Chapter XXXIII

Year 2049

Six Years Ago

The first rays of sunlight crept through the cracks in the curtains, casting a delicate sheen on Yoki's face. His eyelids twitched, his lashes fluttering as he slowly emerged from the depths of sleep. A soft groan escaped his lips as he rolled onto his back, his chest rising and falling with each steady breath. Images flashed through his mind—the worn, leather-bound tome, the swirling, inky rift, the shadowy creatures with glowing eyes and razor-sharp claws. He shuddered, his heart pounding against his ribcage.

With a heavy sigh, Yoki pushed himself up, the bed creaking beneath his weight. The cold wooden floor sent a shiver up his spine as his bare feet made contact. He stretched, his muscles aching from the restless night. The nightmare slowly faded, replaced by the day's impending responsibilities.

He pulled on his cloak and topped his head with his newsboy cap, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of his illusory garments, keeping his wings concealed. Yoki looked at Caspian's bed to find it empty.

If you hadn't slept in, you would've had another training session at the observatory.

If you don't shut up, you'll be in for a week with no sphaeram touch.

You wouldn't dare!

Yoki chuckled as he opened his door and made his way down the dormitory hall and the dorm's stairs, filing out into the common room and then outside.

"Cafeteria," Yoki whispered into the compass in his hand, his breath misting in the chilly dawning air.

As he absent-mindedly followed the direction of the compass, his mind wandered to math.

If I can't even understand eigenvectors, how am I supposed to tackle the test tomorrow? His thoughts swirled like a tempest, numbers, and equations crashing against the shores of his mind in a relentless, dizzying assault.

Lost in the maze of his own worries, Yoki barely registered the growing swell of noise as he approached the dining hall. The compass led him unerringly to the building's entrance, where the aroma of coffee, bacon, and syrup wafted out to greet him like an old friend. Yoki paused momentarily, inhaling deeply, allowing the comforting scents to wash over him and ease the knots of tension in his shoulders.

With a single-minded set to his jaw, Yoki thrust the heavy wooden doors open and stepped inside. The hubbub of the dining hall hit him like a physical force, jostling him fully back to the present. Rowdy laughter, excited shouts, and the clangor of utensils against plates harmonized into a feverish vitality sufficing every room corner.

Everywhere Yoki looked, students clustered around tables like bees in a hive, their faces vivified as they gossiped and swapped canards, their words tumbling over each other in an ardent verbal torrent. As he made his way deeper into the cafeteria, zigzagging between the tables and sidestepping the occasional gesticulating arm, Yoki felt the weight of his mathematical troubles lift ever so slightly, buoyed by the spirited, beating life surrounding him.

He weaved through the crowd, dodging a group of giggling girls and a boy juggling an armload of books. Spotting Enrique, Yoki slid into the seat beside him, the bench creaking under his weight. He reached for a slice of toast, warm and slightly crisp.

Enrique turned to him, his cheeks bulging with scrambled eggs. "Hey," he mumbled, a few bits of egg tumbling from his mouth. He swallowed, then furrowed his brow. "Have you seen Ethan this morning?"

Yoki's head moved side to side, his pewter hair falling into his blue eyes. "No, not yet," he said, his forehead creasing with lines. He shrugged one shoulder. "But you know how he is. Probably got caught up in some book and lost track of time."

A laugh burst from Enrique's lips as he bobbed his head up and down. The two boys cleaned their plates, forks scraping against the ceramic, as their conversation turned to the upcoming Elemental Manipulation practical.

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The hands of the clock seemed to race as morning classes flew by, a whirlwind of droning professors and the scratching of pencils on paper. Yoki's thoughts drifted, his gaze pulled toward the empty chair where Ethan usually sat. It wasn't unheard of for his friend to skip a class or two, especially if some dusty, intriguing volume had captured his attention in the library.

But as the hours ticked by with no sign of Ethan, a knot formed in Yoki's gut. His eyes flicked to the door more and more, his knee bouncing rapidly underneath his desk.

"Mr. Walker, is there somewhere else you'd rather be?" Professor Elara's sharp words sliced through his musings, her eyebrow lifting in a high arch.

