Chapter 31
Thirty-One
All eyes are on me as we exit the locker room and make for where everyone is grouping. Even with Jullia, Hanna, and Ricka surrounding me. Not that I’m hiding. I do think these outfits are a bit much though.
Hanna and Ricka lead us towards the center of the room, verses all the first years seeming to collect around the edges.
I can feel the strength from the compiled aura near the group in the center.
Men and woman dressed in a bit more modest clothing but still athletic type.
Near the edge I finally see who I’ve been looking for all day.
I’m about to strum our bond to catch his attention but he’s already turning. Golden eyes finding mine immediately and something within me that I didn’t realize was coiled tightly like tensed muscles relaxes.
I’ve missed him. Like a shadow, always there. A comfort due to his presence that I’ve gotten used to.
Tonight we’ll all need to speak.
For now though –
“MAVYLLORA!”
My back straightens as my shoulders push and I snap my attention to that voice.
Burning bones on a pyre.
Hanna and Ricka shift and they drag Jullia out of the firing zone as a short but plump woman dressed in more or less rags stomps over to me. White hair coiled on the top of her head and milky eyes scorning me.
I keep my mouth shut because I have no idea what I’ve done to earn her scorn and I will not be admitting anything until I know what she’s mad about.
She points a bony finger at me and her aura dominates the arena as she stops a few feet before me. It makes everyone choke.
“Will you be continuing training or are you simply doing the basics?” she says rather calmly. Her eyes roving over my body and lifting a thin brow. “You’ve seemed to regain some muscle. Is that in correlation to your new nickname, Death Devourer?”
My shoulders drop before I remember what she did and I steel myself again. I really shouldn’t piss her off, but I’m already pissed off. I have questions and despite wanting to keep my head down and get through these damn years at this fucking school, it seems like fate wants to be a constant bitch.
And I will deal with fate and the things I will need to since I am here now and I won’t be leaving, but I didn’t have to be here to do it.
Uncontrollable.
That is what I’m really upset about. What I’m furious about.
“I am curious, Nana. . . would you have been able to fight Kolasi?”
She bares her teeth at me. “I am Esmirra of Ebony,” she exaggerates, “Bone Witch of Legend and the one from my race to help create the Willow of Lore. I have battled through the War of Gods and watched the end of death while entering an era of peace after a millennium. Watch your tone, child.”
“That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it.”
She snaps at me and her scent deepens as she pushes more aura out. “You will fight first, Mavyllora, and you will fight first with me.”
If only Percius was here now. Maybe then he would realize why I referred to his bone witch as a child. Five hundred years compared to nearly ten thousand is a child.
I roll out my shoulders as Varian and a few others approach.
Begin to stretch out my arms and back. I did not do so, nor did I work out this morning.
The last time was Sunday morning with that creepy shifter.
Said creepy shifter is standing with Callahan, Thorne, Darian, the angel – Scorn – Mr. Kyros who I grin and nod my head at, Mr. Arcturus, Mr. Armani, and a few others I only know the faces of.
The angel, vampyr, and demigod council members.
That doesn’t include the other professors and trainers behind them. One of them I can distinctly tell is a stone witch.
I return my focus back to Varian trying to politely tell Nana that she is merely a guest and these trainings are supposed to be led by him and Castiel. The demigod who is currently missing.
“Wrong,” Nana snaps. “You may oversee the rest, but Mavyllora fights against me. Unless you did have someone she may go against you think would match the skill you have already seen?”
Nana hits that nail right in the coffin as Varian’s jaw clenches.
“I don’t mind,” I interject. Varian narrows his eyes at me and traces my exposed body just as Nana does.
I never told her or Ms. Elaycia about the curse on my scars, but I highly doubt either of them missed it.
There’s a reason Ms. Elaycia always wears gloves around me and Nana only got near me when I was fully covered.
“Good,” she exaggerates. “We’ll begin now.”
Then she spins on her heel and begins walking towards a sectioned of slightly patted flooring. I start following her when Varian grabs my upper arm and looks down at me with concern.
I look pointedly at his hand. “Taking a chance there, devil.”
