Chapter 24
It’s the very next morning that I have my first training session scheduled. I’m almost at the location, which, surprisingly, isn’t B13 but one of the larger gyms at the Academy. I’m walking down the hallway, keeping track of the numbers. B20, B21.
I’ve just found out that Serra’s declined my request to access the Lexarcanum and I’m… not exactly happy about it. If being the goddamn Aurora won’t get me in there, is there anything that will? And besides, the book chose me, for crying out loud, and wasn’t Serra trying to make me believe she was on my side?
Come on, Anna, I tell myself just as I arrive in front of B24, a large double door that’s slightly ajar, gym smells wafting up to me from the inside.
I hesitate for a second, my mind rushing to the way Bane slipped out of the room as soon as yesterday”s meeting was over, silent and with a look of unconcealed disapproval on his face.
I didn’t even expect him to be there, so it didn’t exactly register until I got to my room later that day — the fact that the man who showed up wasn’t that man I spent the night of the Ball with. It was the Bane from before. Intense, serious, smirking at best. That’s the ‘mentor’ I’m about to spend yet another pointless hour with.
It’s fine, I tell myself. The goal for today is only to push through this one session before I get reassigned to someone else.
Taking a deep breath, I push the door open and step inside the room. It’s as big as a football field, with large windows flooding the parquets, the white walls and all the equipment scattered around with bright winter light.
Almost instantly, my mentor appears in front of me, hands in his pockets. It surprises me to see he seems a lot less intense, but it’s still a dead serious one — the look on his face. “I’m just going to say this,” he tells me in a somber voice. “I think you’re making a huge mistake.”
“I know,” I chuckle, squinting at him as I start making my way to one of the mats lying in the center of the room. “You do understand you’ve made that very obvious?”
I sense him follow me as I lower myself into a lotus position, taking my books out of my tote.
“What’re you doing?” I hear him ask.
I look up to find him towering over me with a frown. “I have studying to do,” I say with a shrug, “as I’m sure you have calls to take.”
He snatches the book out of my hand, making me throw him a scowl from my spot on the floor. “No, we have ‘discussing’ to do,” he says forcefully. “Which you said would happen during the meeting, but then you went and just said yes to all that crap without so much as a second thought.”
I get up and take my book from his hand, tossing it onto the mat. I take a deep breath, giving my all to stay amicable. “For your information,” I tell him calmly, “I gave it a lot more than a second thought.” I can’t resist adding, “You might not realize this, but other people’s lives, they happen even outside your involvement.”
He ignores the stab and just shakes his head, remaining serious. “No, I’m not buying it. There’s something else going on. I mean, there has to be,” he says, his voice taking on a mocking tone, “because otherwise I’d have to believe you actually agreed to work with obviously delusional members of an Order betting the made-up fate of the entire universe on shifter students who can’t even shift.”
“And yet I did,” I say flatly.
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “That’s not my point and you know it, smartass. I’m saying I can’t believe you bought into their bullshit.”
“What if it’s not bullshit?” I ask earnestly, shrugging my shoulders. “What if it’s true?”
He lets out a scoff then leans a little closer. “Hate to step on your rose-colored glasses, oh Chosen One, but sometimes,” he says mockingly, “when someone tells you you’re oh-so-special, they don’t actually mean it, they’re just saying it for you to do their bidding for them.”
I let out an exaggerated groan, throwing my arms up. “This is not about me. If it turns out it’s not true, who cares? But if it turns out it is, well, I’d be saying no to saving the world, now wouldn’t I?”
“No one saves the world, Novak,” he insists with this bitterness in his voice. “The world is shit and will always be shit, but luckily, none of it is your responsibility, unless you choose to stay the fool you’re apparently intent on being.”
Wow. I just look at him for a second. Then I take a step back. “No.” I shake my head, hoping to make him finally drop it. “I’m not ‘discussing’ this with you any longer because, frankly, it’s none of your business.”
“None of my business?” he snaps. “I’m your mentor, in case you forgot.”
I let out an exasperated sigh and turn back to the mat. “You know what?” I say as I grab my tote and my book off the floor. “This is on me, thinking you could last one hour without being an asshole,” I complain as I push past him and start moving for the door, “but you can’t even respect my decision so I’ll just go—”
He comes to block me. “Oh I’ll be respecting your decision alright. It’s just that you won’t exactly like it.”
My eyebrows pull down when he takes the tote off my shoulder and lowers it onto the floor. “What’re you doing?”
“Since your decision is to be stupid,” he says simply, “I guess I’m being forced to start training you for real.”
It’s in growing confusion that I watch him take a step back, push his chest out and fold his arms. “No one is forcing—”
“Though I have to warn you,” he cuts me off, tilting his head at me and making his voice saccharine like he did once before, “it means the end of your fucked-up ways.”
