Chapter 30
Rosabel La Rouge
Breathe, Rora. Breathe.
The soldier sitting across from me drew in air, and I was pretty sure the other three in the SUV behind us did the same.
I noticed that when I was talking to myself, when I was reminding myself things this past day—like to breathe or take a minute to relax—they did it, too. I never told them to do anything, but they did. They actually breathed, expanded their lungs, even though they didn’t really need oxygen. And sometimes they closed their eyes and lowered their heads when I did, as if they needed to be mirroring me every chance they got.
It was…strange, to say the least. To have these men, eleven here, physically, and another fifty in my head, with me at all times. It had been over forty-eight hours since they’d become mine, since I’d made the deal with them, and a full day of me being awake to actually acknowledge it, and it still felt like I would never get used to it.
Taland, who was sitting beside me in the back of Madeline’s fancy SUV, squeezed my hand as if to remind me that he was there, and I appreciated it. It helped more than anything else.
We’d spent the night at the mansion because he’d been too weak still to even move properly, and I had been much more exhausted than I’d first thought. We decided to take a nap before leaving, but when we woke up it was already five a.m. Fiona brought us breakfast in the room, and the soldiers stayed right where they were, and I even got to hug Poppy when we walked out. She was definitely freaked out by my eyes, by the soldiers following me around, and she was relieved when I said I couldn’t stay right now, but that I’d call her and make plans to meet with her soon. I didn’t blame her, though. She just needed a bit of time to come to terms with this, get used to the idea of this new me—and so did I.
Then we could just relax and talk, I hoped. Maybe go out to dinner— not in the mansion. Watch a movie. Just…be in each other’s company.
I’d like that very much, I thought.
And now we were on our way to Headquarters to meet with Taland’s brothers and the Mergenbachs, and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. Especially since that talk with Madeline had left its imprints all over my mind, and I hadn’t stopped thinking about it at all.
All in due time, though. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. It’s why I was telling myself to breathe, and why the soldier sitting across from me had. His name was Fergus. He was Irish and he had bright red hair you couldn’t really see under that helmet. But I remembered how it used to look in the surface of the lake near his house where he went for a swim every morning to wake up properly. That, paired with his deep blue eyes, could turn heads any day.
Any of the old days, that is.
“Is it strange?” I asked him, though I didn’t really mean to. But I had to know—was it as strange for him to be here, in an SUV—something that he couldn’t even dream about in the time he was alive?
It is, Mistress, Fergus answered in my mind, though it still sounded like all of them were talking at the same time.
And? Do you want to, like…explore more? I asked without speaking this time.
We have explored, he said, and just now I started to notice the accent that they all seem to have—the same accent.
What about those? Can you take them off? I asked next, looking down at the bracelet around his wrist.
We can’t remove our armor, said Fergus.
Are they…anchors? I wondered, squinting my eyes at the bracelet. Nothing much to see on it, though. Same color, same metal, just the band thinner than mine, and closed together.
No. Our anchor is you, Mistress. And we are yours.
Before I could ask him to explain, Taland said, “I hate to interrupt whatever conversation you’re having, baby, but we’re here.”
“Oh!” I said, surprised to find the Headquarters building in front of us and the SUV slowed down. “I’m sorry. It’s not a secret—it just comes naturally to speak to them internally when they do.”
Taland chuckled. “I know. It really does. Don’t feel bad about it. I don’t mind.”
Of course, he didn’t.
Unfortunately, there was no way that we could just keep driving this SUV on our own and go somewhere, hide from the world right now, so when Taland got out and held his hand out for me, I took it. Let him guide me outside. Fergus came out, too. So did the other three soldiers who’d driven behind us.
“What the…” My voice trailed off when I looked at the street to find that the other seven I had specifically told to stand back at the mansion until I sent someone from Headquarters to pick them up were running together in pairs, coming right behind us.
“I don’t think they like to be apart from you,” Taland said.
