CHAPTER 16: IRIS VALE
984 Words
The hallway fell silent.
Even the alarms seemed distant now.
Lyra stared at the screens lining the academy walls while rainwater dripped slowly from broken windows nearby.
Her mother’s face filled every monitor.
Alive.
Calm.
Watching her.
“Hello, Lyra.”
The words hit like a knife straight through her chest.
“No…” Lyra whispered.
Beside her, Caius went completely still.
Nova blinked rapidly.
“Okay. Nope. Absolutely not. Missing mothers are not supposed to appear on giant evil school screens.”
Elowen looked shaken for the first time since Lyra met her.
Even the Watchers behind them had stopped moving.
Everyone was watching Iris Vale.
The woman on the screen smiled faintly.
Older than in the photographs.
Sharper somehow.
More dangerous.
“You’ve grown up beautifully,” Iris said softly.
Lyra’s hands trembled violently.
“You left me.”
Silence followed.
The storm outside roared against the academy windows.
Then Iris answered quietly:
“I protected you.”
Something inside Lyra snapped instantly.
“Protected me?” she shouted.
Students nearby turned toward the screens in shock.
“You disappeared!”
“I had to.”
“You gave me to them!”
Caius’s expression tightened sharply.
Nova looked between the screens and Lyra nervously.
The woman on the monitor sighed softly.
“It was the only way to keep you alive.”
“No,” Lyra whispered.
“You don’t get to say that.”
Iris looked directly into the camera.
Directly at her daughter.
“You remember the chamber now.”
A painful memory flashed immediately.
Cold metal walls.
Children crying.
Little Lyra curled into a corner while Kael pounded against locked doors.
The memory vanished.
Lyra grabbed the stair railing hard.
“What did you people do to us?” she demanded.
For the first time, sadness flickered across Iris’s face.
“We tried to make you stronger.”
Nova stared at the screen in disbelief.
“That is literally the worst parenting sentence I’ve ever heard.”
Nobody even reacted.
The academy shook again from another distant explosion.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
But Iris continued speaking calmly through every screen.
“The Circle was never supposed to become this.”
Caius looked sharply at the monitors.
“You helped build it.”
“I know.”
“And now people are dying.”
A long silence followed.
Then Iris answered softly:
“They were always dying.”
The hallway became colder somehow.
Students gathered farther away watching the screens nervously while teachers shouted for everyone to return to dormitories.
Nobody listened anymore.
Fear controlled Blackthorne now.
Real fear.
Lyra stepped closer to the nearest screen.
“Why am I here?”
Iris’s eyes softened slightly.
“Because you’re the only one who can stop them.”
Elian suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway surrounded by Watchers.
His silver eyes locked onto the screens instantly.
“Iris.”
Her expression hardened immediately.
“Elian.”
The tension between them felt old.
Personal.
Dangerous.
Elian stepped forward slowly.
“You shouldn’t have contacted her.”
“She deserved the truth.”
“The truth destabilizes subjects.”
Nova whispered under her breath,
“I really hate the way these people talk.”
Lyra ignored them.
Her attention stayed locked on her mother.
“What happened to Kael?”
Silence.
A terrible silence.
Iris closed her eyes briefly.
Then quietly said:
“He tried to save you.”
Caius looked away instantly.
Pain crossed his face so clearly this time it hurt to see.
Lyra’s chest tightened.
“Save me from what?”
But before Iris could answer—
The screens flickered violently.
Static spread across them.
Elian looked furious now.
“You’re compromising the system.”
Iris’s image glitched briefly.
Then her voice lowered urgently.
“Lyra, listen carefully.”
The storm thundered outside.
“Do not let them take you underground again.”
Another memory crashed into Lyra’s mind immediately.
Kael bleeding on stone floors.
White masks dragging Lyra away while Iris screamed.
Then—
A symbol painted in blood.
The circle with the eye.
Lyra gasped sharply.
Caius caught her shoulders again.
“What did you see?”
Before she could answer, Iris spoke one final sentence through the speakers.
“Kael didn’t die by accident.”
Elian shouted instantly.
“Shut it down!”
The screens exploded into static.
Then darkness.
Silence returned to the hallway.
Lyra stood frozen.
Her breathing uneven.
Kael was murdered.
Her mother knew it.
And somehow…
So did Caius.
The Watchers suddenly moved again.
Fast.
“Elian ordered containment,” Elowen warned sharply.
Caius grabbed Lyra’s hand immediately.
“We move now.”
The group sprinted down the stairwell just as Watchers flooded the hallway behind them.
Students screamed and scattered everywhere.
Emergency lights flashed violently.
Smoke drifted through parts of the academy now from the earlier explosions.
Something huge was happening beyond Blackthorne’s walls.
Something bigger than the school itself.
Nova nearly slipped while running.
“I miss normal teenage problems!”
Another explosion shook the academy harder than before.
Windows shattered somewhere above them.
The stairwell lights flickered.
Then suddenly—
The entire building lost power.
Complete darkness swallowed everything.
Students screamed below.
Lyra’s heart pounded painfully.
Then a flashlight clicked on beside her.
Detective Ren Arclight stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Alone.
Rainwater dripped slowly from his dark coat.
His sharp eyes lifted toward Lyra immediately.
“Come with me,” he said calmly.
Caius stepped protectively in front of her.
“No.”
The detective’s expression hardened slightly.
“You don’t understand what’s coming.”
“And you do?” Caius snapped.
“Yes.”
Lightning flashed through broken windows behind him.
For one second, the detective looked terrifying standing there in the dark stairwell.
Then he quietly said something that made everyone freeze.
“The Circle plans to erase Blackthorne tonight.”
- Writer
