Chapter 31 #2
She turns back to me with a wide grin and pulls Thorne over to us. His face stays neutral as he approaches and doesn’t make eye contact with me at all.
“Mavyllora, this is Thorne. Since you’re fated to Callahan I’m assuming you’ve already met, but he was the boy I watched grow up when I still primarily lived here. He was my first student.”
She’s so happy when she says it. A bone witch linking arms with a blood demon. No wonder I thought his instincts were shit. He wasn’t afraid of Nana’s blood because he grew up with her.
Nana scowls at me. “Why are you making that face at Thorne, Mavyllora? I know fucking well Ms. Elaycia taught you better manners than that. Introduce yourself properly.”
My mind is glitching.
Did he not try to kill me the first day we had met?
Dumbly, because I don’t know what else to do in this moment, I do as Nana says.
I hold my hand out ready for him to shake it as I say, “Hello.” I sound almost robotic. “My name is Mavyn.”
He still hasn’t looked at me but I can see the wheels of his mind working. When he does finally look at me I can’t read anything from his red eyes. He shakes my hand but I’m numb to it.
“I didn’t know your full name was Mavyllora,” is all he says.
Of course he didn’t. It’s a very unique name and one I never use myself. I’m sure he would have had a very different opinion of me if he had. Nana always talked about her ‘boy’ when she would come back from visiting. How big and strong and powerful he was getting. How his training was coming along.
She had told me once that she would bring me with her on one of her trips eventually so we could meet. She said he liked my name, but she had never mentioned his name. She had never mentioned his race either.
Nana tisks again. “You probably had no idea who she was because of that too. She always introduces herself as the shortened version even though that was the name given to her at birth.”
Ms. Elaycia steps up behind me. “And she has her reasons for not wanting to use her full name, Esmirra.”
Nana huffs but nods. “But that does not mean you should condone it for the actions of someone else.”
I lower my brows at her but she refuses to look at me. Actions of someone else. As if the sun devil simply used my name out of turn.
I shake my head at her and turn away because I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about the past. My family, which I have not seen in nearly four months is here and this is real and I am so happy.
I am.
Truly.
Until I realize it was all a lie. This is a nightmare. And the sun devil is staring directly at me.
I actually freeze this time instead of bracing. Because it had felt more real this time. Normally it’s the pain that is the only thing that feels real. Normally the foreplay doesn’t last that long before he comes into the picture and burns me.
Icy blue eyes blink at me and then pitch black brows lower in confusion.
What kind of game is he playing?
My name is said but I don’t know who said it. His lips hadn’t moved and it would have sounded like him if they did.
Slowly, he makes his way over. My name is said again but I can’t move. I can’t do anything as he and others approach our circle. I had felt so peacefully warm a second ago and now all the peace has eviscerated.
“Hello,” he greets as he stops a few feet from me. My heart palpitates because it is his voice. “Are you alright, my dear?”
Mine.
In every lifetime.
I’m going to make sure you burn for eternity.
“Sun devil.”
He jerks back and I don’t even know how I was able to form those two words. I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the pain and torture and burning. Unless he’s waiting as a type of torment. He doesn’t look right. There isn’t a malicious aura around him or that twisted look in his eyes.
“How – “ His voice slightly cracks. He clears his throat and it shocks my brain because he never hesitated. I now notice a woman beside him with silky straight silvery white hair and hazel eyes. Fractures of gold and brown and green sparkling. Not wavy black hair and solid chocolate brown eyes.
“You’re not a water mage,” I whisper, and she glances between me and the sun devil. He looks shocked and also saddened.
He clears his throat again. “How did you know my twin brother?”
My world tilts and everything goes tumbling.
Twin.
Brother.
I blink but I still can’t move. On his other side I finally notice the other person who had walked up with him. Darian with his constant curiosity and has the wheels in his mind turning. That was why he looked so much like the sun devil. That was why I always braced when confronted with him.
Everyone is watching us and for a moment I wish Ms. Elaycia wasn’t here so I could just go to my room and sleep. I wouldn’t have to meet any family members and I didn’t have to learn this.
“Darian.” He stands up a bit straighter. “Kyros. That’s your surname. . . Kyros.”
