitheater structure.
The walls are still frothing water, so it’s hard for Vanessa to keep her grip and not fall to the bottom of the pit again. She digs her feet in, takes a deep breath to steady herself, and rolls her eyes back so we only see the white of them.
At once, all vipers in the pit freeze. Many float, looking dead in the water, but Seff doesn’t hesitate. He takes in a deep breath and dives.
After a minute, he emerges with the box in one hand. “What do I do with it?”
Charity and I share a panicked look. That part wasn’t in the vision, and the water keeps coming.
“We need to stop the water,” Vanessa hisses through gritted teeth. She’s barely holding her position.
Awan and Jean approach from behind me. The lion’s eyes have returned to their normal warm brown color, and Jean looks ready to go.
“Make a door for me, and I’ll get them out.” Jean takes position in front of Charity’s shield, waiting for her signal.
Charity swipes her hands in gestures that come faster and faster. “Go now.”
“Take Seff first,” Vanessa shouts. “I’m barely holding them.”
Jean turns into a smear that passes through Charity’s shield and the salt circle, streams down the amphitheater structure of the pit, past Vanessa, then splashes into the water. She comes back in a flash and deposits Seff and the shiny box at our feet.
As soon as she turns back, though, Charity stops her with a raised hand. The first bundle of herbs—the one I held at the flame for too long—has burned through completely.
“I need more time,” Charity cries. “This curse is strong.”
“Oh, no.” I watch the pit in horror.
The walls leak water faster
than before, filling up more than half of the pit already. The level reaches up to Vanessa’s chin, making her lose focus. At once, the snakes are alive with movement again, twisting and fighting to escape.
My chest feels heavy with the realization that we can’t help her, just like I won’t be able to help her in the vision where she’s bleeding out. Anger and desperation flood inside me with a force I can’t stem.
This is all their fault—my circle’s. They should have heeded my premonition. They should have known nothing good would come of this. Now my friend is trapped in the very room that should be safest for her kind.
The water is two feet away from filling the entire amphitheater. Would the curse rebound it and send even more water back, drowning Vanessa?
The darkness inside me ebbs, threatening to consume me. My anger feeds it. The ruminations echo and echo...
You should have never opened the sphere...
“Vanessa!” I shout before the thought has formed to completion in my mind. “Dive! You need to shut the sphere.”
Vanessa’s gaze meets mine. She tips her head back on inhale, then submerges into the dark water filled with twisting reptiles. The seconds draw out painfully as all we can do is watch the water climb higher, closer to the edge. And if it spills over and touches the salt circle... I don’t even want to think.
But Vanessa must have reached the marble sphere and closed it because the flow from the walls of the pit stops. The water rises just a little. There’s a sucking sound when it starts to siphon out. The sphere must have been connected to a draining mechanism. And it’s quick.
Vanessa gives up on trying to swim up. The water drains out of the pit, leaving her lying amid a sea of vipers, drenched to the bones. She swipes her wet black hair away from her face, looking up at us.
“Okay, what was that and why was my training room trying to kill me?”
Chapter 5. Cami
Vanessa gets rid of the salt circle with a few minutes of hissing, during which faint green sparks fly around her. I don’t recall seeing those the other times I’ve seen her cast a curse, but I guess it might be linked to the nature of the curse.
“It was much stronger on the outside than on the inside,” Vanessa explains after she crawls out of the pit, her clothes dripping water at her feet.
She stumbles ahead but gives up when her knees no longer seem to support her. Panting, she collapses to the floor and turns over so she’s lying on her back. “That box had better turn out to be useful.”
“You should do the honors.” Seff holds out the box for Vanessa while Charity and I help her sit up.
Vanessa huffs from exhaustion and reaches for the box. It might be my imagination or her post-adrenaline crash, but I think her fingers linger. “Here goes nothing.”
The box doesn’t prove easy to open, not because of an elaborate locking mechanism or another defensive curse. It’s rusted shut.
When Vanessa loses patience, she gives it to Jean. “Get this over with, will you? I want to go home and shower.”
Jean gives her a smile that barely contains her relief. It must be annoying to always wait for others to go at their own speed and see them struggle with objects she could snap in two without breaking a sweat.
Jean pries the box open after a few not so gentle smacks against the floor. Blue velvet lines the interior of the box. Resting on it are two objects—a sachet of salts, I presume, and a tiny paper scroll, yellowed with age.
“Note first,” Vanessa says.
She snatches it and unrolls it. Her forehead wrinkles as she reads it for herself.
“It’s the curse part to undo the joint spell,” she says. “I could use this and the salts in here to reverse what the viper in the legend did to Mason’s kind.”
“Bingo!” Awan claps his hands, and the sound makes me jump. “So, this really is going to work? Each clue must be hidden in the respective legacy’s training room.”
I run my hand down my face, not knowing how to turn the discussion to my vision or if I should. “Does it say anything in there about the curse reversal requiring blood?”
Vanessa glances at me, wide-eyed, then returns to the note, studying it closer this time. “Err... yes, my blood, I guess. How did you—”
“I saw it in the flame when I was helping Charity with the charm,” I say as apologetically as I can.
