Chapter 12 #2
If you don’t have a natural ability against Persuasion, you’re a liability to the entire front. Luckily, you can reattempt the final trial the following year if you are unsuccessful the first time. No doubt to allow more cannon fodder for the first years to work through.
An eerie darkness settles over me as the light from the glistening world behind dims as I venture past marble columns.
I finally reach a door, where a scribe cloaked in red awaits me.
A peculiar green flame flickers above their head as they scan the parchment for my name.
They nod, scratching something along the scroll with a golden quill.
I enter the gothic arch stone doorway, the carved slate doors moaning along their hinges. I envision the golden dome shield that surrounds me in my mind. My fingers trace along the gleaming walls, humming with my strength, searching for cracks. I raise another layer of golden light, just in case.
Then, using the sound of the doors as cover, I whisper quietly to Pip, “Remember. No movements. No matter what.” He doesn’t make a peep, so I take that as him acknowledging my command.
An endless hall jets out before me, lined with green flames, casting a queasy-colored light along the passageway.
I see another scribe ahead, this time in a golden cloak, shimmering like a beacon.
As I reach the tall figure, they open a wooden door carved like a portcullis—how fitting.
It evokes the feeling of being trapped in a cage, but I won’t let their attempts to rattle me succeed. Mind over matter.
As my eyes adjust to the dark room, I make out a chair with metal shackles attached to the arms and two front legs. Charming. I reach into my mind, making sure the latch to my broken mosaic window of emotions is shut tight.
A petite figure emerges from the pitch, followed by a tall, slender form. With the sound of a sharp tap, a crimson flame lights up above the chair, revealing the two people in the room with me.
The petite female has chocolate-brown hair and olive skin a few shades lighter than mine. Her hair is shorn to the skin on the sides. As she comes further into the light, I notice she has silver, jagged scars running across the sides of her head.
Scars are uncommon in Elarians, given our ability to heal quickly or use Sangre magic.
She must have intentionally blunted her power while they healed slowly without any magic.
The only other time this can happen is if you are poisoned or become almost drained of your magic and cannot find a healer.
Next, a slender figure comes into light behind her, revealing long white hair and sharp features… Chancellor Ashfel.
“Greetings, Savaé Entropaé.” His icy tone might’ve chilled my skin if I weren’t so delightfully numb.
“Greetings. What an honor to have the Chancellor at all three of my trials,” I lie tastefully with a bow, despite the quills prickling at the back of my throat begging to spear him with what I really think.
I take a breath, unraveling the lace strings of tension binding my shoulder blades like a corset.
I didn’t make it this far for my sharp tongue to ruin it all…
the night with his daughter in the alley doesn’t count.
I cage the snicker accompanying that thought behind a glimmering smile.
Not the time to be pissing off the Chancellor.
“You did such a gripping job with my last experiment. It will be my delight to watch you rise to my next challenge, Starborne.”
My eyes whip to his. No one has ever called me Starborne except for Sully.
I never asked him what it meant, figuring it was just another nickname of endearment.
He told me once, while looking at my gilded markings, the gold on our planet wasn’t created on Elyndor.
It’s finite, and thus all the more valuable, a gift from fallen stars.
I figured it was just a pleasant fact to help me feel more comfortable in my own skin.
Clearly, this male is trying to get under my skin, like a weasel nipping at tattered walls, gnawing on a weak spot in hope of getting through to find its feast. That smart, weaselly fuck knows exactly what he is doing because I can feel the molten rage leaking from the mosaic window of my mind.
It takes all my strength not to smash his skinny bones against the wall and rip the secrets he’s keeping right out of his illustrious Arabellian head.
I breathe in calming blue. I breathe out flaming red, numbness cascading over me once more while raising yet another wall of shields, this time on the inside, putting a layer between me and any reckless emotion attempting to escape that Celestials be dimmed mosaic window.
This is all just a part of the trial. He’s not even worth another thought. And I sure as Emberhell can’t let him rattle me, wielding my easily triggered rage to his benefit.
I am no one’s puppet to be strung up and played with.
“Please, take a seat. Get comfortable.” His slithering words catch on his tongue as he pauses. His eyes narrow on my neck. “It’s warm out for a scarf today, is it not?”
I nod. “Feeling a little under the weather is all, sir.”
I don’t let my thoughts fester on the prior memories I have shackled to a chair.
Donning my mask of cool indifference as I take a seat in the chair.
