Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Iwoke up before the sun. The sky was tinted red from the rays of light that peeked through the clouds covering Caelestis.
I could tell the air was frigid just by glancing outside.
Fall had entered the atmosphere earlier than usual this year, and I grieved the weeks of beach time that I’d missed out on.
Careful not to wake Pia, who had spent the night after we celebrated the start of the weekend a little too hard, I stretched and slid off my mattress. I moved to my armchair by the window, which had become one of my favorite spots.
My arms ached as I lowered myself into the chair.
Overall, I was doing well in combat training, but gods the workouts were kicking my ass.
After the show Sawyer and I put on last month, he was switched to a new group and replaced in ours by Kohen.
Pia seemed to enjoy our new instructor. She wouldn't say it, but it was obvious that she had a thing for him.
Wielding class, on the other hand, had been tough.
I’d been successful at blocking out some of the other students' magic, but had trouble wielding my own without feeling completely defeated.
It turned out that controlling the mind of another human was much more complex than controlling one of a crab.
Professor Stoll had been giving King Hawthorne updates after every class session, so at least he wouldn't be surprised at our meeting this afternoon when I told him that things weren't going great. At our last meeting, he was fairly dissatisfied with my wielding ability, so I could only imagine how disappointed he’d be this week to learn that not much had changed.
Sebastian had been cold to me ever since I asked him about his father.
Every morning he waited for me on the stairs, reading a book.
He'd escort me to classes and meals, but other than that, he was giving me the cold shoulder again.
The whole situation really sucked seeing as we had no choice but to spend a lot of time together.
I had been enjoying his company for the brief period when things were good, and this bothered me more than I let on, though I wasn't quite sure why.
The view of the ocean became clearer by the second as the night dissipated and the horizon came into view.
I watched the dune grass as it swayed in the wind and pulled my legs up into the chair, trying to get more comfortable.
I shifted my body to find the best position, but stopped when I felt something hard wedged into the cushion.
My fingers reached down into the crevice, grabbing a hold of something hard and pulling it free.
My jaw clenched, my finding reopening the wound from Sebastian's cold words to me.
We aren't friends.
I had put it off for a month, but couldn't wait any longer—I needed to vent.
I crawled back into my side of the bed and gently poked Pia in the nose, the moment reminding me of the many like it I’d had with Delani. I wished she were here. She was always better with guy stuff than me.
Pia yawned, slits of her eyes peeling open. “Morning,” she croaked, still half asleep.
“I need to talk to you about something,” I said, the urgency in my voice helping to fully rouse her.
She sat upright, concern pasted on her face. “Is everything okay?”
I waved the book that I found in her face. “He left this here.”
“Who?”
“Sebastian,” I said as if it were obvious, then passed her the book.
Pia flipped it around in her palms and raised an eyebrow. “Okay? And?”
I released a huff of breath and threw my body down, letting the back of my head hit my pillow. “He left it here a few weeks ago when he told me he wasn’t my friend.”
She shuffled up onto her knees. “Well, I mean, were you friends?”
“We never put a label on it, but I kinda thought we were starting to become friends.”
“Why would he say that, anyway?”
I dropped my gaze to the sheets. “I may have asked him why he doesn't get along with his father.” I sighed as the words came out, then raised my eyes to see her gawking at me.
“Why in gods’ names would you ask him that?” she blurted out.
“I don’t know!” I yelled, mostly at myself.
“We were getting along. He was being nice to me. We were making jokes.” I threw my arms up in frustration.
“He’s always questioning me about where I am or what I'm doing, so I figured one little question couldn't hurt.
But it did, and he stormed out. Now he will hardly talk to me again, just like when we first met, which is a problem because I can't stop thinking about how I upset him and his eyes and his body…and—” I stopped myself abruptly.
I most certainly had not planned on sharing that information with Pia, but once I started ranting, the words spilled right out of me.
She rubbed her eyes, then stared at me for a good while before her mouth twisted into a smile.
“What?” I groaned, scrunching my face.
“You totally have the hots for my cousin.”
I shook my head. “No, I do not. He's absolutely breathtaking—I'll give him that. But that's beside the point.” I ignored Pia’s giddy smile and sat upright.
