Library
Maghanap
Home / Paranormal / ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR / Chapter Ten – Malachai’s Test

Share

Chapter Ten – Malachai’s Test

Author: Phillix
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-10-18 22:22:30

The summons arrived at dusk.

This time, it wasn’t a letter. A student messenger simply appeared at Lyra’s door, head bowed, voice trembling.

“North Tower. At sunset. Bring nothing.”

She barely had time to breathe before she was walking again — through the narrow, spiraling halls, past portraits whose painted eyes seemed to follow her. The North Tower was the oldest part of Blackthorne, built before the Academy had walls or rules. No one went there willingly.

By the time she reached the door, the last light of day had faded.

Malachai stood waiting.

He looked almost spectral in the dying glow — white-blond hair catching the last strands of light, eyes like chipped ice. He didn’t greet her. He just turned and opened the door, motioning her inside.

The room beyond was silent. Circular. Its walls were carved with runes that pulsed faintly under the torchlight. There were no weapons here, no desks — only an obsidian floor that mirrored the ceiling.

” This is the Chamber of Focus,” Malachai said finally. His voice carried no emotion, but the air vibrated with something old and restrained. “Used for testing cognitive control. The Council wants to see if your power is instinct or discipline.”

Lyra’s heart thudded. “And if it’s instinct?”

His eyes met hers. “Then it’s dangerous.”

He gestured toward the center of the room. “Sit.”

She obeyed, lowering herself until she sat cross-legged on the cold stone. Malachai stayed standing for a moment, studying her as if she were a complex equation only he could solve. Then, without warning, he sat opposite her — their knees almost touching.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

Her pulse spiked. “Is this another trust exercise?”

“No.” His tone was flat. “It’s survival.”

Lyra hesitated but obeyed.

The silence stretched.

Then — a voice, low and quiet — slipped into her mind.

Don’t speak. Just listen.

Her breath caught. The voice wasn’t hers. It wasn’t sound at all. It was Malachai.

She could feel him — not physically, but somewhere deeper, a thread of thought brushing hers.

You’re in my head, she whispered, startled.

Yes, his mental tone replied, calm and measured. That’s the point. The First Blood’s power starts here — command begins in thought before it becomes sound.

The pulse of her mark stirred faintly.

Now, he continued, I’ll press. You resist.

Before she could ask what that meant, her mind filled with pressure — a wave of cold, pushing, probing. Memories flickered unbidden: her mother’s voice, the red moon, Cassian’s hand reaching toward her in the dark.

“Stop,” she gasped.

Resist, his voice ordered.

The pressure deepened, swirling into her chest, her thoughts scattering like leaves in wind. She pushed back instinctively, a surge of warmth bursting from her palms.

The runes on the walls flared.

Malachai’s eyes snapped open — and for a heartbeat, so did hers.

The chamber filled with light, silver and blue intertwining. Energy threaded between them, fine and alive, forming a lattice of light. She could see his pulse in it — steady, controlled — and her own, erratic, fighting to keep up.

“Focus,” he said aloud now, breath shallow. “You’re bleeding power.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was sharper now. “You did it before. With Cassian.

Her chest heaved. “That wasn’t control. That was chaos.”

Malachai’s gaze didn’t waver. “Then let’s turn chaos into command.”

He reached forward, taking her wrist — and the moment he touched her, the mark burned bright. A shockwave rippled through the chamber, cracking one of the runes on the wall.

Lyra gasped. “Malachai—”

His expression barely changed, but his grip tightened. “Stay with me.”

The pressure inside her head shifted. Not crushing now — guiding. His energy moved with surgical precision, threading through her scattered thoughts, aligning them one by one. The mark pulsed slower. Steadier.

Then something else stirred — not power, but memory.

Her mother. Standing beneath the same red moon. A circle of Alphas kneeling before her. And behind her—

Malachai.

No — not him exactly. But someone who looked like him. Same eyes. Same cold fire.

The vision shattered.