Heat rushed to Yoki's face as his classmates' eyes bore into him. "No, Professor. Sorry," he mumbled.

He dragged his focus back to the lecture, his pen scratching across his notebook, but the letters seemed to swim and blur on the page.

When the final bell chimed, Yoki crammed his books into his bag and raced out the door, his feet thumping down the deserted corridor as he made his way to the Luminara dormitories.

His knuckles rapped against Ethan's door, ringing through the quiet like gunshots. No response. He knocked again, his fist hammering harder. "Ethan? You in there?" Only silence greeted him.

Why do I have such a bad feeling about this? Why is Ethan's absence so worrisome to me?

Trust your instincts, pueri.

Yoki's heart thudded against his ribs, icy sweat prickling the back of his neck. His fingers curled around the doorknob, twisting. To his surprise, it gave way.

The familiar chaos of Ethan's room met his eyes—piles of books teetering precariously, papers scattered like fallen leaves. But an eerie hush hung in the air, a stillness that made the hair on Yoki's arms stand on end.

Yoki's gaze landed on Ethan's desk, where an archaic tome lay open, its weathered pages yellowed with epoch. A scrap of parchment peeked out from between the pages, its edges ragged and torn. Yoki's breath caught in his throat, his heart stuttering as he reached for it with trembling fingers. The parchment felt brittle beneath his touch as if it might crumble to dust at any moment.

"Seek the Serpent's Eye when the shadow falls," Yoki read aloud, his voice breaking the stifling silence that blanketed the room.

"Interesting choice of bedtime reading," a voice drawled from behind him, smooth and rich like honey.

Yoki whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. Caspian leaned against the doorframe, his lean, muscular body a study in casual classiness. His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his shirt sleeves straining against his biceps. A smirk played at the corner of his full, sensual mouth, a glint of amusement dancing in his piercing eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Yoki demanded, his voice rough with surprise and suspicion. He instinctively reached for his Sphaeram, channeling it into his veins as if Caspian were some assassin preparing to attack him.

Caspian pushed off the doorframe with feline grace, sauntering into the room with a predator's easy confidence. "Same as you, I imagine. Looking for our dear friend Ethan. You'd known I was planning on meeting with him if you hadn't slept in this morning to train."

Yoki's eyes narrowed to slits, his grip tightening on his compass until his knuckles turned white. "What do you know about Ethan's disappearance?" he growled, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached.

Caspian's smirk widened, his teeth flashing white in the fading sunlight. His eyes glinted with the unknown of who Caspian really was and from whom he and Nova descended. Aristocracy-wise, the two seemed irrelevant enough to not be remembered, but Capsian especially seemed packed full of secrets—dangerous secrets.

"More than you, it seems. But knowledge is power, Yoki. And power always comes with a price."

A hot flush of anger rose in Yoki's cheeks, his blood boiling in his veins. "I don't have time for games, Caspian," he snarled, his patience fraying like a worn thread. "If you know something, spit it out."

Caspian held up his hands in mock surrender, long, elegant fingers splayed wide. But the amusement never left his eyes, dancing and flickering like flames. "Easy there, Nephilim. I'm here to help. It seems our dear Ethan stumbled upon something he shouldn't have. Something dangerous. And now, he's in over his head."

Yoki's heart skipped a beat, a cold sense of dread settling in his gut like a block of ice. His stomach churned, bile rising in the back of his throat. "What do you mean? Where is he?" he whispered, his voice strained.

Caspian's fingers deftly snatched the note from Yoki's grasp, his eyes darting across the words, devouring them like a starving man. "The Serpent's Eye," he breathed. A strange light flickered in his eyes, like a candle flame dancing in the wind. "An obsolete dominion, long sought after by those who crave forbidden knowledge."

His intense gaze snapped up, locking with Yoki's unwaveringly. "There's a hidden passage beneath the clock tower, a relic from the Academy's early days. That's where we'll find him."

Yoki's mind whirled, fragments of information clicking into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The clock tower. The very same place he'd first set foot in Boston all those months ago to lead him into the Academy's forest. A chill passed through him.

