Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Mavyllora Sanivin Tsukkenai
There’s a whistle accompanying my hum as I stroll along the cliffside. Snow lines the rocky top and ice coats the side as waves crash into the land with a force that shakes the earth.
Aura’s bright. . .
. . . a fate with knot and lore of old. . .
I pause my steps and halt my hum as I look up and face the sea. A crisp breeze blows pulling my long hair that’s dipping in sapphire blue and rose pink.
. . . A god forgotten. . . fallen and bound by her blue flame and blue belladon. . .
. . . killer of all. . . will rise with wrath and sanivin of roi. . .
How often people get history wrong.
How often people choose not to see the truth.
I cannot say anything, as I allowed for history to be rewritten. I could have shifted the perspective time and time again. But I preferred to remain nothing. I preferred to live my quiet life while others suffered.
He continues to whistle and I close my eyes as I raise my face up. The hum begins in my blood. It vibrates along my bones. It whispers through my soul.
. . . devouring this world in cursed blood moons and noise.
That fifth key twists.
That ninth-seeing oracle had been right all those years ago. I remember her voice speaking to the skies and stars. The damnation of the red sun. Except they got that part wrong too.
The gods are knocking. Their imprisonment is almost done. And then I’m going to do what I should have done before. I’m going to slaughter them all.
. . .
Mavyn – Decim 17
My bare feet crunch in the snow as I make the long walk back towards the school. It’s a quiet night. Starless, but I never needed them anyway.
Tomorrow we get to start training in the arena with the second years and up.
Or depending on how late it is it might be today.
Self-defense and some offensive combat. The school is even welcoming teachers and trainers from outside of faculty to help with specialized training for specific abilities and larger scaled attacks.
The wind whips and it drags my hair behind me as I finally reach one of the streets.
The rough stone digs into my cold feet as I keep my blood flowing smoothly through every vessel.
I also crack that first door open to let small flames flow alongside my blood.
Keeping me from going numb or initiating frostbite. It is cold enough for that, after all.
Another stiff breeze blows and it drags my hair to the side instead of behind me. It’s gotten too long. Nearly down to my knees, not that it hasn’t been longer. The blue and pink a symbol.
A bell strikes, ringing three times indicating the hour. It’s been exactly forty-eight hours since I was last here. Two days, and yet nearly a century of time has passed. I held out the longest I ever have this time. Eighty-one years I kept my back to that house and my eyes on that red flower.
It shouldn’t have hurt as much this time because of all the training with the shifter. But it’s the same reason I can never leave on my own or use my magic against him. A different realm owned by a god who has hated me since my birth.
I begin rounding the front of the school and I pause when I eventually get to the front of it. The large double doors shut with a disc above them. The stone is carved with the same symbol as the one in the ballroom.
In the silence of the night, I twist those four keys within me and let their doors swing open.
My aura swarms like a dam finally crumbling.
It washes the grounds like a tsunami and it feels like I’m able to fully exhale.
That weight from all the containment, all the control, all the constraint. . . it lifts for a moment.
A presence builds behind me in response as I look up to the glass dome visible that leads directly to that Willow of Lore.
Dead and silent, now simply a piece of wood and decaying flowers that will never wake again.
Yet, it is the last defense preventing another war from concepting with the gods above.
Nearly five thousand and twenty-four years it lived and its spirits sang and roamed these grounds.
God, of all the times to be born in.
I sigh and it ends on a light chuckle. My breath clouding before me as snow begins swirling in flurries around me. It makes my hair drift and the strands tickle my exposed body. I’m going to go broke simply from having to buy so many new uniforms.
I turn my face towards the empty sky. I imagine seeing that veil. I imagine seeing the gods beyond it.
Softly, into the silent night, I whisper, “What a fucking bitch.”
Far into the Hinterwood Forest thunder rolls and it’s repeated through the ground. I chuckle again and then turn and finish walking back to my dorm. When I open the door to enter I’m greeted by the same desk I see every time, and the same green-eyed blondie.
She turns with furrowed brows – probably because she didn’t expect anyone to be coming in this late, or early – before she chokes and stumbles over her legs to stand and round her desk.
“Mavyn. . .” she whispers, and I let out a long sigh as I carefully begin locking everything back up within me. “What. . . oh gods, are you alright?”
Her eyes that are the same color as her lightning rove over my body before slowly dragging back up to my eyes. I relax my shoulders and give her the same soft smile I gave Varian before. Gentle, and comforting, and sure.
“I am alright, Ricka.” It doesn’t do much to ease her haunted expression, but I still try. “I am not physically wounded and theses scars are very old. Do you know if Jullia is in our room or is she staying with Asher?”
“Here,” she nearly chokes. Then I nod to her and turn to the stairs. “Wait!”
I turn back towards her and she builds a mental shield around herself as she straightens her back.
Clearing the shock and sorrow and haunted expression and locking it behind the shield.
She replaces it with respect and slight veneration.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her I am not a god, but hers is more on the side of admiration verses reverence.