Lyra jerked back, ripping her hand free. “What was that?”

Malachai’s chest rose and fell too fast. “You saw it.”

“What was it?” she demanded. “Why did I see you?”

He didn’t answer. His expression was blank, but his voice had dropped lower, more human. “You weren’t supposed to go that far.”

Lyra’s hands trembled. “That wasn’t my imagination.”

“No,” he admitted. “It wasn’t.”

The air in the chamber felt colder.

Malachai stood, brushing imaginary dust from his coat. “Your control is improving. Barely. But the Council will call that progress.”

“That’s it?” she snapped, rising to her feet. “You pull me into my head, make me see—whatever that was—and then you just—”

He turned to her, eyes flickering with something unguarded. “If I tell you what you saw, you’ll wish I hadn’t.”

Lyra’s throat tightened. “Try me.”

For the first time, his mask cracked. “The man you saw wasn’t me. It was my ancestor — the first Frost Alpha to kneel before the First Blood.”

She froze.

“He swore the Frost line would always serve the First when she returned,” Malachai continued. “That blood oath passes through every generation.” His gaze darkened. “So, yes, Lyra. My blood already belongs to you.”

Her breath hitched.

“But don’t mistake that for loyalty.”

He turned toward the door, pausing only once more. “The Council won’t understand what’s awakening in you. Vale will try to hide it. Ronan will try to fight it. Cassian will joke until he bleeds.”

He looked back at her. “But me?” His lips curved faintly. “I’ll watch.”

And then he was gone, leaving the chamber humming faintly with residual light.

Lyra stood alone, her reflection trembling in the obsidian floor. The mark on her palm pulsed once — softly, almost like a heartbeat — before fading back into silence.

But the last image burned behind her eyes.

Her mother.

The kneeling Alphas.

And the Frost man’s voice whispering, She will return through fire and shadow.

Lyra pressed a shaking hand to her chest.

If Malachai’s blood truly belonged to her…

what did that make her now?

Patuloy na basahin ang aklat na ito nang libre
I-scan ang code upang i-download ang App
Nakaraang Kabanata Susunod na kabanata

Pinakabagong kabanata

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter Eleven – Ronan’s Test.

    The dawn after Malachai’s test bled gray and cold across the Academy grounds. The courtyard, once a battlefield of whispers and crimson echoes, now seemed too still—as if the stones themselves were holding their breath.Lyra hadn’t slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Malachai’s expression just before he’d walked away—the faint crack in his composure, the truth that lingered behind his warning.My blood already belongs to you.The words refused to fade.By the time she reached the training grounds that morning, her pulse was already unsteady. The message summoning her had been brief: “South Arena. Noon. Bring your focus.”Ronan was waiting.He stood in the center of the arena, stripped of his uniform coat, sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hair was damp from the mist, his expression set in that familiar line of command. He looked less like a mentor, more like judgment made flesh.“You’re late,” he said without turning.“I didn’t know it was a crime to breathe before a fig

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter Ten – Malachai’s Test

    The summons arrived at dusk. This time, it wasn’t a letter. A student messenger simply appeared at Lyra’s door, head bowed, voice trembling. “North Tower. At sunset. Bring nothing.”She barely had time to breathe before she was walking again — through the narrow, spiraling halls, past portraits whose painted eyes seemed to follow her. The North Tower was the oldest part of Blackthorne, built before the Academy had walls or rules. No one went there willingly. By the time she reached the door, the last light of day had faded.Malachai stood waiting.He looked almost spectral in the dying glow — white-blond hair catching the last strands of light, eyes like chipped ice. He didn’t greet her. He just turned and opened the door, motioning her inside.The room beyond was silent. Circular. Its walls were carved with runes that pulsed faintly under the torchlight. There were no weapons here, no desks — only an obsidian floor that mirrored the ceiling.” This is the Chamber of Focus,” Mal

