15. Tezya
FIFTEEN
TEZYA
“I want to go with you.”
I was surprised to find Scottie in my tent later that night. She’d barely spoken to me since we first arrived, and it was killing me. I was forcing myself to give her space. I knew she needed time to process everything, but seeing her in front of me now, I had no idea why I was waiting.
Dawn was a few hours away, and I hadn’t figured out who was coming with me. The only people I knew were going were Savannah and Kallon, and I was fine with keeping it just the three of us. The more people who traveled, the bigger the risk. We would be vulnerable out in the open, not protected by the camp’s shield, and I knew the Lux King probably had the entire mortal territory crawling with spies to locate us. It was only a matter of time until they made it north.
He wouldn’t kill me. He’d want me alive, but everyone else…
“You’re better off staying behind to train,” I replied honestly. “I don’t care who you train with, but you need to work on your enhancement.”
“I’ll train with Dovelyn again if you let me go with you. ”
“Why?” I asked. I didn’t blame her for not wanting my sister to train her anymore. Hell, I was furious at Dovelyn after she told me everything, and I wanted to kill her myself. But I also knew Dove was Scottie’s best bet at learning her enhancement.
She shrugged. “As much as I don’t particularly like her, I want to get better. I want to help, Tezya. I don’t want to be left behind anymore because I’m not trained.”
“It’s not a good idea for you to go, Rumor, but it has nothing to do with you not being trained.”
She crossed her arms. “Then why?”
“The more people that go, the bigger chance we’re taking at drawing attention.”
“Please, Tezya. I promise I won’t get in the way.”
I met her eyes and saw the pleading look in them. I could sense her, feel how badly she wanted it.
“Okay.” I rubbed at my scab, giving in to her too quickly. “But you have to listen to me. If we get caught, you have to leave with Kallon, no exceptions.” I could tell she was about to fight me on it. She was stubborn to a fault, but if she wanted to come, she had to realize how dangerous it could be. “I don’t want you in his hands again,” I said, lowering my voice. The thought of the Lux King having Scotlind sent a newfound fear down my spine.
She narrowed her eyes. “And what about you?”
“I’ll manage.”
Her eyes flared at my words, but she tried to mask it. The brief moment of worry that crossed her expression was gone in a second. “Fine,” she covered, then walked out of my tent without another word.
“We have to stop at Ichi’s restaurant first,” Savannah said as I met her at the border of the shield .
“Are we borrowing his car?”
“No.” She didn’t bother to look at me as she started laying winter coats out on the grass. “The hike isn’t accessible to any roads. We’re walking.”
“Then why are we wasting time stopping at Ichi’s?”
“I need coffee,” Savannah replied like it was the most obvious answer, which knowing her, it was. “A large one. The largest cup I can get my hands on.”
“We don’t have time for that, Sav.”
She whipped her lavender hair in my direction. “Of course we have time. We always have time for coffee, Tez.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were supposed to eat before we leave.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’m not used to eating at the ass-crack-of-dawn, so we’re stopping.” I went to protest, but she cut me off, “I’m human, remember? You don’t want me passing out from starvation, and then you’d no longer have a guide to lead you through Maine. Besides,” she drawled slowly as a wide grin stretched over her face, and she grabbed onto my arm, “Ichihana would have your balls if he knew you were in town and didn’t stop in to say hi.”
Kallon was walking toward us and instantly perked up. “Yay! We’re going to see Ichi? I’ve been dying for his ramen.”
Sav rubbed her belly with her free hand. “Ramen and coffee, the perfect mix.”
“The weirdest mix,” Dove replied as she approached. I went to her tent last night and told her not to come with us, but she shrugged it off. I knew this would be hard for her, but I was happy to see her here regardless. I hadn’t put much thought into what we were actually doing, what it would mean to see our mother’s grave for the first time. Selfishly, I was happy my sister would be with me. A small part of me thought it was wrong that Arcane wasn’t with us too. We all loved our mother. She was the only reason the three of us were so close, and Arcane took her death the hardest. He became a shell of who he used to be, worse than Dovelyn and I ever were.
Rumor and Sie were trailing behind my sister. Scottie was walking a few steps ahead of him, looking ready to bite his head off before her gaze drifted to Savannah’s hand still on my arm.
“She’s not going,” the Dark Prince announced.
“Yes, I am,” Scotlind seethed.
“It’ll be too dangerous. She’s lived as a nix her entire life. She isn’t trained like the rest of you.”
Scottie bristled, but I didn’t miss the quick glance she casted down at both of her zeroes. I was livid. No way would this prick make her feel incompetent or less of herself. I wanted her to train so she could reach her full potential, not because I thought she was lacking.
