All Chapters of Ashwyck Academy for the Damned: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Isadora:For a moment, we all clung together in cruel, dreadful silence.I was sitting on the edge of my bed, heart full of love and ache, when the sound split the world apart. It was a low, resonant groan—stone splitting from stone, deep beneath the bones of the Academy.At first, I thought it was thunder. But thunder doesn’t make the earth bleed.I crossed to the window just as the courtyard below convulsed. Statues crumbled, spyres pitched downward into the abyss as the marble courtyard fractured like glass beneath a hammer. Then the center caved in—slowly, monstrously—and the world below revealed its teeth.Hell.The sinkhole wasn’t just a tear in the earth; it was a wound that bled fire. The air turned to ash, the scent of sulfur crawling up the stone walls. And from the depths—black shapes writhed. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Crawling over each other in a grotesque tide of claws, wings, and eyes that gleamed with feral light.Maldric’s army.They had been waiting beneath

Rhett:The storm had been gnawing on, tearing at the stone like it wanted inside. Every crash of thunder rattled the windows of Ashwyck, shaking loose bits of soot and centuries-old dust. And in the middle of it—her.Isadora.Unconscious. Fragile as glass and still somehow divine.Her body was limp in my arms, head tucked against my chest like something precious, something forbidden. The tips of my fingers trembled where they brushed her jawline—cold and pale, lips bloodless, but her pulse… faint and stubborn, like a flame refusing to die.I should have been relieved. I wasn’t.Because even now, even broken and drained, she radiated. Magic poured off her in whispers, soft flickers of gold and shadow dancing across her skin. Her lashes fluttered, as if she were dreaming something terrible—something she’d seen in that abyss below the courtyard.The sinkhole had sealed, the ground stitched by her will alone, but the price… gods, the price was carved into her veins.Lucian knelt beside

Lucien:The scriptorium reeks of blood and damp parchment. The scent clings to my skin like a sin. Rhett and Kai sleep in separate chairs, both half-dead from exhaustion. Silas leans against the wall, arms folded, his face carved from marble, eyes shut but not resting. None of us really sleep anymore, not really. Not since the pit.And her—Isadora lies motionless on the bed, her body small beneath the heavy blankets, her hair spilling over the pillow in black silk tangles. Her chest rises and falls, slow, fragile, unsteady. But she’s alive. Barely.I should be grateful for that.I’m not.I hate this. I hate her. I hate that she keeps surviving only to die again tomorrow.And I hate that I love her for it.My hands are still stained red from the forest. The blood won’t wash away. Not hers, not mine. The pact we forged still burns beneath my skin—a promise sealed in marrow and fire. If she falls, I fall. Her death will summon mine. I carved the oath into my arm that night, deep enough

Isadora:The storm hadn’t stopped.It never did anymore.Ashwyck’s sky bled black rain, hammering against the windows like a curse that refused to die. The candlelight in the scriptorium flickered beneath it, warping the boys’ shadows across the walls—long, distorted, like spirits clawing at the edges of sanity.The air was thick with exhaustion and smoke. Spells that had sealed the courtyard still hummed faintly in the floor, threads of magic tangled with grief and devotion. The scent of blood and ash clung to everything. Even now, the walls wept with it.And in the middle of it all—me.Alive. Barely.My body trembled as I pushed myself upright, the blanket falling from my shoulders. My pulse was erratic, magic coiling in my veins like a live wire. For a moment, I wasn’t sure where I ended and the power began.Rhett was the first to move. He’d fallen asleep sitting on the chair beside me, head tilted against the edge of the bed. His eyes opened slowly—warm, haunted. Relief crashed th

Isadora:I took one last look at the boys, so soft and warm in slumber, then I ventured out into the halls. The corridors of Ashwyck Academy had never felt so… hollow. Each step echoed like a death knell, swallowed by shadows that twisted in corners like living things. My candlelight flickered along the walls, but the light seemed fragile, trembling, as if they feared what walked with it.The storm had passed—or at least, the wind had stilled—but a low hum lingered, almost mechanical in its persistence. I could feel it in my bones, a pulse from deep below, a heartbeat of the academy itself. The wards were competely shattered; I knew it because the magic that usually guarded the halls throbbed weakly, like a dying pulse, and I sensed Maldric’s essence slithering through the cracks in the stones.I pressed my palm to the cold brick of the wall, seeking guidance from the stones. My fingertips tingled with static; the broken spells spoke in whispers too faint for anyone but me. “He waits,