Chapter 21 #3
I sigh, drinking in a deep breath. He isn’t wrong. I’m in no state for any form of strenuous physical activity, including beating him into a bloody pulp, but it still doesn’t make me any less annoyed at his sudden show of restraint. Or his insistence about the names.
Maybe I should have killed him when I had the chance. Why are his eyes so white? I shake the thought from my head. I can’t spiral. I need to focus to distract him from his mission.
“For someone so clever, you’d think you would have already figured that out,” I snip as I pick at the dirt underneath my short nails, trying to feign that his sudden distance isn’t affecting me.
“Oh, I have my suspicions. But I want to hear you say it.” His tone is utterly lethal.
I shrug, continuing to toy with my nails, disinterested. They’re utterly filthy. Should keep me busy for a long while.
“Well… that concussion must have rattled their names right out of my silly little head,” I say with mock innocence, twirling my finger next to my temple like there’s a few loose bolts up there.
Too many to count, actually.
Then I flash him a wicked grin, biting my bottom lip before giving him a sarcastic pout as I purr, “Oh, how I do so hate not giving you what you want.”
Swiftly, the room becomes absolute darkness. Ribbons of black velvet wrap around me, lifting me up from the bed. His violent presence is in front of me, yet he continues his gentle hold, raising me with his shadows to look him in the eye.
“There is a time and place for games. This is not one of them. Now give me their names,” he growls before continuing in a sharp, flirtatious tone, slashing at my resolve. “I made a promise to the rest of our Zenith I would surmise them. Do not make me break another promise, Luxsula.”
S?las’ eyes become foreboding as he lifts my chin with the softest shadowy touch. That word. I vaguely remember hearing that word but can’t place it. I’m too faint from the lack of circulating blood scrambling against gravity to perfuse my brain.
I summon what strength I have left and raise my chin to fight him nonetheless. “I will not—”
“S?las! Put her down this fucking instant! Have you lost your ever-loving mind? She nearly just died, and you are throwing her around with your powers like she is a Celestials-damned doll!” Kissa hisses. Her claws gouge out, wrapping around his neck.
“She refuses to tell me their names.” He scowls, disappearing in a cloud of shadows to reveal himself leaning back against that damn wall once more.
Kissa helps me settle back into the bed, checking me over for new injuries before whirling back to him.
“I know we agreed that you would be the one to ask her their names, but not like this! We all just figured since you were the one who found her and you refused to tell us how, that you were the one closest to her. We didn’t want you to bloody kill her all over again, especially when it’s pretty damn obvious who did this to her.
You’re a fucking idiot, S?las Zyon.” Kissa is practically snarling at this point.
He vanishes out the door in a fury of lashing shadows.
Kissa’s ears twitch in my direction. “Your pulse is far too fast. You need to lie down, or you’re going to pass out again.”
“I’m fine. What’s up with him? I’ve never seen him act like this… I mean, not that I know him very well,” I murmur, finally able to shove everything that just happened with S?las right out the window.
“Celestials, he has been on a whole other level since he brought you here. I think you almost dying switched something on in him.” She gives me a suggestive look.
“Stop. Nothing has happened between us.” I wave my hand dismissively at her.
“The smell of this room would say otherwise. I half thought that when I walked into the shadows, I was going to see something I couldn’t unsee… but then I smelled your fear.” She pauses, looking me over once more. I smirk, as if her superior feline vision could have missed something the first time.
“Don’t think for a second I believe that Ritherin-shit he spewed about just coincidentally taking a stroll in the Mysticwoods at night.
Right where your body was lying.” She gives me a knowing look before she continues, “We are a team. You can’t lie to us.
We’re supposed to trust each other. In addition, you have a dragon burn on your leg, according to Atlas.
Nothing but a dragon can make that mark.
And you oddly always smell of dragon. Did you bond with one before the Celestial Bonding event? That would be sacrilege!”
Her chartreuse eyes narrow on me. She’s putting the facts together in all the wrong ways. Trust doesn’t come easy to me, but if we’re going to be a team, she’s right. I have to tell her the truth.
I pull the blanket up towards my chest, almost hoping it can shield me as I gather my words.
“Pip? Come on out.”
“Who’s—?”
A little orange dragon springs from the corner of the room, running up my leg and on to my shoulder, tilting his head at Kissa.
“This is Pip. He’s a type of dragon I’ve never heard of.
He can shapeshift and apparently teleport through doors.
At some point, when I was getting the shit kicked out of me—after Chet poisoned me, I guess—Pip ran off and found S?las for help.
And no, there is nothing between us. I don’t know why this little guy decided to find him of all people.
I guess maybe because he is always hovering around me or whatever.
I mean, I guess I have known him since the first trial.
Anyway, that’s not important. I vaguely remember S?las trying to pack my wound.
He said his Sangre magic wasn’t powerful enough, then he asked Pip to breathe fire on it to sear the wound.
He might be small, but he’s a powerful creature. ”
Kissa’s furry jaw drops, revealing her sharp bottom fangs. Her chartreuse eyes dart from me to Pip and then back again. She blinks in disbelief.
“Let’s hold on to the whole shapeshifting mini-dragon species no one has ever heard of. They fucking poisoned you?”
“Yeah. I felt a prick on my arm as they jostled by me leaving the sparring arena. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I was too exhausted from pushing myself through one too many fights in the Combat Arena.
My brain didn’t put two and two together until I was outside on the ground with my head spinning.
Then they took turns kicking me, and Chet stabbed me in my leg.
He said he was going to stab me again… to make me barren.
So I’d get kicked out of Gildorea and would never become an Ellian Knight,” I continue, recounting the rest of the story.
