Chapter 3 #2
“I could have killed him the day I met him. I had always known.” She shakes her head at herself.
“There are no orphaned non-mortal children on Earth. Too many protections and shields and barriers. He said he knew exactly what I was the second he and that mage walked into the orphanage. Humans don’t have red eye.
And somehow, except for my eyes, I looked just like her. ”
My blood roars and my magic wants to flood the space, but I wrestle to keep it controlled. Callahan seems to be doing the same as his body shifts with how hard he’s tensing it.
“He loved my red eyes. Said I was special because I was the only one and he got me.” She grins to herself.
“I never had the courage to claw my eyes out, but when I took my blood and aura from them turning them into a soft pink he was enraged like I’d never seen him before.
He had beat me for hours on end, day after day, for weeks.
He wanted me to be special.” She looks up directly at me and I can tell my true form devil is clawing at the cage within me from her words.
“His special little girl who can write a blood fate.”
I go still. My true devil within freezing along with the rest of the room.
It had been a surprise – impossible – when we had learned there was a blood witch among the rebels. Mavyn had killed her like it was nothing. She stopped a blood witch’s death blow. Which can’t be done because when a blood witch writes a death blow there is nothing that can stop it.
A blood fate.
It makes sense now. Her facing Kolasi and the instinctual knowing that Percius was going to die at that specific moment. She had created a fated death blow.
How did you stop her?
Thorne doesn’t answer me but I can feel his hesitation. His fear.
Mavyn puts her hands back with her arms straight and rests her weight on them. She had looked away from me at some point that I didn’t process and blows out a breath. She looks so. . .
Normal, Callahan supplies.
Like a regular girl attending college.
“I don’t know how I managed to lessen my aura. Drawing it out of my eyes somehow correlated to lessening it, and after he started using his knives embedded with blue belladon and biting me I learned I could lessen my aura to just flow with my blood and the poison would mask it.”
She lightly grins and hums to herself.
“He always said it felt like I disappeared when I did it. That I felt human, but because I still had magic, still needed blood, and was still cursed I was basically a vampire. And he hated that above all else.” She looks at all of us again and shrugs.
“He had a claim on a red-eyed girl who could write fate.
A magic and power in line with something higher than a simple being of moral.
So I became the pink-eyed vampire named Mavyn who feels mortal.
Her eyes meet Aslan and Edmond and she drops her expression to a light glare.
“Of course the Mage Board did not listen when I said that vampire didn’t turn me.” She shakes her head. “So much could have been avoided if they listened. I could have been home instead of here.”
A growl rips out of my throat before I can control myself. Her rosy eyes meeting mine as they widen and she tenses, but there’s no fear from her. I look away from her to clear my throat and rub my sternum. Trying to ease the rumbling as my soul tugs forward to her.
It wants to finish cementing our bond.
“Anyways,” she drawls. “We’re here now. And before you ask why I never said anything later, well I figured the Mage Board would have twisted my story and made it seem like I wanted to get into the school for free by pretending to be a vampire who didn’t have bloodlust.”
“So you chose to hide the fact that you’re a blood witch.”
Her brows furrow so low as she vigorously shakes her head. “I am not a blood witch,” she states with a raw truth I can feel.
Except that doesn’t make any sense.
“You said you can write a blood fate. You can create a fated death blow,” I emphasize.
“So can vampyr,” she snaps.
“That makes sense.” We all turn towards Darian as he tilts his head to peer at Mavyn. “That’s how you were able to lend Ruleten your strength in aura. You blood bonded with him.”
She shrugs. “In a sense. There was no tie created through our blood because of it, but I did give him strength through my aura.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you burn in the sun.”
She flashes irritated eyes at Thorne before rolling them.
“The day I was able to control my blood and aura enough to keep them from my eyes for as long as I wanted was two weeks before my sixth birthday. The sun devil said if I wanted to be a vampire so badly he’d curse me as the vampires after Sanivin were cursed by Ruu.
My birthday present, and an honor he would say since we also shared a name. ”
“Runic curses.”
She tips her head at me. “I told you being turned into a vampire was a curse. But in that moment I was asking about the one he placed on me causing me to burn when I’m exposed to the sun. He said I’d burn for eternity. And I will.”
Callahan shifts in his seated position next to her and she glances at him. Both of them share a look but Callahan has blocked me from his mind so I don’t know what he’s thinking. His jaw clenches as he looks down at her chest and she shrugs a shoulder and looks back at the rest of us.
