Chapter 31: Chapter 32: Just get me out of Red
Thorne
Nyx hates me.
The fire in her eyes today wasn’t new, wasn’t startling, wasn’t even particularly sharp compared to the blades she’s thrown at me before. If anything, it was familiar, comforting in the most twisted way. At least I knew where I stood with her. At least the loathing was honest.
What she will never understand, what she refuses to even consider, is this:
Everything I’ve ever done, every cruel word I’ve spat, every time I’ve turned my back or let silence speak louder than any defense... I did it for her.
Every single time.
The harshness wasn’t cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
The distance wasn’t indifference.
The cold shoulder wasn’t rejection.
It was protection.
The only kind I knew how to give.
Nyx has always been wildfire in human form, fierce, untamed, reckless in a way that made her impossible to look away from and equally impossible to control. She burned too bright, too fast, too dangerously. And every time she flared, someone got scorched.
Lysera learned that the hard way.
Blood or not, Lysera was still part of her pack. Still family. Still someone who had every right to exist in the same space as Nyx without fearing for her life.
But Nyx pushed her.
Down the stairs.
I can still hear it, the sickening series of thuds, bone against stone, the wet crack of something breaking that should never break. Lysera’s scream had cut off mid-breath, replaced by the dull, final sound of her body coming to rest at the bottom. Then the blood, thick, coppery, spreading across the flagstones like spilled ink.
Even now, weeks later, the memory sits in my chest like slow poison.
I still don’t know if Nyx meant to do it.
I still don’t know if it matters.
Because Lysera wasn’t the first.
Eira had come before her.
Eira... Nyx’s twin. Her mirror. Her other half.
Nyx always swore she didn’t remember that night.
She wept when anyone brought it up.
She shook her head so violently you could almost believe the lie.
But I remembered.
I was nine years old, hiding behind the heavy velvet curtain in the corner of their bedroom because I’d snuck in to steal one of Eira’s storybooks. I saw everything.
The candlelight catching on the blade.
The way Nyx’s small hand trembled, not with fear, but with something colder, something deliberate.
Eira’s eyes widening in perfect, heartbreaking confusion. Her mouth opening in a silent question, ...Why?... right before the knife sank in.
Not once.
Twice.
Deep. Precise. Merciless.
Then Nyx simply... collapsed.
Like whatever force had puppeteered her hand simply released the strings. She dropped to her knees beside her twin’s body, staring at her blood-slick palms as though they belonged to someone else.
I passed out after that.
Terror does that to a child.
When I woke, the room was chaos, elders shouting, healers murmuring, guards dragging sheets over Eira’s still form. Nyx knelt in the center of it all, pale and trembling, looking smaller than I’d ever seen her.
They questioned everyone.
But there had only ever been one witness.
Me.
The elder’s voice had cut through the noise like a blade.
"Thorne. Did you see Nyx hurt her sister?"
The entire room went deathly still.
Every eye turned to me.
If I told the truth...
She would have been executed that same night.
The law was crystal: the murder of a blood, was an unforgivable sin. No trial. No mercy. Just swift, ritual death to cleanse the pack of the stain.
I looked at Nyx... nine years old, shaking, blood drying on her hands, and something inside me screamed louder than fear, louder than duty, louder than law.
Protect her.
So I lied.
"I’m... not sure," I whispered.
The wound had been too deep. Too forceful. Too clean for a child’s strength. That tiny, impossible doubt was enough to stall the blade meant for her throat.
But the curse stuck anyway.
Twin-killer.... Monster.... Cursed.
Whispers trailed her like shadows from that day forward. Every stumble, every flare of temper, every accident only fed the rumors. And then Lysera happened.
After that, the question I’d buried for years clawed its way to the surface.
What if protecting Nyx wasn’t saving her?
What if I was only enabling something darker... something that would one day consume her completely?
What if, by shielding her from consequences, I was turning her into the very monster everyone already believed she was?
I couldn’t let that happen.
Not to her.
But I also couldn’t stop protecting her entirely.
So when that hybrid nearly gutted her on the training field, when the blade was inches from her ribs and no one else moved fast enough, I couldn’t help but slipped her the knife.
I knew the professors or whatever they called themselves would punish me for interfering.
And they did.
Whippings.... Demerits carved into my record like scars.