“I am going to fucking rip out every one of their cowardly throats. Other than Chet, who was there?”
“It was four different voices. Chet and Lorgan spoke. I recognized Brock’s laugh. The last one I didn’t know. It was distant, and I only heard their laugh.”
I reach out, grabbing her arm. Her fur is soft beneath my grasp. “I know they are cowards, but you and the rest of our Zenith cannot fight my battles for me. I am the one who brought this on myself. I antagonized them. I can’t risk the rest of the Wing for my stupidity.”
“Savaé, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. It’s not who we stand against but how we stand together.
That is the true power of the Ellian Knights and our Zenith.
” She pauses, looking down angrily before continuing, “He should be expelled for what he did, but his mother, Commander Bragen, will never let that happen. From what I’ve heard, that’s where he gets his evil streak from.
We won’t fight this battle for you, but Celestials be dimmed if we aren’t going to protect our own.
You need to rest today. You’ll be expected in class tomorrow and will need to talk with Chancellor Ashfel.
You’ll need all your strength for that encounter, no doubt about it.
I need to go update the rest of our Zenith on what happened.
” As she starts to stand up, Pip prances up her arm, grabbing on either side of her enormous ear.
He peers down it like he thinks there’s some surprise waiting for him. A smile curls on my lips at his wild sense of curiosity.
“Is he always this invasive?” she hisses as she pulls him off her, plopping him on my lap.
The five prongs that jut out from his head are down initially, like an animal tucking its ears along its head.
I smile at him, and the spikes jet up, framing his four-eyed face like a star.
I swear, there’s the slightest crinkle around his eyes, like he’s smiling back.
“He is just curious.” I laugh. “Please, make sure S?las doesn’t do something stupid when you tell the rest of the group.”
“I know better than to waste my time trying to control that beast, but I’ll talk to Seraph.
She’s pretty good at keeping him on a leash, when she’s not off getting into her own troubles.
I swear, some of the Bloodline kids raised by the Maidens are the worst. I wish they all could be as respectful and diligent as Atlas and Kivi. ”
“Oh. I didn’t know they were all raised by the Maidens.” Then I remember S?las mentioning his parents being dead. I suppose he must have been raised by the Maidens after their passing.
“Yeah, most of our team was. That’s why we’re such a powerful lot. You, Cinder, Flint, Highin, and I are the only ones who were raised the natural way, outside of a Runic Tech artificial womb,” Kissa replies.
“How do you know them so well, if you weren’t raised with them?”
Kissa pauses for a second, her hackles raising before she sweeps her hands over her neck.
“When I was little, I was stolen from my family. They put a chain around my neck and locked me in a cage. Apparently, some rich king from another continent heard of Mao and wanted one as his personal pet. Luckily, my parents and village tracked me down and freed me from the smugglers. My parents took on full-time administration jobs here, so something like that would never happen again. I spent a great deal of time in the same classes as the Faelings raised by the Maidens. I never want to be that powerless again. That’s why I want to become an Ellian Knight. To keep other Faelings safe.”
I reach my hand out to hers, understanding all too well the feeling of being powerless. “Do you ever wish you had been born and raised like them? Trained for this since you were born without the hindrance of familial attachments?”
“Not a chance. The Maidens practically give them a Celestial complex. They think they are Celestial’s gift to Faekind.
Untouchable. Some are too powerful for their own good.
For example, Commander Bragen’s Celestial Gift is Toxic Miasma, right?
She can breathe out a cloud of toxic gas that suffocates all within it.
She is bonded with a Blightedbrew, which can withstand her poisonous vapor.
Their bonded gift is that her nails can become poisonous darts she can shoot off at enemies. ”
Kissa extends her claws, and I flinch at the thought.
Pip curls up beside me as she continues, “Her abilities and ruthless nature are why she’s invaluable on the battlefield and ascended to Commander quickly.
She was Bloodline paired to a powerful Siphon named Rex Renfield.
Now Chet has the ability to not only Siphon magic but to siphon power from poisons, too.
Rumor has it that his Celestial Gift is the ability to poison people with the nick of his fingernail.
I think that’s what he did to you. He thinks he’s invincible because of who his mother is.
Unfortunately, she has been here at Universitás enough to rub off on her son during his upbringing. ”
“Wouldn’t it be incredibly stupid to use his own magic-bound poison on me? If I had died, a strong Sangre would have been able to determine whose magic was responsible. Also, if he was willing to risk getting caught, why not just siphon my magic and leave me there as a husk?” I ponder aloud.
“I don’t think he cared. Sadly, I think he is a sadist fuck, and siphoning your magic seemed less painful than what he had in store for you.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if his mother would have been proud of what he did to you.
An uneasy feeling always settles in my fur when she’s around.
” She shudders. “Look, you’re safe for now.
Rest. I’ll see you tomorrow. I have to meet with the others.
” The sounds of Kissa’s words chase her as she pounces out the door.
A pit builds in my throat that I struggle to swallow. I know people can be above reproach because of who they are related to, but to get away with murder? As if my life meant so little?
I suppose it makes sense. I’m no one to these people, just an orphan from a small village.
Although I’ve made waves with my fighting prowess, I’m nothing in the grand scheme of the bloodlines they’ve worked on for generations.
Especially when my Celestial Gift has yet to manifest. You can train Fae with the skills I have, but without a unique magic ability to contribute to the Bloodline pairing, I’m meaningless.
I haven’t felt this small since before I met Sully.
The moment is sobering. Or, better yet, harrowing.
I lie down, staring at the ceiling as fear creeps into my mind.
Pip scurries up, wrapping himself around my neck, chirping into a soothing hum.
The sound calms my restless mind, and eventually, I drift off into exhausted sleep.