“The point is that he got pissed and has been cold to me ever since. And what am I supposed to do with this?” I grabbed his book from her, waving the novel above my head.
Her smile faded. “Maeve, I told you that Sebastian doesn't share a lot with anyone. Half of the things I know about him are simply because we are family.”
I turned my face away from her, but she stood up and moved in front of me so that I had no choice but to look at her.
“I think he struggles with things from his past more than he'll ever let on. He probably reacted the way he did as a defense mechanism to hide that those things actually hurt him,” she continued.
She could be right. He told me I could ask him anything, but his mood switched when I brought up his father. If what Pia told me was true, Sebastian had endured a hell of a lot of trauma in his life, and I'm sure there was more than she even knew.
“Well now I feel even worse,” I whined, angry at myself for causing him any suffering.
A devious grin formed across Pia's face. She swiped my rucksack from my desk, shoving Sebastian's book into it before handing me the bag and telling me, “Get dressed.”
I tended to sleep in on the weekends, so Sebastian waited until mid-morning to meet me at my dormitory. Knowing that, Pia and I were able to leave my room uninterrupted.
“Where are we going?” The crisp fall air had me wrapping my arms around myself for extra warmth as we hiked across the castle grounds. I really needed to start remembering my cloak.
“To get breakfast,” Pia said simply, keeping her feet steady on the cobblestone walkway.
“That's it? Just to get breakfast?” My suspicion was obvious.
“Well, after that we're going to give Seb his book back.”
I pivoted and started walking back towards the dorms. “Nope. Absolutely not!” I yelled over my shoulder and waved her goodbye.
She chased after me, grabbing onto my arm and dragging me back in the direction of the castle. She was a few inches shorter than me and much smaller, but I had to admit that the girl was strong.
“You see him every day. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that…I—” I struggled to find the words to explain my reasoning.
“Don't be a baby,” she teased, flashing me her teeth in a taunting smile.
I rolled my eyes at her, but didn't argue any further. I let her lead me to the castle, where we shoveled down our breakfast and then chatted to kill some time.
“Sebastian usually meets me around ten thirty,” I told her as I glanced at the clock hanging on the stonework of the kitchen. It was about ten o’clock now, so he'd be making his way to my room any minute.
Hastily, we picked up after ourselves and gathered our belongings. I started towards the exit, but Pia ushered me through a stone archway on the other side of the kitchen.
“This way. There's another way into the soldiers' housing,” she whispered to me.
We traveled down a dimly lit hallway, the lack of lanterns indicating that the corridor did not get used often. She cracked open a steel door at the end of the hall and peered through it. Once she was sure that no one was on the other side, she swung it open with full force and waved me through.
“How do you know about this?” I inquired as we stepped into the corridor.
Her cheeks flushed. “I’ve lived in the castle for years. And there may be someone that I visit here regularly who just so happened to show me a secret way to his room.”
“Pia! Who?” I whisper-yelled.
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Kohen Sharpe.”
“I knew it! For how long?”
“Since the gala.”
“What! That long and you didn't tell me?”
Pia blushed. “Sleeping with a head soldier isn't exactly something that would be approved by my uncle. But honestly, I don’t care anymore.”
The corridor was silent aside from our childish giggles over Pia’s fling. A few soldiers glanced at us skeptically, but no one stopped us as we walked down the hall and up a flight of stairs. She took my rucksack from me when we reached the top and fished around in it for Sebastian's book.
“Okay, here's the plan,” she murmured under her breath. “I'll give him back the book, and then when I walk off you stay and talk to him.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “That's your plan? I would hardly call that a plan.”
“It doesn't matter, you just need an excuse to talk to him.”
“I wouldn't call that much of an excuse, either.”
Pia stared at me, not blinking.
“And what if he refuses to talk to me?” I questioned her.
“He won't.”
“You don't know that,” I argued.
“Gods, Maeve, shut up and let's go.”
We took a corner down the corridor, entering the portion of the floor that held the soldiers' bedchambers.
“Are we even allowed in here?” I asked her, biting my lower lip in doubt.