I took a step toward him, stepping away from Savannah. “You do not get to decide who goes and who doesn’t. This is a free group, everyone gets to make the choice for themselves. And,” I added, my voice lowering to a growl, “I trained her myself. She is fucking capable, so if you ever say otherwise again, you’ll find yourself on your ass.”
“You can’t beat me up.”
“If you ever insinuate she isn’t capable of anything ever again, I would take my time knocking you on your ass. But I didn’t mean me.” I settled my gaze on Rumor. “I’m sure she’d be happy to prove you wrong.”
I gave a half smile as the prince glowered at me. Scottie’s eyes trailed to my cheek. I always found her staring at my scar. She wasn’t the only one, everyone gawked at it, but most did in disgust. Scottie’s assessment was different, it felt different. She seemed more intrigued and curious about it than anything else, like she almost preferred it.
“One rule at this camp, Noren, don’t ever use the word nix. Better yet, don’t ever insinuate anyone of a lesser rank isn’t as strong as someone with a higher rank. Sav has no powers, and she can hold her own against the Advenians here.”
Sie’s dark eyes flicked to where Savannah was standing with her arms crossed. He stared at her with an assessing gaze, one she wasn’t backing down from.
“It’s an open party then?” he asked. “Everyone can decide for themselves if they want to come?”
“Yes. It’s Rumor’s decision if she wants to go. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone else but hers. ”
“Then I’m coming too.”
I realized my mistake as soon as Sie said it.
Savannah clapped her hands together. “Great. Now that that’s settled, let’s go. I want to be at Ichi’s restaurant before the sun is up. If I don’t get coffee in my system soon, you’re all going to regret it.”
With that, Sav strutted through the shield with no fear that she was leading our kind’s most wanted Advenians.
I gestured to the pile of winter clothes Savannah just laid out. Everyone piled on as many layers as we could before following her out into the thick snow.
Through the shield, I could still make out the low sounding beeps with my heightened hearing. Six noises sounded, letting the border control know we left the camp, and I prayed we weren’t making a stupid decision by going.
As soon as Scottie stepped through, she turned to stare back at it. I probably took for granted how well the shield worked, how real it all looked. On this side, it appeared again as a massive cliff right into the ocean.
It was a quiet walk to Ichi’s ramen shop and one we made frequently, or we used to. Only this time the tension was palpable. Everyone was on edge except Savannah. It wasn’t because she didn’t know the danger she put herself in, more like she didn’t care. It never bothered her. She was the first to volunteer for anything, driving Dravenburg mad. Whereas her brother, Wells, was the opposite. He rarely left the camp and was usually isolated by himself in his lab.
“Thank all things almighty,” Sav groaned when Ichi’s sign came into view. His shop was located a mile from town, but it didn’t make it any less crowded. Everyone gambled the walk, even when the ground was frozen over.
Most of the human population would drive from their homes to get his ramen. But the entrance to Brighta was through a dense forest, and Dravenburg claimed he didn’t need or want a vehicle. Not when he had grown up his whole life inside the camp. On the off chance he had to use one, he’d borrow Ichi’s.
We’d been coming to Brighta since before Savannah and Wells were even born. Hell, before Dravenburg was born too. The camp was passed down to him from his father and then his father before that. We knew our mother’s grave was on mortal soil, but it was a guess Dravenburg was privy to the location.
We discovered Brighta after her death. It came to Dovelyn in a vision, and we found the camp together. It was only then we learned our mother started the rebellion with Dravenburg’s grandfather. Before, Brighta was only a place of refuge, but my mother changed that. When Dove and I first met Dravenburg’s grandfather, we’d begged him for the location of her grave, but he refused to give it to us, claiming he was respecting her wishes.
She never wanted us to find it, which was the whole reason she entrusted it to the past mortal commander in the first place. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around her being only a day’s travel from the camp. I wanted nothing more than for her to still be alive, that she could’ve seen what the camp became…
A large closed sign was hanging off the glass door as Savannah stepped up to Ichi’s restaurant. She reached into her hair, releasing a bobby pin, causing her lavender locks to cover half her face.
She picked the lock and had the door swinging open before Ichi could make it around the pulled curtain in the kitchen. Warm air pushed on our faces as we all stepped inside, desperate to get away from the cold. I held the door open, letting Scottie pass before me.
“Ichi,” Savannah grinned, “look who I brought.”
The elderly man smiled from ear to ear, his sunken eyes squinting. “It’s about time.” He beamed, his gaze shifting through us all. “And I see you brought some new friends too.”