“That’s insane! ” They’d run all the way here? “ Fuck !” Now I felt bad…
“You couldn’t have stopped them if you’d tried,” Taland said. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
He took his hand in mine again and led us to the main doors of the building, where none other than Ashley Cameron waited for us with a huge smile on her face.
There were barely any guards around the front yard of the cross-shaped building. Very unusual, but things had changed. It was best to keep that in mind. Nothing was the same anymore—and neither was I. So when Ashley led us inside while her hands shook and her cheeks almost melted off her face, I didn’t mind. When every person I knew in the building, and new ones I’d never seen before, stopped what they were doing and moved back toward the walls and watched me with their eyes wide and mouths open, I didn’t mind. I reminded myself that this need to hide my eyes, to look at the floor so nobody saw them, would pass. I’d get used to it. And maybe, if I could figure out why they had turned white, when I had the time and the will to go through the memory of every soldier to better understand the man that Titus was—maybe I could undo it. Maybe I could get my own eyes back.
Until then…
Cameron led us straight to the elevator which only took you up to the director’s office. Taland’s brothers must have made it their own now. She said nothing when she stepped aside to let us into the car, but even though the space was big, it still didn’t fit all of the guards. Six remained outside—the same ones who’d run all the way here, and I’d been too distracted by my fear and panic to notice.
Stay here, boys. Keep watch, I thought.
Yes, Mistress, they said and turned their backs to the elevator, formed a line in front of it before the doors had slid closed.
Cameron had already backed away with an alarmed look on her face, but she’d be just fine.
“You’re nervous,” Taland said, kissing my hand as we climbed up to the top floor. “Don’t be.”
“I just want to get this over with,” I said. “I want to know what to expect. And I want to go see Cassie.”
“And we will. Soon.” He turned, grabbed my chin and pulled me closer, kissed my lips. “Everything will soon fall into place.”
It was like he gave me the world, put it right in the palms of my hands.
The doors of the elevator slid open. The office of the IDD director was in front of us, with all three Tivoux brothers and the Mergenbachs and a woman I hadn’t seen before but Taland had told me about—Violet Asher, Bluefire, one of the elder members of Selem. She was well over sixty, and it was easy enough to recognize her based on the description he’d given me when we were in the safe house on the mountain: long wavy hair that touches her hips and wraps around her shoulders like a silver blanket, not like normal hair does . He’d been absolutely right—it looked like a piece of fabric instead.
They were all close to the screens that were mounted on either side of the room right off the entrance, and the long tables in front of them.
When they saw us, they all stopped. They all came forward and they were all smiling.
“Your shift starts at eight—or didn’t you get the memo?” Radock said, tapping the watch on his wrist.
“Give them a break, won’t you?” Aurelia said, nudging him playfully on the shoulder. “Welcome, Tal, Rora. We’ve been waiting for you.” And they clapped.
They actually clapped, and none of them looked even remotely disturbed by the white of my eyes or the sight of the soldiers behind me.
Of course, they didn’t—they’d been ready to knock Taland out just to get him to keep them around, and they’d succeeded in a way. The soldiers were still here, even though I wish they were free instead.
But I kept that in mind as we walked deeper into the room to the main table opposite the elevator doors where the Director probably sat. The walls around it were completely made of glass and they showed the city surrounding Headquarters like they were 4K images instead of the real world.
The others came closer, shook our hands and patted our shoulders, all smiles and good moods and sparkles in their eyes.
It didn’t exactly surprise me, and it didn’t surprise Taland, either, but he said, “So, we’re just going to pretend that you didn’t want to knock me out and keep me sedated for…how long, exactly? Until you figured out how to take the soldiers from me?”
He said it all with a cheerful voice and a smile on his face, but what did surprise me was that none of the others even flinched.
“Pretend? Absolutely not!” said Radock.
“We wouldn’t have kept you sedated , kid,” Zachary said with a wide grin. “Not all the time.”