I had never heard anyone say his last name before. It would have clicked instantly if they had.
“Lyalthil Kyros was your uncle,” I breathe.
The devil – the twin brother to the sun devil – shifts drawing my attention back to him.
“You knew my brother and his fated? His wife, she had been a water mage.”
I slowly turn away from them because my heart is still thundering and I can’t get it under control. My blood is rushing and there’s no stopping it.
“He was the devil who tortured you when you were a child,” Darian finally answers.
Not loudly, but enough that everyone within our little circle can hear.
There’s still chattering happening outside of our group so I don’t think anyone is paying us much attention anymore.
“He had adopted her when she was a toddler and then he tortured, fed, marked, and claimed her.”
I snap my head towards him. His icy blue eyes – the exact same almond shaped eyes as his father, as the sun devil – are on the ground. His back straight and head held high, but he won’t look up.
His father chokes along with multiple other people. Someone gasps and then a warm, peaceful presence comes towards my back. Orchids and blackberries – I suck her scent deep into my lungs to help ground me. To remind me this isn’t a nightmare, I am not before the sun devil, I am okay, I am safe.
“Mavyn,” she gently calls, not saying my full name now. “Will you take some deep breaths with me? Your blood is rushing too fast in your veins.”
Yes.
Yes, she’s right. It is rushing too fast. Too out of control and that’s never good. That’s always a disaster.
She breathes in and I copy her. She holds it and I begin counting in my head. Forcing my mind to say each number. To focus on that.
After sixty-two seconds she slowly releases and I do the same. Then she sucks in another deep breath and I copy. Counting to eighty-eight this time before releasing. We do it four more times before my heart begins to slow.
I suck in another deep breath for good measure but I don’t hold it. I’m finally able to gain complete control back over my heart and blood. Then I turn to face my audience and even though I hesitate for a moment when I look at him, that panic does not come back.
“I didn’t know Darian’s last name was Kyros,” I start. He’s still not looking at me, but his father does nothing but stare.
I can see it now, the differences. Their aura, his body language, the emotion in his eyes.
His eyes widen a bit as I push my shoulders back and straighten my back. My energy shifting because the sun devil and his bitch of a mage are dead. I made sure of that. And even though I am still tormented by him within my mind, he doesn’t exist in the real world.
I am not weak.
And they see it now.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kyros. And I apologize to you about any videos you may see or already have of me calling your son a winged bitch.”
The tension that had stretched taunt between all of us after Darian had said how I knew the sun devil shatters as his mother chokes on a laugh. She covers her mouth with her hand but her eyes are sparkling as they stare at me.
Mr. Kyros also has a grin slowly curling onto his face with his eyes lightening with amusement.
“Trust me,” he gently rumbles, “that video had made my entire month and I had been counting down the days until I was able to meet the young woman who put my son in his place.”
I smile and glance at Darian to see his eyes still glued to the floor. Thorne is beside him with his parents behind him. Callahan next to them with his own parents and sisters huddled in. So many eyes has me shifting in place.
“Well,” I drawl, “at least all the awkwardness is out of the way.” A few people chuckle. I shrug a shoulder and then relax my body. Comfortable with my family behind me. “It’s not like it could – “
BANG.
Did I ever say the universe was against me?
I can imagine perfectly Cordellia leaning in close to me and whispering with a straight face, “You jinxed it, Mavie.” And then she’d burst into laughter because it was always something stupid I jinxed. That explosion that just occurred was not something stupid.
Alarm bells start going off and a ripple of power I’ve felt before hits us.
Pushing through our circle and past the crowd, I stand against the stone wall sealing the terrace to keep anyone from falling.
The stones were laid mimicking the guards wall of a castle, but it goes with the rest of the architecture of the university.
Looking out over the eastern field though, a line of black mars the edge of the forest. And that wave of power hits with a second ripple.
Devil.
The alarms continue to blare as someone yells, “REBELS!”
It causes a panic for most. There are thousands of people filling this terrace and within the school. Though when I look back I see the celestials with their parents calm and most of them with twisting shadows around. When they clear they leave behind harnesses and sheaths full of weapons.