TRIGGER WARNING: violence, abusive behavior
If you are uncomfortable reading dark, potentially distressing content relating to family violence, please stop reading at the warning banner and skip forward to Ch. 5.5: The First Lesson. Anything critical to the plot will be self-contained in that chapter, please prioritize your own mental health.
The shattered barrier dispelled the field upon impact, erasing every magic effect in its wake. In the blink of an eye, it nullified the raging flames and sparking electric currents that wrought havoc over the training grounds. Gerard’s summon vanished, along with the binding chains and pillars of ice that Antoine had used to control them.
“Did you intend to kill each other or all of us?” Marlena asked, with ice in her voice. “Are you both out of your minds, using high-level summoning magic like that at our home?”
Her husband and son had the decency to shut up and back down without a fight.
Marlena smoothed her hand over her brow, sighing heavily. “Good grief,” she muttered. “Shame on the both of you.” She made eye contact with Gerard from across the training grounds. “And, dear? Your verdict?”
“I’ll turn a blind eye,” Gerard said, begrudgingly. He turned his back to Antoine, without sparing him a second glance. “You have three days to do what you need to do—and then you’ll leave, in peace.”
Marlena shifted her gaze to Antoine, who shrugged.
“Doable,” he said. “Just tell him to stay out of my way.”
Marlena would have protested her son’s refusal to speak to his father, had this not already been a marked improvement on the past decade of stony silence. As it was, she pursed her lips and said nothing.
“You and you,” Antoine warned his parents, “stay out of this. If you can’t, then leave.” He turned his attention back to Elana, pulling his gloves on. “You don’t have to forgive me for this. In fact, you shouldn’t,” he said. “But you’ll thank me for it, one day.”
Elana frowned, unable to mask her apprehension and confusion. What was she supposed to make of him? An absentee older brother, a prodigy and legend in his own right, who had stormed in like a hurricane, upending the peace and order that had existed all of her life.
“What are you talking a—” she broke off as her knees buckled. “What—”
Elana went down on her palms, hard. It was all she could do to stare at the ground in disbelief. Had her brother just kicked her knees out from under her? The loose stone grinding into her skinned palms said he had.
She jerked her head to look at him, flabbergasted. “What on earth are you doing? What the hell are you thin—” she broke off with a sharp cry. “Ah! What are you–”
Antoine’s hand fisted in her hair and he began walking. She scrambled to break free from his hand, but he wrapped her hair around his fist, resecuring his grip at the roots.
“Stop!” Elana cried, grabbing at his hand. “Let me go!”
He wasn’t budging. She dug her nails in, clawing at him but getting nothing but leather. “Antoine, stop!” she protested, desperation cracking her voice. “What do you want? You don’t need to do this—”
The edges of her nails began to lift. Antoine didn’t speak, didn’t look at her, but kept walking. She was on bloodied knees, dragged in his wake. There were the sounds of a commotion on the sidelines, but she couldn’t attend to it.
She couldn’t do anything, think of anything, but try to get away.
She struggled with all her might.
Gravel scraped through the barrier of her tattered skirts, leaving raw, red stripes of torn skin from her knees to her thighs as she failed to regain her balance.
One of her nails came loose.
Her eyes watered.
Her scalp was burning with pain, but it was the least of her problems. Both of her hands were on Antoine’s, digging crescent moons into the leather as she tried to pry his fingers away.
“Let me go!” Elana swore, struggling to get back to her feet. “You’ve proven your point!”
He stopped. For a brief, fleeting moment, she didn’t feel the pain. Only relief.
“Thank you,” she whispered, voice rough. She opened her eyes, glancing up at Antoine just in time to see his eyes harden.
He resecured his grip in her hair.
She saw the reason he had stopped a moment too late. “Antoine—” she began, pleading.
He knelt down to Elana’s level, his knee balanced against the edge of a water trough. His expression was cold, even as he met her gaze.
“I need to see it in you,” he said, speaking as calmly and matter-of-factly as if he was describing the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. “If you don’t have it, there’s no point in sending you to the Academy.”
“Don’t, please.”
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