Without hesitation, the female locks me in.
The cool metal inscribed with runes traps my magic beneath my skin.
My strength extends beyond my magic, though.
Using my hidden skill, just like I did when trapped in a far more wicked chair as a child, I dissociate—leaving a smug smile on my face for the Chancellor.
In my disjointed state, my mind is free.
I find myself back in the Mysticwoods of Estrella.
This time, Pip is with me as we race through the twisted branches of trees beneath a lavender canopy, jumping from limb to limb without a care in the world.
We roll along multicolored mosses and lichen carpeting the cool soil.
Snowmelt streams carve through the forest floor, the edges brimming with fauna and creatures of all shapes and sizes, which light up and smile as we dance among them.
Pip and I get into a growling competition with the armored polar bears, our faces covered in their slobber as we laugh ourselves silly.
We slink into a cave filled with crystals of every color imaginable, humming wildly to the sounds of Pip’s happy chirps, which echo off the walls, harmonizing, unleashing ricocheting rays of rainbow light.
In the back of my head, I can feel the ensign smashing against my shields, her finger screeching along tempered gold, failing to dive deeper into my head. I hear a faint, disgruntled voice off in the distance.
“Push harder. You are stronger than this; if not, you will fail your exam.”
My smile grows with the blossoming scent of frost lilies bathing my mind.
The aroma brings memories of Sully flooding back, crashing over me in an unleashed tempest. The last remaining light of my soul sputters, threatening to extinguish.
Frantically, I grasp for something to keep the flame lit as grief swells up with a consuming hunger.
A piercing sound grinds my molars, the ensign’s nails scraping along the fracturing seams of my mind.
The glow of my mental shields—flickers—potent emotions spreading like cracks along thin ice, splintering under the suffocating, unyielding weight of everything unfelt.
All at once, every feeling I’ve managed to chuck out that broken mosaic window hails against my shields—with the fury and wrath of Endara, Fate of Endings, set on shattering my very existence.
I open my eyes in the golden dome of my mental fortress.
Thousands of hands claw at the walls. Nails dig in.
Corroding an open fracture. Splitting wider and wider into a gaping chasm.
Lapis blue liquid waterfalls in, flooding all around me.
Tears prickle at the back of my eyes as I realize it’s my grief pouring in.
I race towards the hole, clasping my hands over it. I scream through gritted teeth as the painful feeling torrents through me like a flash flood. My knees buckle with a splash. My ribs crack and bow under every unfelt emotion bludgeoning my chest.
Each new blow splatters the walls of my glacial palace with warm blood, melting my strength, threatening to capsize my withered black heart in a sea of crimson it’s too weak to pump against. Her fractured pieces—messily stitched together—a tapestry of limping beats and weeping holes.
A sad and pitiful sight. But it’s all I’ve managed to piece together. All I have left.
My shields flicker.
I cannot fail.
Mind over matter.
I will not have another chance to repeat. I was too confident in my abilities to give myself that chance. A string of curses slings from my lips for being so fucking foolish.
But I have no other choice. I have to do this. I can do this.
Mind over fucking matter.
This will not be the end of my story. Becoming an Ellian Knight is all I have left to hold on to now that Sully is gone.
A deep breath steels my resolve. I harness the jagged ice deep within my marrow.
I imagine wall after wall of golden light reinforcing my shields.
Hoarfrost seeps out from my bones, freezing my grief, creeping along the walls.
Shattered ice bites through the fingers probing my mind.
Ice and gold mix, hardening into something new, an impenetrable gilded frost, numbing my soul just enough to focus.
I corral all my emotions back out their window as this new substance spreads like liquid light, filling the fractures of my mental shields. Reinforcing them.
Then, after some time, my mind releases from the ensign’s grasp. I drift back into my body, opening my eyes. The shackles are undone, but a shadow looms over me. The towering spire of Chancellor Ashfel.
“Oh, how I do enjoy being correct. I will see you in class next week. Congratulations. You have been accepted into Gildorea Universitás of War.”
I stand up and give a half-bow. “Thank you. I look forward to all you have to teach me.” I smirk and walk out, feeling lighter than I have in weeks.
Once we are outside and heading back to town, I look down at Pip. “I did it!”
He opens his four cobalt eyes in succession, looking up at me, chirping happily. I smile and then gaze up at the sky.
“We did it, Sully. We did it!”
My chest deflates in the deafening silence, the terrible weight of his absence crumpling me once more.