Bonds of Blood by Nazri Noor

Author:Nazri Noor [Noor, Nazri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

11

What the hell was Baylor up to? Dominating a single oriel wasn’t enough. Now he wanted to harness all four of them, too. He was wading into uncharted waters. What was even supposed to happen with all the oriels under his rule?

But I knew one thing for sure. This was looking very, very bad for the Wispwood. Four oriels spilling out monsters all at once? Gods above and below. The headmasters needed to know, and fast.

I couldn’t disengage from the fight, risking the safety of both Sylvain and my mother by running straight down the staircase to warn them. That was the thing about summoners, or at least my ties to the minor eidolons. We still needed to occupy the same general space. If I left the fight, the eidolons would leave with me.

So I did the next best thing. I cast a pall of protection over myself, a silvery-white shield of essence in case any stray hits got through. Then I turned around, ran up to the closest triptych of headmaster portraits, and yelled straight in their frozen oil-painted faces. The eyes on Headmaster Belladonna’s face turned completely black. She heard me, all right.

Within the next ten minutes several more students filed into the Spire of Radiance, led by Dr. Euclidea Fang and all three of the headmasters. The other oriels hadn’t yet begun to spill out their own elemental creatures, but I knew that it was only a matter of time.

“How is this even possible?” Headmaster Belladonna paced up and down the chamber, eyes boring into the oriels. “Taking hold of one of the oriels was dangerous enough. Baylor Wilde, you arrogant fool. You’ll get us all killed.”

I’d never seen Cornelius Butterworth so angry, his voice and expression so still when everything about him was normally so jovial. “This is a grave matter that needs attending to immediately. There’s nothing for it. We must delve into the oriels, kill this corruption at the root.”

Seeing the anger and desperation of the headmasters was disturbing enough. I didn’t dare ask what I already knew was on all our minds. The headmasters being so alarmed that someone had seized all the oriels suggested a terrifying truth: that they never even knew it was possible in the first place.

It should have frightened me, looking upon our leaders and realizing that they were just as frail and lost as the rest of us. But wasn’t that how we’d always survived and thrived at the Wispwood? Through cooperation and unity, by propping each other up as we reached for greater heights of truth and enlightenment.

Looking at Belladonna Praxis, though, I could sense that her proposed solution involved something a little less elegant. Something involving hitting the bad guy in the face with a blunt object.

“We must enter the oriels,” Belladonna said, her gaze cutting across the room. “Seek out the source of the blight. Crush it. Baylor Wilde’s dangerous actions cannot be allowed to go unchecked. Or unpunished.”

“Agreed,” said Headmaster Shivers. “I suggest we split our forces, tackle the oriels based on our individual strengths.

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