As I stood at the back of the room, I could feel the hatred and anger that radiated off my fellow classmates. They turned and glared daggers in my direction, and I knew they blamed me. I was the sole reason why the classes had been rushed. It was my fault we’d be entering the deadly exam in twenty-four hours.
I should have cared, and I should have felt guilty, but the truth was, I felt none of those things. In fact, I was feeling the opposite. I was eager to prove myself. My soul was hungry for the challenge and even relished in the idea I might not make it out alive.
A sane person would have felt the opposite, but not me.
I took the only empty seat available in the room, and it was next to Vesta.
She sneered and turned up her purple nose.
“You can keep pretending you hate me.” I smirked. “But I know you enjoy some things about me.”
“Shut up, Cole,” she hissed, but the witch couldn’t hide the blush that crept across her lavender cheeks. She was burning with embarrassment, and it brought a smile to my face.
“Class,” Vanessa intoned with a stern expression. “There is no need for me to remind you this is your final class. I only expect the very best from you, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“Yes, Professor,” everyone replied.
“Well, hexes and curses are no joke,” she went on. “They will play a major role during your final exam. They are mostly used on humans as a way of self-defense, but can also be used on preying beasts if done properly.”
“Will we learn spells that can cause damage to higher beings like elder gods?” Akira asked as she nervously twirled her fingers in her short black hair.
“We will learn as much as we can for one lesson,” Vanessa replied with her mouth in a tight line. “It was not my decision to speed up the classes, so I do apologize.”
Vanessa made sure to glare right at me as if to remind me it was my fault. Her ice-blue eyes were filled with contempt for me, and I knew that even if I successfully passed the class and the final exam, she would still hate me with a burning hellish passion.
The professor pulled out a thin, nine-inch wooden rod, and the witches all gasped as if they were looking at a diamond.
“Unholy Satan, it’s beautifully wicked,” Vesta whispered with wide, silver eyes.
As I stared at the wand and then at Vanessa’s beautiful but smug face, I could tell she was taunting us. She wanted to show off her wand as a way to remind us we weren’t as powerful or knowledgeable as her. It was also a reminder we could die during the exam and would never be able to hold a wand of our own.
“Now,” Vanessa said as she flicked her wrist, “you’ll all earn your wands when you complete the exam. Think of that while you’re out there, trying to survive, it will motivate you. I remember that it certainly helped me.”
She tucked the wand back into her robes and then clapped.
“The first hex we will practice will require pairs,” Vanessa said. “So, stand and pair up against the back wall.”
Vesta looked around, desperate not to be paired with me, but Vanessa caught her and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Vesta, but you’ll just have to work with Cole,” she said.
I rolled my eyes as Vesta groaned and marched out of her seat.
“Look who you’re with,” Sweeny cackled as Vesta and I joined the others.
“I don’t think she minds all that much, and neither would Akira,” Morgana mocked.
Vesta looked prepared to slap the living hell out of both the other witches, but then Vanessa smacked her desk with an open palm.
“Enough with the childish banter,” the dark-haired professor demanded. “The exam is tomorrow, and that’s all you need to worry about. I cannot believe you would waste your breath mocking each other. Did you know I was the only preschooler to live through my own exam?”
“No,” Akira gasped, and we all turned toward Vanessa with wide eyes.
“There were six other women in my preschool,” Vanessa continued as her blue eyes narrowed at us. “They were talented, much more than this group, but now they are dead. So, again I ask: are you done mocking each other? Because at this point, the only one of you who has a chance of surviving the final is Cole, and that is just ridiculous. He’s a man, for Satan’s sake. I want you women to fucking pay attention.”
“Yes, Professor,” Vesta said with her silver eyes downcast. “We apologize deeply.”
I couldn’t help but notice my classmates’ faces were white, and they all glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes with obvious fear. Vanessa’s words weren’t very encouraging, and I knew they were upset they hadn’t found the Blood Pact yet.
Soon they would come to me and beg me to use the spell on them.
“Good,” Vanessa replied with a long, drawn-out sigh. She sounded exhausted, and she hadn’t even begun teaching us the lesson.
