Past

  “Flick your wrist, Sylli—feel the earth obey,” Entari rasps, his off-key hum a jagged thread in the stillness. His old, gnarled hands steer mine, peeling an onion in trembling curls—papery skin flakes like ash. Mother’s wheeze hacks through my skull—bedridden, rotting daily, her breath a wet gurgle of plague. I grit my teeth, jaw throbbing, knuckles white. One life—hers—and every blister’s a price I’d carve from my own hide.

  “Good, Sylli,” he grunts, slapping my shoulder with dirt-crusted claws, nails chipped and black. “Keep at it—supper’s stewing.” He’s been my crutch since I could toddle—herb hunts through fields, nights drowning in the healer’s cottage stench of potions and tinctures, broth shoved at me when I lingered too long over crumbling tomes, ink smearing my fingers.

  I see her braiding my hair, whispering I’d outshine the sun, her voice a fading echo before plague gnawed it to silence—her eyes sunken, skin gray. “I’ll drag her back,” I choke, tears burning like acid, throat raw with the vow.

  The onion seals as we shamble to the cottage, a chill clawing my neck, sharp as a blade.

  “Soulflicker,” a voice—not mine—hisses, faint as the plague’s rasp in her throat, a sound like death’s chuckle. My breath snags—did I create that? Entari hums on, deaf to the rot festering in me, his tune a mockery.

  Inside, he dumps tools on sagging shelves, wood groaning under rust and dust.

  “Sylli, got a lead—tefferroot for her cure, bitter-knell mix. Might work, might not—plague’s a right bastard.” His rough paw squeezes my shoulder, heavy as a coffin lid, calluses grinding my skin.

  “Tefferroot?” I rasp, clawing his sleeve, heart kicking like a trapped beast.

  “Reck scout’s sniffing it out. Don’t bet your soul, little one.” His smile’s a cracked mask—kind, useless, lips chapped and bleeding. A seed—fragile, desperate—rots in my grip, a lie I can’t swallow.

  If only the tefferroot had worked.

  Father’s last words—“Plague-bringer, get out!”—echo as shackles bite my wrists, iron choking my earth, cold metal grinding flesh to blood, welts rising red. Tommens’ sneers fade, their spit still wet on my face, teeth bared in hate as Meyrick’s carriage hauls me off—wheels rattling over bones, or so it feels. Courel’s Academy looms ahead—a healer’s lie twisted into an exile’s cage, its spires jagged against a bruised sky. Four years bleed by—herbs crushed to dust in my hands, tomes stained with sweat and failure, guilt my only meat, a rancid feast I choke down daily. Mother’s death—her body cold, tendrils black in her veins—Greta’s illness—coughing blood, eyes accusing—Father swore I carved their graves, his voice a whip across my back. The voice agreed, branding me Soulflicker, a curse hissed in shadows. I’ll claw it back—rip the plague from their bones—or die choking on it, my own blood pooling beneath me.

  Present

  My eyes sting, tracing septumuerals in guttering candlelight—three chapters left, three shards to shatter whisperplague, their edges blurred by exhaustion. My gut snarls, a hollow pit clawing itself deeper, ignored for days. Tyller’s wheeze hacks through the murk; she’s hunched over garble roots, twirling a quill with soil-grimed fingers—nails split, knuckles raw from digging.

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  “Tomorrow’s test,” she croaks, voice a thin blade rasping bone.

  “Your tincture might rip my lungs open—give me air or kill me.” I force a grin, lips cracking, dread coiling like wire through my ribs—her trust’s a noose, tight as Mother’s dying grip.

  “Library’s closing, Sylvara,” Henrick barks, braids swinging like hangman’s ropes, his shadow looming over stained shelves. “Not eaten since dawn—you’re half-dead, girl.” I clutch the tome, ink bleeding into my nails, staining cracked skin. “When I’m done,” I rasp, voice a scraped husk, throat burning. He tsks—Entari’s ghost in his sneer—and snatches it with a magic flick, pages flapping like broken wings, dust choking the air. “Fine,” I spit, packing for tomorrow’s tempurlites quiz, hands shaking, fingers numb with cold.

  Glen lurks near the stacks, gray eyes cold as slate, water dripping from his knuckles—a slow, deliberate bead pooling on the floor. Meyrick saddled me with him after whispers turned to threats—protection, they claimed, for the “plague-bringer” staining their halls. He’s mute stone, a statue carved from suspicion, but his stare cuts deeper than knives—watching, always watching. I nod; he blinks, a ripple curling from his touch—water-melding, quiet and sharp, the air humming faintly with it. Did he hear the voice too?

  The Ceralue River gnaws my legs as I slog from Arcrus Hall, boots sinking in mud, water black and stinking of rot. “You’ll fail her too, Netherwisp,” a voice—low, male—snarls, colder than the wind’s bite, slicing through my skull. I spark an ember, its heat a fleeting lie, snuffed by damp air. Hansel jeers from the bank—“Page-eater!”—flanked by third-years, their smirks jagged as broken glass, one spitting, “Tommens scum,” the glob landing near my boot. Earth itches under my nails, begging to split their skulls, spill their blood into the mire—but I trudge on, my reflection fracturing in the ripples, a shattered ruin staring back, hollow-eyed.

  Tull Hall’s bronze doors groan, heat blasting like a furnace over my frost-bitten skin. Glen shadows me, boots whispering up 56 steps to my room—each a dull thud, counting down to ruin. Inside, it’s a crypt—breath fogs, frost claws the walls, air bitter with mildew. The window’s cracked again, glass jagged, a spiderweb of fractures. I slam it shut, knuckles bleeding, red smears on the frame, and cast a locking spell—iron stinks on my tongue, sharp and sour. Did I crack it? Glen hovers by the door, water pooling at his feet, steam curling faintly—did he see something move outside?

  I ditch my uniform for blue canvas rags, rubbing heat into my thighs—skin raw, chapped, peeling under my nails.

  I’m always here, the voice taunts, smug as a slit throat, echoing in the dark. I flinch, shadows twitching like living things. “Netherwisp” burns—exile’s scar, twin to “plague-bringer,” branded in my marrow. Glen’s eyes flicker—heard it?—his silhouette rigid. I crawl into my twin bed, quilt a thin shroud, threadbare and useless against the cold seeping in.

  Tomorrow’s test—misslrae, pixie dust, garble—gnaws my skull, a relentless ache. Tyller’s leaning on me; numbers swear it’s safe: 0.0023 chance to fail—I’ve checked twice, fingers trembling over the septums; ink smudging into my palms.

  Sleep’s a lost fight—my lids heavy but unyielding. Mother’s eyes—black pits—stare from the void, Greta’s cough rattles wet and red, Father’s sneer—“You caused it”—cuts like a flaying knife. Tyller’s wheeze weaves in, her grin a brittle lie cracking apart.

  “It’ll hold,” I’d said, voice hollow then, but my chest’s a vise now, ribs creaking. What if the septums lied? What if my hands birth ruin again?”

  See you soon, the voice purrs, a blade’s promise sliding under my skin.

  I grip the quilt, knuckles white, staring at the locked window—frost spiders across it, a web tightening around my throat. Glen steps closer, water steaming faintly from his boots, a hiss in the silence like a warning.

  “Rest, Miss,” he rumbles, first words in weeks, low and sure as stone carved from the deep. “You’re part of something deeper.” His certainty’s a shard in my gut, cold and unyielding, slicing through the dark. Tomorrow can’t break.