Chapter 28 Sage
The only thing that seemed to calm Ivar and even Ari from avenging Adrian was Iman, who apparently knew they were her mates the entire time and never shifted back.
She said it was all part of her plan to oust Apep and figure out what was going on, but personally, she could have shifted when they were alone.
It was hard going to class and doing my office hours and pretending Radames hadn’t snapped my friend’s neck and murdered a bunch of other students here. It was harder than pretending I didn’t know Lola could eat someone’s shade with her void powers because I’d always had a bad feeling around her.
I was upset about Adrian, but I wasn’t his mate.
Ivar, Alexios, Ari, and even Iman took it hard.
So did the rest of the school. My class, not so much because they’d been enchanted by Lola, but Adrian seemed to be friends with nearly everyone.
Now that I knew why, it just made me sad because Adrian had found his family here.
There were a lot of crying people at his funeral.
Even I wanted to kill Radames and Lola when they showed up at the funeral.
They weren’t together because they never were but I guess they thought it would be suspicious for both sides of the school to turn out and them be the only two students not there.
All the teachers were here, too, even the ones that didn’t teach Adrian. Old Jingo was even here.
Adrian was already buried since they didn’t embalm reincarnations or originals here. We were all standing around his plot when it happened. Adrian started crawling out of his grave. Everyone was screaming. He pulled himself out naked and covered in dirt.
“Ah! Zombie!” Liam cried.
Before anyone could stop him, Liam’s switchblade flew out of his hand and buried itself between Adrian’s eyes. Adrian collapsed dead again, and I didn’t scream this time, which was weird.
“Oh, shite, what if he really was the reincarnation of Jesus?” Liam moaned. “I just reacted.”
“He’s not,” Headmaster Mykene said. “Most mythological creatures have some truth to them. Just because something hasn’t been reincarnated before, doesn’t mean they won’t be. I think I know what Adrian is. Everyone, back up.”
“What does it mean?” Ivar asked.
“It means I’m almost certain Adrian is the reincarnation of a very rare original who didn’t spawn an entire race and you need to step back.”
“Sorry, not to be disrespectful,” Liam said, yanking his knife out of Adrian’s face and backing up with the rest of us.
We all watched and waited. Headmaster Mykene never told us her theories until she knew they were fact. She wasn’t even going to give us a hint this time when everyone here cared about Adrian and Liam kind of flipped and killed him again.
Adrian’s corpse started smoking and then burst into flames.
The fire was hot, but it was also the same color of his aura.
Adrian was reduced to a gigantic pile of ash in seconds, but all of a sudden, he sat up naked and very much alive.
Several people screamed with joy and a few fainted. I was mostly just confused.
“Behold, a phoenix. There were always stories of a phoenix, but there are no legends of someone creating them and they aren’t gods. No one knows where they came from, but they die and then are reborn from the ashes. Your friend might die a few more times, but they won’t stay dead.”
I chanced a look at Radames. He looked furious before he slunk off. Lola disappeared shortly after. Lola and Radames might not stay dead for good, but now we had Adrian who didn’t, either.
This was going to change everything. I could feel it.