Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Cotton
Istared, frozen, at the herd of Endarkened unicorns charging toward me and Valik.
There were so many, and we were in no condition to make a run for the castle in time, especially not with it sitting at the top of a hill.
Carrying Scarlett’s limp body didn’t help matters any.
And Valik? He was dangerously pale and appeared to be on the verge of blacking out.
Scarlett lay on the ground beside me, where I set her down, Valik standing in front of her as some form of protection.
The ground shook from the stampeding unicorns. Sweat slicked my palms, and my heart battered in my chest. Silently, I called on whatever gods that might’ve existed to help me. I didn’t know what options I had in such a short time frame, but anything would help.
My body buzzed. A new energy seemed to awaken within me. A symbol flashed in my mind, a foreign sigil that I’d never seen before, consisting of three wavy lines with straight ones framing them at the top and bottom.
Intuitively, I stretched my arm before me and began to trace the sigil in the air with a trembling finger. A rush of power surged through my body, setting me alight with energy that felt untainted. Elemental.
Air rippled from my chest, propelling outward while encompassing the three of us within its protection. I channeled the magic as wind thrust from my body in waves, forcing the unicorns to slam to a halt. They neighed and snorted, shaking their heads, while others reared back and pawed the ground.
I cast a glance over my shoulder to spot Valik behind me, shocked and confused.
“What,” Valik muttered as he gaped at the scene around us, “the fuck?”
I shrugged, hoping that he knew the answers.
“I knew there was more to you,” Valik said. “Can you keep that going until we reach the castle?”
I didn’t feel weakened by it. In fact, this magic didn’t seem to come from me at all. Rather, it felt like I was able to access it from the outside. Nodding, I spun and scooped Scarlett back up into my arms.
I gestured with my head in the direction of the castle, indicating for Valik to head that way. The unicorns sat just outside the shield of rippling magic that had formed a bubble around us, pissed.
My muscles burned from exhaustion, but I stared in wonder at the shield around us as we finished our hike back to safety. The white light that emanated from it was subtle, glistening around us as the setting sun cast its glow.
Climbing the hill nearly destroyed me as I pushed my body to keep going. But once we were within the wards of the castle that protected us from anyone or anything, including Syphon Bonds, I released my hold on the strange magic.
“What aren’t you telling me, Cotton?” Valik asked as we approached the large double doors leading inside.
I frowned and shook my head, adjusting Scarlett to sit higher in my hold.
Valik scrutinized me, trying to make sense of something in my aura that wasn’t adding up to him. Clearly, he didn’t believe that I knew just as little as he did.
Shaking his head, he turned to walk inside, pushing the double doors open for us to plod through.
I kept going through the entryway, taking Scarlett to the receiving room to place her on a cushioned settee.
Aside from Valik, no one else except for Scarlett and I stayed here, so I had to make sure that she would be taken care of.
Valik trailed behind, stopping several feet behind me as I gently lowered Scarlett down onto the cushions. Her breathing seemed steady, and her complexion had returned to her normal shade. My arms ached and hung limply at my sides from the long walk carrying her.
“Okay, so we’re gonna skip past the whole Syphon Bonded unicorn thing and jump to the part where you just manifested some non-Kinetic magic when death was but an asshair away from us.”
I sagged my shoulders, sighing into the tension leaving them and my back. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say, not that I could anyway.
“Cotton,” Valik urged. “If there’s more to you than you’ve been leading on and you’ve been holding out on me…”
I turned around, my chest heaving. Clenching my teeth, I threw my arms out to the side, shaking my head.
Valik pinched the bridge of his nose, probably wishing he could communicate with me telepathically right about now.
Well, so do I, Valik—you prick. Or even knowing sign language would be better than having my words trapped in my mind.
I pretended to hold a pen in my hand and scrawl it onto invisible paper, motioning for me to have something to write with.
It wasn’t like it was back at the King’s Palace, where almost everyone knew me well enough to know how to read me.
We’d all found ways over the years to be effective.
With Valik, I felt like I was nine again when I first lost my tongue and my ability to speak with it.
No one understood how to communicate with me, and neither did I.
Compound that with the grief from losing my mother, and I’d never felt so alone before.