“Fucked-up ways?” I protest. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Constantly depriving yourself of sleep,” he readily lifts a hand to start listing, “only ever eating junk food, drinking insane amounts of coffee…” He pauses to pin me in place with his eyes, his lips curling into a self-satisfied smirk. “That all stops because from now on, you’re doing everything my way. You’re working out how I tell you to, you’re eating what I tell you to…” He quirks an eyebrow. “Hell, you’re even going to bed when I tell you to.”
“Fascist much?” I snap, albeit without a bite to my words.
A lazy smirk tugs at his lips. “Why don’t you quit being a smartass and start trying to defend yourself, huh?”
Um… Wait, is he being serious? Defending myself from him?
“With what, my sparks?” I demand with anxiety in my voice.
He shrugs. I don’t have time to linger on it, because he’s lifting his left hand in the air and the next thing I know, all the light in the room gets sucked into his palm, all except a tight circle around the two of us.
What the…
For a moment, he just looks at me with this smug smile on his face. Then he takes a single step back, disappearing into the darkness.
My breath catches, then my heart starts pounding.
I’m afraid to tear my gaze away from the spot where I last saw him, but seconds go by and the total absence of sound coupled with a feeling of being watched intently… It’s all becoming too unnerving.
Reluctantly, I lower my eyes to my right hand, summoning the sparks. What else?
It’s too late, because there’s this super fast movement to my right, and before I can even try to move or do anything with my only power, my legs get swept off and my ass crashes to the ground.
I groan, only to hear a low chuckle sound from behind my back. “Come on, Novak,” his smooth, smirking voice pokes at me, “don’t you want to be the best Chosen One ever?”
***
I’m breathless and aching, but after what seems like an eternity of getting my ass kicked, I summon all my remaining strength and manage to concentrate the sparks into a single point hovering above the tip of my middle finger. My eyes rounding, my instinct nudges me to use a flick of my wrist to send it flying.
It shoots across the space before me with a sound much like the cracking of a whip.
Huh.
My distraction with what I just did only makes it easier for him to make his move from the cover of darkness, sending me falling face first this time.
Groaning, I pick myself up, my chest heaving and my muscles burning.
“Stop, just stop,” I tell him in a breathless voice, bending at the waist with the heels of my palms digging into my thighs. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Your wish is my command,” he chuckles from somewhere in front of me, “oh Chosen One.”
And the next thing I know, the darkness gets sucked in the direction of his voice and I find myself in the brightly lit gym again.
I look up, trying to throw daggers at where he’s standing, but I have to immediately look down because all I see are goddamn silver spots.
“Come on,” he says as his hand holding a bottle appears in front of my face, “drink up.”
I stand straight and down it greedily.
When I’m done, still breathing heavily and trying to blink the silver spots away, I find him on the mat, lying propped up on one elbow, looking up at me.
“You know, there’s no chance in hell I’m giving up coffee,” I tell him as I start a wobbly trek to the mat.
“Fine,” he says as he throws something at me, making me catch it midair, “now eat that.”
I lower myself to the mat across from him, looking at the thing in my hand. Looks like some kind of protein bar. I frown and look up at him. “If you”re expecting me to stop eating normal food…”
“I don”t care what you eat,” he says with a frown, “but I do care about you getting all the nutrients you need, not just empty carbs. Make sure one of those is the first thing you eat every day. You can get them in the cafeteria.”
“Alright.” I take a bite and almost fail to stop the urge to spit it all out, that’s how bitter it is.
He’s laughing at the face I’m making, but the thing is strangely soothing as well, so I ignore him and keep eating, letting my eyes sweep over the gym and reveling in the progress I’ve made as I absent-mindedly lick the crumbs off my fingers.
It’s then that it finally hits me and I look up at him, catching him staring. I throw him a snarky smile, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head, that I’ve just had an actual training session with him.
“What?” he asks, squinting at me.
Which means he could be of actual help to me. Maybe.
I hesitate, but only for a second. “I need you to arrange access to the Restricted Section for me.”
He lifts into a seated position, his eyes narrowing at me. “You need me to,” he echoes with a touch of defiance in his voice. “What, you think you can just snap your fingers and I’ll do whatever you want?”
I frown at him. “I need to get my hands on the book that chose me.”
He lets out a scoff. “So it’s just to indulge your curiosity that you’re bossing me around like that?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m asking you.” Then I shrug. “And no, it’s because the book just has to contain information about the Aurora thing.”
He frowns. “You do know professors have to teach here for at least a year to get access themselves?”
Damn it, he’s right.
“Besides,” he keeps going, “why don’t you ask your precious Order? Or better yet, why don’t you start by checking the information they’ve already given you?”
That makes me frown. “What’re you talking about?”
“That incident they claim is the result of Baldur waking up? It’s obvious it was their doing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have anything to pressure you with.”