“I can get you different clothes.”
I’m equal parts appreciative and irritated. I know he only means a different change of clothes so Nana won’t touch my scars, but covering up only means hiding my scars and them aching from the constraints.
Stepping away, he lets go immediately. “I’ve been training with Kyno. I’ll be fine.”
When I face forward again Nana is peering at me.
Her eyebrows twitch, but then she unclips the chain around her neck and lets the raggedy dress fall.
Revealing fitted leather pants and a black long sleeve.
Both of which stretch over her curves and extremely muscled body as she uncurls her shoulders and back to stand straight at nearly six feet.
People tend to think Nana is a short fireball with an even shorter fuse and only fluff under her dresses, but physical appearances mean nothing to bone witches.
Varian booms around the room, “Everyone quiet! Over the course of this next week we trainers will evaluate your fighting skills and power before we deduct a tier you will be in. Each tier will encompass a different level of ability. In order to make it into the training program for higher combat you must pass the last tier and fight against one of the trainers. We will begin with Ms. Mavyn Tsuki.”
Before stepping onto the mat, I ask, “What are the rules of this fight?”
“No killing.” And that voice has me stamping down a shiver that wants to work up my spine.
I don’t look at my demigod as he continues.
“This fight is about seeing and testing what your skill level is. There is no winning or losing. So you cannot kill each other and your magic can only extend as far as the mat. This will also test how much control you have over your magic, seeing how well you use it within a confined space.”
“And if she breaks every bone in my body?”
Nana chuffs. “We are testing you, not me, Mavyllora. But a few broken bones might snap that attitude you’ve always had a problem with out of you.”
Castiel mutters something that sounds like a prayer before tapping his fingers to my shoulder and demanding that I don’t get hurt.
Nana cocks her head at it and then grins like that vampyr I just killed did.
I step on the mat and release my aura to build around me. It floods my eyes and I twist that fourth key within to deepen them. A bloodred darker than I’ve let show before. Then I release my hold and my aura shatters the air with how fast and far it flies.
“Rules,” Nana sneers, but I tisk at her.
“No magic goes past the matts. Aura is not magic.”
I approach her where she stands in the middle of the forty by forty foot mat flooring. She’s teeming with so much power from her aura fueled by her irritation at me, but so much careful control.
Her milky eyes cloud as she glares at me, and then she sniffs and hums. “I am impressed, Mavyllora. So much control over the powers within you that you have been able to withhold a wish for nearly an entire month.”
The rest of the room had seemed to fall away as soon as I stepped on the mat. But pieces come back where I see my fated looking just as confused as everyone else.
“It’s not possible to withhold a wish for longer than hour. It would have eaten away at your aura and then your spirit and soul before reducing your body to dust.”
The stone witch’s eyes begin glowing as she steps past the other trainers and stares at me. The ends of her white hair are dyed the same pink that is in mine and it stuns me a bit that someone who must be at least a couple millenniums old has dyed hair.
Not that she looks it. If she were human I would peg her around late thirties to early forties. Definitely younger than Nana who looks like she’s easily in her sixties.
I let that fourth door swing open and the strength of my aura almost becomes tangible. “I’m beginning to think none of you actually know what the word impossible means.”
Nana hisses at the witch and snaps her teeth at me. “Quit being a brat, Mavyllora. Sonya is correct. Why hasn’t the wish killed you and why are you continuing to withhold it?”
I twist and open that second door making thunder clap directly above us. My aura now reaches further past Nana’s. She scoffs at it.
“I’m saving it for a rainy day,” I answer honestly. “And it has been eating away at my aura.”
Varian clutches onto our bond and I can feel three others doing to the same as Nana finally takes a step back in surprise.
“It’s been a month,” she whispers.
I roll my shoulders back again as I stretch out my neck. “I know.” And then I unlock and open that third door which makes my aura dominate Nana’s.
“How?”
“Aura is the core of magic. A spiritual representation of it. You cannot have powerful magic without a powerful aura. And the first definition for infinite was simply a fractured blood art.”
Nana shakes her head at me. “You cannot have infinite aura.”