Chapter 10: Secrets Beneath the Library
The moment Lucian Crowhurst stepped into the grotto, the air turned to ice.
He was beautiful in the way a lightning strike was beautiful—all sharp angles and terrible radiance. Silver streaked through his jet-black hair like veins in marble, his features so similar to Selene's it made Evan's chest ache. But where Selene's eyes were stormcloud gray, Lucian's were voids that drank the candlelight.
"Ah." His voice slithered over Evan's skin. "The stormcaller who doesn't know he's a key."
Vera's vines lashed out—only to wither midair, crumbling to dust before they could touch him. Lucian didn't even glance her way.
Rowan fired another arrow. It passed clean through Lucian's chest without resistance.
"Now now," Lucian chided. "Let's not be uncivilized." He flicked his wrist. Rowan's crossbow dissolved into rust.
Evan's storm magic sparked uselessly in his veins. The dagger—still on the table—glowed brighter, its runes pulsing in time with his racing heart.
Lucian's smile widened. "Oh, she didn't tell you? How very like my sister." He stepped closer, the ground blackening underfoot. "That blade isn't a weapon, boy. It's an invitation."
The escape was a blur of panic.
Aria's smoke bombs provided cover as Isolde dragged Evan through the tunnels, her whispered spells clearing their path. Vera and Rowan brought up the rear, the former weaving living barriers that Lucian tore through like tissue paper.
They burst into the library's restricted archives—now in ruins from Evan's earlier fight with Mira. Books floated in agitated orbits, their pages fluttering like wounded birds.
Selene stood at the center of the chaos, her silver hair unbound. The moment she saw Evan, her face twisted with something like grief.
"You weren't supposed to wake him yet," she whispered.
Behind them, the walls trembled. Lucian's laughter echoed through the stones.
The Truth Came in Fragments
-The dagger was Selene's creation—a failsafe to destroy Lucian if the binding ever broke.
-It required a stormcaller's magic to activate.
-Using it would cost Evan his life.
"You knew," Evan choked out. "This whole time—"
Selene's hands were frigid against his cheeks. "I tried to spare you. But Caine grew impatient." Her thumbs brushed his tears. "The ritual was never about sustaining the binding. It was about sating Lucian's hunger so he wouldn't break free."
A crash shook the room. Books rained from the shelves.
"He's here," Isolde breathed.
Lucian Entered Like a Nightmare Given Form
His human guise had melted away, revealing the thing beneath—a swirling mass of darkness shot through with silver, his limbs elongating and retracting like shadows at sunset. The air around him warped, reality itself straining under his presence.
"Sweet sister," he crooned. "Still playing the martyr after all these years?"
Selene stepped forward, her own magic rising in a silver tide. "You were the one who chose power over family."
Lucian's laugh made the mirrors shatter. "And look where it got me." His void-like eyes locked onto Evan. "But this one... oh, this one tastes like potential."
Evan's fingers closed around the dagger. The moment he touched it, lightning arced up his arm, searing his veins blue.
Selene screamed his name.
Lucian lunged.
Evan plunged the dagger into his own chest.
The World Exploded in Light and Pain
For a heartbeat, Evan was the storm—every bolt that had ever split the sky, every tempest that had ever churned the sea. The magic tore through him, through Lucian, through the very foundations of Solstice Academy.
Somewhere in the maelstrom, he heard Selene weeping.
Somewhere, Isolde called his name.
Then—
Silence.
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