“That story you told us. . . in the library. . .” I dip my chin for her to continue. Recognition flickering in her eyes. “I invoke the moral of name and soul.”
How. . . disappointing.
I tilt my head to the side and stare at her. I must have mistaken her reverence for admiration after all.
“I am not a god,” I say slowly. Because that invoking of morals forces a god to state their name and title before them. A way to ensure no god or goddess can trick a being. But it does not work on those who are below the primordials.
Her brows twitch and uncertainty flashes. “But the Forgotten God of Blood Moons – “
“Is not me,” I softly interrupt. “And they are nameless. That is how a god or goddess becomes forgotten. Their true name is taken from them.”
“And do you have a true name?” she asks pointedly.
“Of course,” I answer simply. “Any being with a true form has a true name.”
She swallows and lifts her chin. “Vampyr don’t have true forms.”
And I can’t help but lift the corner of my lip. They did it again, of course.
“When did I ever say I was a vampyr?” With a shrug, I turn towards the stairs again and start walking. “Good night, Ricka.”
She doesn’t respond and I make it to my door without seeing anyone else. I turn the handle and the door opens silently to a dark room my eyes adjust to almost immediately. There’s a larger lump on Jullia’s bed and I know Asher is under the covers with her.
Walking in, I shut the door with a quiet click and then lean against the cool wood.
Asher’s back is to me, curled around Jullia who’s closer to the wall.
I contemplated going to a different room on my walk here.
I had five of them to choose from. Five beds I could have crawled into and five bodies I could have chosen to curl myself within.
But none of them know, and I wanted my friend.
Carefully, I let my aura flood my eyes – and only my eyes – as I feel for the blood flowing through Jullia’s veins. I follow it for a moment. It takes forty-eight seconds for her blood to complete a full circulation, and then I make a slight – non-harmful – fluctuation that will wake her up.
Her eyes flutter open and her body twists. I can hear her nose sniff, and then. . .
“Mavyn?”
She sits up and it causes Asher to shift. When she sees me, she has to blink and rub her eyes a couple times before her brain processes what she’s seeing.
Slightly groaning, she slips out of Asher’s hold and pulls the blanket over his face as he grumbles.
“Mavyn doesn’t have clothes on,” she sleepily says to him, “so you have to get out.”
He grumbles again. “Tell her to put some on then and go to sleep.”
There’s a smack and Asher whines as Jullia says, “She was just being tortured for two days so shut up and get out. It’s girl cuddling time.”
His sigh is audible as he sits up keeping his back to me. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Pushing off from the door, I grab a light throw blanket and wrap myself within it. “He can stay, Jullia.” Then I crawl into my bed and push my back against the wall. I don’t want to make him have to get up half-asleep and walk all the way to his room.
There’s some movement and shuffling before I see Jullia get off her bed with one of her fluffy blankets and comes towards me. Asher pulls another blanket back over his head and lays down.
“Stubborn, coddled baby,” she mutters as she climbs into my bed and lays right next to me on her side. Her forehead almost resting against mine.
There’s a slight glow from her lavender eyes that makes it so I can clearly see the color. I’m sure mine are doing the same but with red. I haven’t taken my aura from them yet.
“How are you feeling?” she breathes, her voice soft enough that Asher shouldn’t be able to hear.
“A hundred and one,” I correct. Her brows twitch so I elaborate. “I was there for a hundred and one years. Not just two days.”
Her body tenses but I shake my head at her.
“It only felt that long while I was there. During it. Now that I’m no longer in that realm it feels as if it has only been two days.”
I can tell she forces herself to relax as she stays quiet for a bit. Both of us staring at each other with the rest of the world unable to touch us. I decide right now I will not tell her that he finally did it. He did what he wanted to do when I was ten years old. I will not tell anyone, ever.
If we stay just like this I think I’ll be able to eventually see her soul.
“Mavyn?” Her lips move but almost no sound comes out. “If Ruu dies will his realm fall with him?”
I nod.
“Will that devil’s curse fall with them?”
“No. The curse is etched onto my body, into my bones. I would need a new body or for someone to break the curse.”
She’s silent for a moment, and then impossibly softer she asks, “What will happen when you kill the God of Sun?”
Her eyes widen and I know it is because of my own. I know it is because that ring of silver and black is visible. I know it is because the black begins bleeding into the red.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Perhaps another war. Maybe nothing will happen.”
But that’s optimism at its finest.
She hums and then closes her eyes. “Let’s make a rule we’re not allowed to talk about war until at least after the sun has risen.”
I choke on a laugh and then squeeze my lips together to try and stay quiet so I don’t wake Asher up again. But then Jullia starts giggling and then something gets thrown at us which has us laughing louder.
Eventually we quiet and Jullia grabs the pillow Asher threw at us to throw on the floor. She wiggles closer to me and with a soft sigh falls asleep. Shutting my own eyes, I listen to Jullia’s heart and match mine to hers. An even tempo.
Ba bum.
Ba bum.
Ba bum.