Sav sat down on one of the open bench tables. “I need the largest coffee you have, Ichi. Then my favorite spicy bowl of ramen, then another cup of coffee to go.”
“It’s only seven in the morning, and you want ramen now?”
“Please,” Savannah pleaded, her lip pouting over.
“You know you should just work here for how much you deplete my stock.” Ichihana frowned as he watched her position her bobby pin back into her hair. “And I’ve told you numerous times to use the bell and stop breaking in. You give me a heart attack every time I wake up and find the coffee machine turned on in the middle of the night.”
“But my father’s coffee is nowhere near as good as yours.” She smiled.
Ichi was a lifelong friend of Dravenburg, making him an uncle figure to Savannah and Wells. He didn’t know the full extent of what we all were, but I assumed he had his suspicions.
“It’s good to see you, Ichi,” I said as I gave him a pat on the back. “This is Rumor and Sie. Friends of ours.” Sie gave me a death glare at the mention of Scottie’s last name. It only made me want to call her it more. She wasn’t a Noren, and she was definitely not his wife, no matter what claim he thought he possessed over her, and I had no issues reminding him of it.
“Nice to meet you both. Any friend of theirs is a friend of mine,” he said as he pulled Dovelyn and Kallon into a hug at the same time. “I’ll go warm up some ramen.”
“And coffee,” Savannah hollered as he disappeared behind the curtain again. We all awkwardly sat down around the table. No one spoke, and I was thankful when Ichi re-emerged with a tray of steaming hot ramen bowls and one large, black coffee for Savannah.
Kallon inhaled loudly. “I’ve missed your ramen back at home, Ichi.”
Scottie looked at the dish with curiosity, then watched Kallon dig in. She took her first bite, moaning loudly as she chewed. “What is this stuff?”
Ichi looked at her in confusion. “You’ve never had ramen before?”
She shook her head as she kept eating, and to my own personal torture, kept moaning. I tried to focus on my own bowl and not think about what it was like to have her moan into my mouth. How it felt to have my hands glide over her body as she carefully sat on top of me in the bath. How I wanted to do so much more than that…
Sie seemed mortified at Scottie’s declaration of love for the food and was scowling into his own bowl. Kallon noticed him sulking and smirked. “Don’t mind her, she does this often.”
Scottie looked up and saw everyone staring at her. Her freckled cheeks turned bright red as she set her fork down—Ichi had the foresight to not give her or Sie any chopsticks, something he did for all new costumers.
“Don’t pay attention to them,” Savannah whispered to Scottie, grinning as she took a sip of her coffee. “Ichi’s ramen is the best there is, better than any man. I’ll moan over it too once I wake a little more.”
Scottie shifted in her seat. “Who’s the ugly green man on your shirt? I’ve seen him before,” she asked as Sav started shrugging off her jacket.
“It’s only the greatest Jedi of all time, and I know you have. Whose shirt do you think you wore when you and Tezya went to his condo in Florida? ”
I could feel the tension radiating off of Sie. He curled his fists under the table as he drew a deep breath in through his nose, but my abilities were also picking up on unease from Scottie.
“The mortal clothes I wore were yours ?”
“Yup,” Savannah said as she took another long sip of coffee, then twirled large amounts of noodles over her chopsticks. Scottie’s shoulders tensed as she glanced between me and Savannah.
“Tezya reckoned we were about the same size and asked to borrow some clothes when he took you.” Savannah shrugged. “Although I’m surprised you didn’t drown in them, you’re so short,” she added, and Scottie flinched at the word drown , but Sav didn’t notice. She was too focused on the steam radiating from her noodles as she obnoxiously blew on them.
“You let him take you to the mortal territory before?” Sie asked, his voice gone cold.
“Oh, she let him do a lot more than that.” Kallon grinned.
I was about to lay into Sie, because he was pissing me off, and I was losing my patience, but Scottie beat me to it. “I did. His condo was much more welcoming and spacious than the dungeon you put me in.”
I smirked as he rightfully shut up. I was fucking loving this newfound brazen side to her.
Everyone finished their ramen bowls except for Sie, and Savannah stole a cup of coffee to go before we said our goodbyes to Ichi.
As we stepped out of his shop, Dovelyn took my hand. She’d been abnormally quiet ever since we left Brighta. I looked down at my sister, and the realization of what was about to happen finally sunk in. We were going to see our mother—or the bones that were left of her—for the first time in ninety years.
Finally, we’d uncover why she sacrificed her life in order to keep the prophecy hidden.
I squeezed Dovelyn’s hand, praying we were ready.