They all fall silent, mulling over the creepiness factor of using blood in a curse. I, for one, never heard of another curse that requires viper blood.
“It was creepy, V,” I whisper, but I can’t bring myself to tell her about the part of her falling backwards into darkness.
“It’s not like we have much of a choice, right?” Vanessa shrugs. “We can’t keep the current measures in place forever. Sooner or later, you’ll snap. And when you’re not the outlet for our darkness anymore, we’ll all snap.”
There’s a breathless pause during which I don’t want to agree with her.
“What I’d like to understand is why taking this box triggered the room’s defenses,” Charity says.
“That was sseriously messed up.” Vanessa pouts. “This room has always been my ssanctuary.”
“I don’t think it wanted us to have the item that can resurrect the hidden legacies.” Awan seems to measure each word as he speaks. “I mean, whoever hid the items didn’t want them to be used.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Jean argues back. “If they never wanted the items to be found, they would have destroyed them, but they left them here instead. Maybe they wanted only certain people to be able to retrieve them?”
“So, we’re not worthy and that’s why it tried to drown us?” Seff swings his head in a dramatic gesture as he turns to Jean.
“I don’t know.” She caves, raising her hands, palms up. “I need to think about this.”
“One thing is certain, though,” I say with a shaky voice. “Using the hidden legacies’ blood is dangerous, even inside the rooms that always made us feel safe.”
CONSIDERING LAST NIGHT’S ordeal, I would have thought I’d sleep like a log until I’m almost late for school, but I wake up before my alarm. Light rain drums against the windows. Instead of trying to doze off again, I get up and sit on the windowsill, watching new droplets splash in the tiny pools on the roof.
This is where Mason came to see me right before Bryar disappeared in search of Jean. We sat here for hours, talking and then not talking, just soaking in the late-spring air. I never thanked him for the blanket he must have placed on me once I fell asleep.
Dad knocks on my door to say good morning.
I quickly wipe the stray tear rolling down my cheek. “I’m up.”
His expression is the definition of thinly veiled concern. “You got in late last night. I wanted to make sure you didn’t sleep through your alarm. Everything all right?”
I gaze out the window. I’ll break into sobs that much easier if I look into Dad’s eyes. “I miss Mason.”
Dad sighs, then walks over and places a kiss on my head. “I’m sure he misses you too, wherever he is.”
Dad has a gift for making platitudes sound believable, but this time, I’m not sure he’s right.
WE’RE TOO TIRED TO talk much after our action-packed evening, so we read in silence in our free period in the library. Or rather, we stare blankly at the aged pages of yet another legacy’s journal, letting our minds wander.
Not mentioning the last part of my latest vision feels like a betrayal, but it’s self-preservation at the same time. It might twist my stomach, but I’m a banshee. I know visions rarely turn out the way they seem at first glance. Perhaps Vanessa’s fall isn’t as sinister as it felt. I have to hope that I’ve seen the darkness, as always, and that I’m missing the light.
Speaking of darkness and light, if Vanessa and the others learn what I saw, their panic will only flow back into me through the links. Sharing will only magnify my insecurities, and that can’t be worth it.
Sunk into thought, we go d
own to the first floor for our instructor-led class. It’s only when Mrs. Gianni starts our Legacy Powers class by checking attendance that I realize not everyone from my circle made it here.
“Jean?” Mrs. Gianni calls her daughter’s name but looks to me for an explanation.
“She must be running late.” Calm and composed, Charity smiles to sell the excuse.
Mrs. Gianni raises an eyebrow in disbelief but says, “Must be.”
“She was with us in the library.” I try to sound confident, but my attention shifts to the link with Jean, trying to sort through her emotions for a clue of what’s going on.
The darkness grows heavier, making me long for the sway of a cold one’s bite again, but even in my emotionally unstable state, I know that if I let that happen too often, I’ll turn into a devoted for Jester. It’s not like he’ll mind it, but I was firm when I said they would get no devoted if we let them feed in Elmwick. And I stand by that.
Nervous energy swirls up inside me, but it’s hard to pluck out Jean’s excitement—at least I think it’s excitement—from everyone else’s worries. Is it possible she sneaked out to see Bryar? Perhaps they’re finally about to talk openly.
I sigh and look out the window, not even pretending to be listening to Mrs. Gianni’s lecture on the art of compulsion and the ways to break it. Vervain, duh.
With the links messing up my emotions, I wish more than ever that I could just focus and figure this out, but I know it’s not in my nature. I have to let myself feel, then trust myself to interpret the signals my intuition feeds me.
“May I be excused?” I stand before I’ve thought this all the way through. “I’m not feeling so well,” I add as an afterthought.
My attempt at a lie is so pathetic that everyone in the junior class, even those in my circle, stare at me with foreheads scrunched in varying degrees of painful embarrassment for me.
Not to mention Mrs. Gianni, who clicks her tongue. “Ts ts ts...”
“Did you have the yogurt for dessert?” Vanessa turns to me sharply. “I swear it tasted sour, and I’ve been feeling off too.”
Heritage: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Elmwick Academy Book 3) Page 4