“It’s nothing personal, brother,” said Kaid. “All we wanted was the soldiers on our side. After all, it’s thanks to them that we all made it. They died for us. It’s the least we could do to try to keep them alive.”
Taland and I looked at one another. These people had absolutely no idea what they were talking about or what the soldiers even were. I couldn’t blame them, though. Taland hadn’t had a clue when he first brought them back, and I didn’t, either, when I asked him to share them with me. It’s not something anybody else could hear since everything happened inside our heads.
And we wanted to keep it that way. I could tell just by the look in his eyes and the small nod he gave me—the less the people knew about the Delaetus Army, the better. We could handle this on our own.
I nodded back.
“But all’s well now,” Aurelia said. “Rosabel has them—that’s perfectly fine by us. You’re on our side… right ?”
I am on the people’s side, I thought, and I said, “Yes, I…” My voice trailed off and I took in a deep breath, held her eyes. “Actually, I’m just on the people’s side.”
Her smile turned up a notch. “Then we’re all in the right place here.”
I nodded. “Cassie?” My heart skipped a beat at the mentioning of her name, even though Madeline had already told me. I just didn’t let myself believe anything she said—old habit.
“Awake. Healing. I’ll take you to see her as soon as we’re done here,” Aurelia said, and the next breath I took came so much easier. Goddess, thank you, I prayed.
“That’s a deal.” I had no doubt that Cassie wouldn’t mind my eyes, either. And even if she freaked out, I still planned to give her the hug of her life.
“Like I said, there will be no pretending, little brother. We did what we thought was right. Your soldiers saved us all. Whether they’re yours or Rosabel’s—I really don’t care. They died so that we didn’t have to. That I will not forget,” Radock said then.
Do you hear that? I asked in my mind, and the ease with which I thought that took me by surprise because it came so naturally. So quickly .
We hear, Mistress, the soldiers said, and I don’t know why that made me feel better. Why it was important that they knew what they’d done for us, how much their help had changed the world we lived in.
It had changed everything.
“Fair enough,” Taland said. “I appreciate the honesty.”
“Now sit down—all of you. We’re facing a completely new era and we have a lot to talk about,” Radock said, waving for me and Taland to get behind the large table, to turn our backs to that beautiful view of the city while the others were dragging and rolling chairs from all parts of the room to come together.
The soldiers followed behind me, pushing Radock back as they went. Not on purpose, but they demanded space and they were pretty big fellas. Not that I felt bad, to be honest.
One of them—Lind again—was already pulling the chair back for me to sit as I went around the table.
Thank you, Lind, I thought, and sat down, feeling all their eyes on me, but strangely it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.
Like Taland said, we were here now, the people who had stood up and fought, the same ones who’d taken down the old system, and were on the cusp of creating a new one. I actually didn’t mind being here at all now that I sat with them and they were all talking at the same time, his brothers asking Taland questions, before they turned to me.
In fact, it felt… right. Like I was meant to end up right here all along.
It felt like I had a voice now, and though I’d never thought about it before, that mattered. It was exactly what Madeline had talked about when she lectured me on power—having a voice and making a difference in decisions that would affect the people. Our people and the humans. The entire world.
I wanted to be here. After everything, I wanted to change the things that I spent so long fighting against. All of us here sitting at this table did.
“Shall we begin with the most obvious?” said Radock, folding the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, a silver pen in his hand and a pad in front of him.
I didn’t know what the most obvious was, but I smiled together with the rest of them, and nodded. Taland and I looked at each other for a moment, and he seemed just as calm as me. He felt that being here, now was the right thing, too. Where we were meant to be all along.
Together, we began.
A week later
It took a thought to get them to leave me alone for a minute, but even then, half of them had their eyes on me at all times. They didn’t care about people seeing them or about freaking others out—they spread around the neighborhood like nobody else in the world even existed. So long as some of them could see me, the others were cool enough to stay in the car with Taland.
I’d assigned two to him personally, to be with him at any given time, despite his complaints. He didn’t need babysitters, he told me, just like I told him back when the soldiers obeyed to his thoughts.