But Scarlett always knew how to get through to me.
“Okay.” Valik nodded, waving a hand and materializing a bound notebook and a pen before walking forward and pressing them into my palms.
I took it from him and stormed to the round wooden table that sat by the window, opening the thick blank pages.
“To start, tell me what happened back there. Where did that magic come from?” Valik asked, striding over to pull out the chair opposite me and taking a seat.
His eyes still drooped, and his skin shone with a sheen of clammy sweat.
But apparently, he had enough strength to materialize a fucking notebook and pen to pry answers out of me.
I pressed the pen to paper, scribbling my response.
If he wanted neat handwriting, he should’ve materialized a godsdamn working laptop.
Briefly, I explained what happened—how suddenly, a foreign sigil popped in my mind, and then I felt as if I channeled an outside magical force.
I assured him that this had never happened to me before and that I’d been raised and trained to be Kinetic.
That I’d never even known anything other than Elementals and Endarkened existed until Chrome and Gray freed Scarlett and me from the prisons.
When I finished, I pushed the notebook toward Valik, who had nearly fallen asleep sitting upright like an old man. He startled awake when the notebook touched his elbow, making me smirk.
Valik rubbed his eyes before leaning forward on his elbows, squinting at my messy handwriting. He glanced up at me. “How am I supposed to read this?”
I shrugged, unbothered.
With a groan, he muttered something about the art of calligraphy having disappeared in modern times on Terraguard. “What a shame.”
I rolled my eyes, determined to make him figure it out for himself. I wondered how old Valik was. Or even what he was. He wouldn’t tell us, but I knew he was extremely powerful and very old, regardless of how peculiar he was at times.
It took Valik five minutes too long to read the short paragraph before he sat back, crossing his arms and exhaling before he went on to speak.
“Okay, first things first, Cotton,” he said, exhausted.
“We really need to reteach you how to fucking write. This looks like something a little fledgling would scrawl! Or worse! A fucking Endarkened unicorn!”
I pinched my lips inward, trying to hide my amusement, but I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped me.
Valik gaped, appalled by my reaction. “You think it’s funny that you write like a cursed animal? Well, we’ll see how funny that is when you visit the Druids—” As he said it, his eyes lit up, as if the answer to every one of life’s mysteries had just come to him. “Well, Gabriel’s dick…”
I frowned, wondering who Gabriel was and why we were suddenly talking about his penis.
“Cotton,” Valik began, his attention on full alert. “Can you explain to me who your parents are?” He pushed the notebook and pen in front of me again.
I nodded, unsure where he was going with this, but I grabbed the pen anyway and began to write.
Mother was Daisy Okrafor, and father was Sage Sjodin. Both were Kinetic.
I pushed the notebook back to Valik when I was finished. This time, he didn’t comment on my handwriting. “What do you know about your grandparents? Either side.”
Once again, the notebook reappeared in front of me.
My dad’s father disappeared when he was young, presumed to be an Endarkened attack.
“Well, that’s not very informative now, is it?” Valik rubbed his palms over his face. “It’s fine. Time will tell.”
I shrugged. I gestured for the notebook and pen again. It was my turn to ask questions.
How did you purify the unicorn back there?
“It’s part of my capabilities. It requires a ton of magic, and it’s only temporary. So it’s not like I can go around purifying all of Arcadia. Trust me, I tried a long time ago to no avail. Imagine a deadly game of whack-a-mole. It was very similar to that.”
I grimaced, tapping the pen anxiously on the pad of paper before I scribbled the next one.
Who is Brecken? I overheard you and Talitha talking about him.
Valik groaned. “Brecken. He is the High Mage of the Druids. Very grumpy. Very arrogant. Loves sharp, pointy things.”
High Mage means what? And what about Talitha? I heard you call her the High Priestess.
“‘High Mage’ is just a fancy term for calling him a king without him sounding like a self-righteous prick. Although he is a self-righteous prick, so their little game of semantics didn’t really work, did it?” He shook his head with a shrug.
I crossed my arms over my chest. Based on Valik’s conversation with Talitha, it sounded like he’d stolen something from Brecken once. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the High Mage wasn’t Valik’s biggest fan.