Could it be a mere coincidence?

He shook his head, banishing the thought. "Take me there," he demanded.

But Caspian's hand shot up, palm out, his expression suddenly grave. "Not so fast. I'm afraid I can't do this for free."

Suspicion ignited in Yoki's chest, a spark that quickly kindled into a flame. His eyes narrowed to slits. "What do you want?"

"The Starlight Elixir," Caspian said, his voice barely above a whisper but thrumming with vehemence. "I need it for my research, and you're going to help me get it."

Yoki's heart plummeted, icy tendrils of dread snaking through his veins. According to what they had learned in Alchemical Principles, the Starlight Elixir was one of the most potent (and perilous) substances in existence. Rumored to be secured deep within the Academy's alchemy labs, guarded by an assembly of runic traps and who knew what else. Yoki had even heard that a demon lion guarded the inside of the alchemy labs, though that was patently nonsense.

"Why should I trust you?" Yoki asked, his voice strained, the words grinding out between clenched teeth.

Caspian's smile sharpened like a glint of steel in the darkness. "Because you don't have a choice. Ethan's life depends on it."

Yoki's eyes drifted shut, exhaustion crashing over him. As much as he loathed to admit it, Caspian was right. For Ethan, he'd do anything, even if it meant striking a bargain with the devil himself.

"Fine," he bit out, the word like ashes on his tongue. "I'll help you get the elixir. But we find Ethan first."

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The hidden passage beneath the clock tower was a maze of twisting corridors and age-old chambers. The air—a particularly well-known thick with the musty scent of age and decay smell—drove Yoki back to a time exploring a section of the library that was—

Well, no need to go into that now.

Yoki crept through the darkness, his every muscle taut, his senses straining for any hint of danger. Yoki told Caspian he was bringing Enrique, and after the trio had gathered and entered the basement of the clock tower—

Focus.

Enrique ghosted behind him, a silent shadow, his presence a reassuring warmth at Yoki's back.

As they navigated the perfidious paths, Yoki's mind raced with questions, each one more unsettling than the last.

What had Ethan discovered that had led him to this place? What secrets lay hidden in these antique chasms? And the Serpent's Eye—what was it, and why was it so important that Ethan would risk everything to find it?

Suddenly, Enrique's hand shot out, his fingers digging into Yoki's arm like claws. "Wait," he hissed. "Something's not right."

Yoki froze, his heart slamming against his ribs, his breath catching in his throat. Then he heard a low, guttural growl resounding from the shadows ahead, a sound that sent icy tendrils wrapping Yoki's legs into an unmoveable bind, fear enveloping him.

This–this was bad news. I can sense it.

A creature emerged from the darkness, its form shifting, twisting, contorting like smoke, like a nightmare-given flesh. It was vaguely humanoid, but its limbs were too long, its movements too fluid to be anything natural. And there, pulsing in the center of its chest, was a shard of pure, inky blackness, a darkness that seemed to devour the light around it.

Yoki's breath left him in a rush, a sickening sense of recognition washing over him like a tidal wave. He felt that shard as if it were part of him and knew the Sphaeram that pulsed within it, an aura that echoed with the darkness that lurked within Yoki's own Sphaeram. It was a piece of the Painkiller, the same malevolent power that he now had access to, but how was that possible?

Ah, so we finally meet one.

You care to explain—

The abomination lunged at Yoki with terrifying speed, its razor-sharp claws slicing through the air like obsidian blades. Yoki barely managed to evade the deadly strike, the creature's talons ripping through his sleeve and carving a deep gash into his arm. Searing agony lanced through his flesh, and he gritted his teeth against a scream, feeling hot blood begin to soak his shirt and drip to the rough stones making up the ground.

Caspian melted into the shadows, becoming one with the darkness, and reappeared behind the monstrosity like a wraith born of nightmares. "Shadow Scythe!" he bellowed, initiating the Nightwalker sunderglyph.

