Atlantis Academy: The First Element

CHAPTER FORTY

Nephew or not, I don't understand why he's getting away with acting like this. Or why he gives a shit about me or the warrant.

The chancellor gives Dubois a stiff nod, and he hands the warrant over to Caelum.

My cheeks are flaming as he unfolds the parchment and quickly scans it.

"I didn't mean to do it." My voice comes out raspy, and I don't know why I'm defending myself to him. "She lured me to the beach. She tried to kill me first. It was self-defense."

Caelum meets my eyes, and I can't read his expression this time. "Well... the witness says it was... 'premeditated murder.'"

"There was no witness!" I yell.

Caelum blinks at me and glances back down at the paper. "Shannon. Margaret. Kelly. Says she saw everything."

My stomach hollows out, and I'm speechless.

Shannon freakin' Kelly. Does this mean she's a siren too?

It would make sense.

She made almost my entire short life a living hell, and now she's going to be responsible for my execution.

"She's lying!" I finally find my voice. "I swear to God—I didn't ask for any of this. It's a conspiracy!"

Caelum steps away from me and closer to the chancellor.

I try to whirl around to face Chloe, to beg her to help me one more time.

"Agent Dubois," the chancellor snaps. "Finish composing the obedience sigil and remove Miss Hart from the premises immediately."

"Yes, Your Excellency." He tightens his grip on me and shoves me down on my knees.

The chancellor and Caelum are staring at me like I'm psychotic, and as I blink back tears, my gaze slides past them to the desk beyond.

To the Aether.

It's louder than ever now. The same off-pitch, overwhelming song I heard in the Hall of Arrangement.

As I stare at it through my tears, the swirling smoke seems to move faster. Chaotically. Just like the thoughts and feelings swirling through me now like a storm.

"Please!" I cry out, my voice thick. "Shannon is a liar!"

I can't get any more words out. I can't even breathe.

I'm hyperventilating, tears streaming down my face.

The world's spinning around me, and darkness is threatening to destroy me.

I'm having a full-blown panic attack, and I don't know how to make it stop.

The magickal high-pitched ringing hits my ears again, out of tune with the singing Aether. Dubois is working on the sigil—I can hear it, even if I can't see the gold threads.

I close my eyes tightly, trying to breathe.

But I spiral deeper into the black hole instead.

It's inky, terrible, never-ending darkness.

It's everything that's ever been wrong in my life.

It's my entire life.

A box of awful memories.

A lifetime of pain.

The box is overflowing, and I'm drowning in it.

I'm four, and Mommy's been drinking all night.

The belt hits me through the covers, shocking me awake.

"Worthless piece of shit," she slurs.

I huddle beneath my sheet, sweating, crying, hyperventilating.

She never stops.

Again and again and again, the belt whips across the sheets, stings my body.

I'm suffocating.

But she won't stop.

The high-pitched ringing intensifies as Dubois completes his sigil, and something surges through my body, trying to take control of me.

I bite my lip, tasting blood, trying to resist the magick.

The chancellor thinks I'm weak and worthless.

Just like my mother did.

Amanda, staring at me through glassy blue eyes. Spidery blue-black veins crawling up her arm, wrapping around her pale throat.

Murderer.

Caelum and his icy stare. So full of disdain for me—no different than every other kid at school.

Shannon's years of torment.

All the cruelty stings worse than my mother's belt ever did.

Worthless.

Unlovable.

Trash.

I'm suffocating, drowning, crushed by the weight of seventeen years of pain and loneliness. I'm sobbing, wracked with grief over the life I wasted and the life I'll never have.

"Why isn't your sigil working?" The chancellor's shrill voice sounds so far away. "I'll handle this."

I open my eyes. The chancellor blurs before me, readying her own wand.

I focus on the Aether, still hovering and spinning a foot above her desk.

I listen.

I feel it.

It's singing its song, but it's not like nails on a chalkboard anymore. The melody's more like a beautiful stormy sea, churning through the air all around me, dancing in time with my own chaotic emotions and thoughts.

It's no longer grating. It's warm, vibrating, perfectly on-pitch.

Full of power.

It vibrates against my skin, against my eardrums, around my throbbing head.

I welcome it in.

It reverberates through all my cells, filling me up, wrapping me with comforting sound, soothing me.

My breathing begins to even out, and my vision clears.

The glass orb wobbles on its axis.

And it shoots five feet into the air above us.

Everyone gasps, except for me.

Tendrils of purple smoke escape the orb and snake through the air, crawling downward, toward all of us. They dance as if they're alive. As if they're searching for something.

Or someone.

I smile up at the orb, tasting my own tears.

The Aether's looking for me.

It will kill you. A voice whispers.

But I'm already dead if I don't find a way to escape my fate.

The power emanating from the Aether's too strong, too tempting.

If I want to be free, I have to embrace it.

So I do.