“No,” I insist with a shake of my head, “they couldn’t have done it, the Authority classified it as Nature Magic misfiring.”
He quirks a mocking eyebrow at me. “You can’t fake a Nature Magic misfiring?”
“Of course you can’t,” I say with a frown.
At that, the bastard laughs at me.
Blood rushing to my face, I snap, “Instead of acting all superior, why don’t you use your mouth and your brain to explain yourself?”
His lips tug into a smile before he turns serious again. “Imagine being a criminal with expertise in Divine Magic.”
“Fine,” I say flatly, still a little butthurt.
He lowers himself back onto one elbow. “Divine and Nature Magic are a lot alike, right? Of course, it’s usually easy to tell them apart once you start investigating, but the results… they can look exactly the same.”
“What’s your point?”
“Let’s say you want to kill someone without getting caught. If you get good enough to pass the Authority tests, all of a sudden you have two options.”
I’m intrigued against my will.
“You have the option to stab them, rip them to shreds, drain them and so on and so forth, and pray the Authority never gathers enough evidence to figure it out,” he continues. “Or, for example, you have the option to drain them without it looking like a living being was involved.” He shrugs. “And without a living being involved, is there even a case to gather evidence for?”
I nod pensively.
“Exactly,” he says with a smirk. “It’s the perfect crime.” He leans a little forward to pin me with his stare. “That’s exactly what they did with those Norwegian deaths, and you’re just letting yourself fall for it.”
I roll my eyes, but I get what he’s saying. Still, I just keep looking at him in silence, because there’s this daring thought rising to the surface of my mind.
I guess you could say he’s smart and strong and powerful…
He raises his eyebrows at me, making me snap out of it.
“Fine,” I finally say, “I’ll think about looking into that.” I pause to muster determination, but then I just go for it. “In the meantime,” I ask with a slightly awkward, hopeful smile, “help me break into the Restricted Section?“
***
I watch him sit up, his eyebrows pulling down as something flashes through his eyes, something I can’t quite put my finger on.
I just keep looking at him, hoping.
He lets out a scoff, averting his gaze for a second. “You do know that’s illegal, don’t you?” he asks with a squint.
Damn it. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I rush to say, my smile turning out tight-lipped. I push myself off the floor. “Just… Forget about it, alright?”
I don’t wait for a reaction. I grab my tote and move for the door, breathing a sigh of relief when I realize he’s remained right where he was sitting.
It’s with disappointment making my shoulders slump that I walk over to the door.
I open it, only to have it closed shut again. There’s his hand, palm pressed against the wood.
I turn to look at him, his arm and his body crowding me. He doesn’t look pleased.
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth, making my eyebrows shoot up. “I’ll buy the book, and in return, you’ll get ideas like those out of your head. Understood?”
It’s with a lot of determination that I shake my head. “These kinds of books aren’t for sale. Even if they were, if you want to help me, you’ll have to do it without the dirty money. It’ll have to be the two of us just happening to find ourselves in the right place at the right time.”
“No,” he snaps. “If anyone’s going, it’ll be me. Alone.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I insist, signaling for him to get out of my face and folding my arms. “I was the one chosen by the book, it needs to be me in there.”
He runs a hand along his jaw, blowing out a frustrated breath. “If I do this,” he says, lowering his head so his eyes are at the same level as mine, “you’re coming to Norway with me, so you can see for yourself what an idiot you’re being about the ‘Nature Magic misfiring’.”
I ignore the mocking way in which he says those last words. “You got yourself a deal,” I say with the widest grin.
He closes his eyes for a second, shaking his head. Then he looks at me again. “Tonight at midnight, show up in the Library and return a book. I’ll find you there.” He lifts a warning finger. “And since you’ll be of no use otherwise, prepare to be very quiet.”
“Quiet like a mouse,” I rush to reply, still smiling. “Then I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
I turn to the door, only to have his arm block my way again.
It makes me swallow roughly, when he wraps the arm around my waist and comes to press his chest into my back. “I don’t remember dismissing you,” he says in a low, scolding voice.
The voice and his breath against the skin of my neck make heat pool between my thighs, but I shake my head and choose to be firm and straightforward, “I’m not getting involved with you.”
“You say that as if it can only be a complication,” he whispers, then proceeds to tug the collar of my shirt to the side so he can take a bite of the flesh between my neck and my shoulder.
My eyes fluttering shut, I fight not to squirm with pleasure. “And what is it, if not that?” I ask with a breathless laugh.
“This?” he asks as he slides his hand down my stomach and under my tights, my breath hitching when he starts stroking me over my panties. “Just two people taking what they want in the moment. Unless…” The fingers of one hand still teasing me down there, he runs the fingers of the other up my nape, threading them through my hair and pulling my head back and to the side so he can whisper into the corner of my lips, “Unless you tell me this is not what you want right now?”