“And you’re going back to where you should be,” Isabella spoke to herself as she took a dusty old tome and inserted it back where it should’ve been. She carried with her a small trolley that held several stacks of books and scrolls, each one out of place, each one untouched for more than four centuries.
The Ice Queen smiled to herself, enjoying the silence and the grave cold in the air.
The library was, as expected, mostly empty, save for a few ghosts and specters that lingered about in the shadows. Oh, there were a few students here and there, but most of them only ever visited the place to discuss whatever dastardly scheme they’d concocted, instead of actually reading anything, which was unsurprising, given the fact that most Dark Mages preferred to train themselves or listen only to their mentors. She and Victoria had been like that, once upon a time, thinking themselves the greatest in their generation, simply because they just so happened to possess Innate Talents that were of the 10th Category.
She bent over and grasped another book, thinner and lighter than the last, containing only the barest amounts of magic. It was a treatise on the use of rare herbs in the creation of potions and poisons, written some six-hundred years ago by a Dark Mage who bit the dust in a skirmish against the Light Mages. It was a good book, a bit outdated, but still good, especially for amateur herbalists and alchemists still taking their first steps. “You’ll be staying here for a very long time.”
Then again, it wasn’t as though most students would ever open the pages of this particular book.
T’is a shame, but unavoidable, The Ice Queen mused with a slight shake of her head, before placing the book where it belonged.
Still, Isabella would realize much later in life, there was much knowledge to be found in books, especially in a Shadow Academy, where the dark wisdom of ancient mages were kept bound in ink and paper. There were secrets here of great power, just waiting to be opened. Sure, most of the books here were useless, but there were awesome tomes here and there, so utterly ancient that their covers had decayed and crumpled and smoothed into almost nothing but a flat blankness that lacked anything discernable, beyond the faint magic that might’ve lingered in their pages. There were a few that dated back to Catalhoyuk, the first city, where the first mages emerged and later diverged.
This one, for instance…. Isabella smiled at the nondescript, red leather-bound book that most students would’ve simply ignored. And yet, this book was authored by Joseph the Red himself, in the days before his attempted conquest of the known worlds and subsequent death. Isabella grasped the edge of the front cover and flinched as phantom blades cut open her skin, drawing blood as she turned it open.
The book took a tiny piece of her, in exchange for the right to see the very first page.
YOU ARE UNWORTHY OF MY KNOWLEDGE!
Of course, it just HAD to include an imprint of his mind….The Ice Queen scoffed and shook her head, before closing the book and placing it under the section with the very easily ignored label of “Forbidden”. Only a Flesh-Crafter of the 10th Category would be able to gleam the knowledge from this book without sacrificing a small portion of their flesh, bone, and blood for every page. Isabella could’ve forced it if she wanted to; after fifteen purges, her power was close to Joseph the Red’s and the man had been dead for long enough that his magical signature would’ve already dissipated enough. But, the wisdom held within was ultimately useless to her. The Ice Queen was not talented in Flesh-Crafting.
The Crow-Mother opened this book once and sacrificed… quite a bit just to read a third of it.
“Anyone willing to touch you should be well-aware of the price,” Unless, of course, the person who dared just so happened to be a Category 10 Flesh-Crafter; Victoria’s little apprentice came to mind, which reminded her that she had yet to meet the little squirt who was learning under the tutelage of her best and only friend.
Isabella turned and glanced at the stack of books that still needed to be returned and shrugged. She’d deal with them later. The Ice Queen yawned and walked towards the librarian’s desk and sat down on the magnificent chair that was given to her by Victoria; it used to be a person, who got on the Crow-Mother’s bad side and was now going to spend eternity as a chair. The faint and constant scream it emitted was amusing.
Victoria was right; no one had protested her when she expressed her desire to become the Shadow Academy’s official librarian, at least until she grew bored of the post and went off to another purge. The library was in terrible shape when she had a look at it. Books were scattered all over the place and a thick layer of old dust had settled over everything, including the tables and chairs. Setting everything back into descent shape would be a fun waste of time in the coming days.
The last purge had enough excitement to last her a solid decade and Isabella wasn’t exactly eager to jump into another one so soon – not when she nearly died several times in the last purge. She’d underestimated the threat posed by her enemies, the so-called super-human heroes who fancied themselves that world’s premier defenders. And so the Ice Queen was forced to unleash the full breadth of her magical prowess and… Isabella might’ve gone a little too far with that. And she was more than ready to admit – to herself, at least – that her actions were driven mostly by wrath and frustration; because snuffing out all the flames of a star seemed a tad bit overzealous, in hindsight, all to kill off the population of a single planet. There were far better options that would’ve yielded the same results for far less effort on her part.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Victoria would never know that little detail – no one would.
Isabella leaned back and closed her eyes, her senses expanding wide enough to cover the entirety of the Shadow Academy. Isabella felt every presence, heard every voice and every whisper, and felt every the thrum of magic that ran all across the school. She felt all and everything, down to the tiniest droplets of blood that dripped from the ceiling of the hallway outside the registrar’s office, where an unfortunate student was nailed to the black stone and disemboweled, guts falling out and everything. In the Crucible, some failure of a student screamed and begged for mercy as he was slowly roasted alive by the Black Drake that spawned in the fifteenth wave.
