Chapter 24 #2
“They said you were a vampyr,” he gruffs.
“And?”
In my peripheral I can see Varian, Castiel, and Mr. Kyros coming. Scorn steps closer to me and I can feel Callahan step closer to my back.
“And you feel like a vampire.”
My blood wants to rush but I force it to stay calm.
Being able to spar has released a lot of the strain I’ve been putting myself under.
Especially because I still have not made my wish and it has drained me more than usual.
I’ve needed twice the amount of blood I used to consume and I sleep for longer stretches of time now.
“Would you like for me to not feel like one?”
He smiles at me but it’s sharp and calculating. Like a too-knowing shark that is about to rip my throat out.
“Careful,” he rumbles, “one might mistake that for a threat.”
I want to know what his true form is.
“Trust me, you’ll know when I’m making a threat.”
He quirks a brow as if daring me to make one. I oblige for a half a moment. Letting time hold his breath as I make every part of myself disappear. I become nothing, and equally something infinite.
A primordial kind of stillness.
His face drops and then I become a vampire again. My scent muted but still there, my eyes their rosy hue, my magic undetectable and my aura hidden within my blood behind the blue belladon poison.
“The gods are locked within their plane of existence. You shouldn’t be here.”
I fist my hands and clench my jaw. “I am not a god.”
How many times has that been eluded? Too many times and it’s beginning to get on my nerves.
Scorn rolls his sunset eyes and dismisses us as he goes back to his table. I scoff at his ghost and focus on my group only to find them all staring blankly at me. Including a wide-eyed Mr. Kyros.
Ricka whistles low. “Just fyi, sweetheart, after that whole display along with the stories about what you did in Syngenia City, no one’s going to believe you.”
I sling my bag onto the table and begin pulling out my notebooks. Technology doesn’t work within the library so we have to go old school.
“Ah,” Hanna huffs. “The age old ignore it till it goes away trick. Ten out of ten.” And then she digs through her back and eventually, after I sit down in one of the chairs, everyone follows. Everyone, except the two devils and demigod.
“Mavyn,” Varian rumbles. I almost comment on how he’s getting sloppy by not using my last name. “You and your group will do a presentation on how the War of Gods began.”
I don’t even bother to look up and glare at him. Of course, he’s going to make us do that. Even though he said we could choose. He is the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met. And that’s saying something since I lived in a brothel house in New York City.
Jullia scoots her chair closer to me once everyone’s sat and begin finishing up whatever notes they need to do on their essays before we start digging for info on our presentation.
“So. . .” she hedges. Immediately everyone stops what they’re doing and leans in to listen. The professors and Mr. Kyros have left and the tables are all decently spaced so the closest person to us – which would be Scorn – would have to strain to hear us if we whispered. “What started the war?”
I ask a variation to what I had asked Varian. “What do you guys think started it? Tell me what you all know first.”
Rothwhile starts.
“It started between two gods. A lovers spat that escalated between gods choosing sides and taking their war to Miy where beings were forced to side with one or the other. Aside from that, no one knows. It lasted an entire millennium and once it was finished the Willow of Lore was created and the gods have been quiet to us.”
Heads nod in agreement but I can feel a thread of excitement weaving around Callahan on my other side. Jullia has the same buzzing energy as she waits for me to speak.
“None of that is technically a lie.”
The demon who’s name I either haven’t learned or forgot raises a hand and shakes his head.
“Sorry to interrupt, but how is it you do know all of this information? It was announced you are a vampyr, not vampire, you’re connected to the legendary Esmirra of Ebony, pretty sure you can write a fated death blow, you literally just dominated every predator in the room by essentially doing nothing, but we don’t actually know anything about you.
Like where did you learn all of this, who were your parents, were you taught by the bone witch, do you have any siblings who can do what you do, are you a reincarnation of someone, were you given information from the blood of that vampyr when it was thought you were turned? ”
“I agree,” Ricka includes. “We know a lot about you, and yet we really don’t.”
I shrug a shoulder and then gesture to them. “Okay, fine. Ask your questions.”
The creepy shifter tilts his head in the demons direction. “We’ll start with his. We know you’re an orphan, but do you know who your parents are?”
“I do.”
Callahan whips his head to me in disbelief as Jullia presses her thigh to mine in comfort. It makes me purse my lips together.
