Chapter4

Smash! A memory orb shattered in the muddy puddle at my feet.

Liam stood at the entrance of the backyard, his face twisted in pure rage. The projection from the orb illuminated the dirt, showing an image of me taking a coin pouch from a half-orc in a dark alley.

"Elena, are you so desperate for coin that you'd stoop to taking dirty money? How could you stomach selling yourself like that?"

I looked at his furious face and suddenly burst out laughing.

"That was tutoring money for a potion-making apprentice. A half-orc's copper is a hundred times cleaner than your charity." I took a step back. "Go back and protect your precious princess. Stop acting like a pathetic fool in front of me."

Liam's face turned livid. "Fine. Since you have so much pride, let's see how you make it into the Tower!"

He turned on his heel and stormed off.

But late that night, Anna appeared in Liam's study. She wore a brand-new academy uniform, her eyes slightly red.

"My sister is doing extractions in the black market," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Liam's hand paused.

"I'm not trying to tattle... but she is the eldest daughter of the Griffin family"

"She's just throwing a tantrum to spite me," Liam interrupted.

Anna lowered her head. When she looked up again, her eyes were even redder. "But she's still saving up. She wants to go to the border testing grounds and take the special channel into the Tower. I took her quota. If she actually gets in on her own, what will people think of me?"

As she spoke, tears spilled down her cheeks.

Liam remained silent for a long time. "What do you want?"

"I don't dare to ask anything," Anna shook her head. "My sister hates you right now because she still has a way out. But what if she loses that path completely?" She jerked her head up, waving her hands in a panic. "I didn't mean it like that"

"The channel at the border," Liam said, his voice hoarse. "I'll have it sealed."

Anna froze. "Won't she hate you even more?"

"Let her."

Anna lowered her gaze. Tears still clung to her eyelashes, but at an angle Liam couldn't see, the corners of her mouth curled into a smirk.

I remained completely oblivious to all of this.

When I went to the underground magic transit station to register, the deacon glanced at the name on the crystal board.

"Elena Griffin?" His expression changed instantly, looking at me as if I were a pile rotting garbage. "You've just been expelled from the Continental Magic Guild."

"That's impossible! I haven't violated any"

"It's a continent-wide notice, bearing the academy's first-tier seal." The deacon impatiently cut me off, slapping a piece of parchment against my face. "Your stepsister, Anna, submitted a hard-evidence report accusing you of using dark magic to harm her. Chief Mage Liam personally endorsed it. Don't even dream of setting foot in any academy for the rest of your life."

Before I could recover from the shock, the heavy doors of the transit station were kicked into splinters. My father stormed in with his personal guards and grabbed me by the hair.

"Run! Weren't you being tough and trying to run? The Viscount's carriage is already here. You are getting in it today!"

I tried to channel my magic to resist, but two guards simultaneously cast a Gravity Spell. Steel chains tightened around my neck and wrists, and they shoved me into a dark iron carriage.

I didn't know how long we jolted along before a knight lowered his voice. "Past the Dead Silence Rift is the Viscount's territory. If those things down there come up, we're all dead meat."

The Dead Silence Rift. Once we crossed that abyss, I would become the plaything of Viscount Bloodbeard. Rumor had it that the female mages on his dissection table could be skinned alive for three days and nights without dying.

I looked down at the manacles on my wrists. My relics were destroyed, my reputation was ruined, and my path forward was severed. Now they wanted to dictate how I died, too?

Never.

Using my ulcerated hands, I groped for a rusted piece of iron beneath the carriage floor and aimed it at my left wrist. Blood sprayed out, splattering across the runic shackles.

Before that grimoire had been burned, I had read its final page no less than a hundred times. Forbidden Blood Magic—a sacrifice of life, ignoring all physical restraints. I remembered every single word.

Crimson blood-flames ignited inside the carriage. Crack! The manacles exploded into fragments, and the carriage door was blasted away along with the last surge of my magic.

The roaring wind engulfed me. I stood at the edge of the carriage. Below lay a bottomless abyss.

Facing the gale, I threw myself into the void.

It was only later that I learned what happened. A week later, Liam tore apart the backyard of that apothecary in the black market. When he kicked open the wooden door, all he found was an empty bed and dried, blackened blood.

He grabbed my father by the collar, demanding, "Where is she?"

My father's face was deathly pale. "On the way to the Viscount's territory... Elena went missing..."