Chapter 36 #2
“We are not here to kill anyone,” he says under his breath. Behind me chaos erupts with higher class years and the trainers trying to organize everyone.
“The attack in Syngenia City was just a diversion,” a deep voice growls. The Dean begins roaring orders and assembling groups to ready for apparently the largest attack in two and half centuries.
I can’t feel his presence even though I hear his footsteps behind me. I bet if I turned around right now he would be glaring.
“Ms. Tsuki,” he roughly greets just as balls of fire shoot our way. Brightening the sky through the dusk. It makes the Dean growl. “DEFENSES!”
Those four doors are still open within me. I drew my aura back in so it just sits around me, but my magic is still right there.
Angry red balls turn blue as they begin curving down towards us and then I extinguish them.
A hand is placed on my shoulder and pain ignites like a flooding of agony. I barely move as every nerve singes within me. My body flashes hot and cold, and then I silence the pain.
“Will you protect this school?” the Dean asks. A slight tremor in his tone I would almost say hints at a plea.
I remove his hand from my shoulder and begin walking towards my fated across from me. Masked, but I can feel our fate.
Do you think I cannot kill every single one of them without a hair on your head being burned? I ram down our cemented bond.
Another hand wraps around my upper arm and pain vibrates again before I shut it off and whip my head towards my fated’s twin. His eyes that are exactly the same, and yet entirely not plead with me. Begging.
I feel another presence further back. Burning bones on a pyre.
“Mavyllora,” she calls, and part of me wonders why she does not fight. She stayed on the terrace during the attack before as well.
I think you are extraordinary, Varian whispers down our bond. But I do not believe you are a ruthless killer.
Then you’d be wrong.
I turn towards Nana and her milky eyes harden. “It might be best –”
A boom explodes from the woods to the left. Shock waves ricocheting through the air as giant winged beasts soar up.
Percius’s hand tightens around my arm. Maneuvering his body, he leaves just enough space between his chest and my back as he breathes, “Please. Let us destroy the tree and recruit who we want. We won’t touch anyone else.”
“You released a lot, Mavyllora,” Nana calls. “Help, but if you overdo it you can burn yourself to ash as the Twin Flames did. Do not over do it.”
I step out of Percius’s space and he lets me go. Those winged beasts are about to reach a point where you would think they would dive for all of us down here, but they look like they’re going to pass us. They look like they’re headed towards something else.
Tell them to back out. Now.
The rebels on the field begin marching. Varian leading the horde.
It will be alright, bloodsucker. Alexandros says he knows how to start the enaction of the prophecy. The Willow of Lore is the gate.
My hands fist and I clench my jaw as I bow my head.
My blood begins to sing. My soul hums along with it. He starts whistling again.
When you’re living, I hear his voice ponder in the back of my mind, or when you’re taking a life.
I crush the hearts through the blood of those winged beasts above us. Their bodies crumbling and then falling. It causes Percius’s true form to recoil and his blood rushes.
The rebels ahead quicken their pace.
“Get everyone back, now.”
“Mavyn,” Percius warns, but not even he could stop me.
Last chance, I whisper to Varian.
“Mavyn!” Nana snaps. “Control.”
“You cannot destroy the willow,” I whisper to Percius out loud. “Not yet. I don’t know his name yet.”
“Breaking the veil is how we can figure out his name,” Percius stresses, but I shake my head.
When I open my eyes I wonder if they can see it. When I step forward the earth responds. So far down I can feel those fractures that were not fixed before.
Someone screams at me. Then hairline fractures split my bones. Slowly, I turn to fully face the oldest witch still alive. No waver in my posture or movement. I do not understand how they still cannot know. They don’t know pain.
She flinches when my eyes land on hers. And I see it now. It makes sense.
The reason I couldn’t have scented the vampire in the alley. Why no one was looking for me when I’m sure Ms. Elaycia could have had the connections to find me. Why I wasn’t able to leave after my coma.
The strain finally eases.
“Mavyllora Sanivin Tsukkenai,” she trembles. “Syngenia the Blood Witch reincarnated. Forgotten Goddess, Keeper of the Blood of Gods.”
A hush falls over the grounds. A stillness in the spaces past time. As the oldest witch known stares at the face of the first vampire created – the face of the first blood witch created.
“Do not be consumed by your primordial nature.”
Facing the rebels, my fated still coming for us, I sink claws into our cemented bond and drag it towards my mind before opening a section of my shield.
Forcing Varian to have no choice but to hear and listen to me.
His mind is connected to six others. I can feel their individual minds and aura. Can nearly see the wisping threads mentally.
Mavyn, Varian breathes to me and I can feel my other fated’s surprise and relief.
Alexandros, I demand through Varian’s mind. I can feel his pain at the force I use within his mind, and if I’m not too careful I’ll fracture it.
Mavyllora, he rolls and his power tries to consume. I can feel Varian and the others wince. My fated, the Death Devil, and the mage able to wield more than one element. A pleasure to finally meet you.
You will not be destroying the Willow of Lore. Pull your people back. Now.
I am not cold, I am not demanding, I am not anything. I speak, and it will happen. My words are truth that has not happened yet, but it will happen. It almost sounds like I’m writing a fate. And he hears that.
We must break the veil.
Not today.
He hesitates for a moment, and then, And if I don’t?
His heart beats and I squeeze it. Slowing his blood flow from where he stands just within the tree line of the woods to the left of the eastern field.
Then I will kill every single one of your people on this field and all of them still hiding in the surrounding woods. Including those just within the Hinterwood.
Distantly, I can hear Percius speaking what Nana said. I release his blood and take another step to the rebels and my fated only a hundred yards out. With that single step I release my hold on my aura once more.
The force is stronger than I’ve ever let show. Blanketing everything in red and blue belladon.
You have until my aura reaches the edges of Syngenia grounds. Ten seconds max.
The rebels are still running.
Five seconds.
I touch the blood within every heart before me.
Three.
Everything within goes silent.
Two.
You can want two things at the same time, I whisper to him – Forgotten God of Blood Moons
“One,” I mouth, and then every single body before me disappears in a blink. I cannot feel the blood I had before. Then I’m pushed out of Varian’s mind and my mental shields are once again sealed.
There’s still so much stillness within. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Then I do what I have always done. I make it all disappear.