Chapter 17 Rune
rune
. . .
My bladder throbbed with pulsing, tapping aches in my lower abdomen, waking me up.
I groaned, blinking sleep from my eyes, and slowly swung my legs off the bed.
The last thing I remembered was studying with the group in the living area.
Dimitri had us studying for hours, and at some point, I’d face-planted into my notes and blacked out.
Which meant, someone must’ve carried me to bed. The burnt sugar scent in my room told me it was Zuko.
I yawned, rubbing at my face. Undressing out of the suit, I threw on a night gown and padded over to my bedroom door with my bare feet.
Holy Fates, I need to pee.
The hallway was quiet, dimly lit by the crystal sconces. I headed toward the bathroom but paused mid-step.
Koa’s voice.
Faint and one-sided.
I crept closer to his door, and sure enough, I heard him talking.
“…No, Ragnar, I told you. You can’t just eat my socks, buddy. They’re not food.”
My head tilted.
“Even if they smell like food, they’re not. Which, by the way, I seriously disagree with your findings.”
I blinked, bemused, just as the door clicked open. Koa leaned in the frame, shirtless and blinking at me. His long brown hair was tousled adorably. His fire-touched brown eyes widened when he saw me.
“Rune?” His voice was low, rough from fatigue. “You okay?”
I nodded, feeling my face warming. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I just heard you talking. It kind of threw me off because it’s so late.”
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh. Yeah. I was talking to Ragnar.”
“…Ragnar?”
“My tortoise.” He stepped back and gestured for me to go inside. That stabbing urgency in my bladder eased just enough to make curiosity win out, so I slipped in after him.
Koa’s room was almost the same as mine. White bedding on his bed that was pushed against the wall, a desk, a nightstand, and a wardrobe. But, his room had some additions.
“Oh my Fates,” I breathed, spotting the tortoise over near the corner. “He’s so cute.”
Ragnar, a surprisingly hefty tortoise with mottled green-brown coloring, stood in the middle of a little open habitat Koa had made out of low walls, scattered rocks, and warm stones that glowed faintly with runes that did different things.
“He’s not in a cage?” I asked, moving closer. “That’s sweet.”
“Nah. Tortoises are land creatures. They’re not like turtles.
They don’t need water to swim in all day.
They need warmth, dirt, and space to roam.
Ragnar’s got it good here, but he did have it better back at home.
He had a whole room to himself. However, he gets depressed when I leave, so I cleared it so he could come with me. ”
“Aw, so you’re very close, then.” I knelt.
Ragnar blinked slowly up at me.
I extended a finger and gently pressed against the edge of his shell. He shifted toward me, like he approved. So I stroked along his shell again. “I wasn’t sure if they liked pets.”
“He likes you, apparently,” Koa said with a smile.
“He’s got good taste.”
Koa laughed. “I suppose I do, too, then.”
“Do you?” I glanced around the room and noticed a half-taken-apart music box on his desk, surrounded by tiny tools. “What’s that?”
“I do.” He followed my gaze. “Oh. Uh, it’s my sister’s. I like fixing broken things, and this one… it’s important. Sentimental to her.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Sora. She’s three years younger than me. She and Mom were actually with me before the entrance exam. You probably didn’t notice her. She left before I met you.”
I couldn’t remember seeing Koa with anyone, so I guessed they’d left before I could notice them. “Is she a Phoenix too?”
“Yeah. Blonde hair, ember-flecked brown eyes like mine. She’s sweet but super guarded. This music box is one of the few things she’s ever really cared about. Our dad gave it to her.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded, and pain flickered in his gaze.
I frowned. “How old is Sora now?”
“She’s fifty-five.”
I blinked. “Wait, I thought you said she was younger than you by three years?”
“She is,” he insisted, but the math wasn’t adding up for me.
“…So how old are you?”
“I’m fifty-eight,” he said casually. “I’m a phoenix, remember? We age slow. I just look…twenty-five-ish.”
My jaw dropped. “You look maybe twenty-three!”
He shrugged sheepishly. “I moisturize?”
“Fates.” I shook my head. “Is your mom still around?”
“Yeah. She’s a Phoenix too. She’s got brown eyes, short brown hair. She’s sweet. Real bubbly. You’d like her.”
“I’d love to meet her someday.”
“I hope you can,” he said, walking over to the music box. “Let me show you something. I think I almost got the gears fixed.”
He twisted the dial with an audible click, then a snap, before a gear exploded off the mechanism like a bullet—right into his fucking eye.
“Koa—!”
He fell back hard on the ground, his limbs twitching once before going limp.
I stood frozen. Horrified. Mouth wide open. “What the actual fuck! Did you just die?”
I’d seen a lot of death, look at who my parents were, but never like that. Never a…pointless random death.
Ragnar just sighed, like this had happened before.
Koa’s body combusted. Flames erupted from his chest, licking out like a supernova. Within seconds, his form turned to ash. From the center of the ashes, a plume of fire sparked, reigniting into a phoenix before he shifted back into a very naked silhouette.
Blazingly, beautifully, and completely bare.
“Oh. Wow,” I breathed, covering my mouth, eyes locked on the very hard, very large, cock between his legs.
He turned bright red. “Oh my Fates—I—one second—I’m so sorry!
” He turned, showing off his toned ass. He grabbed a pillow from the bed before he launched himself behind it, collapsing onto the mattress with a groan.
“I swear,” he muttered, face burning. “My sister has never resurrected once. But me? I can’t stop dying stupidly. ”
Behind him, Ragnar let out a low groan like he was agreeing with him.
I blinked at the tortoise. “Did he just—?”
Koa nodded gravely. “He’s disappointed in me.”
I turned toward the door. “I’m going to, uh…let you…get dressed.”
“Good idea.”
I scratched Ragnar’s shell on the way out. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I am,” he promised sheepishly. “This isn’t the first music box related death I’ve had.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing as I left his room and shut his door behind me. How else could a music box cause death?
Steam covered the bathroom entry as I stepped inside, pressing the crystal lock behind me. I stumbled to the pristine toilet, finally emptying my poor bladder.
As the relief settled through me, I whispered into the echoing tile, “…What the Fates just happened?”
I’d watched Koa die and met his tortoise late at night.
Sighing, I got up, washed my hands, and tiptoed back to bed.