Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
There’s so much tension in the air and it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. Or that just might be my anxiety because a bone witch, the oldest witch alive, just said my best friend is the very first witch ever created reincarnated.
Mavyn is Syngenia the Blood Witch.
Mavyn is a blood-fucking-witch who can write a blood fate and can control blue flame in a way never heard or seen before.
Mavyn, I think, is the most power being to ever exist.
Mavyn is a Forgotten God.
And from this angle she looks like she’s about to burn her men to ash. While her bone witch looks like she’s about to crumble Mavyn’s bones to dust.
Asher wraps his arms around my waist as if he’s going to pull me back while Esmirra of Ebony points a bony finger at Mavyn. Then the witch’s aura tries to dominate. It makes me want to throw up even more now.
“You insolent child!” she seethes. “You could have slaughtered everyone. So much power and zero control. This is why I told you to never touch that true form within you. Why I made sure to teach you control above all else. You will be consumed by that nature. It’s what killed Syngenia.
It’s what got her daughter killed. It’s why her granddaughter, Sanivin, is dead. ”
Mavyn hasn’t turned all the way back to look at any of us. After the rebels disappeared, once again, everyone had gone silent for a moment. Then Mavyn’s aura disappeared, she went still, and we all held our breath waiting for what would happen next.
The bone witch fumes. “A god, whether they’re forgotten or not, trapped within a non-primordial body goes mad.
This is why I killed my mother when I could.
She had already been sick, but to leave her while her nature roamed caused her demise.
” Esmirra heaves and shakes her head like a savage dog.
It’s at odds with her appearance. “Never do that again. Never touch that part within. Never let go of control.”
I have half a mind to do what I did before when Mavyn was about to be berated. Stepping in between and demanding they watch their mouth because she just saved our lives. She just did something that would have otherwise probably left many dead.
But something about Mavyn makes me stay where I am. A type of instinctual knowing, and I realize what it is when she begins to fully turn and face us.
She feels the same, right now, as she did when she proved to Scorn what she could do. When she showed Hanna after one of our runs. When she was about to write a fated death blow. When she stood before the professors after she saved us all in Professor Asier’s classroom.
A primordial kind of stillness.
Feeling like nothing, because I cannot feel anything from her, and it’s infinite.
She almost feels like how my mother had felt.
I have never felt so terrified, and equally so sure that I am the safest I’ve ever been, in my entire life.
Mavyn looks immediately to the witch and it’s instantaneous. The witch takes a step back and lowers her head while dropping her eyes. Even her fated, who do not have her full attention, take several steps back.
“Mavyn,” Professor D’etre whispers, but he flinches when she glances up at him. Then she looks to Professor Asier and her eyes narrow.
Everyone, including the Dean, is silent. Waiting.
“Forgotten gods are still gods,” someone calls and the tension breaks like a string finally pulled too tight.
We all turn and Asher pulls me flush to his chest as Scorn Fethermen approaches.
Esmirra lifts her head and scowls, but steps to the side to let the angel through.
Keeping enough space so his wings do not touch her.
Mavyn’s primordial stillness disappears, but she’s still standing ridged and her magic and aura is still there. Finally looking away from Professor Asier, she turns her eyes to me and for some reason Asher as well as Professor Asier tense.
Mavyn takes a step towards me and Asher pulls me back half a step while Professor Asier steps toward Mavyn with a look like he wants to hold her back.
Why would he do that?
Are they communicating through their bond?
Mavyn notices both of them as well and pauses before looking over at Scorn. His white wings slightly glow and at Mavyn’s attention several feathers twitch.
“I am nothing.”
Her fated all frown as Scorn laughs.
“Nothing,” he mocks. “You? I didn’t know nothing was able to make the earth tremble. I didn’t know nothing was able to make the sky scream. I didn’t know nothing was able to manipulate and contain blue flame when not even the gods are able to.”
His wings slightly flare as he stops only a few feet away from her. The sleeves of his white button up rolled to reveal tensed forearms and clenched fists.
“Keeper of the Blood of Gods,” he quietly repeats from the bone witch. “And yet you say you are nothing?”
Mavyn doesn’t move and while I can now feel the water content within her body, there is still an otherworldliness about her. But I realize, even with all her power, I am not afraid of her. And I don’t think it is just because she made a blood oath to never harm me. I feel it on a deeper level.