I briefly wondered what was on her mind and what was causing the dark circles under her pale blue eyes, but then I shook my head at myself. She was right. The only thing I should be focused on right now was the exam.
“Now, I will need a volunteer for this next demonstration,” Vanessa said. She looked at each of us, and her eyes fell on the scarred witch in our group. “Sweeny, come here, dear.”
The scarred witch took a tentative step forward and sucked in a sharp breath of air.
“Stop looking so terrified, Sweeny,” Vanessa demanded with a click of her tongue. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Sweeny nodded, and when she was in front of Vanessa, I could see her knees buckle beneath her. Her clawed hands trembled by her side, and she was doing a piss poor job of pretending to be alright.
“Stand there against the bare wall,” Vanessa ordered, and she gestured toward a stone wall at the far end of the room.
“Y-yes, Professor,” Sweeny stuttered.
I almost felt sorry for the hideous witch. She looked as if she were about to piss herself.
“Now, everyone’s eyes must be on me,” Vanessa said before she awkwardly faced Sweeny. “No offense, Sweeny.”
“None taken, Professor,” she replied with a loud gulp.
Vanessa faced a trembling Sweeny, and the professor stood tall and erect before she extended her hand and pointed her palm in the scarred witch’s direction.
“Conligo!” Vanessa exclaimed.
Her voice echoed in the chamber, and a purple spark emitted from her open palm. It shot like a bolt of lightning toward Sweeny, and I watched as the flash visibly coursed through her veins and made her body shake. It looked as if she were being electrocuted by a purple current.
When she finally stopped shaking, the ugly witch inhaled sharply, as if she had been holding her breath underwater.
“Now, Sweeny, would you please take a step toward me?” Vanessa asked.
Sweeny’s arms twitched, and her legs trembled slightly. She groaned as she stood there, but she didn’t move even an inch forward.
“Sweeny, can you move at all?” Vanessa asked, even though I knew she knew the answer.
“No,” Sweeny groaned.
“Precisely.” Vanessa nodded. “Now class, this is what we call a binding hex. It can temporarily disable your opponent, but it doesn’t last very long, so I’d suggest using it when trying to make a quick getaway or before you deliver a killing blow.”
Well, that would have been a useful spell to know countless times before.
“Laxo,” Vanessa muttered with her hand raised again.
Sweeny crashed down onto the stone floor, and the other witches stifled a laugh.
“Oh, sorry about that, Sweeny,” Vanessa said. “I should have warned you first.”
“It’s fine, Professor,” the scarred witch grumbled as she slowly stood up and dusted off her knees. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” Vanessa smiled as she tossed back her long, raven hair. “Now, return to your partner.”
Sweeny nodded and slowly walked back to our group. She stood next to Akira, and we all looked at Vanessa.
“Well, do I have to spell it out for you?” the professor scoffed as she threw her hands up in the air. “Pair up and practice. Make sure you both recite the spell at the same time, palms up. Whoever is the stronger one will overpower the other, so stay sharp and focused.”
We nodded, and I faced Vesta as she tied back her long green hair and furrowed her eyes in my direction.
“Don’t take it easy on me,” she hissed.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I grinned.
We both raised our palms, and I steadied my feet. My eyes never left hers as I breathed in and focused. I could feel a blanket of dark energy surrounding me, and I welcomed it. It seeped into my pores and filled me up, and I smiled before I was ready.
“Conligo!” we both shouted at the same time.
Purple lightning emitted from both our hands, and the two bolts met in between us with a crash. The two lines of electricity were now fighting each other, so I pushed with my mind and focused all my strength into exerting as much force as possible into the spell.
When I saw Vesta’s face, I knew she was struggling. Her silver eyes were squinting from the bright purple glow, and I could see beads of sweat dripping down her forehead. Her feet shifted as if she was trying to prevent a strong wind from knocking her over, and she continued to fight, but my power was beginning to prove to be too much for her to handle. My bolt was slowly eating away at hers and moving closer and closer to her body. Finally, her mouth dropped open right before her arm dropped to her side.