Igi Etutu, the Eyes in the Darkness, a basic trick that any Dark Mage worth their salt knew to do.
That was how she knew that there wouldn’t be any visitors for-
Her eyes snapped open and she grinned. “Interesting… the Red Child and a Lost Little Lamb from the light.”
How they both managed to pass, even if only for a moment, undetected was interesting.
The Ice Queen wondered, for a moment, if meeting with the children was a good idea. The little Light Mage rat was of little consequence, but Victoria’s apprentice could prove interesting; after all, she had very recently come across a book that was written by the last Flesh-Crafter of the 10th Category, the boy’s predecessor. It would be interesting to see what the boy would accomplish if he had the book, which – according to Victoria – held some of the darkest and most depraved wisdom and knowledge of Flesh-Crafting.
Firstly, however, she would have to enact a little test to determine his worth as a Dark Mage.
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We passed under the cover of shadows and kept our footsteps light and our breaths steady. Thankfully, there were no random duels or brawls that might’ve endangered our lives. Olga and I did, however, come across the corpses of numerous students – headless and covered in deep cuts and stab wounds. Some had their chests torn open, their ribs and flesh and organs lying strewn about the floor in a pool of their own blood. My stomach churned at the grisly sight, but something about the whole thing just felt… boring, a feeling that I’d seen far worse and that this was nothing. My heart quickened and my breath hitched, but it just wasn’t the same as it had been the first time, when I was buried underneath a mound of rotting corpses.
There were only a few students and most of them didn’t seem to notice either of us as they passed and quickly disappeared as they turned the corners or walked through one of the many doors around us.
The air grew colder and colder as we drew closer to the library. The halls and corridors seemed to darken as well. White wisps of hot air puffed out of Olga’s nose and mouth as we moved forward. She shuddered and shivered, her skin cold to the touch. And yet, I did not feel the same as she. Sure, it was cold, but not to a degree as to cause such a reaction from me; it was a far cry from the dark cold of that place we’d found ourselves in during the second trial.
“Are you alright?” I whispered, calling out to Olga, who trailed ahead of me. Her shivers had intensified now and she looked far paler than what was normal for her.
She stopped and turned over her shoulder, white wisps puffing out of her mouth and nose. Mists of cloudy white appeared on the floor, like thin, barely noticeable crystals. It was getting even colder now, I noted. The few bits of sweat that’d lingered on my robes had frozen solid, becoming blocks of ice and frost. Despite that, Olga merely nodded once as she breathed in, “I am… fine.”
She was trying, and failing, to hide the sheer distress she was in. The cold seemed no more than a mild discomfort for me, however.
“Can’t you use your flames to heat yourself up?” I asked. She just had to know a spell for that, right? It didn’t even need to be a spell, just a small well of fire in her hand, warm enough to keep her alive in cold environments.
Olga’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, before she nodded. Still, there was plenty of apprehension in her eyes; and, again, she looked left and right and seemed as though she was expecting someone to be there, following her. I glanced around as well, but found no one and nothing. We were alone in the dark hallway.
“There’s no one here, Olga,” I told her.
Sighing, Olga nodded and held up her right hand, palm up, before uttering something inaudible. It began as a small spark, which then very quickly grew into a bright and warm, multi-colored blaze that looked more akin to a rainbow than an actual flame. I recognized it almost immediately, of course; Olga had used those very same fires to keep us warm in the snow during the Second Trial, before Baba Yaga found us.
An immediate rush of heat poured over us, nearly dispelling the cold in its entirety, though not quite. A small, invisible circle of warmth appeared around us, the full extent of Olga’s fire, good enough for the both of us. And so we moved on soon afterwards.
The library wasn’t far now. I saw the shadowed outline of its double doors, wreathed in what seemed to be a thin, but steaming, layer of frost and ice. I glanced around. There was no one around us. There was no longer any need to be sneaking around. I breathed in. It was colder here than it was several steps ago. The library, it seemed, was the source of the strange cold that’d suddenly enveloped much of the hallways and corridors that were connected to it.
“The doors are closed,” Olga pointed out with narrowed eyes.
I nodded, unsure as to what point she was trying to make. Yeah, it was closed, but pushing it open shouldn’t be too hard, right? Olga seemed afraid for some reason; she seemed so unsure of what she wanted to do. Why would she be afraid of a library?
Then again, my experience with this place has taught me that there was a not-so-small possibility that the books within would try to kill us somehow.
But, we were here now and I saw little point in going back to our dorm to spend the rest of the morning doing nothing.
And so I walked forward, strafing around Olga, whose eyes widened as I reached for the ice-covered door handle of the library. She rushed towards me, “Uriel, wait; there’s something-”
I pulled open the door and a seemingly endless expanse of snow and frost met me, and the world was buried in white.
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The Infinite Dominion, a skill that only the Followers of the Dark could perform, representing the absolute and highest peak of their personal powers: the ability to create their own dimensions, where they - and they alone - reigned supreme. Even then, only the most powerful of Dark Mages were capable of it - herself and Victoria included.
Isabella grinned. "Now... let's see if you're worthy of Joseph's wisdom, little boy."