And I agreed. They were seven-centuries-old soldiers, not babysitters.
It’s not like he could do anything about it, though, which I loved to remind him of. Just like I couldn’t do anything about when we were in that safe house and he had them following me around every second we weren’t in the house.
It was still funny to see the look on his face any time he came out of the bathroom, though. I lived for it. It had been a week since we found out we weren’t going to die, after all, and I had over a thousand pictures on my new phone of him coming out of the bathroom and realizing that two soldiers were on either side of the door, waiting for him.
Priceless.
We lived in a penthouse now—only because of the soldiers. I’d have preferred a small apartment, to be honest, but small apartments wouldn’t fit eleven soldiers in and still leave space for us to live, so a penthouse it was. Only temporary until we found a house that we both loved. Right now, we needed to be close to Headquarters, so living in the city was a must.
After all, we were the new Directors of the IDD.
There was no telling how much work there was to begin with, let alone to also change the entire system at the same time as mending the damage the Council had left behind, and making sure that criminals didn’t take over completely while we were busy looking away.
That, too, was temporary—or at least we were promised it would be. In that meeting with the Tivouxes and Mergenbachs, we’d decided to stay and work for this new era, as Radock liked to call it, simply because we’d fought too hard and gone through too much not to make sure that the world ended up a better place for real at the end of it.
At first, when Radock asked us to take over the IDD, I hadn’t been all that sure about taking on more responsibility. We could help with other things, I thought, until Taland turned to me and said three words: the Iris Roe.
That game that had been my doom and my salvation. My blessing and my curse. That game that was the reason so many lives were lost regularly—and legally.
After that, it had been a no-brainer. I’d accepted my position alongside him and our first act as the newest directors of the IDD had been this: no more Iris Roe. The game would be permanently shut down, the playground reconstructed—and it was just the tip of the iceberg. So much in the City of Games that needed to change, but the Iris Roe, at least, would never happen again.
Taylor Maddison would not be happy about that, I figured, but that’s only until she saw what I brought for her in my pocket.
It was dark, past ten p.m. when I finally made it down the street from the human neighborhood, to the trailer where she still lived with her family. They hadn’t been captured or killed by the Council in those weeks of blind rage, and for that, I was so thankful. So many had lost their lives—we were still putting the names on record. Far too many—but the lights were on in the trailer, and Taylor Maddison was alive.
She always knew before when I came to visit, but right now as I looked behind the trailer where I’d caught her coloring once, there was nobody there. I looked back at the road, at the black SUVs Taland and I traveled in—again, because of the soldiers who insisted on staying with me all the damn time—and I knew he was watching me. I’d wanted to do this alone first, and he could meet Taylor later.
He really wanted to, and I loved him more for it.
A moment passed and Taylor still didn’t come outside, but I was dying to see the treehouse that carpenter had promised me he’d build for her, and I knew she would find me eventually. She always did.
So, I slowly moved to the back of the trailer, past the clothes that had been hung out to dry, and into the small forest where I spent so much time with her before. Where I got the peace and quiet—and will to keep going when it felt like there was no way out of the maze that was my life.
I went deeper, slowly, eyes wide, and for a moment, as I tried to see everything, I accidentally sort of switched to what Taland called all-eyes-mode, and I was suddenly looking through the eyes of the two soldiers who’d went all around the houses, and I knew for a fact that they were in the forest with me.
They were—and Edric, one of the soldiers, had eyes on the little light that was coming from the tree.
From Taylor’s tree.
It didn’t scare me anymore, to be dragged down that tunnel. Not saying I was used to it, just that it didn’t freak me out as it did in the beginning.
Still, I preferred to be looking through my own eyes only, so any time I slipped, I quickly came back. A smile on my face as I rushed to get to the treehouse.
Two minutes later, it was right there in front of me, better than I could have possibly imagined—and light was indeed coming from inside.
