Chapter 34: Touch of Madness

Chapter 34: Touch of Madness

The world returned in fragments.

First came the pain—white-hot filaments of agony threading through Evan's veins, pulsing in time with his sluggish heartbeat. Then the scents: burning herbs, damp earth, and the metallic tang of fresh blood. Finally, the voices, distorted as though heard through water.

"—can't stabilize him! The venom's—"

"—oathbond might be the only—"

"—need to act now—"

Evan forced his eyes open. The ceiling of the greenhouse swam into focus, its glass panels cracked and fogged with condensation. Someone had propped him against the moss-covered wall, his injured arm bound tightly to his chest with strips of cloth. The bandages were already soaked through with something dark—not blood, but the inky residue of the rose's poison.

Selene crouched before him, her silver eyes blazing. The corruption had spread further since the garden; black veins now framed both eyes like a grotesque mask. She held his dagger in one hand and a smoldering bundle of herbs in the other.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice cutting through the fog in his mind. "The poison is binding to your magic. If we don't purge it—"

A convulsion wracked Evan's body. His back arched off the ground as fire flooded his nervous system. The pain was beyond anything he'd ever experienced—as though his bones were being remade from the inside out.

Through the haze, he saw Isolde rush forward, her hands glowing with pale blue light. "Hold him down!"

Strong hands pinned his shoulders—Rowan, his earth-brown eyes dark with concern. Aria appeared at Evan's other side, her knives forgotten for once as she gripped his wrist.

Isolde pressed her hands to Evan's chest, directly over the oathbond scar. The blue light flared, sinking into his flesh like ice water. For a blessed moment, the pain receded.

Then the visions began.

Evan stood in a ruined throne room.

The vaulted ceiling had collapsed in places, allowing shafts of sickly green light to pierce the gloom. At the center of the chamber, atop a dais of broken stone, sat a figure in a chair woven from thorned vines.

Selene.

But not as he knew her. This Selene wore a crown of blackened silver, her eyes twin pools of endless void. The corruption had consumed her entirely—her pale skin now mapped with pulsing veins of darkness, her hair turned the color of fresh-spilled ink.

At her feet knelt Lucian, his head bowed in apparent submission.

"You see?" the vision-Selene purred, her voice layered with countless others. "This was always our destiny."

Evan tried to speak, but his throat had sealed shut.

She rose, her gown of living shadow rippling. "The Vessel must be fed. The cycle must continue." A cold finger traced Evan's jaw. "Unless you break it."

The scene shifted.

Now he stood in the academy's grand hall, surrounded by familiar faces. Aria, her knives broken. Rowan, his massive frame bent under invisible chains. Isolde, her eyes completely silver now, her mouth moving in silent pleading.

And himself—kneeling before the throne, a collar of thorns around his neck.

The vision-Selene leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. "This is the future you fight for. This is the future you lose."

Evan gasped back to awareness, his body drenched in sweat. The greenhouse air burned his lungs as he gulped it down.

Selene still knelt before him, but her expression had changed. She'd seen it too—the vision had traveled through the oathbond. Her hands trembled around the dagger.

Isolde sat back on her heels, her blue light flickering out. "The poison is... different this time. It's not just attacking your body. It's targeting your magic at the source."

Rowan's grip on Evan's shoulders tightened. "Can you fix him?"

"I don't know." Isolde removed her cracked glasses, rubbing her eyes. The silver flecks had spread further, nearly obscuring her pupils. "But I think I know someone who can."

Aria scoffed. "Unless you've got a friendly necromancer tucked away—"

"Not a necromancer." Isolde met Evan's gaze. "A Crowhurst."

Silence fell.

Selene went rigid. "Absolutely not."

"You saw what I saw," Evan croaked, his voice raw. "If Lucian knows how to stop this—"

"He's the one who started it!" Selene's dagger clattered to the floor as she surged to her feet. "Every death, every corrupted spell, every drop of poison in your veins leads back to him!"

Isolde stood slowly, her movements deliberate. "And that's exactly why he can help. He understands the mechanism because he built it."

The argument might have continued if not for the explosion.

The greenhouse windows shattered inward as a fireball struck the outer wall. Heat and debris washed over them—Rowan moved instinctively, his terramancy raising an earthen shield just in time.

Through the flames, figures emerged.

Faculty members, their eyes blank, their movements synchronized like marionettes on strings. At their head stood Professor Halric, his normally kind face slack, his hands wreathed in unnatural fire.

"Evan Drayce," the professor intoned, his voice layered with something deeper, darker. "By order of the Headmaster, you are summoned."

Aria's knives were in her hands before he finished speaking. "Yeah, that's not happening."

Selene grabbed Evan's arm, hauling him upright. The movement sent fresh agony through his poisoned limb, but he bit back a scream.

"run," she whispered. "Now."

Isolde didn't move. "Go. I'll hold them off."

Evan reached for her. "Isolde—"

She smiled, just a little. "I owe you this much." Before anyone could stop her, she ripped a page from the stolen spellbook and pressed it to her chest.

The explosion of blue light blinded them all.

When Evan's vision cleared, Isolde stood transformed—her hair floating as if underwater, her entire body wreathed in crackling energy. The faculty puppets hesitated.

"GO!" she screamed.

They ran.

Through the shattered greenhouse, into the academy's deeper tunnels, Evan spared one last glance over his shoulder. Isolde's light burned like a star in the dark, silhouetted against the advancing horde.

Then the tunnel turned, and she was gone.