24. An earth-shattering truth #2
“You’re lucky I didn’t hurt you,” Maksym hissed at the sprite as I drew close. “Do not sneak up on me like that. You know better.”
To prove a point, the sprite zipped towards the king’s face, up out of reach in circles around him, taunting him with tiny squeaked clips the entire time.
“I’ll stop sneaking up on you when you can catch me for once in your life,” came Eilir’s final callout from up near the second-story catwalk before they vanished.
For the first time since I arrived in Grimmoria, I thought the king might actually combust. But Maksym’s shoulders heaved as he blew out a groan of a breath and rolled his head from side to side before he glanced back at me. “Welcome, Miss Wynn.”
“Afternoon, Your Majesty.” I made sure not to set any of my attention on Jasper. “Are you taking part in my lesson today or…?”
“Oh, if only. Just the two of you today, I’m afraid.
King business and all that.” A couple of lengthy strides carried him over, and he gave my shoulder a squeeze with a lingering look.
A little more quietly, he added, “Try not to maim him any further. Or yourself. Or bleed on any of my books. Please.”
I flashed him a tight smile that was hard enough with the ache in my shoulder, let alone the impossible-to-ignore shift in energy in the room. “I’ll try my best.”
Maksym nodded, sighed, and then he was gone.
Just to give myself a moment of grounding, I watched the king’s back and well-sculpted shoulders as he trailed the entire way out of the archives.
When he finally slipped through the door, and it clanked shut behind him, I turned my attention to Jasper.
He gestured at the chair opposite the table from him.
It was probably for the best that we didn’t sit on the same side.
I yanked it out and dropped onto the worn wood seat. I had just opened my mouth to ask what our order of business was, but Jasper didn’t give me a fucking chance.
“Which pantheon do we worship in Grimmoria?” he asked, his face wildly unreadable.
“The lower. Why?”
“Wrong. Try again.”
My eyes narrowed. “The…dark? And again, why?”
“That’s correct.” He drummed his fingers on the table, though the sound wasn’t exactly usual, with a few of those fingers splinted together. “Upper and lower is a segregation that high fae like to use, and it has been heavily adopted by Odessa.”
“Okay,” I drawled. “Why does—”
“What are their names?”
“Names? Mina. Ledigh. Droxus. And…?” I grimaced.
Not only was the lower—or dark—pantheon not something we learned about extensively in Odessa, it had been years since I’d learned about them. I’d also not come prepared for a fucking exam.
Jasper tsked and shook his head. “Wrong again. Ledigh is Mina’s hellhound. Idroxas is the second. Arka the third. Yveil the fourth.”
Oh, goddess help us both—I should not have agreed to meet Jasper.
Despite what I wanted to believe, I’d gained no handle on the volatile state of my feelings towards my old friend. Sitting in front of him like this, being berated with questions I didn’t understand the purpose of, only compounded my irritation further.
“Well, thank you so much for clarifying that for me, Jasper.” I didn’t miss the way his body tensed when I bit out his assumed name. “Are you going to make me ask you why you’re telling me this again, or…?”
“Good to see your patience hasn’t changed.” His sigh was infuriating as he stood and grabbed a tome from the end of the table.
He set it in front of me with a thud, rifling through a few pages before landing on one that had four intricate sigils drawn on it, the names of the four dark pantheon gods beneath each.
“If there is anything you prioritize learning, it needs to be our gods and what they represent on more subtle levels. There could be aspects of each incorporated into your trials that the other contestants will know easily, and you need to know what to look for. The sigils are only the start of it, and I’d wager a guess you know nothing else of them.
If you were presented with three samples of indigenous flora and told to eat two, would you know which one Mina gives to her disciples in times of need?
Or which one Arka uses to poison his foes? ”
My hands tightened around the armrests, and my hold on my composure slipped enough for me to bite back, “Right. The na?ve outsider needs someone to hold their hand and tell them stories meant for children, is that it? Because clearly, I’ve never been educated a day in my life and couldn’t handle any of this on my own. ”
For a tense second, Jasper just observed me before he lowered back into his chair. He pulled the tome back and flipped through it. “Despite what we were taught to believe, an Odessan education is not all that it’s made out to be, Nor.”
And there my grasp went entirely. Nerve. Struck.
“Of course it isn’t,” I scoffed. “So that’s why you left, then? The pursuit of higher education? There was something in the illustrious Wastes we couldn’t offer you?”
His attention snapped up, clearly surprised, before he shook his head. “No,” he said carefully. “That’s not why.”