“You did.” She grimaces. “That better be your fucking sword, Marshal.”
I hear a chuckle and the relief of weight as the knight lifts his body off of Hildi’s. A moment later Hildi is pulled off of me.
I roll over and search for Elizabeth.
“Are you okay?” I ask the fairy, but she’s already leapt off the ground, wrapping her arms around the Valkyrie. Marshal catches my eye and nods his thanks. He’s pale, but alive.
There’s no time for celebration as the building takes a heaving, deep sigh.
“What the hell was that?” Hildi asks, eyes wide.
“The Academy is falling,” Elizabeth replies.
“Something happened when the temple opened.” My explanation is cut off by a massive, floor-shifting earthquake. “We have to go—now.”
Hildi searches the room behind me, eyes darting around. “Where is the Legion?”
“They went into the Temple when the gate opened. Armin left us here to find you.”
“They left? All three of them?” She doesn’t try to hide the fear in her voice.
“They had to,” Marshal says. “The apocalypse was starting.”
“But we’re supposed to do this together.”
He holds her eye. “We’ll find them.”
Another shudder, this one bigger than the last. So strong the painting—the portal—falls from the wall and the canvas rips.
Hildi stares at the painting and swallows thickly before asking, “Where do we go?”
“To the temple,” I tell her, “from there, we can find the others.”
“Do you know how to find them?”
I don’t answer and lead the way into the hallway. I hear the footsteps of the others as we race down the narrow corridor. At the stairs, I turn, steps trembling under my feet, clumps of rock falling from the ceiling. If Hildi was unsure about the urgency of our situation, she isn’t now, keeping up with me as we run down the main hall. Dead bodies litter the floor, our former classmates that lost their lives as the gates began to open. I jump over a shifter from my Theory class, and step on the hair of a girl that flirted with me in the dining hall. I shore up my nerve and go straight to the staircase that leads to the door we’d opened once before. The one that leads to the Abyss. Right here is where I picked sides.
I’m at the open doorway when I hear a massive rumbling and the air fills with dust. Glancing back, past Elizabeth and HIldi, just beyond Marshal, I see the exit has caved in. There’s only one option now.
“Luke!” Hildi shouts even though we’re feet apart. “Do you know how to find them?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t.”
She swallows again, and nods, fear briefly flickering in her eyes. It’s gone a second later, and she pushes past me to run down the curved stairs. The gate that she’d fought so hard to keep closed is wide open, the black inky cold of the abyss seeping into the stairwell.
The temple is just beyond.
“Are you ready?” she asks, looking over her shoulder. I sense Marshal and Elizabeth behind me; I don’t know if they nod or even acknowledge her. We’re not in a place to make a decision, there’s only one option. The Academy is falling. There’s only war and destruction ahead.
“I hated this place,” she says, hand on her blade. “I came here prepared for a fight, honestly, to die. It ended up being something different—a twisted game with rules I didn’t understand. I’m not a kid, I sure as hell didn’t want to be a student. Roland is a pathetic dirtbag. Victorine
is a monster and they tried everything they could to bring me down, to bring us down.” She looks at me and Elizabeth. “I had no idea I’d find new allies, friends, and that was worth it.”
With a deep breath, Hildi faces forward and does the one thing I know she never wanted to have to do. She crosses the threshold of the gate, and we follow her into the Abyss, leaving the Academy behind.
5
Hildi