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter One – The Iron Gates

    The first thing I noticed about Blackthorne Academy was that the air felt wrong.Not heavy, not sharp—just wrong. Like it had been scrubbed clean of warmth and left with a faint metallic tang that clung to my tongue. The gates stood taller than any school entrance I’d ever seen, black iron twisted into wolf shapes that bared their teeth at me. Ivy crawled up the stone walls, strangling what little life dared grow here. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled once, low and final, like the sound of a coffin lid closing.“Charming,” I muttered, hugging my bag tighter.The cab that had dropped me off was already gone, its taillights swallowed by the winding road. I was alone. Or at least, I thought I was—until a whisper skated across the back of my neck.She doesn’t belong here.I spun, but no one was there. Just shadows, stretching too long in the fading afternoon light.“Senior year,” I told myself, forcing my sneakers forward through the gates. “Survive senior year, graduate, get the

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter Two – The Red Moon Rules

    I woke up to the sound of bells.Not the sharp kind that jolts you awake, but low and heavy, as though they’d been rung underwater. The sound rolled through the stone walls, vibrating faintly in my chest.The morning light crept weakly through my window, muted and gray, while a faint mist outside blurred the trees into shadowy outlines. My body felt heavy, like I’d been pinned down by strange dreams I couldn’t quite remember.I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes.“New day,” I whispered to myself, voice cracking a little. “Just a school. Just classes.”If I kept saying it, maybe I’d start believing it.***The main hall smelled of wax and damp stone, the kind of cold scent that clung to the back of your throat. Candles lined the walls in tall iron holders, dripping slowly, their flames bending as though someone was breathing over them.Students moved in groups, their footsteps echoing across the floor. I felt every glance flicked my way. Not long enough to be polite, not long enough to

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter Three – Whispers in the Dark

    The order in my head didn’t let me sleep.I lay stiff in bed, staring at the ceiling. My chest rose and fell too fast, lungs refusing to slow. Outside, the howls came in waves, circling closer, pulling something deep inside me tighter and tighter.And then, the bell rang.Not the morning kind. Not the deep underwater chime.This was sharp. Urgent. Final.The dorm doors rattled as footsteps thundered down the hall. A voice carried, clipped and strict.“Red Moon protocol! Everyone inside. No exceptions.”Red Moon.The words were enough to make the air in the hall thicken. My roommate—some silent girl who hadn’t spoken a single word to me since I arrived—snapped her shutters closed, crawled under her blanket, and pressed her hands over her ears.“Wait,” I whispered. “What’s going on?”She didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at me.More voices outside. Orders. Boots striking the stone. And then, one by one, the dorm doors slammed shut.I stood by my own door, hand hovering over the lock. My p

  • ALPHA ACADEMY:MARKED BY FOUR   Chapter Four – The Forbidden Library

    The whispers didn’t die. By the next day, they were louder, hungrier, like a fire licking higher every time I walked past. Every corner I turned, voices broke off into silence, eyes cutting into me like knives. I was a rumor now, walking proof of something none of them wanted to name. Legacy. Power. Wrong. The words tangled in the air, unspoken but sharp. I clutched my books tighter, kept my eyes on the ground, tried to breathe past the weight pressing down. “You know,” a smooth voice cut through, “the more you hunch like that, the more they’ll eat you alive.” I stopped dead. Cassian leaned lazily against the stone archway leading out of the hall, golden hair catching the lantern light, grin sharp enough to slice. He flicked a coin between his fingers like he had all the time in the world. I tightened my grip on my books. “What do you want?” “Want?” He pushed off the wall, falling into step beside me with too much ease. “Sweetheart, if I wanted anything, you’d already know. I

Higit pang Kabanata

Maaari mong magustuhan

Galugarin at basahin ang magagandang nobela
Libreng basahin ang magagandang nobela sa GoodNovel app. I-download ang mga librong gusto mo at basahin kahit saan at anumang oras.
Libreng basahin ang mga aklat sa app
I-scan ang code para mabasa sa App
DMCA.com Protection Status