Chapter Thirty-One #2
I do not let any emotion seep through my words. “A night attendant, actually.”
Her brows pinch together as her lips tilt.
“How interesting. And King Alastair let you go? Allowed you leave to compete in these exams?” Her features shift as a fresh line of thought clearly takes her in a different direction.
“Or did you sneak away to be here? You can tell us. Jurafen serve no king, after all. But if you’re a stowaway—”
“—That’s enough, Arden.” Draven bites the words out.
And Arden looks like he just openly wounded her.
Draven ignores her. “Perhaps we’d be better suited to focus on the task at hand—which is judging her based on her flower—instead of quizzing her about the king she served.
” He flicks his seafoam eyes to the honey resting within Arden’s.
“You said it yourself—Jurafen serve no king, so this conversation is irrelevant.”
Did he just do that to help me? It’s not that I had any intentions of telling them about my blood wager with the king, but his intervention sure made that task a hell of a lot easier.
“I cannot say that I’m in agreement,” Finlay objects.
“Of course you’re not,” Kiran mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes.
Finlay shoots him a look. A look that is soon sharpened—if that is even possible—and redirected to me.
“People expect Jurafen to be of a particular caliber. We garner respect—trust. Some king’s whore that has fucked her way through every courtier and emissary within the Three Kingdoms is not exactly fitting of that description.
In fact, she does it a great disservice by even being here, tarnishing the sanctity of the name.
No one in their right mind will feel safe with some servant protecting them instead of a properly bred noble. ”
The ice necklace suddenly sits heavy at my throat. My fingers reach for it, clutching it gently. Thestis’s freckle-filled face and tiny voice fill my mind.
Show Bathara we matter, too; that we aren’t lesser than the others.
Make them see us.
And I promised him I would, and so I will.
I lift my chin and address Finlay. “With all due respect, if we are discussing the fate of my future, then why are you so focused on my past?”
Finlay grinds his teeth. “Because the past is a medium for which one can better understand the possibilities of the future, and we would be fools to ignore it.”
I do not balk. “So is a fractured past a sure indication of a fractured future?”
“Fractured is as it sounds—broken. You can try to piece it together, but it will never be as strong and effective as something not already broken.”
My eyes remain locked on him. “Do you know anything about plants?”
Finlay’s white brows lower. “I beg your pardon?”
“Plants,” I repeat. “Do you know anything about them?”
His lip curls as confusion pinches his face. “What nonsense is this?”
My hand lifts in tune with my idle shrug. “Nothing. It’s just if you think broken things always remain weaker, you should really learn more about plants. A stem snapped clean in half, when given proper care, can mend into a more resilient version of itself. ”
His lips thin into a fine line. “Your point being…?”
My eyes do not leave Finlay Fjolla as I give him my answer. “Just that past damage does not imply permanent fragility. Nature shows us that.” I make a show of frowning. “But by your logic, that isn’t possible. So I ask you, Captain : who’s correct here—you, or the forces of nature?”
Finlay’s face practically goes purple from anger, and I don’t fight the small curve tugging at the corner of my mouth. I glimpse at Draven, and I’m surprised to find him with a similar smirk on his face.
“As entertaining as this debate by analogy has been,” Nuha begins, glancing between Finlay and me. “I’d much rather focus on the present. What is your flower?”
My heart picks up speed as I pull the wrapped flower from my pack.
Well, here we go.
I unveil it, and every Captain’s head cocks.
“What…is that ?” Arden asks, her brows scrunched.
Nuha leans forward in her seat, and her green eyes narrow on the flower.
Finlay slides his gaze toward her. “Nuha, do you recognize that? Is it even a true essence flower?” He sneers in my direction before glancing back at her.
Nuha takes her time before responding. “I…can’t be sure. I certainly don’t recognize it.”
Resting his cheek on his fist, Kiran comments, “An unidentifiable essence flower? Finally, some fun around here.”
All the captains shoot him a look. Well, all the captains except Draven, that is. With his elbows braced on his thighs and his fingers peaked at his lips, he watches me with silent interest.
I allow my eyes to linger on him for only a moment before I blow out a quiet sigh. “If I may,” I say to them all, though I position my gaze on Nuha.
She inclines her head.
I remove the flower from its cloth and place it gently in my palm. Time to show them what Marcella and I discovered when I plucked it from its home .
The layered petals, which look as if they’ve been stitched together with dull, black threads, warm under my touch.
Within seconds, some of the threads come alive with green and gold, while the others remain stagnant and black.
The color pulses along the flower’s seemingly living seams, glowing with a glittering light.
To be honest, if it hadn’t done this, I also wouldn’t have believed it was an essence flower. I would have remained certain that I had simply failed to detect my real one.
But now the looming question remains: what the hell is it, and what does it mean?
Truthfully, I’m far more frustrated than I care to admit not knowing about this particular flower. Because of course the one flower that perplexes me is my own. Though I at least hoped one of the captains might have answers.
But instead, they sit before me, looking every bit as dumbfounded as I feel.
Draven leans back in his seat, and I swear I catch a small twitch at the corner of his lips.
Arden glances between her fellow captains. “When is the last time an examinee has presented an unrecorded essence flower?”
Nuha studies me with scrutinizing eyes. “I’m not sure,” she murmurs. “I will have to search through Bathara’s archival records.”
“And the records of every essence flower we know of,” Finlay adds.
Arden’s brows lower. “So how do we proceed? We cannot judge her on a flower we know nothing about.”
