“And?” Alejandro growled. The next part was the most frightening, this whole thing planned so last minute that I wasn’t even remotely prepared for it.
“If the Vegas are discovered and brought to the academy, I must get close to them and find a way to deliver them to you and Mamá,” I said, that particular part sending my heart into overdrive. They were the Vegas, the strongest Fae in the whole kingdom. How was I ever going to pull this off?
“And if you fail to do so?” Alejandro prompted with a dark look that made me feel miniscule.
“You’ll kill me,” I rasped.
“Yes. Slowly,” he said the word like he was devouring it. I’d seen the monstrous things this man was capable of over the years and I never wanted to be at his mercy. “And no one will miss you, because you will be nothing but a failure. This is your one chance to make your mother proud. Lionel Acrux has paid your tuition and you would be wise not to squander this opportunity he has offered you.”
I nodded, wringing my hands together as I felt the pressure of this task like a noose around my neck.
“But if you succeed, Diego, you will be deemed worthy among our family,” he said with a pointed look. “So do not disappoint us.”
“I won’t,” I breathed, though how I was going to pull this off I had no idea.
Alejandro left me at the gate and I found myself being swept along with other students here for their Awakening. I glanced back to see him shrinking into the distance and felt the shackles of the home I’d been a slave to my whole life loosening just a little. As I took in the huge, gothic buildings of this elite Fae school, my jaw slackened in awe. It was fantastico, more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen and despite the weight of the burden on my shoulders, excitement trickled into my blood, and I wondered if I might just be lucky enough to claim an inch of freedom here. For a little while at least.
We eventually arrived in a huge meadow that stretched away before me under the stars. I looked up at the sky which seemed clearer than I’d ever seen it, the swirling blue and pink path of the Milky Way streaking through the heavens above, built of countless gleaming stars.
As everyone formed a circle at the centre of the meadow, two girls and a tall man appeared out of nowhere, making my heart jolt violently, realising a second later that they must have used stardust to travel by. Everyone started staring and muttering the girls’ names, confirming they were the Vega twins and my gaze latched onto them, my heart beating fiercely beneath my ribs. They seemed a little lost as the guy directed them to join the circle and I glanced between their perfectly mirrored features as they stood side by side, a sense of dread sliding over me as I knew what would happen to them if I succeeded in my plan.
The professor at the centre of the circle started chanting to the stars and I tipped my head back to look up at them, my hands shaking a little with the pressure of what I had to do next. I rarely used my air Element since I’d stolen it all those years ago, but Alejandro had forced me to practise with it to ensure I could fake my own Awakening. And as Professor Zenith called out for the air Element to arise, I cast air from my fingertips, making the grass rustle around me like it was for everyone else and I didn’t breathe again until she announced we were air Elementals without so much as a suspicious glance my way.
I dropped my head, setting my gaze on my fate once more as the shadows stirred beneath my skin. These two girls had to die or else I would die instead, and I was just thankful I wouldn’t be the one to strike the killing blows.
I was pulled out of the memory and shock descended on me. Diego had been planning to hand us over to his uncle and mother? I didn’t even have time to get my head around that before I fell back into another one of his memories, finding myself in a dark woodland.
I crept through the trees of The Wailing Wood, hunting the ground for what I needed to restore my magic. After I’d stolen the magic from that butchered Fae years ago, I’d been bound to her power in the way her Order had been bound to it. My uncle had told me she had been a Cerberus, so to recharge my magic I had to do what she had done and feast on Aconite – or as some called it, Wolfsbane. I’d heard it grew out here in the woods and now I could feel the well of my magic hollowing out, I needed to find some and recharge it fast.
There were other Orders out here, Fae in their shifted form lumbering through the darkness around me, but none came too close as I continued my search, delving deeper into the trees and using the light on my Atlas to hunt the ground.