That’s when the bolt hit her and coursed through her entire body. The lavender-skinned witch trembled, just as Sweeny had, and her silver eyes filled with confusion and fury as she stood still as stone.
“Well done,” I heard Vanessa say in a low voice.
When I looked around, Akira had overpowered Sweeny, and Morgana had beaten Faye. I turned to look back at a paralyzed Vesta, and I could tell she was beyond pissed off.
“You may release them,” Vanessa said with a smile.
“Laxo,” I said and waved my hand.
As soon as Vesta was released, she breathed in a sigh of relief and nearly collapsed onto the ground, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes as she struggled to breathe.
“Bastard,” she muttered before she pushed past me and sat down.
I shrugged it off and returned to my seat next to her.
“Well, to all those who passed the binding hex, well done.” Vanessa clapped. “To the rest of you, I suggest that you practice on rats before the exam tomorrow.”
I heard Vesta groan next to me, and then she placed her head into her hands. I knew she was embarrassed and defeated, but I only played by the rules. What would happen to her during the final if she couldn’t even complete a class exercise?
I didn’t want to concern myself with her wellbeing, but I didn’t bear any of these beautiful women ill will. They were the ones all stuck up about me being in their school. All they had to do was be nice, and I’d gladly work with them. Hell, I still wanted to save them all during the final exam. They just wouldn’t let me.
Maybe after I confessed to destroying the Blood Pact, I’d stand a better chance of protecting Vesta through the final.
But only if she let me. If she refused to join me, then there was nothing else I could do. She was the only one in charge of her own fate.
“Now, while hexes may be all fun and games,” Vanessa continued the lesson, “there are plenty for you to learn, and you do not have a lot of time to learn them all, so I will show you one more before we move on to curses.”
The professor bent down and pulled a lily from underneath her desk. She stared down at the beautiful flower and then glanced up to look at the class.
“Now, this one is one of my personal favorites, so observe.” Vanessa waved her hand gently over the flower and said a simple spell. “Glacio.”
Frost started to spread from the bottom of the stem and move upward toward the petals. The lily looked like a flower that had been caught in a morning frost.
The class clapped, and then Vanessa pulled out her wand again with a sly grin.
“If you think that was impressive, watch what one can do with a wand,” she said. She then flicked the wooden rod in a circular motion over the lily and whispered the same spell.
This time, the entire flower turned to glass. She tapped the transformed lily with the end of her wand, and then it shattered into hundreds of pieces all over her desk.
“See how much more powerful you’ll be once you, or rather, if you pass the exam and acquire a wand?” she questioned. “You’ll feel unstoppable, I guarantee it.”
Vanessa tucked the wand back into her robes and then folded her hands as she stared at us.
“Now, a curse is no walk in the dark wood,” she said with a deep frown. “This will be the most challenging endeavor to accomplish during the final exam.”
Vesta adjusted in her seat, and I could hear her rapid breathing from here. The entire room filled with a heavy silence as Vanessa gathered supplies from a nearby armoire. It reminded me of the first class I had with her, and part of me couldn’t believe time had passed by so quickly.
The professor collected a jar of herbs, a tongue, and other ingredients.
“Now, tomorrow morning, we will inform you exactly on what must be done to complete the final exam,” she began. “You will have to find these ingredients as you coordinate through the test.”
She lifted a jar of yellow herbs up into the air and twirled it around under the dim light.
“Can anyone tell me what this is?” she asked.
“Marrow?” Vesta practically shouted.
“Yes.” Vanessa smiled. “And this is acquired from what?”
“Bones,” the green-haired witch recited.
“Correct.” Vanessa nodded. “When you kill your enemies in the exam, be sure to collect at least one bone and a tongue to use for the curse ingredient. It will be your final challenge.”
We all nodded as she set the jar down.
Next, the professor snapped her fingers, and then a scrawny young woman appeared from the smoke. She was trembling, and her wide eyes were filled with fear and panic. Her stringy black hair fell over her forehead as she rocked back and forth, chains were wrapped around her ankles and wrists, and she wore a filthy white robe.