“Yes,” she answers simply. “Nothing is only nothing when it has never been observed.”
“And you are not being observed right now?”
Mavyn’s eyes deepen to that darked red one could almost mistake for black. “Only one person has ever truly observed me, and they no longer exist.”
Professor Asier shifts and cocks his head. “I’ve seen your soul. To be truly observed is to see your soul and all within.”
Mavyn raises a brow and cocks her head the same as her fated. “You?” It almost sounds like a challenge. As if she’s questioning –
I can feel my body immediately tense and Asher feels it as I look at him.
Same red eyes with a ring of gold, same red tinged hair that barely curls over his ears, same scent, same aura since he’s not using any magic, same everything.
“Yes,” he grounds, “so how is that considered not observed?”
Lies.
He has not seen her soul. But neither has the true Professor Asier.
The corner of Mavyn’s lip curls and now her eyes look black. “You have not seen my soul. The only person who has is the soul-rendering true form angel, Darian Az – “
“Do. Not,” Darian growls, cutting Mavyn off before she could say his and his true forms name. “Don’t you dare, Trouble, or I will spank your ass red and edge you until you’re a sobbing mess.”
Mavyn’s cheeks turn red and her eyes lighten to pink as her magic and aura disappears. I can feel my own face heat up and I snap my eyes to the ground. But. . . not fast enough to not see a certain someone looking directly at me.
The anxiety finally dissipates and I hear Mavyn blow out a breath.
“Well,” she drawls, “that was all very dramatic.”
It makes me smile and I look up to her. Only her.
She looks over to me and a knowing smile appears on her face. Then past me to where Hanna, Ricka, and Kyno were standing. I don’t know if they still are. “Was that enough of a release for you?”
Footsteps sound behind me to my right. Ricka responds to her. “If you were just an immortal, I’d say yes. But. . .”
“You’re a forgotten goddess,” Scorn finishes. “A reincarnation of the first blood witch ever created.”
Mavyn glances over at me and it takes everything to remain neutral before she tilts her chin at Scorn. “How do you know about that prophecy?”
“Why did you not tell anyone who you are?”
“Because,” the witch interrupts, and my brain processes that everyone is still here and listening, “she wanted to be a child.”
Mavyn rolls out her shoulders but her eyes are cast down and to the side.
Now, I step out of Asher’s hold. Now, I know I can defend my friend. Because the witch does not look like she’s going to stop her verbal attacks.
“She wanted – “
“To be normal,” I snap, cutting off the witch and gaining all the attention.
It makes my skin itch, but I put one foot in front of the other and go to stand in front of Mavyn.
Facing my back to her and leveling the same glare I gave the professors, Dean, and councilmen before to the oldest witch known.
So much anger bubbles up within me. Boiling until my water becomes steam. For the unfairness everyone shoves on top of my best friend and for the weight she thinks she deserves.
The witch inclines her head and glares. For once, I don’t balk.
“None of you know,” I growl at them all, “but even if you did would any of you care? You want to scream at her about her control and savagery but what casualties did we have during any of the times she used her magic? When has she ever lost control that caused more than surface damage. As far as I’m concerned there has never been a battle with the rebels that didn’t leave at least one of ours dead. ”
The witch sneers and when she steps back behind Scorn to point her finger at me, both Asher and Percius tense and coil their magics.
“You are the one who does not know anything, child.”
“SO TELL ME!” I rage. Furious that they think they know everything when they know nothing.
“SHE IS AN ABOMINATION!” the witch screams. “Forgotten gods are meant to stay forgotten! There is a reason they are forgotten. Just as the devils and angels cannot be one with their true form without complete annihilation of their minds, a god cannot be without their name or stuffed into a body unequip to contain their magic.”
The witch’s face contorts to agony as she bows her head and chokes on a sob. As if she regrets that her words are truth.
Softer, the witch says, “This is why I have tried to teach her control. Why I have told her to never touch that darker magic, never let her instincts win.”
“Is that why you let Lyalthil Kyros have her for those seven years?”
There’s a pause as everyone processes my quiet words. Everyone trying to understand, and the witch freezes.
Mavyn never explicitly said it, but I was able to connect the dots. Pieces clicking together. All of it starting back when a bone witch killed a blood witch.