I never regretted it.
I sighed, dragging a hand roughly through my hair, trying to shove the memories back into the locked box where they belonged.
And now... because fate has a particularly cruel sense of humor... I had somehow ended up in Red.
Red.
Of all the damn colors.
I should have chosen Green, Grey Or white.
Colors Nyx might have loath.
Colors where she might have looked across a common room one day and actually seen me... not as the enemy, but as... something else.
The thought was stupid. Dangerous. I crushed it before it could take root.
The field had already emptied. Students streamed toward the dorm crescent, laughing, shoving each other, celebrating their new allegiances like this was some grand adventure instead of another layer of control.
I stayed behind, rooted like a fool, replaying the last ten minutes in my head.
All because I’d been too busy sabotaging Elion.
Elion Virel.
Just thinking the name made my jaw clench so hard my teeth ached.
Pretty face. Easy charm. The kind of boy who survived on smiles, quick wit, and the assumption that the world owed him adoration. The kind who looked like he belonged surrounded by giggling admirers, not on a battlefield soaked in blood and magic.
He wasn’t Nyx’s type.
At least that’s what I told myself. Repeatedly. Like a mantra.
I was still lost in that bitter loop when Irene’s voice cut through the fading chatter behind me.
"I don’t know why Asher picked that good-for-nothing girl for his group," she said, tone dripping venom. "Now the Red dorm has a liability dragging them down."
My head snapped up.
Nyx.
"I don’t know why you hate her so much," Ysara replied evenly.
It was a good question.
Nyx had never left her pack before coming to the academy. I’m sure she’d never crossed paths with Irene. There was no history. No feud. No reason.
Unless...
The realization hit like cold water down my spine.
If Asher had chosen Nyx...
And Asher’s group was Red...
Then....
My stomach plummeted.
Nyx and I were in the same dorm.
She was about to find out.
And she was going to hate it... hate me... more than ever.
I broke into a run.
I didn’t have a plan.
I didn’t have words prepared.
I just knew I had to reach her before she drew the wrong conclusion... again... and burned every bridge between us in one furious stroke.
By the time I reached the Red dorm, chaos had already claimed the place. Doors hissed open and shut. Voices bounced off the walls. Bags thudded. Beds were claimed with triumphant shouts.
I stepped through the entrance...
Just as Nyx came storming out.
She collided full-force into my chest.
For one fractured heartbeat my hands twitched.... instinct begging me to catch her, steady her, hold her.
I forced them still.
I didn’t dare touch her.
Not now.
Not like this.
She looked up.
The hatred in her eyes struck harder than any blade ever could.
Goddess...
I never wanted to see that look on her face again.
"Nyx..." I started, voice rougher than I intended.
She didn’t wait.... didn’t even listen to what I have to say.
She simply stepped around me...like I was furniture. Like I wasn’t even worth the breath it would take to acknowledge me.
Like I didn’t exist.
Pain lanced through my chest, sharp and bright.
My mate...
I turned on my heel and followed.
She walked fast...purposeful... cutting straight across the garden ring toward the professors’ wing.
I already knew where she was going.
She was going to demand a transfer.
She knocked once... hard... on Mr. Asher’s office door.
"Come in," his calm voice answered.
The door didn’t latch properly behind her.
Maybe she was too angry to notice.
Maybe fate... cruel, mocking fate.... wanted me to hear every word.
I stopped just outside, heart slamming against my ribs.
"I want a change of dorm," Nyx said without preamble.
No greeting. No respect.
Just raw, desperate need.
"Impossible," Asher replied, voice smooth and final.
"I’ll do anything," she shot back immediately. "Anything. I’ll take punishment. Extra training. Isolation. Whip me if you have to... I don’t care. Just get me out of Red."
Her voice cracked on the last word... small, almost imperceptible.
"Please, sir."
The words landed like a physical blow.
She hated me so much...
She would rather be whipped.
Rather be humiliated.
Rather bleed under the lash than spend one more night under the same roof as me.
I stood frozen in the hallway, listening to the silence that followed her plea.
And for the first time in years, the truth I’d buried deepest rose up and choked me:
All my protection... All my lies... All my silence...
Had only made her hate me more.
And I didn’t know how to fix it.
I didn’t even know if it could be fixed.
