Chapter 171 — I Killed Them All

Chapter 171: Chapter 171 — I Killed Them All

Afterward, Nikolai would never remember the fight in order.

Only pieces remained.

Someone reached for him, and Nikolai caught the wrist, twisting until bone broke before he even registered what he had done. Another attacker came from the side, and all he remembered afterward was the scream and the sound of a body striking a tree.

A blade flashed near his face.

He caught the arm behind it and drove the wolf holding it into the ground hard enough that the impact travelled up through his own hands.

There was blood everywhere now, across his clothes and fingers and soaking into the ground beneath his boots.

Every time Nikolai turned, Jaden was still there.

Still lying where he had fallen and not moving.

So Nikolai kept fighting.

Someone struck him across the shoulder, but the pain arrived too far away to matter. Another attacker came from behind and somehow ended up beneath him, eyes wide with panic while Nikolai’s hands closed around his throat.

The world narrowed until there was almost nothing left except movement, noise and red.

More cloaks came apart as the fight continued, exposing uniforms underneath them. Nikolai saw more Valerius colours among the dead and others belonging to academies he did not recognize, but the discovery meant nothing anymore.

They had killed Jaden.

That was enough.

He had no idea how long it lasted.

Minutes, perhaps.

Maybe less.

By the time awareness began returning in pieces, bodies covered the clearing and the smell of blood had become so heavy that every breath carried it.

Some of it smelled wrong.

Nikolai noticed only when he looked down and saw blood so dark it was almost black spreading through the leaves near one of the fallen Moonless wolves. The same foul metallic scent clung to several of the others.

Movement farther across the clearing pulled his attention away.

Someone was still alive.

The older man.

The leader had fallen several yards away and was trying to drag himself backward through the dirt. Half his cloak was gone, blood ran down one side of his face and one arm hung uselessly while he pushed himself away with the other.

His eyes found Nikolai.

Whatever authority had been in them earlier had disappeared.

There was only fear now.

"Wait."

Nikolai walked toward him.

The man tried to get his feet beneath him and failed.

"Wait, please."

Nikolai kept coming.

"We can—"

He reached him before the sentence was finished.

The man threw up his good arm, but Nikolai caught it and twisted until the joint gave with a sharp crack before driving him back into the ground.

His scream ripped through the clearing.

Nikolai followed him down before he could crawl away again.

The man tried to say something else.

Nikolai’s hand closed around his throat.

Whatever words were coming disappeared beneath a strangled gasp.

He squeezed.

The man clawed desperately at Nikolai’s wrist, kicking against the ground as he tried to force air through a throat Nikolai would not release.

Nikolai watched fear spread across his face.

Watched panic become terror.

He did not stop.

The struggling weakened gradually until the fingers digging into his wrist lost their strength and slipped away.

Nikolai kept squeezing.

A sickening shift came beneath his hand.

The body underneath him went limp.

Only then did Nikolai let go.

Silence settled over the forest.

He remained there for several seconds, breathing hard, his hand still resting against the dead man’s throat.

Then he looked over his shoulder.

Jaden.

The rage sputtered out.

One moment it filled everything inside him, and the next there was nothing left.

Nikolai pushed himself upright and stumbled toward where Jaden lay, but he made it only halfway before his legs gave beneath him.

He dropped to his knees.

For a while, he simply stared at the clearing.

At Jaden.

At the Ardens scattered across the forest floor.

At the bodies of everyone he had killed.

Less than an hour ago, he and Jaden had been arguing about whether they could still beat Blade.

Now Jaden was dead.

Something inside Nikolai finally gave way.

He threw his head back and howled.

There was no victory in the sound, no challenge and certainly no pride in the power that had just pushed him into Dominant.

There was only grief.

The howl tore through the trees.

Somewhere beyond the clearing, something cracked.

Nikolai barely noticed until another sharp sound followed it.

Light suddenly flared between two trees as hidden sigils appeared across bark and stone, their lines burning bright for a single moment before splitting apart one after another.

The pressure that had been hanging over this section of the forest disappeared with them.

Almost immediately, the unnatural silence broke.

