I stand up slowly, every muscle aching, the cold biting at my exposed skin. I’m thankful truly thankful to be alive, but there’s a simring heat under my ribs that I can’t shake. Rage, disappointnt, relief all tangled together. I failed to kill that son of a bitch. I got close, closer than anyone in a thousand years apparently, but in the end, she escaped and left her poison inside . The crack in my soul aches, a reminder that the battle isn’t done. If anything, it’s only just begun.
I can feel the link with Lucian in my mind now strange and new, like a door between us that can be opened or closed with a thought. The sense of him is there, right at the edge of my consciousness, we can’t read each others minds but the idea of soone able to forcibly inject themselves into my head fills with disdain, I’ve had enough voices in my head to last several lift tis.
I look around at the survivors, at what’s left of House Apophis. Zaria’s face is streaked with dirt and blood, but her eyes are as calculating as ever. Lucian is standing a little apart, rolling his injured wrist, but he ets my gaze with a nod. Rye is huddled in on herself, arms wrapped tight around her thin fra, staring at the ground. Imara is limping, favoring her left leg, but her jaw is set in that stubborn way that says she’ll keep moving even if it kills her. Dominick stands beside her, his hands clenched his shirt torn at his stomach. Niko is nursing a broken arm, his face pale but determined. And Vihaan has a nasty cut on his forehead, blood drying in a crust beneath his hair. He tells he was launched into a tree like a rag doll. Ouch.
"Has anyone seen Elijah?" My voice cos out rough, almost a growl. The others look up, startled. I rack my mory, fighting through the haze of pain and adrenaline, and I rember: the mont everything went to hell, Elijah vanished using his mark to cloak himself but after that I lost track of him.
Rye shakes her head, wiping a tear from her cheek. "No. I haven’t seen him since... since before." Her voice is small, almost lost in the wind.
Imara shrugs, her lips pressed tight. "Nope."
Dominick grunts, shaking his head. Niko just looks away, his eyes haunted. Vihaan, frowning, glances at the sky as if expecting Elijah to drop from the clouds.
Sadness tugs at , a sharp ache behind my ribs. Elijah was always quiet, always slipping away when things got bad, but he wasn’t a coward. He was just... careful. I want to believe he’s alive, hiding sowhere, waiting for the right mont to return. But after what we’ve seen, what we’ve survived, hope feels like a dangerous luxury.
I crush the sadness before it can take root. There’s no ti for pity, no ti for regret. Crying for the dead wont bring them back. We aren’t safe. We aren’t done. The Academy is still forever away, across a treacherous mountain range and every one of us is battered, bleeding, exhausted.
Vihaan speaks up, his voice low. "We need to rest. Find food, shelter. We can’t move like this."
Zaria nods, her eyes flicking to . "He’s right. We’re no good to anyone if we drop dead from hunger or cold."
I realize, with a start, that I haven’t eaten since the proctors fucking teleported us here. My stomach growls, sharp and hollow, and the world wobbles for just a second. I grit my teeth and nod. "Let’s move. We’ll find sowhere safe, get warm, and then figure out what’s next."
We push forward, heading toward the mountains, the sa direction we were going before everything fell apart. The group is diminished every step echoes with the absence of those we lost. Bragg, Elijah, the others whose nas I can barely rember through the haze of pain and exhaustion. Every ti I turn around, I half-expect to see them, but all I find are empty spaces and haunted eyes.
The snow is deep, the wind sharp. We huddle close, moving slowly, careful not to leave anyone behind. Zaria takes the lead, her head down, her stride purposeful. I walk near the middle, Lucian just behind .
Rye stumbles, and I catch her before she falls. She looks up at , her eyes rimd red, but she manages a weak smile. "Thanks," she whispers.
We walk for hours, our ragged little group making slow progress through the snow-choked foothills. The mountains, once distant and jagged on the horizon, now loom a little closer, casting long, cold shadows over the land. The wind never lets up, but Zaria and Rye keep it at bay as best they can. Rye’s hands smolder as she moves, flickers of fire rolling from her knuckles and leaving little puffs of steam in the air. Zaria’s molten rock thaws the snow beneath our feet, turning icy crust to solid petrified rock and spreading warmth that seeps into my boots and bones.
It’s not enough to make the trek easy, but it’s enough that we don’t freeze to death. Every so often, Rye will swing her arm in a wide arc and send a wave of heat through our cluster, and Zaria will kneel to lt a path forward, her eyes narrowed with concentration.
Suddenly, Vihaan lets out a small grunt a sound halfway between triumph and satisfaction. We all stop, boots crunching to a halt in the snow, and turn to look at him. He stands a little apart, staring at the ground with murderous intensity.
"What is it?" Zaria hisses.
Vihaan doesn’t look up. "There’s a burrow right beneath us," he says, voice low and pleased. "Family of rabbits. I just used my mark drained them of their blood." There’s a coldness to his words, a practical edge that makes my skin prickle. "They’re ours."
He gestures at Imara, a casual flick of his hand. "If you would, dear fetch them up?"
Imara shoots him a look that could lt stone, her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don’t call dear," she snaps, but she steps forward anyway. She flexes her fingers, and I see the muscles in her arm bulge, her skin darkening as she increases the density of her limb. With a grunt, she drives her hand deep into the frozen ground. There’s a crunch, a tearing sound, and then she pulls upward, soil and snow tumbling away.
A mont later, she’s holding up six limp rabbits, their fur matted but their bodies intact, save for the bloodless pallor of their skin. She tosses them onto the snow near Dominick, who wrinkles his nose but says nothing.
"Now we just need to find sowhere to camp," Rye says, brushing dirt from her hands, her voice tired but hopeful.
I scan the horizon, searching for any sign of shelter. The wind is picking up again, carrying the promise of another storm. "We should look for a copse, maybe a rocky outcropping," I say, glancing at Zaria. "Anything to break the wind."
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