The Truth

Isadora:

The scriptorium reeks of blood, sweat, and exhaustion.

Rhett slumps in the chair, smeared streaks of red across his skin. Kai hasn’t moved from my bed—his chest rising in shallow, feverish waves, shadows clinging beneath his eyes. Lucian kneels beside the girl he saved, using blood magic to heal her wound, his stare sharp enough to cut steel, though his hand is steady where it presses against her bleeding leg. And Silas—my Silas—is a trembling coil of shadows in the corner, his chest rising with a thousand unshed emotions, his eyes twin pools of obsidian fixed on me, I can hear the shadows screaming, he is living a nightmare right now.

They are all wrecked. Broken down to marrow.

And me?

I’m standing. Alive. My heart a drumbeat, my veins a furnace.

But the storm outside howls with things worse than nightmares. I hear banshees shriek, their cries slicing through the stone walls like knives. Minotaur hooves pound the cobblestones in the distance, shaking the ground beneath my boots. The air itself tastes like copper and ash.

The wards are gone. The school is open. And every dark thing that wanted in… is already here.

The boys want me safe. Trapped. Protected. But if I stay in here, in this tomb of ancient books and flickering candlelight, I’ll watch them all wither. One by one.

No.

I will not.

I’m the only one left who can fight.

“Isadora.” Silas’s voice cuts through the silence, sharp, aching. His shadows twitch across the floor like living veins. “Don’t.”

But I’m already at the door, pressing my palm to the cold iron handle. “You can’t stop me.”

“You don’t understand what you are,” he growls, pushing off the wall, the storm light flashing against his cheekbones, his mouth a hard, beautiful line.

I meet his gaze, unflinching. “No. But I have you four, and that's enough.”

And then I step into the night.

The courtyard is a battlefield.

Rain lashes down in sheets, soaking me instantly, plastering my hair to my skin. The gargoyles scream from the rooftops, their stone mouths gaping as they leap into the chaos below. A banshee spirals through the storm air, her cry tearing at my ears, splitting me open from the inside.

And still—I stand.

My magic claws at me, hungry. It knows what I need. What it craves.

So I give in.

I turn, just enough to catch the faint glow of the scriptorium’s windows. I can see them inside, watching. Always watching.

“Forgive me,” I whisper.

Then I reach.

First, Rhett.

The bond between us is a chain of fire, thrumming, pulling. I seize it with both hands, drag, and feel his strength surge into me. My limbs grow heavier, more solid. My heartbeat turns wolf-fast, wild, a predator’s rhythm. My skin burns hot as flame, my muscles harden as though carved from the storm itself.

The first monster comes barreling from the dark—an oni with skin like granite, tusks dripping blood. It swings for my head.

I catch its wrist. Snap.

Its bellow echoes across the courtyard as I drive my fist into its chest, Rhett’s feral strength spilling through me, bones shattering beneath my strike. It crumples, howling, before shadows devour it whole.

I breathe hard, tasting blood on the rain.

And then—Lucian.

His magic is colder. Sharper. It slides into my veins like a blade, and I moan before I can stop myself. Every nerve lights up, every thought turns to hunger. The world slows, tilts, becomes prey.

I move before I even think—faster than lightning, my senses sharpened to predatory edge. A banshee dives at me, mouth open in a scream, but I’m already there, my fingers gripping her pale throat, my nails slicing skin. Her cry chokes into silence.

The taste of her power lingers on my tongue like wine.

I could drown in this.

But I can’t stop now.

Next, Kai.

I reach for him, careful—he’s weak, barely holding on. But even the smallest thread of his light surges like dawn breaking through the storm. His magic flows into me in golden ribbons, searing away the blood-hunger, replacing it with brilliance.

The courtyard explodes in light. Radiance floods my skin, sparks from my fingertips. The banshees shriek and recoil, shadows scattering at the blaze. The rain itself seems to bend around me, catching in prisms of color.

But the beauty is dangerous. I feel myself burning at both ends, too much, too fast.

Kai’s power is purity. And I am anything but pure.

Still—I hold it.

I have to.

And finally… Silas.

The moment I reach for him, his shadows crash into me like a tide, thick and suffocating. They wrap around my heart, coil down my spine, choke my lungs until I can’t breathe. For a moment, I almost drown in him.

But then—I understand.

The shadows aren’t meant to protect. They’re meant to consume.

And I let them.

Darkness slides into my skin, my bones, my blood. It makes me untouchable, invisible, a phantom stitched together by hunger and grief. I flicker through the courtyard like a wraith, here one moment, gone the next, slicing through monsters with claws made of pure night.

The banshees wail. The oni fall. Even the gargoyles hesitate, their stone claws trembling.

I am no longer human.

I am something worse.

And gods, it feels good.

Every strike, every kill, feeds me. My chest heaves with ecstasy and terror, my mouth curling into something close to a smile. The rain tastes sweet on my lips, the lightning bends to me, the storm sings my name.

Behind me, through the window, I see them—Rhett half out of his chair, Silas gripping the wall, Lucian’s crimson eyes wide, Kai pale as a ghost. Watching me.

Watching what I’ve become.

Their strength. Their hunger. Their shadows.

All of it. All of them. All inside me.

And I realize the truth.

I am not fighting for them. I am fighting with them. Through them. Because of them.

The prophecy whispers at the edges of my mind, curling like smoke. Devourer. Tamer. Destroyer.

Maybe they’re right to fear me.

Because tonight, as the monsters fall one by one beneath my hands, I don’t feel afraid. I feel alive.

I will protect them, even if it means becoming the very thing the shadows claim I am.

Even if it means the prophecy is true.

The last banshee crumples, her scream tapering into silence, and I stand in the middle of the courtyard, chest heaving, blood and rain washing down my arms.

The storm howls, but the monsters are gone.

And when I finally turn back to the window, the boys are still staring.

Not at the monsters.

At me.

At what I’ve become.

At the truth they can no longer ignore.