Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 214

09:36 Thu, Jan 8 G

Thornhill Academy.

His Last Chance to Choose Right

Allison

Sleep is a thin, fragile thing tonight. It clings to me in wisps rather than blankets, slipping every time my mind threatens to wander into dreams. Rhaziel’s shadows curl over my ankles as I try to quiet my thoughts. The soft weight of Kael’s legs draped over mine. The warm, steady brush of Evander’s presence just behind my shoulder. The faint, constant hum of Cassian’s mind linked to mine, calm but sharp, like a blade wrapped in silk. Even surrounded by them, sleep hardly comes. I drift somewhere between waking and dreaming, hovering on the edge of something uneasy, when a sound cuts through the darkness. It is subtle at first, the whisper of canvas shifting. My eyelids twitch open, and my heart rises into my throat. My senses stretch outward in all directions, instinctively searching for minds around us. I find Kael’s familiar sleepy haze and Evander’s light–drifting awareness. There’s the sharp hum of Cassian’s consciousness resting just outside my own, and Rhaziel’s focus is steady, warm, ever–present. And then something else… Something sharp and frantic. Something that feels like a storm caught in a ribcage. Before I can name it, the tent flap flings inward, and a figure stumbles through. Cage. His chest heaves quietly like he sprinted through ten miles of night. His hair is damp with sweat. Leaves cling to the shoulders of his cloak. His eyes are wide and wild, drawn instantly to me as if he were tethered to me by something he could no longer pretend did not exist. All four men move at once.

Evander jumps from the bed, shadows of fire flickering in his eyes. Kael surges to his feet with a snarl caught behind his teeth. Cassian’s magic sharpens, the air tightening with invisible pressure. Rhaziel’s shadows whip through the air in dark coils already wrapping themselves around Cage’s throat.

“Wait,” I gasp.

Because Cage is not attacking…He looks terrified. He stands there, soaked in moonlight and panic, and his gaze is fixed on me alone.

“Allison,” he chokes out, and my name as Rhaziel withdraws his shadows.

Kael bristles, stepping in front of me like a wall of muscle and protective fury. “You have about five seconds to explain why the hell you are here before I rip

out your tongue.”

Cage lifts his hands, palms open and shaking. “I am not here to fight. I am not here to harm anyone.”

Cassian’s jaw clenches. “That is unfortunate. I currently want to tear your spine out.”

“Cass,” I murmur, brushing his mind with mine. “Let him speak.”

He goes still. Not relaxed, not trusting, only still. Cage swallows. His eyes flicker across the four men who could end him before he drew a second breath. Then he looks back at me, and something inside my chest tightens until it hurts.

“I came to warn you,” he says, voice cracking. “You cannot stay here. It isn’t safe.”

Rhaziel steps forward, voice deep and even. “Explain. Now.”

Cage drags a hand through his hair. He looks like a man drowning in guilt.

“They know everything,” he breathes. “Your exact location. The size of your camp. They are assembling two battalions as we speak. Spellcasters. Infantry. Siege units. High ranking officers.”

Evander’s expression darkens into something frightening. “How?”

Cage meets his eyes, hollow and ashamed. “Because they’re tracking Cassian.”

The air in the tent snaps.

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His Last Chance to Choose Right

Cassian goes still in the way dangerous animals go still before striking. I feel the shape of his horror through our bond, a sharp intake of breath in my mind.

“What do you mean?” he says quietly, almost to himself. “They are tracking me?”

“They implant a chip when soldiers are recruited. The higher ranks say the soldiers don’t need to know about it because it’s just for body retrieval.

Rhaziel’s shadows recoil like a living beast. “So they have been using him to find us.”

Cage nods.

“And he did not know,” he repeats.

Cassian’s breathing goes uneven. Shame pulses through our mental link, sharp enough to sting. I reach for his hand, and he grips mine tightly.

Kael’s eyes flash. “Wait, why should we trust this guy? Does no one here remember how much of an asshole he is?”

Evander folds his arms, every line of his body rigid with suspicion. “He has every reason to lie. Every reason to trap us. This could be a Council tactic.”

Rhaziel’s shadows rise again, slow and deliberate, coiling up his arms and spilling across the floor like a living tide. His voice is velvet wrapped around a

knife, dark and patient and far too calm. “We should kill him now,” he murmurs, stepping just close enough that Cage would feel the cold brush of shadow against his throat. “Do you want me to break his neck for you, hummingbird?”

Cage does not step back. He does not move at all. If anything, he looks resigned, as though the thought of dying here bothers him less than the thought of

not being believed.

“Guys… stop,” I breathe, and something in my voice shatters through the tension.

The shadows pause. Kael freezes. Evander’s jaw clenches. Cassian lifts his head, watching me closely, searching my expression as though the decision is

already seen in me before I speak it. I step forward.

Kael’s hand shoots out to catch my arm, but I pull free gently, one step and then another until I stand directly in front of Cage, so close that I can see the

dirt embedded beneath his fingernails and the tremor running through his arms. His eyes lift to mine, desperate, wrecked, pleading.

“Why?” I whisper. “Why tell us this. Why walk into our camp in the middle of the night, knowing every single person in this tent wants you dead?”

His breath cracks on the exhale.

‘Because if I didn’t,” he says hoarsely, they would murder all of you in your sleep tomorrow night.”

No theatrics. No aggression. Just truth delivered like a confession.

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