“These are the Great College Gates,” Jason said, his voice filled with a mix of wonder and disbelief. “Just the roots—what lies beneath, rather than the trees within the Great Halls.” He turned to Allyra, his eyes wide. “How has this room remained undiscovered for so long?”
“Maybe because it had no cause to be found.”
Jason shook his head and pointed to the pergola in the center of the room. “Or maybe because it was hiding something.”
Allyra followed the line Jason’s finger pointed out, and the air turned to ice within her lungs. There was something on the platform within the pergola formed from the roots of the Elemental College Acacia Tree. Something, or someone—it looked like a body. She stilled, and her heart pounded out an unsteady rhythm in her chest. She tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat but found her throat dry.
Somehow, she knew. She knew who it was even before she could see clearly—Alex and Mandla. And she’d led Jason here. It was careless—she hadn’t given enough thought to what they might find and whether Jason could be trusted with the knowledge.
He was already moving forward to take a closer look, a strange expression on his face—a curious mixture between disbelief and guilt. She reached out to stop him, but she was too slow, and he brushed past her, his eyes fixed on the bodies on the platform.
One step after the next, Jason moved forward. Closer and closer until he staggered back suddenly. That moment of recognition would forever remain etched into Allyra’s mind. Color drained from Jason’s face, like paint being washed away from a paintbrush. A tremor ran through his entire body. He was a sapling caught in a gale, a star falling from the sky.
“Alex,” he said, his voice raw, catching in his throat.
In that moment of shock, Allyra caught a glimpse of true honesty from Jason. The arrogant mask had been shattered and behind it, lay fear—terrible and awful fear. There was also shock and horror, both of which would be expected from any normal person when confronted by the Elemental High Master, known to have lived over a hundred and fifty years ago, yet looking as if he hadn’t aged a day since that fated day when he walked into the Between. History also remembered him for the worst offenses: he was thought to be both a traitor and a killer, responsible for the loss of so many lives during the Betrayal.
Yes, shock and horror were to be expected, but behind those were something else—guilt and remorse. Those emotions were older and far more powerful but entirely impossible to comprehend. And there was no capacity left in her mind to dwell over what Jason was feeling. It was beyond her—her own emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Her blood was frozen, a river of ice winding its way to her heart, its deadly grip so tight it felt as if her heart had stopped. She heard a strange sound in her ears, halfway between a sob and a gasp, choked and filled with anguish. Only later did she realize the sound had escaped her own lips.
Allyra moved closer, her steps slow and uncoordinated, as if her feet were weighed down by concrete. She felt clumsy and lightheaded. This wasn’t how she thought she’d see him again. Maybe she’d never truly allowed herself to consider the possibility that he might exist in her reality, in her time. Maybe she’d never really allowed herself to hope.
Yet, here he was, lying before her, almost exactly as she remembered. So handsome it made her breath catch in her throat, with the elegant lines of his face, pale, star-traced skin, framed by short dark hair. He was as still as a statue, his eyes closed, but his chest rising and falling with reassuring regularity.
Moving beyond the sudden shock of seeing him, her heart steadied, and her racing mind stilled. She studied Alex more closely, and a bolt of terror shot through her—he was thinner, his cheeks more angular and gaunt than she remembered. There was also an unmistakable tension running down the line of his jaw, and even at rest, there was nothing peaceful about him.
Her eyes flicked to Mandla. Just as Alex was obviously alive, Mandla obviously was not. No air moved into his still chest, and a gray pallor had settled over his normally brown skin.
Suddenly weak, Allyra dropped to her knees. She was too late. She should have found them quicker. She should’ve saved Mandla. “No, no, no,” she moaned, tears running down her cheeks, her mind filled with memories of Mandla—his childlike innocence, his always cheerful demeanor. And earlier, in her visions of the past—his fierce and unrelenting loyalty to Alex.
Instinctively, she reached out to him, disbelieving to the last. But Jason grabbed her wrist before she could. She jumped at his touch, having completely forgotten he was there.
“Don’t,” he said sharply. “There’s an Elemental ward here.”
With her eyes closed, she saw it—threads of every Element, woven together in an impossibly intricate pattern. Green, yellow, red, and blue—held together with a silvery sheen. Old, powerful, and utterly impenetrable.
“That’s Alexander Cairns,” Jason said. He had schooled his expression back to some semblance of normalcy—it was blank now, the shock and horror gone, but he couldn’t quite control the tremor in his voice.
Allyra nodded, too shell-shocked to find words for a