“You know who your parents are?” Callahan moves his head to look at Jullia before looking back at me. “You told all of us you didn’t know who your parents were because they left you when you were three months.”
Oh. Right. “Well, I lied about that.”
Callahan and Asher both make a face at Jullia who is staring at the table with wide eyes. Not fully selling the shocked ‘why did my best friend not tell me this’ but to be fair I knew she was bad at keeping secrets and probably couldn’t lie to save her life.
Even still, I don’t regret telling her.
Callahan clears his throat. “And you knew,” he confirms, but Jullia does not confirm nor deny.
I shove my head between them. “Yes, I told my best friend I lied to the guys who initially hated me and who wanted nothing to do with me and who I had been angry at.”
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. Hanna, unable to let us normal beings go through the awkward silence faze, asks, “So who are your parents?”
“Were,” I correct. Everybody leans back in to listen. “They died a long time ago.”
“Yeah, when you turned three months, which was only nineteen years ago.”
Ricka slaps the shifters arm, and she does it hard as she hisses at him. I. . . dismiss it because I’m not exaggerating. It was a long time ago, and I have worked through my grief. Not necessarily my rage, but that will come later.
Continuing, “So I was raised for the first half of my life by a devil who tortured me and then the second half of my life in a brothel house by Elaycia Sorenli of Havebeth and Esmirra of Ebony. They taught me a lot of what I know, but even more of it I did learn from that blood I was forced to drink. Their knowledge was passed down.”
The demon nods. “Any other fun facts?”
Hanna makes a face and looks over to Mr. Kyros and the professors as she jokes, “Like any secret siblings?”
The ground rumbles and the air suddenly feels heavy.
“Speaking of secret siblings. . .” A presence makes itself known above and all the students begin speaking in quieter tones.
“The War of Gods began because a goddess was jealous of a girl and the girl’s twin killed the goddesses lover for trying to make her forgotten. ”
The fire in the middle of the commonplace roars. The orange and red flames fluctuating to blue and black before righting itself.
Jullia whispers out of the side of her mouth, “Are you sure you’re allowed to be telling us all of this? Or at least saying all of this out loud in the open?”
Varian, Castiel, and Mr. Kyros land pointed looks at me, but that wasn’t my fault.
I point to the fire currently an ordinary red, orange, and yellow flame now.
“They say Aora and Genifer the Twin Flames used their blue flame to the max ending the War of Gods which ended up burning them from the insides. They turned to ashes but spirits and souls tend to linger depending on circumstance.”
“Girl, at this point you should just be our teacher,” one of the girls, Mila who’s high fae, throws out. “We learn more from you than we could ever from the professors. They’ve all taken blood oaths about speaking certain histories.”
I glance at Callahan who’s now writing notes in his notebook. His grip on his pen is tight and his jaw is clenched.
“It’s not like it’s their fault,” I try to console, but Mila shakes her head.
“They could have refused. My father has said there are secrets deeper than any of us could imagine, and that’s the reason he refused to teach here. He’s learned a lot on his own and while he didn’t know all that you have taught us, the histories taught here are wrong.”
“The only reason your father couldn’t is because high fae cannot lie,” the creepy shifter interjects. “You have to be invited in to be a professor at Syngenia and high fae would never be approached.”
“That’s not the point,” Mila spits.
“It is.” And while I keep my voice low and calm I release just a bit of my aura to shut them all up. “It is when they had a blood witch forcing blood oaths.”
Asher leans further onto the table to look past Jullia at me. “You can’t force a blood oath. That’s the whole point of them, you have to truly want whatever it is being sworn.”
“No, you cannot force a blood oath because you do not have the needed blood art or primordial blood.”
A hush falls over the room and I feel a presence behind me. It hums. And my blood begins humming with it.
No.
“One twin died,” I whisper, going as still as possible so I can concentrate within. “The other was forgotten. That’s how the War of Gods ended.”
“What do mean primordial blood?”
I don’t know who asked it because I’ve shut my eyes and I’m trying really hard to ignore that hum.
“Locklyn was her immortal name, her true name taken and making her, who was a goddess, cursed to the life of a blood witch. A twisted mockery because blood is how the gods can be killed and yet she as a blood witch could do nothing for those that made her true form forgotten.”