Vanessa quickly cut the tongue from the jar into bits, mixed the chunks of the organ with the bones, and used her finger to stir it all together. She then sprinkled dead rose petals into the cauldron before she licked the remains off her finger.
Finally, she placed her hand over the cauldron.
“Illuminana,” she whispered.
The cauldron lit up and started to bubble. The captive woman began to mumble something in another language, and it sounded like she was praying as she continued to rock back and forth.
“Est puer periit, nunc veterescent,” Vanessa recited as she closed her eyes.
The young woman started to shake and then whimper, and I watched closely as her hair began to turn from black into snow white. Her skin started to wrinkle, and she shrieked when she brought her hands up and stared down at her now withered skin. She was aging to the point of death. Her skin sunk into her bones, and she slowly started to fall down to the floor. She collapsed first to her knees, and there was a loud crack that followed. Finally, she was nothing more than a skeleton. A corpse fell down to the ground, and only bones and white hair remained underneath the white robe.
“That was an aging curse,” Vanessa explained as she looked over us with a blank expression. “Fascinating, I know, but it requires immense mental strength. Collecting ingredients is simply not enough.”
We all nodded.
“Now,” she said before she tossed back her long, dark curls, “I’m not here to coddle you and teach you everything. You must learn through example and extensive reading. So, if I were you, I’d get as much studying done as possible. However, you will need to be alert and fresh-eyed by dawn, so you should just focus on the binding hex and ensure you have mastered it. Especially if your partner overpowered you today. May Satan guide your way.”
No one made a move, and the professor impatiently clapped.
“Class is dismissed,” she urged. “Go.”
Everyone reluctantly stood up, but I lingered by the doorway.
“What is it, Cole?” Vanessa snapped.
“I’ll need a textbook if I want to get all that extensive reading done,” I replied with a raised brow.
“Ah, right,” she muttered as she rolled her eyes and went to her desk. She retrieved a copy of the textbook and returned to me. “Here. I always seem to forget about you, Cole.”
“So it would seem,” I said with a dry smile.
She held onto the book as I tried to tug it away from her grip, but her blue eyes bored into mine, and there was deep resentment in them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and I wondered if her familiar told her that I’d stolen the last copy of the Blood Pact.
“Don’t overestimate yourself out there,” she growled.
“I won’t.” I smirked as I took the book from her.
I left the room with Vanessa’s eyes glued to my back, and then I headed to the study hall and quickly read the book. Hexes seemed relatively simple to memorize, and I wasn’t too worried about them. I learned how to take away someone or something’s voice and how to instantly break a spine. The hexes were easy, it was the curses which were a little trickier.
So, I spent the afternoon deeply engrossed with my book, and I was growing bleary-eyed when I heard a commotion coming from the doorway.
It was my group, so I slammed my book shut and headed over to them. They were in a tight knit circle, seated around a small, dark round table, and they rocked back and forth in their chairs, clearly nervous and on edge.
“It’s no use, we’ve tried the library and Vanessa’s office, and the pages were gone,” Akira wailed.
“We are totally and completely fucked,” Vesta groaned, but they all stopped talking as soon as they saw me.
“Did I happen to overhear something about a book and some missing pages?” I grinned.
“Fuck off, Cole.” Sweeny scowled.
“Alright,” I laughed, “I can fuck off … but it just seems like you are having problems finding that spell I told you about.”
The five of them stared at me in silence.
“It was you!” Akira screeched as she pointed her finger at me. “You bastard, ass hatted son of a prick! You tore out the pages, didn’t you?”
“Maybe?” I’d been waiting for this moment for a long time, and the look of outrage they all wore was too goddamn priceless.
“Fucking Cole,” Sweeny growled, and she bared her sharpened teeth at me.
“If you want to live, I suggest you come and meet me in my room at midnight. Then I’ll perform the ritual.” With that, I smiled and turned my heels on their flabbergasted and furious faces.
“I’d rather die than be bonded with you,” Akira called out after me.
“Me, too,” Faye agreed. “I’d sooner die than call you master!”
“Well, if that’s what you want!” I yelled over my shoulder. “So be it.”
Their fate was in their own damn hands. Just like mine.
It was every witch for themselves.