Tears in my eyes. It was a big tree house, big enough to fit Taylor comfortably. I thought about calling her name, but then figured I should make sure she was alone first by walking around the tree to search for the shadows up there.
Except…
A head popped out of the window of the tree house.
“Who’s there?” Taylor Maddison called, and my heart all but burst right out of my chest.
Our eyes locked.
I remembered mine were white now. She was a kid and she could be scared of me.
Sun glasses, Rora. Sun glasses!
Except this was Taylor, and she wanted to win the Iris Roe when she grew up and she’d broken into the IDD Headquarters once just to see me—of course, she wasn’t going to be afraid of some eyes without color.
That’s why she was smiling.
Instinctively, I raised my hand and waved. “Hi.”
She said nothing, only disappeared for a moment, then reappeared on the other side of the tree, climbing down a ladder I couldn’t see very well from here—and to be honest, I couldn’t move for a good moment.
Long enough for her to run and jump in my arms and hug me with all her strength.
Yeah, she didn’t care about how I looked, and if she could hear the soldiers nearby, hiding in the dark, she couldn’t care less about that, either.
Her big eyes sparkled, and she said, “ Come see my treehouse!” without giving me a moment to even look at her, to see that she was okay.
“Will I even fit in there?” I said, laughing, as she dragged me to the other side of the tree, to the ladder.
“Yes, yes, you will. Come on!”
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so cheerful, so… carefree, exactly as a kid should be. That alone made me want to do everything in my power to keep it that way—but first, the treehouse.
She had a gas lamp there, an old one she got at the dollar store, she said, because using an electric light didn’t fit with the vibe . She had a couple of cushions and a lot of coloring books, a lot of colors and blankets, too. A tablet was playing music on a low volume, and she was glowing as she told me about the day the guy I’d hired came here looking for her, asking to see the tree where she wanted the treehouse. She said she immediately knew that it was me, and she couldn’t wait for me to get back so she could show me.
Like she knew for a fact that I would.
Fuck, I loved this kid, and I didn’t even realize how much until my heart about burst at seeing her so damn happy. With a treehouse—just a treehouse. A space for her to just… be.
“Tell me everything,” she then said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, the lamp between us. The guy had really outdone himself—it really was big enough for both of us to sit comfortably.
“How much have you seen already?” I wondered.
“All the videos that are online,” she said, and I flinched. Yes, a lot of people had recorded the battle, recorded Taland and me on top of that bus, the fight of the soldiers with the Council, though those we’d taken down already by sending out a magically enhanced virus to destroy them completely in any device across the world. Nobody needed to see all that blood being spilled in that way.
But the rest remained.
“Okay, so…a very bad guy was trying to bring back an ancient army from—” I started, but…
“David Hill, the IDD director and the Delaetus Army. Yes, yes, I know. And?”
I burst out laughing—how could I not? Of course, she knew everything. They’d given it in the news on human channels, and most importantly, social media.
So, I wrapped things up for her as well as I could without telling her the especially ugly parts, and she listened intently, hanging onto my every word until I finished speaking.
“No more Iris Roe,” she finally whispered, and her shoulders slowly hunched, and her eyes slowly lowered to the light between us.
“No more Iris Roe,” I confirmed with a nod.
“I suppose it’s for the best,” she said, and I smiled—she was making herself say that, but I could see the tears pooling in her eyes. She was devastated about it because the Iris Roe to her represented a chance at magic.
She fucking loved magic.
I held back a smile as I reached for the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out an envelope. It was thick, and her name was embossed on one side in beautiful golden cursive letters.
“This is for you,” I said and handed it to her.
She tried—oh, how she tried to smile, but she only managed to look like she was in pain when she took the envelope and read her name on the back of it, and…
She stopped. Looked at me again.
“What’s this?”
“Open it,” I urged her, so impatient I probably looked ridiculous.
But Taylor opened the envelope slowly, her hands slightly shaking, until she pulled out the thick piece of paper I’d put in there myself after I signed it.
I watched her eyes, unblinking, as she read every single word written on it, then started from the beginning.
