Chapter 531. Swords Are Terrible Against Nightmares

Chapter 531: 531. Swords Are Terrible Against Nightmares

The echoes of that first, bone-chilling scream were still reverberating through the dormitory corridor when William reached the stone stairs, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged beast.

His mind was a fractured mosaic of half-formed memories; he had no conscious recollection of leaving his bed.

One moment, he had been staring at the ceiling in the oppressive dark; the next, he was sprinting barefoot across freezing stone, the familiar weight of Aetherion already familiar in his grip.

His hand had found the hilt of the sword almost instinctively, his body responding to a threat before his conscious mind could even process what it was.

A sword was a primitive tool against a nightmare, but his survival instincts had apparently decided that steel was better than prayer.

’Why did I grab it? ’His inner voice growled, laced with confusion. ’What am I expecting to fight?’

’Shadows? Or something worse?’

Clara was a blur of motion ahead of him. She ran with a desperate, uncoordinated fury, her ponytail half undone and streaming behind her like a frayed banner.

Her breathing came in short, wet gasps that sounded painfully labored in the empty hallway.

When she finally skidded to a halt in front of Ellie’s door, she didn’t knock; she pressed both palms flat against the wood, her body tensing as if she were physically trying to barricade whatever monstrosity might be trying to claw its way out from the other side.

She turned to face him, the dim glow of the corridor lantern casting harsh, skeletal shadows across her features. Her face was drained of all color, looking less like flesh and more like a pale, unfinished sketch carved from marble.

"She’s awake," Clara said, her voice cracking, barely more than a strangled rasp. "The light is gone... I think... I think it’s gone."

William’s grip tightened on Aetherion’s hilt. "What light?"

Clara opened her mouth to answer, then snapped it shut, her eyes darting uncertainly. She swallowed hard, trying to find purchase in reality.

"The lantern. In the hall... I thought... I thought it went out."

"For a second, everything went black."

William glanced up. The lantern hung steady above their heads, its flame burning with a constant, amber glow.

There was no flickering, no lapse in magic. He filed the discrepancy away as a hallucination born of terror or something manipulating their perception and knocked once, firmly, before pushing the door open.

The room felt different. The air was thick, charged with a residual static that made the hairs on his arms stand on end.

Ellie was sitting on the edge of her bed, swallowed by a heavy blanket pulled tight around her shoulders. Her pink hair was a wild, matted tangle of knots, clinging to her temples where cold sweat had soaked through.

Her skin possessed a sickly, translucent quality in the candlelight, and her hands were clamped onto the edge of the mattress with such ferocity that the wood groaned under the pressure.

Whatever had been pulsing behind her moments ago had receded, fading into the depths of her body. But as William stepped closer, his eyes tracking the movement of the blanket, he caught it: one final, faint pulse of that eerie white light, deep beneath the fabric at the small of her back.

It didn’t glow so much as it throbbed, like a heartbeat beneath skin, before it dimmed and vanished entirely as if a door had been slammed shut in a deep, dark room.

The moment her eyes met his, the transformation occurred.

The terror in her expression vanished, replaced instantly by a mask of forced composure. She pulled her lips upward into a smile, but it was a grotesque thing.

It was a hollow, practiced expression that didn’t reach her glassy eyes; it looked like something she had rehearsed in front of a mirror for years, a performance so rehearsed that she had forgotten how to make it look real.

"Sorry," she said, the word coming out too fast, too bright, too false. "Sorry, sorry... I’m fine."

"It was just a nightmare... That’s all it was. Just a bad dream."

William leaned Aetherion against the stone wall with a metallic clink that sounded deafeningly loud in the charged silence of the room.

The sword felt absurd now, a weapon of war brought to bear against what Ellie insisted was merely a phantasm of sleep.

He ignored the absurdity and sank into a crouch directly in front of her, forcing himself to meet those glassy amber eyes at their level. He needed to see past the performance.

"Don’t do that, Ellie," he said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register that demanded honesty. "Don’t lie to me..."

"You screamed that something was trying to get out of you!"

"Those were your exact words... I heard the terror in them."

Ellie flinched as if he had struck her, but she immediately pivoted, throwing up a shield of forced levity. "It’s a dream, Instructor Wade!"

"My goodness, you’re so intense." She forced a watery chuckle that sounded brittle enough to shatter. "In a dream, I could say there’s a duck swimming in my stomach, or that my teeth are made of candy."

"Would you really come charging down the hall in your pajamas for a duck?"

William didn’t blink. His gaze remained fixed, unyielding.

"If you told me there was a duck in your stomach, I would absolutely run... Because I know you."

"And I know when you’re drowning."

The sincerity in his voice pierced through her deflection. A small, shaky laugh escaped her genuineness for half a second, but it died as quickly as it came.

Her eyes immediately skittered away from his, darting toward the shadows in the corner of the room as if seeking refuge there.

Behind him, the atmosphere was equally suffocating. Clara had drifted into the room, hovering like a specter just inside the doorway.

She wasn’t offering an alibi for Ellie, nor was she refuting the nightmare story. Instead, she stood rigid, staring down at the floorboards with knuckles so white they looked bloodless.

She looked like a woman standing before a gallows, waiting for the trapdoor to swing open, terrified of the verdict the universe was about to deliver.

’Something is wrong with her,’ William thought, his mind racing. ’Not just with Ellie... With all of them.’

’The air in here feels like it’s waiting to combust.’

"Ellie," William said, his tone shifting from instructor to something more raw, more desperate. "Can I check your back?"

"The light... I saw something."

"I won’t touch you, I promise... I just need to see."

"Absolutely not." The rejection was instantaneous and defensive.

Ellie yanked the blanket tighter around her shoulders, the fabric bunching obscenely as she tried to create a barrier between herself and his scrutiny. She forced another laugh, though this one sounded more like a sob.

"I’m a grown woman, Instructor."

"I don’t need some random man barging into my chambers in the dead of night to give me an impromptu medical exam... Have some decorum."

William studied her. He saw the way her pulse fluttered visibly at the base of her throat fast, panicked, and rabbit quick.

He saw the way her fingers clawed at the blanket, not in comfort, but as if she were holding onto a lifeline.

"That’s a fair point," William said quietly, though his instincts were screaming at him that she was lying through her teeth.

He slowly straightened his posture, giving her space but refusing to break eye contact. "I withdraw the request."