Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Cassian

We’ve been moving for hours through tangled undergrowth, across shallow streams that gleam like broken glass beneath the sun, past ruined fence lines

that once marked borders no one remembers anymore, and still, the forest does not soften. If anything, it becomes harsher the deeper we push. Rhaziel

walks beside me with the frantic stillness of a storm waiting to break, the shadows around him stirring like restless wings, brushing the bark of trees as if

they’re tasting the air for our girl. His girl…Our mate. He keeps looking at his wrist. The bracelet glows softly-never one steady shade, constantly shifting, always pulsing like a heartbeat, and with each flicker, his expression tightens the slightest fraction more, a muscle feathering in his jaw, his mouth a line of restrained violence. The wilderness stretches around us in sprawling, tangled miles of pine and bramble and damp earth, the kind of terrain that all Thornhill lectures conveniently forget to mention exists just beyond the academy walls. Every few dozen steps, I watch as Rhaziel rechecks the bracelet. And in truth? I’m checking it just as often. The colours flare, fade and flicker, and each time they change, he gives the slightest, sharpest nod as though silently

reassuring himself that something in this world is still tethered to her, still functioning and still alive. Eventually, my curiosity wins.

“What does that one mean?” I ask as the bracelet flashes a muted bronze threaded with pale green.

His eyes flick down. “Exhaustion.”

A beat later, the colours deepen, shifting into a darker hue that pulses sharply once before settling.

“And that?” I press.

“Frustration.”

There’s another flicker, a quick, jagged, hot orange.

“Fear,” he adds, tension tightening his voice in a way he clearly didn’t intend to reveal.

The word sinks into my stomach like a stone, and we quicken our pace.

The forest seems to respond to him, shadows stretching toward his feet, wind threading through the branches with a strange electricity, the world tilting subtly around the weight of his worry. I’ve walked beside plenty of powerful magicals, but nothing compares to walking beside a demon king whose mate is in danger; it feels like standing next to a storm that hasn’t decided where to strike yet. Hours pass as the terrain shifts, the air cools enough to sting my lungs, and my legs ache, but I don’t slow down-not when Allison is somewhere ahead, moving, fighting and surviving. Because surviving is all she’s ever been allowed to do. Rhaziel checks the bracelet again, and this time he doesn’t speak because this time the colours don’t settle. This time, they twist into something frantic, flashing through each emotion so fast the lights almost blur into white. I stop walking, and so does he.

“What is that?” I breathe.

“Chaos,” he says, his voice low and dark and seething. “Something is wrong.”

I hold my breath, and then something sounds in the distance. I hear it first as a tremor beneath the wind, it’s the kind of noise that doesn’t belong to wildlife or weather. It’s a disruption in the air, the faint echo of bodies colliding. Then, as we take another step forward, it sharpens into a cry that’s sliced in half before it fully leaves a throat. I listen as a heavy thud sounds, something like a body hitting the earth, and the deep reverberation of magic being cast and shattering against something unyielding. Each sound tumbling into the next like a chain reaction of violence moving just out of sight. Rhaziel goes still, utterly still.

“That’s her,” he says, and the certainty in his voice is absolute, carved from bone-deep instinct and ancient tethering.

“How can you be sure?” I whisper, though the truth is already clawing at my ribs.

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Chapter 176

He lifts his wrist, the bracelet still flaring in frantic bursts, and his eyes soften or break, I’m not sure which. “Because I can feel the edges of her fear scraping through the bond even though she’s hiding behind something strong enough to keep me out.”

The ground seems to tilt beneath my feet. And then he runs. Not like a man. Not like anything mortal. But like shadow and fury and devotion forged into

momentum, tearing through the trees so fast the world blurs behind him. Branches snap, leaves scatter, the air warps around his movement, and I’m

sprinting after him before I’ve even processed the choice.

“Rhaziel-slow down!” I shout, stumbling over a root but catching myself.

“She needs me,” he snarls back, voice thundering through the thick forest.

“She needs both of us,” I counter, lungs burning as I dodge branches whipping across my path.

The sounds grow louder the farther we run-shouts, clangs, growls, the earth cracking beneath heavy impact-an entire conflict breathing in ragged,

desperate pulses. The bracelet flares again, brighter, harder, erratic enough to make my stomach drop.

“She’s fighting,” I gasp.

“She’s surrounded,” he answers without looking back, and something in his voice makes the air feel colder, because demon kings don’t fear much, but losing

their mates is one of the few horrors they can’t outrun.

The forest opens just slightly ahead with a faint shift in light between the trees, a disrupted scatter of dirt, a dust cloud rising from struggle and I realise we

are seconds away.

Rhaziel’s shadows ripple like wings preparing to strike.

“Cassian,” he calls, not slowing even a fraction, “stay close.”

“I’m not letting you go in alone,” I promise.

“We won’t have the luxury of strategy,” he says, voice cutting like steel. “When we enter that clearing, everything moves.”

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