“But we can judge her on the basis of her ability to detect and return with that flower,” Kiran counters.
My eyes bounce between them, watching—waiting. I quickly glance at Draven, wondering if he’ll ever add any input. But he remains still—focused. Almost as if he is waiting for something.
“I say we simply cut ties now and fail the girl.” Finlay locks his aqua-colored eyes on me. “Let’s be done with this fool’s endeavor and prevent the girl any further…” He tilts his head with thought. “...humiliation.” His nose wrinkles as he practically spits th e last word.
“Such a brilliant idea,” Kiran retorts dryly. “Relinquish the thing you know nothing about, simply because you don’t understand it.” Kiran cuts Finlay a pointed look. “I know I’m not alone in sensing there is a great magic simmering beneath her skin.”
I blink, stunned at the words.
There is a… what ?
“Which makes her all the more dangerous and further solidifies my reasoning.”
“Reasonings that steer you in the wrong direction. Again .” Kiran quietly bites out the last word. The sentence feels oddly personal—laced with a familiarity exceeding mere camaraderie.
“There is no way to guarantee she won’t become a threat to us, or a danger to those at Bathara.” Finlay slides his eyes to me. “Tell me, girl—what is your wielder’s mark?”
Shit.
“Unmanifested at the moment.” The words tumble from my mouth a lot weaker than I’d like.
Even Kiran seems taken aback by that. He didn’t know, after all. Only Draven did. His sapphire eyes round with apology as he watches me, as if to say, I’m sorry. I tried.
Finlay sits straighter in his chair. “My point has been made. There is no way to keep a check on the girl. To ensure she doesn’t become a danger. Bathara has no room for wildcards. I move to officially fail her.”
And just as my shoulders are about to sag from the weight of this failure, Draven’s voice finally fills the room. “What if I train her? Assess her magic and observe her for the duration of her participation in these exams.”
I have to actively fight against my jaw as it threatens to drop. Realization dawns on me, and his words from the other night clamor through me.
There’s a rule against captains helping examinees during the exams. If I am going to train you, there will have to be good cause for the other captains to go along with it; I’ll figure out a way to make it happen.
That’s what he was waiting for .
His moment to manipulate the situation into exactly what he wanted.
Terrifying…how good he is at that.
All the captain’s eyes whip to Draven, and Kiran’s heavily arched brow does not go unnoticed by me.
“You?” Finlay questions, disbelief clinging to his every word. “ Why ?”
Draven shrugs. “Because as Kiran said, it’s unwise to eliminate something just because we don’t understand it. The risks associated with a decision like that are too great.” He turns to Nuha. “Nuha, can you track down any record of this essence flower before the exams end?”
Nuha glances at him. “I can certainly try.”
Draven nods, as if that’s all he needed to hear. “In the meantime, I will train her. It will allow me to keep her under constant observation while also reducing any associated risks. Considering every angle, it’s our best option.”
Arden’s brows pinch together so forcefully, an indent forms between them. She frowns at Draven.
Kiran claps his hands together, that signature smirk of his already tugging at his lips. “Perfect. I move to pass her then.”
Arden drags a hand down her face, her features suddenly appearing far more exhausted than before. “I will second the motion.”
Nuha slides her eyes to Draven, where they linger silently.
He calmly shrugs under the watchful gaze. “My vote should be implied. Third.”
Nuha’s eyes remain on him, her expression giving nothing away.
“I’m not sure what your motivations are for this…
uncharacteristic display of yours, but I guess I don’t need to understand you to support you.
” Her voice softens. “Will you provide us with reports of your observations when prompted? At least until I can locate any knowledge of her essence flower.”
Draven dips his chin. “Of course.”
She exhales a long sigh. “Then I see no reason to worry. I support passing her.”
All eyes glide to Finlay, whose cold eyes remain locked on me.
I do not buckle beneath the weight of them .
“Fine,” Finlay reluctantly agrees. “Let’s indulge this silly game just a little bit longer.”
In the quiet, dark hours of the night—or perhaps in the frigid, early moments before the inevitable dawn—I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, drenched in cold sweat.
Somewhere between tracing moonlit shadows and replaying the night’s events—Gray passing, me advancing, Marcella being cleared to move on with flying colors, the captains once again left slack-jawed by her flower—I had drifted into a deep void of sleep.
In the gripping abyss, I had a blurry dream of shadows, ice, and fires.
Arrows and daggers. Sobs and graves. So many graves.
I heard echoes of screams and pleas for mercy.
Shrills and shrieks reverberated from fallen bodies.
Bones, clattered and broken, spread over the ground like trampled flowers across a field.
Two figures clashed. Magic swirled through the air like a hurricane of power.
The world burned.
The dream felt so real, yet so distant. Like I was there, watching, but had yet to truly reach the destination.
There were melancholy hums of laments for the lost and lullabies for the restless.
There was a composition of scars. Stories of old mending with stories of new in hurried whispers of voices gone and present.
The stars had sung a requiem in tears for the fallen.
The darkness sang out a ballad for those broken.
A hymn was played for that which was forgotten.
Someone calls out to me, waiting with an outstretched hand.
In the back of my mind, a haunted scream pierces through the void. Flames flicker. Something irreparably breaks. A heart never recovers.
Finally, at some point, my mind lulls and again gives way to the dark. Whether that darkness is from my eyes finally closing or succumbing to the scream in my head, I don’t know. I just know that when I finally drift back to sleep, it is deep and dreamless.