I screamed, louder, rawer, and more broken than I had ever thought my voice could reach, certain that my hands were gone forever. Certain the axe had cleaved straight through bone and flesh, severing them clean at the wrists.
But they weren't.
My hands were still there. Intact. Still cruelly bound in the same blood-soaked ropes that had cut deep into my skin for hours. The warm, sticky liquid spreading across the stone beneath me… wasn't mine.
It belonged to the boy who had charged forward so eagerly to free me.
He lay sprawled on the courtyard floor only a few feet away, unmoving. Eyes wide and glassy. Chest perfectly still. A single, brutal gash across his torso where his own uncontrolled power had backfired catastrophically the moment he touched the ropes. Blood pooled beneath him in a dark, glistening circle that slowly crept toward my bare knees.
"Something is wrong," I whispered, my voice trembling so violently it barely carried. I looked desperately toward the people I had assumed were the professors, the ones in charge. Surely this wasn't part of the plan. Surely this level of casual slaughter hadn't been intended. "This… this can't be right."
But it was Irene who answered first, her tone maddeningly light and conversational, as though she were discussing a minor scheduling error.
"Oh," she said with a small, almost amused tilt of her head, "we forgot to inform you. If you attempt to untie her and fail… you still die."
What the hell is wrong with these people?
The question screamed inside my skull, loud and frantic.
Angry murmurs rippled through the courtyard like a gathering storm. Shock. Fear. Disbelief. Students shifted uneasily, shoulders bumping, voices rising in fragmented protests.
"That's not fair," someone called out loudly, giving voice to what everyone else was clearly thinking.
I turned to Ysara, my chest so tight I could hardly draw breath. In that single moment I took back every kind thought I had ever spared her. She wasn't gentle. She wasn't kind. No truly kind person could stand by and watch a boy die right in front of her without so much as a flicker of remorse crossing her face.
Hesitation now spread visibly through the crowd. No one rushed forward again. No one wanted to be the next body cooling on the stone.
"Coming out or not," one of the male instructors said coldly, arms folded across his chest, "means death. Choose quickly."
That was when I saw another student step forward.
Unlike the first boy, who had charged in with reckless speed, this one moved slowly, deliberately, as though each step required careful calculation. As though he was giving himself time to reconsider, to breathe, to make peace with whatever fate waited for him. His face was calm, almost serene, the kind of calm that came from someone who believed life should be approached with quiet dignity rather than frantic desperation.
He stopped directly in front of me.
I searched his face, my own voice trembling. "Are you sure?" I asked, barely more than a broken whisper. "Please… you don't have to do this."
He didn't answer.
Instead, his lips moved in silent, rapid formation, whispering words only he could hear. A spell, perhaps. A prayer. Something arcane.
A witch, I guessed.
But the instant his fingertips brushed the rope binding my wrists, his entire body stiffened as though struck by lightning. His eyes widened in sudden, silent agony. Then he collapsed instantly, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
Just like that... he was gone too.
A broken, animal sound tore from my throat. Despite the restraints cutting into me, I dropped to my knees, leaning desperately toward him, trying uselessly to check if he was still breathing, if there was even the faintest spark of life left.
"What is wrong with you people?" I cried out, voice cracking with raw horror. "You're killing them! Can't you just untie me yourselves? Or...or just let me go... please!"
My words echoed uselessly across the vast courtyard, bouncing off the high stone walls and arched colonnades. No one answered. No one even looked at me directly. Their eyes were fixed on the two bodies now lying on the blood-slicked stone, or on the instructors, or on their own trembling hands.
Then another scream ripped through the air.
A girl stumbled forward from the edge of the crowd, clutching her stomach with both hands. She coughed violently, wet, choking sounds, as she collapsed to the ground. She hadn't even come close enough to touch the ropes. She must have tried from where she stood, channeling whatever weak ability she possessed in a desperate, long-range attempt.
She didn't die instantly like the first two, but her face had gone deathly pale, her body trembling uncontrollably. Weak. Fragile.
Human.
Altheris Academy only accepted humans with special abilities, and whatever hers was, it clearly hadn't been strong enough to survive the backlash.
I could do nothing but watch, helpless and horrified, as she struggled for every shallow breath, her fingers clawing weakly at the stone.
Powerless.
She had been braver than me. I knew, deep down, that I wouldn't have dared tried.
Because more than anything else....
I cherished my own life.
Tears streamed freely down my face now, hot and relentless, blurring the entire courtyard into a smeared watercolor of horror. I was sure my hair looked like an absolute disaster, wild, damp from the earlier bucket of water, strands clinging to my tear-streaked cheeks and neck, but what use was beauty in a moment like this? Beauty couldn't save lives. It couldn't stop death from unfolding right in front of me like some grotesque theater performance staged for the amusement of cruel gods.
I could only pray, silently, desperately, that at least one person in this crowd would prove strong enough, skilled enough, to untie me without triggering the deadly curse woven into the ropes.
Or maybe… maybe I should stop this altogether.
The thought slammed into me with such force that my chest physically ached. I couldn't keep watching innocent people die because of me while I stood here, helpless, bound, useless. I couldn't endure it any longer.
"I don't want to be untied anymore," I said aloud, my voice breaking as I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. "Please… just stop. I'll stay bound. I don't care. Just stop killing them."
A part of my mind screamed that I was being stupid. Of course I wanted to be free. I wanted it more than air. But not like this. Not at the cost of so many young lives thrown away so casually.
Then a voice... cold, sharp, and unmistakably authoritative... cut through the rising chaos like a blade.
"Ashriel. Get back."
The professor who had remained almost entirely silent until now finally spoke. His tone was stern enough to make my eyes snap open instantly, heart hammering.
That was when I saw him.
Ashriel....
He had jet-black shoulder length hair, slightly untamed, with a few rebellious strands falling carelessly across his forehead. His skin was pale, almost luminous under the courtyard's filtered sunlight, and the transparent white lenses of his glasses did nothing to conceal the piercing intensity of the eyes behind them, sharp, calculating, far too old for someone who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me. His features were strikingly defined: high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and a seriousness that made him look both older and infinitely more dangerous than any student around him. There was something tightly restrained about him, like raw power coiled just beneath the surface, ready to unleash at any moment. A dark tattoo peeked from beneath the sleeve of his uniform on his left forearm, adding to the aura of quiet menace.
If I weren't standing on the razor's edge of death and horror, I would have taken a long moment—no, an hour or more, to truly appreciate how unfairly, devastatingly beautiful he was.
But this wasn't the time.
From the way the professor had barked his name, it was obvious: Ashriel mattered to him. He was someone worth protecting. Someone whose survival was not to be risked lightly.
Yet Ashriel ignored the warning completely, just as the professors had ignored every cry and plea before it. He walked toward me without hesitation, stride steady and unhurried, as though the two corpses already cooling on the stone held no warning for him at all.
"Don't do this," I begged, shaking my head frantically, voice cracking with desperation. "You don't have to. I'm ready to stay bound for life... I swear it. Please. Just go back."
I kept repeating the words like a desperate chant, as though sheer repetition alone could stop him, could turn him around, could save him from the same fate that had claimed the others.
Then he looked at me.
Just once.
Directly.
"You're too noisy," he said calmly.
And I fell silent.
His voice was deep. Low. Unreasonably steady, like still water hiding dangerous currents beneath.
Oh, Mother Goddess…
Was I really being seduced at the face of death?