Blades of pure, writhing shadow materialized at his command and slashed across the creature's back, leaving gaping, oozing lacerations in their wake. The monster roared in fury, black ichor spurting from the grievous wounds. But as the trio watched in horror, the gashes began to seal, shadowy flesh knitting back together as if by some unspeakable necromancy.

Enrique slammed his palms onto the ground, channeling the very fury of the earth. "Terra Bash!" The chamber shook with seismic rage as jagged spikes of stone erupted from below, impaling the creature in a dozen places. It howled in unbridled agony, writhing like a grotesque insect pinned to a board, but with sickening wet rending sounds, it tore itself free, leaving glistening black gore upon the rocks.

Yoki drew deep upon his Sphaeram, the eldritch energy crackling around him in a fearsome aura, shadows lashing and coiling hungrily. He could feel the Painkiller's insidious influence surging beneath his skin, a seductive whisper urging him to unleash his full, catastrophic potential. He gritted his teeth and fought to maintain control, feeling his grasp slipping with each passing second. "Shadow Bind!" he managed to rasp out, his voice strained. Tendrils of darkness snaked out to ensnare the creature, coiling around its limbs, holding it immobile for a single, critical heartbeat.

Seizing the momentary advantage, Yoki charged forward, his blade of coalesced shadows pulsing with barely contained Sphaeram, thirsting to taste his foe's lifeblood. He leapt into the air, muscles burning, and brought the sword slashing down with every ounce of strength, every ounce of desperation he could muster. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, his perceptions hyperaware. The creature's arm shot up with impossible speed, its wicked talons closing around the blade, halting Yoki's killing blow a mere hairsbreadth from its chest. Yoki's eyes flew wide with disbelief. The thing's raw strength was staggering, outlying anything he'd ever encountered or imagined.

With its other hand, the creature lashed out, its claws shearing through cloth, skin, and muscle like a white-hot knife through parchment. Fiery, mind-obliterating agony exploded through Yoki as he felt the talons rip deep into his chest, scraping against bone. His vision went white, then crimson, and he was distantly aware he was screaming. His own preciously hoarded measly Sphaeram levels plummeted, guttering like a candle flame caught in a gale. He staggered backward, his nerveless fingers and dumbing mind breaking the sunderglyph that materialized his shadow sword, evaporating back into its before places within the chamber, blood sheeting down Yoki's front in torrents.

Enrique let loose an inarticulate howl of rage, slamming his fists into the ground, pouring every last drop of his Sentinel Sphaeram into the earth, seeking to shake the very foundations of the world. The ground convulsed with tectonic fury, throwing their adversary off balance for a scant second. Caspian took ruthless advantage, striking with the lethal grace of a hunting panther. His midnight blade pierced the monstrosity's chest, driving to the hilt through the pulsing shard of oblivion that served as its heart.

The creature loosed an ear-splitting shriek that reverberated in their bones, the sound like the death screams of a thousand tortured souls. Its form seemed to collapse in upon itself, dissolving into a vortex of oily shadows that dissipated like mist beneath the rising sun. Yoki, Caspian, and Enrique were left standing amid the carnage, chests heaving as they fought to draw breath, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Their Sphaeram reserves hovered a hairsbreadth from utterly spent, their bodies bruised and broken, held together only by the most tenuous threads.

Draw on mine.

No, I don't need to. I'm fine.

"By all the gods and demons..." Enrique managed to rasp, "What sort of hellish aberration was that thing?"

Caspian's expression held no trace of its customary mocking humor, his eyes hard as flint. "That, my friend, was but a pale shadow of the horrors that await us. At most, that was an Enchanter ranking mirage. The Serpent's Eye will not surrender itself lightly, I fear. We have only glimpsed the barest hint of the nightmares we must face before we can claim our prize."

Yoki pushed himself upright with a titanic effort, swaying on his feet, his shredded flesh screaming in protest. The Painkiller gibbered and skirled in his mind, a siren song promising succor, strength, and vengeance if he only embraced it fully. With a snarl of denial, he wrenched his thoughts away from the entity, fixing his mind on their purpose with monomaniacal intensity: find Ethan. Secure him at any cost. The alternatives—failure and death—were too ugly to mull over.