Shook her head.
“I don’t…I-I…” Again, she looked at me as if she was waiting for me to tell her that it was a joke.
“Go ahead, read it for me,” I said instead, and it took her a moment to breathe and to stop stuttering. To read those words out loud.
“ Dear Miss Maddison, ” she started. “ We would like to invite you to attend the Iridian School of Chromatic Magics this coming fall as its student. Your presence would honor us, should you choose to accept. We l-l-look forward t-t-to meeting you and to learn about our world t-t-together. Signed, Martin Emanuel Pascal, Headmaster, and Rosabel La Rouge, Co-director of IDD. ”
Taylor barely choked the words out, then closed her eyes and gathered her knees to her chest and cried in perfect silence. Her little body shook as she held on tightly to that letter, and she just cried.
I pushed the lamp aside and went closer, hugged her to my side and let her have her time. I pretended I wasn’t crying, though my cheeks were just as wet as hers.
“What do you say, huh? Do you accept?” I asked when she calmed down and stopped shaking and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“But…but I’m Mud,” she said in that small voice, and I leaned back, raised her head to me.
“Laetus,” I told her. “There is no such thing as Mud .”
“I don’t have any magic,” she whispered, and this time I laughed.
“But you do! You just can’t access it right now, and that’s okay. Because when you finish your studies and when you learn everything you need to know, you will receive all the energy you need to unlock it. It’s in you, Taylor. And it’s waiting.”
“Like…like when I made light?” She looked down at the palm of her hand, fascinated, eyes red and cheeks wet.
“Exactly like that,” I promised her. “Exactly like that.”
Together, we sat at the edge of the tree house where a part of the wall pulled to the side like a door. Taylor had requested it from the carpenter, she said, so she could sit and watch the moon again like we used to. We barely fit together, but we made it work.
Eventually, we both calmed down, and no more tears came out of us, and our hearts slowed down the beating, too.
Eventually, I found her smiling like she was right there in the sky with the half-moon she was staring at.
“They say you’re the youngest director the IDD has ever had,” she said after a while.
“I am,” I said. “Just turned twenty-one three days ago, actually.” I still signed my contract with the IDD when I was twenty, though. Technically.
“Happy birthday, Rora,” Taylor said, and my smile was so big it hurt.
“Thank you, Taylor.”
“Is it real, though? That letter? Is it…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes wide with fear suddenly.
“Of course, it is. The Headmaster, Mr. Pascal, wrote and sent me the invitation himself.” All I’d had to do was make a call.
“So, will all Mud be going to school with the Iridians now?”
I touched her face, pushed her hair behind her ear. “Laetus are Iridian,” I told her. “And, yes, you will all be going to school together from now on.”
She blinked and blinked and blinked…
“Is this a dream, Rora?”
There went my tears, stinging my eyes again.
“No, Taylor. It’s not a dream,” I said. “It’s just the real world becoming right again.”
I often thought about that question Taylor had once asked me, about what it meant to be Iridian. Back then I hadn’t had a clue how to answer, but now I did. Being Iridian is being just like every conscious being out there, no matter the species. We’re all the same, and we’re all one thing — lost souls waiting to be loved so we can find our way home.
That’s how I felt now— home, not in a penthouse, but in my skin. Thanks to Taland and to Taylor, too.
There was still so much to do, so many things to figure out. Not just about how this new system would work and how much of the old would remain, but with the soldiers, too. With the curse. With all this power that I had now and what I could do with it.
I never asked to be here, and I never imagined that this was where I’d end up, but I was not going to back down now. Together, we would make it, Taland and I. We would see the world as we wished it was when we were only kids because there are ways. There are always other ways. I have faith in that.
And most importantly, I have faith in myself.
I’ve tiptoed through most of my life. Now I am going to slam my feet down with all my strength to let everybody know that I am here.
—THE END
Thank you for reading Iridian !
This is the final book in this series and I hope you enjoyed the story.