Kai wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the cage. It felt like days, but it was more realistically less than a full day.
There was no sun, no moon, no rhythm to the outside world here. The only thing that reminded him of the outside world was the soft trickle of sewer water echoing sowhere far beyond the concrete chamber.
The stench of old blood and iron was the only thing that filled his nose.
The growing silence from the cages beside him dulled his senses.
Aliza barely moved now. She sat with her back against the bars, her once-glossy black hair growing dull with gri and sweat. Her skin had lost its usual warmth, her cheeks hollowing by the hour.
Kleo stopped speaking entirely.
Whatever this place was, and whatever that thing in the headmaster’s skin was doing, it was eating away at them slowly. Not just physically, but spiritually. He could feel their life force draining.
There was a thin, nearly invisible mist rising from their bodies, drawn toward a small black orb suspended in the center of the room. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Like hunger itself.
And every hour or so, she would co.
The headmaster. Or what wore her face.
Each ti she appeared, her form seed a little more monstrous. Her limbs twitched strangely when she walked. Her neck rotated too far, her smile stretched a little too wide. And her eyes, those pale, glassy, colourless eyes, never blinked. Never wavered.
She would always stop in front of Kai’s cage first, carrying a small silver dish with a single fruit on it.
It was small, no larger than a date, deep crimson, almost black, and slick with moisture.
"A seed," she would say gently, as if she were offering him sothing sacred. "Eat, and everything will change."
Kai ignored her the first few tis. But then she started talking more. Bargaining.
"Eat it," she whispered one day, her fingers curling around the bars like a spider’s legs. "And I’ll give you anything you want. Power. Magic beyond Orlin’s wildest teachings. Secrets even your masters feared. You’ll walk again as a god among maggots."
He said nothing.
The next day, she returned with an offer of revenge.
"I know what was done to you. Shunned. Frad. Hunted. Hated. Eat it, and I’ll show you every na, every face behind that lie. I’ll give you their hearts on a silver platter, much like the one this seed is on."
Kai didn’t answer.
By the fifth visit, she offered freedom.
"Just a bite," she cooed. "And I’ll open the door. You can walk free. All of you. No strings."
’Bullshit.’
He didn’t even look at her.
She left, humming to herself, dragging her fingernails along the cages as she passed.
Each ti she returned, Aliza and Kleo looked a little worse. And Kai felt a little more helpless.
He didn’t know if they would last another day.
Sotis, he let his thoughts wander toward people who weren’t dying in a hole beneath the academy.
’Mari. Willam. Naia.’
They’d be at the Arcane Crucible now. Competing. Fighting. Advancing.
Without him.
And as if she could sense it, the headmaster returned that evening with a small smile.
"Your team advanced, by the way," she said softly, setting the seed down once more. "Shadowbound. They made it through the first round without you."
Kai’s heart stilled. That gnawing pit of guilt returned. He wasn’t sure if it made him proud or made him feel like a weight dragging them all down.
"Willam led the final play. Very creative boy," she said as she paced outside his cage. "Mari fought until her hands bled. Naia, well, she surprised . Quite a spark in that one. Maybe I’ll feed on her next."
"Shut up," Kai muttered under his breath.
The creature wearing Denise’s skin paused. She turned slowly, her head tilting unnaturally.
"They don’t even know what you are, Kai," she said. "They will, eventually. Your mask is slipping. You can’t hide it forever."
He glared at her, chest heaving. "You want to eat that thing so you can turn into one of your Collectors."
She smiled at that.
"No. I want you to beco sothing more. Sothing more akin to divinity."
She stepped closer. The flickering light made her shadow stretch across the floor, thin and sharp and wrong.
"The na given to long ago, before the cage of flesh was placed around ," she whispered, "was The Devourer. Cursed by those beneath to survive on the mana of others. Your people think evil, but tell , what would you do if all you could consu was magic itself? If the taste of food turned to ash? If you needed souls just to breathe?"
’I know the feeling of food turning to ash in your mouth. But I never beca whatever you are...’
Kai narrowed his eyes. "So you don’t reject magic. You consu it. Break it down. Dispelling it once the foundation’s gone."
She smiled, teeth gleaming. "Exactly. You see, we could be allies, you and I."
Kai stared down at the seed.
It glistened. It pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
A small part of him, desperate and angry, wanted to believe it. That maybe, just maybe, it would give him the power to save Aliza. To save Kleo. To break out and burn her world to the ground.
But he wouldn’t. Not now. Not when she was still in control.
He looked back up and spat on the ground.
The Devourer made a soft, disappointed noise and reached through the bars, gently touching his face with claw-tipped fingers.
"You’ll change your mind," she whispered. "Once you have nothing left to protect."
She turned and walked toward Aliza’s cage.
Kai surged forward, slamming into the bars with a roar. "Don’t touch her!"
But his voice echoed hollow through the chamber.
He had no mana. No essence. No way out.
Only his will.
And she was slowly breaking it, one hour at a ti.
’I need to get out...’
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