Wrapping their wounds bound as best they could with strips of shredded cloth from their now ruined cloaks, they limped deeper into the clock tower's maze of dark bygone catacombs, senses straining for any sign of their missing friend... or whatever fresh hells stood in their path. Horrors that would make this battle seem a pleasant memory in comparison.

Breathing hard, his chest heaving, Yoki turned to Caspian, his eyes blazing with questions, with a desperate need for answers. But the other boy's expression was unreadable, his gaze fixed on the enclosure ahead, his face a stoic mask.

Caspian's urgent whisper cut through the oppressive gloom like a knife, his words laced with a grim intensity that drove Yoki's suspicion out—if only pithily. "Come on," he hissed, his eyes darting to the decrepit stone archway that loomed before them like the maw of some fey beast. "We're running out of time."

Yoki nodded, his jaw clenched so tightly he could feel his teeth grinding together. Every muscle in his body was coiled like a spring, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. The air was thick with a cloying, coppery scent that clung to the back of his throat—the unmistakable smell of blood. It was a miasma that seeped into his very pores, leaving him feeling tainted down to his marrow.

They burst into a chamber, a wave of callous, mildewed air washing over them as if it were the breath of a long-sealed tomb. Yoki's heart faltered in his chest, a choked gasp tearing from his lips at the sight that greeted them. There, on a raised dais in the center of the room, lay Ethan. His body was entwined with pulsating, twisting roots that seemed to squirm with their own diseased, unnaturally vegetative life. They burrowed obscenely into his flesh like parasitic worms, his skin taking on a pale, clammy sheen in their clutches.

Yoki rushed forward, his booted feet pounding against the outdated flagstones, heedless of the danger that might yet lurk in the shadows. His hands shook violently as he scrabbled at the grotesque roots binding his friend, his blunt nails tearing and splitting against their fibrous hide. "Ethan," he whispered, his voice cracking like smashed glass. He could taste salt on his lips and realized dimly that tears were streaking down his cheeks. "Wake up. Please, by all the gods, wake up..."

But Ethan remained still and silent as the grave, his eyes closed, his chest barely rising with each shallow, labored breath. It was as if his very life force was being leached away, sucked into the hungry, avaricious maw of the darkness that surrounded them like a living thing.

"The Veilseekers," Caspian spat, his voice dripping with contempt. His eyes burned with a feverish light, his sculptural features cast into harsh relief by the otherwordly luster of the roots. "They're trying to harness the power of the Convergence, to tear open the barriers between worlds like ripping through a rotted shroud."

Yoki's head snapped up, his eyes wide, a frisson of primal dread slithering up his spine like the caress of a corpse's finger. The Convergence. He'd discovered the fragments of lore traded like contraband in the most disreputable places and most recently at yesterday's Winter gala—a cosmic alignment when the membranes between realms grew gossamer-thin when the very warp and weft of the rift could be unwoven and rewoven by those with the audacity to play gods—that Amayon demon.

And now the Veilseekers sought to harness that tempestuous power to work dark miracles that would unwrite the world as they knew it.

"We have to stop them," Yoki snarled through gritted teeth, an inferno of righteous fury igniting searing away his terror. His words were clipped and hard as adamantine. "If they succeed, there'll be no saving Ethan. No saving anyone."

Enrique met his gaze, eyes like shards of onyx reflecting the fey glow. He clasped Yoki's shoulder, his grip a bracing vise. "Aye. We'll hunt them to the ends of the earth and beyond if need be. Tear down their fane stone by accursed stone. Make them rue the day they first dreamt of the Convergence."

Caspian's unctuous chuckle sliced the air, his vulpine smirk belying a gaze sharp and greedy as a carrion bird's. "Ever the heroes, aren't we?" He crossed his arms, canting his hips with a scoundrel's insolent ease. "Do remember our bargain amid the speechifying and vows of retribution, hm? The Starlight Elixir? A tidy little fetch and carry, nothing more. Certainly worth your friend's life, I'd wager."

