Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 190

Chapter 190

Allison

The ridge breaks behind us in a sweep of pale morning gold, the last scraps of dawn melting through the trees as we push forward at a pace none of us would have managed yesterday. Kael and Evander move easily now, healed enough to keep up, and Cassian-Cassian never falters. He stays at my side, stride matching mine, eyes flicking like a blade across every shadow, every branch twitch, every shift in the wind. This Cassian is not Professor Hill. This Cassian is something far older, far more carved out by war. He moves like someone who has spent years expecting death to step out from behind every tree. His posture isn’t academic; it’s alert. Predatory. His magic hums in quiet pulses around us as he periodically reaches out with that invisible mental net, checking distances and measuring danger. And all the while, he gathers things-leaves, bark, dried moss, roots hidden beneath stones. He doesn’t break stride to do it. Just plucks them as though his body already memorised their positions before he saw them. I’m sure they’re potion ingredients. Another plan he’s already thought of in advance. He knows we’ll need more. He knows we’ll have to hide again. He knows-just like I do-that survival is about preparation, not hope. And watching him like this… It is strange and unsettling, but familiar in a way that makes my bones ache. I’ve always thought Cassian came from a life of books and polished stone walls and quiet, candle-lit rooms. A life untouched by the ugliness of mine. But this? This version of him? He feels like someone built from the same places that built me-scars turned into skill, pain turned into precision, survival turned into instinct. I wonder what he saw at the Wall, what he endured. What shaped that sharpness under his skin? Maybe one day he’ll tell me. Maybe one day we won’t have to wonder because we’ll see it

ourselves. But gods, I hope not.

We reach the clearing by midday. The sun is higher now, glaring through slits in the trees as if trying to warn me. My feet slow before my mind catches up. I know this place. I marked it on the map-the way I marked them all-but this one…This one tastes like old blood in the back of my throat. The hideout sits crookedly between two leaning stone walls, half of it collapsed inward, the doorway too narrow, the windows boarded not out of safety but out of fear. The earth around it feels wrong. Heavy. Thick with echoes I’d buried under years of pretending. My shadows recoil first, rippling in a tight circle at my feet like threatened animals. Evander notices instantly and Kael stops breathing altogether. Cassian looks at me once-really looks-and something in his expression

shifts from awareness to understanding because he’s seen my scars…Because he holds every memory I never meant for anyone to see. He knows.

“This one,” I manage, breath thin in my throat, “is… fine.”

It’s a lie. A bad one…but it’s all I’ve got.

Kael steps closer, his voice gentle in a way he’d probably deny with his dying breath. “Trouble… what happened here?” He asks rubbing his chest as though my pain if bleeding through the bond.

The wind shifts and suddenly, the air is too tight, my chest too small, the sunlight too bright. What happened here? My mind replays memories before I can stop it. Three years of pain and torture and captivity slam back into me so hard my knees nearly buckle.

I see them. The vampires who chained me. Their cold hands on my arms. Their fangs glinting and sharp with hunger. I see the basement they kept me in. I feel the whips, the crack of leather splitting my skin. I smell the burn of hot metal as they pressed irons against my back. I hear the hiss of flesh scorching and the way my screams bounced uselessly off the stone walls. I remember the chains, the magical bindings humming like venom under my skin. I remember three years of waiting for death to reach me. They made one mistake. One chain left one notch too loose, weakened by overuse. I broke both my thumbs to slide out of them…I remember the bodies falling one after another, as I drained them dry, as their screams became fuel, as survival carved something monstrous into me just so I could live long enough to escape that place. The magical overload was excruciating, the way it tore through my veins like wildfire and poison combined. The weakness of starvation dragging at my limbs, the sting of old wounds reopening as I ran barefoot across the forest floor. I remember the earth, wet and cold as I ran and ran and ran… Until my body collapsed. Right here. Right where I stand now and I crawled inside that hideout-this hideout-leaving a trail of blood behind me like a breadcrumb path no one would ever follow. I lay on that dirt floor for days, half-delirious, half-dead, waiting for death to take pity on me because no one else ever had.

Evander’s hand brushes my shoulder. Kael’s fingers skim my elbow. Neither touch the fully but their presence steadies the trembling in my knees. Cassian doesn’t move toward me. He moves around me. Placing himself between me and the hideout’s dark doorway,

“We don’t have to stay here,” he says quietly.

But we do. At least for a moment. This is the safest place for miles. This is the reality I carved into the map. This is what I know. And part of surviving is facing the places that once tried to kill you.

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17:42 Thu, Jan 1 MA

Chapter 190

“No,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”

50

This time, the lie tastes even worse. Cassian hears it. I know he does. I step through the door, and the room folds around me like an old bruise pressing back into place.

Kael whistles under his breath. “Gods… you stayed here?”

Stayed? No. Almost died… But those words won’t leave my lips. I swallow hard and force myself farther in, each step stirring dust from the floorboards like

ghosts rising to watch me return. The air tastes the same-damp stone, old blood, the metallic bite of memory-and for a moment I swear I can see that half-dead version of myself curled in the corner, bones sharp beneath skin, eyes hollow, waiting for mercy that never came… But I’m not her anymore. I

breathe once. Then again.

“It’s just a place,” I whisper to myself, even though it isn’t.

My shadows stir, trembling, but they do not retreat. Not this time. Because this time, I didn’t crawl here to die. This time… I walked in with people who

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