“Stop!” I demanded, trying to pull the slithering monster off my falcon. It had all three sets of mouths latched onto different points, its tail wrapping around the body to squeeze as Clove’s talons dug into the scaly rope and tried to use its beak to pierce the slimy beast.
It all happened so fast, the animals quick and sharp and deadly.
They rolled across the courtyard, horrible sounds wrenching from my falcon’s throat as Zeph’s hideous creation threatened to destroy her. “Make them stop!” I begged him, tears pouring from my eyes. But he merely watched the show with a disinterested expression, his green irises as dead as his soul.
No wonder he created something so vile.
It represented him so completely.
To be able to stand there and watch his pet destroy my beautiful falcon without a care in the world.
Her cries slowly died, a piece of my heart seeming to break off and wither away with her.
I fell to my knees, the weight of devastation crushing me beneath a wave of desolation. The textbook didn’t talk about this, only commented on the resolute loyalty of our familiars and how they will protect us to their dying breath.
Clove’s obsidian eyes met mine with a final blink, her grief at having failed me so palpable that I cried out in anguish. “Please,” I whispered, reaching for her and unable to do a damn thing because I didn’t know how to help her. How to stop this. How to kill that sickly three-headed thing destroying my beloved creation.
“You’re pitiful,” Zeph said, his voice cold and remorseless. “Just like your familiar.” His snake gave a victorious twist, and Clove’s body went limp, her eyes falling closed.
I covered my mouth to hold back a sob, the sight before me destroying my will to breathe.
What was the point in inspiring life just to have it taken away so coldly?
The monster refocused on me, those lethal eyes glowing with malicious intent.
“What will you do now?” Zeph asked. “Run away? Build a fortress of flowers to hide behind?”
I didn’t reply, my grief suffocating my ability to move. How could you? I wanted to ask him. Why did you do this to me? What lesson are you trying to teach me?
The snake slithered off my dead familiar, pinpoints of evil watching me with obvious intent.
I just held its gaze, waiting for the inevitable. Even if I knew a spell that could hurt the creature, I wouldn’t use it. “I don’t take lives. I create them,” I whispered to it, defeated and broken. “So do what you must.”
“That’s why you won’t survive in this world,” Zeph replied, his voice dark with some unspoken emotion. “There’s no one here who will protect you. Only yourself. And without the will to survive, you’ll merely perish.”
I swallowed thickly, his words battering my already destroyed heart. “Better to perish than to become a monster.” I met his gaze and found death staring back at me from his dark green depths. “A monster like you,” I added, finally seeing him for the first time.
Whatever demons he harbored, I wanted nothing to do with them.
If he wanted to break me with this exercise, he’d succeeded, but not in the way he probably intended.
“Killing and hurting others isn’t the only way to survive,” I told him, pushing to my feet and ignoring his bristling pet. If that thing wanted to attack me, so be it. I wouldn’t fight back, at least not in the way Zeph anticipated. Instead, I’d go about it my way—by undoing his spell. Maybe I’d tame a new pet in the process. Or maybe I’d die trying.
At this point, what did it matter?
I turned on my heel, leaving him behind.
He called my name. I ignored him.
He shouted after me. I stopped listening.
Several students watched me leave the courtyard. I didn’t acknowledge any of them.
I’m done, I thought. I just want to go home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kols