Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 246

Holding the Reins

Cassian

5

54

Varyn D’Altair circles the room like a man who has come to bring us all to our knees. That is not fucking happening today. He moves with the leisure of someone who expects obedience as a natural state, boots clicking softly against the stone as he surveys the vault and its occupants. I’m sure he saw the broken geometry of Council power strewn behind him like debris on his way here. He does not look rushed. He does not look concerned. His gaze skims past Rhaziel as if the demon king is an inconvenience rather than a threat, past Evander’s rigid stillness, past Kael’s coiled fury, and settles, inevitably, on Cage. The bond tightens. Allison is still behind me, too still, her presence pulled taut instead of scattered, and the shift prickles along my nerves like a warning I don’t yet understand.

“I should have known,” Varyn says mildly, voice smooth as oil. “You always did gravitate toward failure.”

Cage doesn’t answer. Blood has soaked through his sleeve, dark and tacky, but his stance is set, weight forward, jaw locked hard enough I can almost hear his teeth grind. He’s holding himself together out of spite alone, and Varyn sees it.

“All this,” Varyn continues, gesturing vaguely at the cage, the relic, the dead Councilors cooling somewhere outside. “For that.” He spits at Allison’s back.

His eyes roam over her, contained behind the bars, her breath shallow and her attention fixed on the relic like it’s the only thing in the room that matters.

“For her,” Cage corrects, “For my soul mate.” He stands a little taller as he says it.

“I should have kept you in your cage.” Varyn snaps ck at him.

Kael moves before I can stop him, heat rolling off him in a sharp, dangerous wave. “What kind of father cages his own son?” he snaps. “What kind of monster does that and still pretends he deserves a legacy?”

Varyn smiles, amused and lethal.

“The kind who understands mistakes,” he says. “And knows when one should have been corrected early”

His gaze drags over Cage’s face, lingering on the damage, the stitches, the permanent asymmetry carved into bone. “Look at what you’ve done to yourself,” he murmurs, “All for this girl. All to keep something like that locked up.”

The bond spasms. Allison shifts, fingers scraping metal, the sound high, thin, and dangerous. The relic at the centre of the chamber hums, its pull sharpening, the air thickening as dark magic leans toward it like iron toward a blade.

“You really are perfect together,” Varyn says softly. “Two things that never should have existed. Perhaps I’ll be kind and keep your cages side by side, once I’ve cleaned up this mess you’ve made.”

That’s when Varyn moves. The magic hits without warning, a brutal surge of warlock forge that slams into Kael and throws him across the chamber. His body cracks into the wall hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Cage reacts on instinct, magic flaring wild and protective as he lunges forward, and Varyn turns that momentum against him with brutal precision. His magic hits with a blow that catches Cage square in the chest and sends him skidding across the stone in a spray of blood.

“No,” I snarl, psychic pressure surging outward as I step forward, but Varyn barely glances at me.

“Enough,” he says, and the word carries weight, layered with authority and magic meant to block my own.

Rhaziel’s shadows begin to consume the room, but with a flick of Varyn’s wrist, they disperse, scattering back to Rhaziel as if they’ve been shocked. The relic screams loudly, and the hum deepens into a violent pull as dark magic tears out of Allison in a catastrophic rush. The dark magic rips free from Allison with

14:28 Mon, Jan 19

Holding the Reins

S

>

54

a force that bows her spine and wrenches a raw cry from her throat. The cage flares blindingly bright as it tries to compensate, runes burning white-hot, without the shadows around it to hold the cage’s magic together. The shadows. Shit. Before any of us can react, one of the bars shrieks and bends inward, metal screaming as a rune fractures down its length. Another gives way. Then another. The cage doesn’t open so much as it fails, the structure collapsing under the pressure it was never meant to hold, without Rhaziel’s shadows reinforcing it. Allison surges through the break as steel tears apart around her, stumbling forward on instinct alone. She doesn’t decide to move. Her body does it for her. The relic jerks violently in its cradle as she reaches it, the pull snapping her forward until her hands slam against its surface. The moment she makes contact, the dark magic tears out of her in a violent rush, pouring into the relic as it feeds greedily, too fast, too much, too suddenly. Then the bond between us begins to change. The screaming static that has lived between

us fractures, thinning, sharpening, and for the first time since this began, I feel Allison thinking instead of drowning. Her presence snaps into focus, clean

and cold and terrifyingly aware, and hope hits me hard enough to blur my vision. I see Varyn stiffen from the corner of my eye. He turns toward the relic,

eyes narrowing as he takes in the speed of the draw, the way the magic is leaving her fast and violent. He reaches out, and in the blink of an eye, he throws

a spell. It slams into the relic with a force that shatters the chamber’s equilibrium, and the relic explodes. Sound drops out. Light fractures. The dark magic

bound within it collapses in on itself and dies, the pull severed so abruptly it feels like my mind snaps forward in its absence. Allison screams again, though

it sounds human now, it is filled with pure rage. She stands amid the wreckage, breath coming even, eyes bright and terrifyingly clear, dark magic coiled

tight inside her instead of spilling everywhere. The bond hums with lethal clarity, her presence sharp and deliberate, and I feel the truth settle into place

with a cold certainty that steals the air from my lungs. The dark magic that is left does not control her anymore. It answers her. Varyn stares. Fear finally

cracks through his composure, sharp and unmistakable, as he takes in the woman standing where the cage used to be.

“What have you done?” he breathes.

Allison lifts her head slowly, and she smiles. And in that moment, with the bond steady and alive between us, with the relic’s ashes cooling on the stone and the Council’s power finally, truly broken, I understand exactly what Varyn has unleashed. Not all of the dark magic left her… but now she’s holding the reins.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify