Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(45)

Monster and sword disappeared. The light came on, and the girl walked back to the wall without any fanfare, wiping her damp forehead.

“Have you been practicing those exercises I gave you between sessions?” Razeden asked her.

She nodded. “It’s just—it’s harder when I’m right in the moment.”

“More practice, and you’ll get there. It’s all a matter of training the mind.” He turned to me. “Well, Miss Bloodstone, let’s see how you fare your first time out.”

Oh, God. I forced myself to move into the middle of the room, wondering what embarrassing scenario the room would conjure out of my head. What if it threw an illusion of Malcolm at me? Or even the scion currently in the room? Jude would have a field day with that.

“Begin,” Razeden said.

The light went out, and suddenly I was surrounded by white. White tiles, white cabinets. And my mother, flung back against one of those cabinets as a dark shape just beyond my view slashed open her throat.

“No!” Not again.

I threw myself at her, pressing my hand against her neck. I had to be able to do something. I had magic—I was a fucking scion. I couldn’t just watch her die all over again.

But where my fingers touched her skin, it flayed open even wider. The blood gushed faster. Mom’s dulling eyes stared at me, horror twisting her expression.

I yanked my hand down with a gasp. It brushed her sternum, and her chest cracked open, ribs jutting up into the open air, more blood splattering my arms. I tasted a fleck of it in my mouth.

“No. No, no, no, no, no,” I mumbled. My heart was thudding so hard and fast I couldn’t make out anything else.

Professor Razeden’s voice reached me as if from miles away. “Take deep breaths. Steady yourself. You can handle this. It isn’t really happening. It isn’t real.”

“Yes, it fucking was,” I shouted back in a voice gone raw.

The surge of anger that came with that retort gave me something other than terror to hang on to. Fury at the assholes who’d slaughtered my parents, who’d dragged me to their university to fend for myself among these villains, who put their students through horrors like this.

I would not let them beat me. I would not.

A thump sounded at the other end of the room. Dad slumped over, innards spilling from the gouge in his chest. My rush of anger fell away beneath a cold surge of fear like a tidal wave.

I shoved myself away from Mom and ran to him. My feet skidded on the blood-slick tiles. I tumbled down next to him, my fingers grazing the side of his head and just like that smashing open his skull.

His face crumpled. Bits of bone and gray matter mashed together beneath my hand. My stomach heaved. A sob caught in my throat.

I wasn’t helping them—I was ravaging them even worse than the blacksuits had.

I crouched down, tucking my arms around my head to block out the sight. The sickly metallic scent of the blood filled my nose and mouth as I gulped for breath. Far away, someone was shouting at me, but the words all blurred together in the haze of my misery. A sound like a strangled whimper escaped my lips.

You killed them, a louder voice said, right inside my head. My voice. You killed them.

A hand touched my back, and I flinched. The next breath I drew in smelled only like damp basement air. The tiles beneath my feet were black again, and black walls loomed all around me. Not a speck of blood clung to my trembling arms.

Professor Razeden had bent down beside me. “The first few times, when you’re not used to it, can be very intense,” he said in a quiet, detached voice that offered neither sympathy nor judgment. “Now that I’ve seen what sort of scenario you may face, we can discuss strategies that should better prepare you to cope and rise above in the moment.”

He must have ended the illusion. I certainly hadn’t conquered my fear. I held there for a second longer, afraid to test my legs, and then straightened up shakily.

My throat stung when I swallowed. Had I been shouting—or screaming—more than I remembered?

When I blinked, I saw my parents’ distorted faces, and the blood—so much blood…

I avoided meeting my classmates’ eyes as I hurried back to the wall. Professor Razeden went to talk with the other guy before beginning his session. Jude sidled closer to me.

I tensed up, but the Killbrook scion’s comment came out oddly tentative. “You really did love them.”

He sounded… puzzled. My gaze jerked to him, but he wasn’t even looking at me, his attention focused on the middle of the room where he’d have watched me go through that horror.

The fearmancers really didn’t get it, did they? They had no concept of how the same people who in their minds had kidnapped and imprisoned me had also been the people I’d cared about most in the world. Had earned that love with all the love they’d shown me.

At least, it’d seemed like love at the time. All my memories were jumbled in the aftermath of that almost-memory.

“If you only just figured that out, maybe you’re not as smart as you like to think,” I said, but without much rancor.

His eyes flicked to me then. He studied me for a moment, so intently my skin started to itch. I couldn’t tell if he found what he was looking for. It was only that moment, and then another smirk slipped across his angular face.

“Had to get the teacher to bail you out of your own head,” he said, with a tsk of his tongue. “Doesn’t bode well for your academic success, now does it?”