Distant shouting reached Nikolai through the trees.

Then footsteps.

He lowered his head and listened.

At first he thought he had imagined them, but the sound returned, faster this time.

Someone was running toward the clearing.

Nikolai turned.

A figure broke through the trees.

White hair caught the light first.

Cassian.

He stopped so abruptly that leaves scattered beneath his boots.

Nikolai had known Cassian Blade for years. He had seen him angry, irritated and competitive, and he had seen him so cold that an entire room could reconsider speaking around him.

He had never seen Cassian look like this.

His gaze swept across the clearing, and for once none of his usual control survived what he was seeing.

The bodies.

The Ardens.

Jaden.

Alarm gave way to confusion, then something frighteningly close to panic before Cassian finally saw Nikolai kneeling among it all.

"Nikolai?"

Nikolai looked down at himself.

Blood covered the front of his clothes, and his hands were so soaked in it that he could barely tell which parts belonged to him anymore.

He looked back at Cassian.

For some reason, he smiled.

Even that hurt.

"I killed them all, Cassian."

Cassian started toward him.

Nikolai never saw him arrive.

The forest tilted violently to one side as more footsteps thundered through the trees behind Cassian, voices finally carrying clearly now that the hidden sigils were gone.

Then everything went black.

~~~

Nikolai stopped speaking.

For several seconds, Raven did not realize the story was over.

She remained beside him beneath the colonnade, staring at his face while the sounds of the present gradually returned around them.

Students crossed somewhere beyond the courtyard. Footsteps passed beneath one of the archways, and wind moved quietly through the open passage.

Nikolai looked down at his hands.

There were tears in his eyes.

He laughed once under his breath, but there was nothing amused about it.

"The strange thing is, that isn’t even the part I remember most."

Raven stayed quiet.

Nikolai rubbed his palms together slowly.

"I killed people that day. More than I knew how to count afterward. I woke up in the infirmary as a Dominant and everyone kept telling me how incredible it was that I survived."

His mouth tightened.

"But that’s not what I remember."

He looked at her.

"I remember standing there."

Something tightened in Raven’s chest.

Nikolai swallowed before continuing.

"Jaden’s family was dead. He was surrounded. He was fighting his way back to me, and I just..."

His voice caught.

He looked away.

"I stood there."

"Nikolai—"

"I was Ascendant."

The words came harder now.

"I could fight. I had trained my entire life to fight. He was my best friend, Raven, and when he needed me, my fucking body wouldn’t move."

He dragged a hand across his face.

Raven said nothing.

There was nothing she could say that would make what he was remembering smaller.

"He had a way out."

Nikolai’s eyes lowered again.

"He could have run. I saw it."

His breathing changed.

"But he came back."

The last word nearly disappeared.

Nikolai pressed the heel of one hand against his eye and gave another quiet, broken laugh.

"He came back for me."

Raven’s throat tightened.

"And I didn’t move until they killed him."

Silence settled between them.

After several seconds, Nikolai wiped his face and drew in a slow breath, forcing some of his usual control back into place.

It did not hide the pain completely.

Perhaps it was not supposed to.

"I’ve spent two years wondering whether he’d still be alive if I’d moved sooner."

Raven looked at him.

"You were in shock."

"I know."

He nodded once.

"I know what everyone says. I was eighteen. I had just seen half a family murdered. Nobody expects someone to think clearly through that."

His jaw tightened.

"That doesn’t make me less ashamed of it."

Raven had no answer.

Nikolai looked out across the courtyard, and for a moment the exhaustion Raven had noticed earlier seemed much older than either of them.

Then something harder settled beneath it.

"The Moonless Court didn’t end in that forest."

Raven’s attention sharpened.

"Whatever they are now, whatever they’ve become, somebody is behind them. Somebody brought those people together. Somebody got them into Valerius. Somebody made sure nobody outside that part of the Run could hear us."

His eyes returned to hers.

"I’ve spent two years looking for that person."

There was no smile now.

No teasing.

Only certainty.

"And I will not rest until I find the source of the Moonless Court and destroy them."