Chapter 45: Chapter 46: Ashriel wouldn’t come back
And honestly, I didn’t like the odds. Not even a little bit.
Hunger in a place like Morvalis didn’t feel like an inconvenience. It didn’t feel like the simple, familiar ache of missing a meal or skipping breakfast in a rush. No, this was something far more insidious. It felt deliberate. Calculated. Cruel in its precision.
Like the professors had orchestrated this exact moment of deprivation, and now Morvalis itself was watching us squirm under its gaze. Measuring every twitch of discomfort, every quiet groan of protest from our bodies. Waiting to see how long it would take before the cracks began to show. Before someone broke. Before we all did.
Why warn us not to venture deeper into the forest, only to leave us with nothing to sustain ourselves for the next two days? It was either a test of obedience or a test of desperation. Maybe both. Either way, the choice they’d left us with was bleak:
Sit here like obedient little students and starve slowly, our strength leaching away hour by hour until we were too weak to even stand...
Or ignore every warning and push deeper into Morvalis, where something far worse than hunger might find us first.
Lovely choices. Truly inspiring.
I’ll take the slow, dignified death by hunger strike, thank you very much.
At least that way, whatever monsters lurked out there in the shadows wouldn’t get the satisfaction of tearing me apart. Small mercies.
I shifted uncomfortably where I sat, drawing my knees closer to my chest and wrapping my arms tightly around myself. The fire crackled warmly in front of us, its golden flames licking at the cool night air, but the heat never seemed to reach the cold knot of anxiety twisting deep in my stomach.
That part of me remained untouched.... frozen, restless, gnawing.
My mind, traitorous as always, kept circling back to Ashriel.
He still wasn’t back.
He had disappeared into the trees hours ago, slipping past every rule as if they were mere suggestions written for lesser mortals. And annoyingly enough, they probably were.... for him.
"What is he even doing out there..." I muttered under my breath, barely loud enough for myself to hear.
Elion, seated close beside me, tilted his head slightly, his sharp eyes catching the words anyway.
"Thinking, perhaps," he offered lightly. "Or getting eaten by monsters. Hard to say with him."
"That man doesn’t look like someone who wastes time thinking," I shot back immediately, the words slipping out sharper than I intended.
A quiet, amused huff of laughter escaped Theo from across the fire. The sound only made Kaden’s scowl deepen, his irritation practically radiating off him in waves. Not my problem. I had enough of my own.
After that, silence settled over our small group like a heavy blanket. What might have been minutes stretched into what felt like hours. None of us could truly tell anymore.
The sky above had surrendered to that eerie, liminal state, neither true night nor approaching dawn, just an endless, dull haze of fading light that made everything feel suspended in time. Unreal. Heavy.
No one slept.
We simply watched.
Waited.
Listened.
The forest around us breathed with its own strange rhythm, whispers of leaves, distant snaps of twigs, and the occasional low rustle that made every nerve in my body stand on edge.
Then, one by one, the sounds of our growing weakness began to betray us.
Stomachs rumbling. Growling. Loud, insistent, and completely undignified. They demanded attention as if they had every right to shatter the fragile composure we were all desperately clinging to.
Mine stayed mercifully quiet for a long while. I appreciated its brief show of solidarity. It was the only part of my body still pretending to have some restraint.
Until Ivy suddenly stood up, brushing dirt from her pants with casual indifference.
"We should go into the woods," she announced, as if she were suggesting nothing more dangerous than a leisurely stroll through a meadow. "We need to find food."
"No," I said immediately. The word flew out far too fast, far too firm.
"We were explicitly told not to go further," I added, trying to steady my voice.
"Then we stay here and die from hunger instead," Kaden snapped, his patience clearly worn thin. "Brilliant plan."
"It’s only two days," I insisted, though the conviction in my tone was already crumbling like dry earth. "We can manage."
My stomach chose that precise, humiliating moment to betray me with a loud, prolonged growl that echoed through the small clearing like a thunderclap.
Very respectful timing. Truly.
I paused, heat creeping up my neck.
"...I still stand by my statement," I added weakly.
No one believed me. Not even a little.
"You can stay here alone then," Ivy said, her gaze flicking briefly to Elion before settling back on me with cool certainty. "Or your boyfriend can stay and keep you company. The rest of us will go find something and come back."
My eye twitched.
Boyfriend.
I ignored the word, choosing instead to focus on the more immediate threat: the fact that everyone else was already rising to their feet. Even Thorne. Even Elion. Even Theo, who usually preferred caution over recklessness.
They were all standing now, looking at me expectantly. Waiting.
I blinked slowly, disbelief settling over me like a chill.
"...Am I seriously the only sane one here?"
The silence that followed was almost deafening.
Then Elion gave a small, elegant shrug, the corner of his mouth lifting in that infuriatingly charming way of his.
"That depends entirely on your definition of sane."
Extremely helpful. As always.
A man shall not live by bread alone, right? Hasn’t anyone here heard that particular piece of wisdom before?
Apparently not.
Because the next thing I knew, I was pushing myself up from the ground as well, dusting off my clothes with slow, deliberate movements, as if that small act of grooming could somehow lend dignity to this terrible decision.
"I will protect you," Elion said lightly, falling into step beside me. "Don’t worry."
I didn’t even glance at him properly.
Because everything that came out of his mouth somehow managed to sound like flirting, even when it wasn’t. And right now, I found it deeply annoying.
We moved.
Deeper into Morvalis.
Just a few steps past the tree line was all it took for the atmosphere to shift. The air grew thicker, heavier, laced with something ancient and watchful. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees, and the faint sounds of the forest took on a sharper, more menacing quality.
And then—
We saw him.
Ashriel.
Not calm. Not detached. Not quietly brooding in the shadows as usual.
He was in motion.
Fighting.
Something enormous. Something primal and wrong.
A massive ape-like creature towered over him, its muscular frame rippling with brutal power. Each heavy step it took sent tremors through the ground, shaking leaves from the surrounding trees and vibrating up through the soles of my boots. Its eyes burned with feral rage, and its roar was deep enough to rattle my bones.
Ashriel wasn’t winning.
He was barely holding his ground.
Every movement looked labored, every strike and dodge dragged from some deep, exhausted reserve. He moved like a man who had already given more than his body could afford to lose, yet he refused to fall.
My steps faltered without permission.
My brain, in its usual unhelpful fashion, supplied only one clear, horrifying thought that cut through the chaos like a blade:
What if Ashriel is the one who doesn’t come back?