“Any more questions?”
Yes.
Hundreds.
So many I want to ask because she just dropped a million bombs on us when these last two months we’ve had nothing. Not even Thorne could get Esmirra to talk about anything to do with Mavyn, and when the Dean hounded Elaycia they were as silent as stone.
So many questions that I do not want to ask with an audience.
“How are you feeling?” Callahan asks. She turns to him and whether she knows it not her body softens.
“Actually kind of great.” The soft smile that had been slowly appearing on her face drops.
“Even though I still can’t remember things from before.
I know I had met Jerusil before, but I can’t remember how.
I know I faced Kolasi but I can’t remember the whole interaction. Little fractures of memory.”
My heart skips and I’m thankful she’s too focused in her head to note the fluctuation.
I haven’t been able to speak with my twin since that day, but his last words to me were that she knows about us.
Only Castiel and I are supposed to know the Kolasi’s true identity.
Not even Jerusil, Aslan, and Edmond know, even though their son’s do.
She doesn’t seem to remember that realization though. It’s going to be a mess when she does, but that is something I will be procrastinating on.
“Then there was the sun death realm I had been in for a very long time.” My true devil cocks its head and peers through my eyes. “But there was a while where I was not there. And wherever I was then, I had rested.”
“Is that why there had been nothing within your mind?” Esmirra asks. Her face curious and tone light. I guess she’s finished with her scolding.
Mavyn looks at her and then away as she thinks. I can tell she realizes something, but she doesn’t say anything as she shrugs.
“Well,” Aslan announces, gaining all the attention. The devil councilman stepping in front of Thorne and Darian to stand next to Jerusil. “This means the Mage Board’s sentencing becomes void. You are not an illegal vampire and – “
Mavyn sits up with an excitement and cuts him off. “I can go home?”
I can feel myself about to growl again but I cut it off before the sound is made. I can see Callahan’s panic in line with my own and he links all of our minds to shout at his father, Make her stay. Find a way to make her stay.
I’m sure he only meant to tell his father but all of us hear it. And while Aslan does not outwardly acknowledge his son, he does disapprove within his mind.
Look at her, son. She wants to leave this place.
The vibrations of a growl resonate in all of our minds from me and Callahan. While that’s true, we don’t want her to leave. Unless Callahan were to drop out he won’t be able to see her until the end of the school year and I am unable to leave Syngenia grounds for another nine hundred years.
Mavyn scoots closer to the edge of the bed. “Is that what you were about to say? Can I leave with Ms. Elaycia? Can I finally go home?”
My heart is beating too strongly with a dull ache. Can she not feel it? That tugging that is a constant push wanting us to be together?
We can all feel Aslan shaking his head at us, but before he can answer Elaycia Sorenli once again steps forward.
She gains Mavyn’s attention and gives her a pleased, softened look.
“There are bylaws written for being accepted into Syngenia. The Dean informed us you had passed the exam without a single mistake. . .”
Mavyn deflates an inch as she zips her eyes from the councilmen and back to Elaycia Sorenli. “Technically,” she begins, “I had the knowledge within my mind and wrote the answers on the sheet.”
She sounds like she’s speaking a fae truth. Elaycia raises a brow in question.
Red floods her eyes before she says, “I am not a vampire,” she pauses for a moment and her eyes lighten back to pink, “but I was still fed the blood and venom of a vampyr. Knowledge was passed through.”
Edmond hums which gains some of our attentions. The blood demon is peering at Mavyn like she’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. For some reason it grates on my nerves.
“A vampyr who is able to perform a fated death blow.” He nods at her and gestures towards Elaycia Sorenli and Esmirra.
“You also have a blood art, blue flame, and some sort of lightning elemental magic. I’m assuming because of your blood art you were able to gain that knowledge from the vampyr’s blood. ”
Mavyn hesitantly nods and tenses as she purses her lips together like she’s waiting for Edmond to ask something she won’t want to answer.
“How are you a vampyr with four separated magics that are not learned magics?”
Ah. . . yes.
Vampyr only have three base magics. One their born with, a destined one they must hone, and a third they are able to receive after they’ve performed a blood bond.
Esmirra’s face is a blank mask along with Elaycia’s. Just like they were when we asked our questions before.
Mavyn sighs and raises her shoulders to cover her ears. “Well. . .”