Bloodwing Academy, #1
On Wings of Blood
by Briar Boleyn
Contents
Chapter 45
Overview
After a child goes missing, Medra follows Blake into ancient tunnels beneath Bloodwing and finds Aenia feeding on the girl, Poppy. Medra staunches Poppy’s wounds while Blake subdues Aenia with thrallweave and sends Medra back.
A quake rattles the passages. Poppy survives, but Medra is torn: Blake saved the girl yet still protects his monstrous sister.
Summary
Medra and Blake return to the First Year tower to find panic: Poppy, a housekeeper’s blightborn child, is missing and there is blood on her pillow. Determined to act, Medra forces Blake to take her along as he follows a scent and purposefully leads them back through the Dragon Court and into the Avari catacombs.
They descend into older, collapsed passages and emerge into vast dwarven ruins. A child’s scream draws them to Aenia, Blake’s sister, feeding on Poppy. Blake wrenches Aenia away as she claws at him; at his order, Medra binds Poppy’s neck with Blake’s torn jacket and lifts the barely breathing child.
When Aenia breaks free and lunges, Blake halts her mid-attack with a thrallweave command, revealing power over another highblood. He restrains Aenia and orders Medra to take Poppy back, refusing to discuss Aenia’s brutality despite Medra’s insistence he must stop his sister.
On Medra’s return through the tunnels, a tremor shakes the passages and stone rains down; she shields Poppy and pushes on. She reaches the common room, where Professor Rodriguez takes over care, sends for the mother and a healer, and begins treatment as the distraught mother arrives.
Exhausted, Medra deflects Florence’s questions. In private, she wrestles with shame over her recent intimacy with Blake and the contradiction that while Blake saved Poppy, he also shielded Aenia, leaving Medra fearful of further harm and unsure of his loyalties.
Who Appears
- Medra PendragonProtagonist; insists on joining the search, stabilizes Poppy, returns her safely, and questions Blake’s protection of Aenia.
- Blake DrakharrowLeads Medra to the ruins, stops Aenia, uses thrallweave to restrain her, saves Poppy but shields his sister.
- Aenia DrakharrowBlake’s feral sister; caught feeding on Poppy; resists violently until compelled still by Blake’s thrallweave.
- PoppyMissing blightborn child; gravely wounded at the throat; survives after Medra’s tourniquet and Rodriguez’s aid.
- FlorenceMedra’s friend; alerts her to Poppy’s disappearance and anxiously awaits their return.
- Professor RodriguezFaculty organizer of the search; takes charge of Poppy’s treatment and summons her mother and a healer.
- Poppy’s motherBlightborn housekeeper; arrives distraught and stays by her injured daughter.