The words hooked in Yoki's gut like a barbed quarrel, leeching poison into his viscera. The Starlight Elixir. He'd nearly let himself forget his devil's covenant with Caspian in the eddy of scare and stupefaction. A fool's bargain, but what choice had he? What sacrifice would he not make to keep Ethan from this grotesque damnation?

Teeth clenching till his jaw creaked, Yoki jerked his chin in assent, sealing his fate with a twitch of sinew and bone. As they limped through the maze-like catacombs, Ethan's slack, desecrated form was a dead weight in his arms, dread coiled about Yoki's spine, cold and inexorable. He sensed it in his gut—this was the first step down a lightless path, the initial turn of a vast, ponderous, and unutterably malign mechanism. A mechanism they were now inexorably bound to, cogs in a demented scheme beyond their darkest nightmares.

But on they went, into the stygian dark, with naught but guttering arcane light and the forlorn reek of grave dirt for companions. Into the charnel deeps, where shadows wore the face of madness, the only redemption lay on the far side of damnation.

As they emerged from the clock tower, the dying sun painted the sky in lurid hues of crimson and flame as if the very heavens bled. Yoki's muscles screamed in protest, Ethan's slack weight bearing down on him like the burden of his failure. But he dared not falter, dared not let his friend slip from his grasp. Not now, with Ethan's life a guttering candle flame, one errant breath from extinguishing.

They staggered through the halls of the Academy, their footfalls echoing in the sepulchral hush. The lengthening shadows seemed to writhe with a hostile intelligence, grasping at their heels with intangible claws. And beneath the stifling silence, Yoki swore he could hear the susurrus of mocking laughter drifting on the stale air like the last cruel jape of a dying god.

Questions clawed at his mind, a churning vortex of conjecture. What forbidden lore had Ethan unearthed? What blasphemous secrets had marked him for this grim damnation? What inscrutable forces now pulled the strings of their fates, crouched in the shadows beyond the circle of light? But such thoughts were a luxury he could ill afford, not with Ethan's soul balanced on the knife's edge between life and oblivion.

They shouldered through the infirmary doors, startling the healers from their somnolent reveries. Eyes widening in alarm, the robed figures converged on Ethan's limp form, hands already limned with the shimmering nimbus of healing magick.

But as they arrayed his body on the sterile sheets, their faces fell, consternation etching itself into the lines of their brows. "His mind wanders far from the shores of this realm," one murmured, her voice hushed with an almost superstitious awe. "As if his soul has been flensed from its mortal tether."

Yoki's heart clenched. He rounded on Enrique, his eyes wild, barely leashed desperation crackling in their depths. "The Convergence. The Veilseekers. We need to crack their schemes' skein and pierce their riddles' rap. Else, all is lost."

Enrique met his gaze, his own expression granite-hard with resolve. "I'll scour the archives, plumb the depths of the forbidden tomes. Perhaps within their information lies the key to our salvation." He clasped Yoki's forearm, his grip a steel vise. "Stay with Ethan. Be the anchor that moors him to this world. I'll find his brothers and tell them what's happened."

As Enrique left, Yoki turned back to the broken husk of his friend, guilt, and sorrow rising in his gorge like bile. He had failed Ethan, let him wade alone into perilous waters, and now the currents dragged him down to lightless depths. But never again. He would find a way to wrest Ethan back from the jaws of damnation, to set right the balance that had been so foully overthrown. No matter the price to his own soul.

Even if it meant striking bargains with the very denizens of the abyss. In this benighted realm, where shadows wore the grinning rictus of friends and hope was a guttering candle flame, what choice remained to him? What sacrifice would be too dear if it might yet snatch Ethan from the grasping dark?

These grim thoughts coiled through Yoki's mind, twining with his guilt and resolve like a bramble of thorns as he began vigil over Ethan's fading form. The shadows lengthened, the night deepened, and he sat, a watchful sentinel against the encroaching dark, waiting. Praying.

For morning's light to banish the phantoms of the night. For hope to dawn anew.

Even if it proved a false hope... a candle flame, sputtering against the onrushing dark tide that now seemed inevitable.