Page 93 of Severed Heir

His eyes looked darker from afar, but it was him.

Damien.

I surged to my feet. “He’s bleeding.”

Three more students appeared, Knox was among them. He looked exhausted, nearly collapsing to his knees as he stepped onto the main field. My lungs squeezed, relief crashing through me, until I counted.

Only four returned. But there had been five.

The headmaster stepped onto the field. “The final trial at the Serpent Academy has concluded. All surviving students have returned.”

But there were only four.

Beside me, Lasar exhaled—a slow, heavy breath. “It’s true,” he murmured. “The blood of a Herring stains the Continent.”

Above us, griffins screeched and peeled away into the clouds. There was no horn of victory. No celebration. Just the eerie hum of wind over stone. There were lips moving, but sound didn’t reach me. Even as I pressed my nails so hard into my palm, that crescents appeared, I didn’t feel the pain.

The field twisted in my vision, a thousand blurred figures with no voices. No color. It was only silence.

Then it came. Screams. Cries. The sharp crack of someone’s goblet shattering when they all saw a Herring had stepped onto that field an hour before and didn’t come back.

“Malachi—”

Lasar gripped my hand. “Do not cry. Do not smile. Do not falter. A Serpent cannot fall.”

But I was already breaking.

“It is with finality that I declare the last of the Herring line has perished,” the headmaster said, his voice echoing across the grounds. “I repeat, the last child of Herring blood is dead.”

The journalists wrote furiously, nearly breaking their wrists to capture every breath of fresh scandal. In the distance, a harp played a sorrowful tune, soon joined by the haunting sweep of a violin.

“I can’t,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “I can’t.”

Lasar’s grip on my wrist tightened, his eyes never leaving the field. “A great Serpent contains themselves. You cannot bow, nor shed a tear for a fallen student. A Herring was said to die, and a Herring did. Be grateful it was not you.”

I glanced up at him, my heart pounding. “You... knew.”

Lasar didn’t look at me. “You have no idea what Victor Lynch is capable of, Severyn. He knows the end of all things.”

“Like hell,” I hissed, pushing against Lasar’s chest. “She... I can’t... I won’t let her be forgotten.”

“What will yelling do?” Lasar’s words were sharp, biting. “Will it bring her back? Will it prove these trials are meaningless? Will it make you smile, knowing you got the last word and made a mockery out of your new shadow land?”

“Someone needs to find her body,” I spat, the anger burning hotter with each passing moment.

“Only her grandfather can decide that,” Lasar replied flatly. “If the king chooses to let her lay there in peace, that is on him.”

Damien was alive. Malachi was dead.

It felt like a choice. A begging, impossible choice. One I never thought I would have to make. But she knew it would come.“Who could kill the Herring first?”Damien had once mentioned that twisted game to me on the first night we met.

Then the king stepped onto the field. His cane sank into the wet mulch. He moved between Damien and Bridger, then paused.

“In a rare event,” his voice boomed across the trial grounds, “two students have struck the final blow. Both blades pierced the lindworm’s heart. Damien Lynch, heir of Ravensla. And Bridger Thorne, survivor of the iced barriers of Northern Colindale.”

A hush fell over the crowd.

“Please welcome,” the king continued, “the newest Serpents of Verdonia.”

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