Chapter 42: Whispers
I walked back to the dorm alone.
Kieran had vanished after we stepped out of the administrative building and he dropped the fact that Avelar was the first lycan king
I stood alone in the cold with only the weight of what we’d seen, and done, pressing down on my shoulders. It was strange. When I’d been with him, it was like he’d blocked the worst of it out. I hadn’t realized until now that even his presence could feel like a shield, whether he meant it to or not. But now that he was gone, everything came flooding back in brutal waves.
The moment I stepped into the feral dormitory, it hit me.
Grief. Guilt. The suffocating silence of absence. It clung to the walls, soaked into the air like blood that refused to wash off.
I dropped onto my bed, curling on my side. I wanted to sleep. I needed it. But the moment I shut my eyes, the faces came. Callum’s bloodied, terrified expression. The feral girl clutching torn Lycans’ uniform fabric. Adrian, shaking and furious, haunted by memories of a sister who reminded him of me.
I turned. Then turned again.
And again.
My mind wouldn’t shut up.
The list. Astrid’s list of the dead. Some were truly gone. But some, Selene Ashthorne, Elise, a few others, they were alive. So why were their names there? Was it a list of deaths past... or deaths planned?
And then... the secret room.
I sat up in bed, pressing my hands against my face. The carvings, the ancient scribbles, the strange symbols that whispered something long forgotten. I didn’t know the language, but the markings stirred something in my gut, like I should know them, like I was missing something.