Chapter 55 Fifty-four
Chapter 55 Fifty-four
CHAPTER 54
“THE WHISPER BENEATH THE MOON ”
The world outside Clara’s window shimmered with faint red light.
Not bright. Not like fire.
But low, pulsing, alive, like the heartbeat of something vast and watching.
It had been that way since the Blood Moon rose again. The whole academy pretended not to notice, but Clara could feel it, in the way the candles flickered off-beat, in how the air seemed to tremble before dawn. Even the clocks hesitated, seconds dragging like the sky itself was holding its breath.
And deep down, she knew why.
Because Iria was at the center of it.
She always was.
Clara sat at her desk, ink staining her fingertips, a quill trembling just slightly in her hand. She had been trying to write a report, something meaningless for one of her tutors, but her thoughts kept circling back to the same point, the same face.
Iria.
Perfect, powerful Iria.
Even now, Clara could still see the faint glow that sometimes pulsed under Iria’s skin when she thought no one was looking. That shimmer that made everyone else whisper about destiny, prophecy, purity as though Iria was some chosen savior and not the girl who had everything handed to her by accident of fate.
Clara pressed her quill harder.
Ink splattered.
She didn’t wipe it.
The knock came soft.
Two beats. A pause. Then one.
The code she’d been taught.
Her pulse skipped. She stood, moving carefully to the door, and opened it just wide enough for the folded note to slide through.
No face. No sound. Just paper, sealed with wax the color of dark wine, Kael’s seal.
Her breath trembled as she unsealed it.
Inside, the message was short.
> “The surge has begun.
Find out what triggers it.
Bring me proof before the moon wanes.”
And below that, drawn in faint silver ink, was his mark: a crescent slicing through a circle, like a wound in the world.
Her hands went cold.
The Blood Moon. Iria’s power. Kael’s interest.
All pieces of the same dark puzzle, and somehow, she was caught between them.
Kael’s voice whispered in her memory, low and deliberate, from their last meeting at the ruined watchtower:
> “I don’t need her destroyed, Clara. Not yet. I need her revealed.
Find her weakness. Bring it into the light. The rest will follow naturally.”
She remembered the way his eyes had glowed, faintly red, like the moonlight bleeding through fog. His presence had been wrong and magnetic all at once, making her chest ache with both fear and… something else she refused to name.
He had touched her chin before leaving, just lightly.
> “You’re cleverer than she is. You know how to make people see what you want them to.”
It was meant as a compliment, but it burned like poison sugar in her veins.
Now, standing alone with his message, Clara felt that same burn again, a mix of dread and excitement that made her skin too tight.
The surge Kael spoke of… it had to be what she’d felt earlier today. The subtle trembling in the air. The faint hum when Iria walked past her in the hall, smiling without guilt.
Smiling as though the world still belonged to her.
Clara’s jaw clenched.
She could still remember when they’d arrived at the academy together, Iria, all warmth and laughter, always the first to be noticed, the one professors praised, the one people turned to.
And Clara, standing just half a step behind. Always the shadow beside the light.
Now Iria had not just power, but attention.
The brothers’ attention.
Grey’s eyes always followed her like a flame tracing oil.
Brian’s calm voice bent toward her like gravity itself.
And Clara?
Forgotten. Invisible.
She sat again, staring at Kael’s message, the words bleeding into one another until they almost formed shapes. She didn’t know when her fingers started trembling, but she pressed them flat against the parchment to stop it.
She could still hear Kael’s voice in her mind:
> “Bring me proof.”
Proof of what?
That Iria’s power was tied to the Blood Moon? That she was dangerous? Or maybe that she was unfit to hold it?
Clara’s reflection in the window stared back at her, pale, restless, something fierce flickering in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Maybe Kael didn’t need to know everything.
Maybe she could decide what “proof” meant.
Later that evening, she found herself in the east corridor, where moonlight bled through the stained glass, painting her hands in red and gold. She waited, pretending to study her notes, until Iria’s soft footsteps echoed down the hall.
She didn’t even need to look up to recognize that rhythm.
“Clara?” Iria’s voice was warm. Too warm. “You’re still up?”
Clara smiled faintly without turning. “Couldn’t sleep.”
When she did look, Iria’s hair caught the light, a halo of crimson and silver reflections from the moon above. The sight made something twist painfully in Clara’s chest.
“You felt it too, didn’t you?” Iria asked quietly. “The pulse. The hum in the air.”
Clara tilted her head. “Maybe. I just thought it was nerves.”
Iria frowned slightly, oblivious to the venom hiding behind Clara’s calm. “It’s stronger tonight. Like it’s calling to something.”
“To you,” Clara said before she could stop herself.
The words slipped out too sharp, too fast.
Iria blinked, startled. “What do you mean?”
Clara forced a small laugh. “Nothing. Just teasing. You’re the only one who ever feels these things.”
Iria smiled then, small, grateful, and for a brief second, Clara almost felt guilty.
Almost.
Later that night, in her room, the guilt melted back into anger.
She paced the floor, the red light from the moon slicing through the window. Every breath she took felt like it wasn’t hers. Every shadow seemed to whisper Iria’s name.
Finally, she opened her desk drawer and pulled out the small crystal orb Kael had given her. The glow inside it pulsed faintly, in rhythm with her heartbeat.
She remembered his instructions:
> “When the moon flares, this will react. You’ll know she’s losing control.”
The orb’s light flickered faster.
Clara smiled, slow and tremb. “There you are.”
Her reflection on the orb’s surface looked nothing like the girl she used to be, no kindness left, only focus.
If Kael wanted proof, she would give him proof.
But she’d make sure it came from her hand, not his.
For the first time, she didn’t feel like his pawn.
She felt like the one holding the next move.
And when she finally looked back out at the red moon hanging over the academy spires, her smile faded into something colder.
Iria didn’t deserve to carry that power.
She didn’t deserve the brothers’ devotion.
She didn’t deserve the world’s sympathy.
She deserved to fall.
Clara pressed her palm to the window, the moonlight painting her skin in scarlet.
“Let’s see what happens when light learns what darkness tastes like,” she whispered.
Outside, the wind rose, carrying the faintest echo of laughter, Kael’s voice in the storm, approving.
But for once, Clara didn’t shiver.
She smiled.