Bonus Chapter 5 – Sølas #2
“Maiden Hera.” I bow my head as a sign of respect for her life’s dedication and a desperate plea for her cooperation. “Can you get me on the list for the first trial in the Highlands?”
“Now why would you want to do that? The trip to Snowmas is abysmal, even in the spring. Plus, it’s too late now. You know that.”
“I have to go to the Highlands as soon as possible, even if I miss my own trial in the Midlands.”
Maiden Hera lifts the back of her hand to my head, checking for a fever. Then sighs, as if she was hoping illness could be the cause of my madness.
“Is this about the lady from your dreams, S?las? It’s just a dream.
No Celestials exist in our world. You need to let this foolish notion of finding her go and focus on your real future.
Why don’t you take Tyranny on a walk tonight after training?
It would do you good, spending time with a nice Fae like her. ”
“Tyranny! That’s a great idea.” I grab her hand, stamping it with a kiss before I dart out the door. Hera’s disgruntled words fading off behind me.
I breathe deeply. Donning my mask, playing the part others expect to see of me. Cloaking the real me safely behind shadows as I wait along the wall outside of Tyranny’s room.
“S?las!” Tyranny startles. “What are you doing here so early?” She smooths down her golden tunic uniform before flipping her long blonde waves over her shoulder. After months of avoiding the snare she’s tried to slither around me, I swallow hard at what I need to do to obtain what truly matters.
“I had a dream last night.”
“Oh?” Tyranny flutters her eyelashes, feigning innocence over her conniving core.
The words pool like bitter poison on my tongue. “You and me, alone in a cabin in the Highlands. By the fire.”
She walks her fingers up my chest. “While I’m glad you have finally come to your senses about indulging me,” she pouts, “we have the trials next week.” She flicks me on the nose and turns to make her way to our training session.
I grab her wrist, spinning her into my arms. The tether lashing the inside of my ribs until my chest is a bloody mess, seething at Tyranny’s closeness.
I know I’m an absolute piece of shit for using Tyranny like this, but I will go to any length necessary to find the female that clutches my dreams. Even if it’s feigning interest in the vile succubus before me.
“Talk to your aunt. Get us on the list for the trial at Snomas, and you can have me all to yourself.”
Tyranny looks me up and down, tasting my proposal. I grip her hip just a little tighter, pulling on just the right strings.
“Consider it a date. One I expect you’ll make well worth my efforts.” She snags my jaw in her hand, giving me a shake before trotting off down the hall with a sultry sway to her hips, like she has just won the game she’s been playing for far too long.
The all too familiar clink of my best friend dressed in far too many weapons stiffens my spine. Shit.
“What the fuck did I just witness? There’s no way after all these years you’re finally giving in and fucking Tyranny.” Seraphina lengthens her stride as she roars down the hallway.
“I can feel her. She’s somewhere up north. Indulging Tyranny is a means to end. The only way I can get my name on the list for the Highlands trial. I have to find her.”
Seraph pinches the bridge of her nose in a long sigh. “Not this again. S?las… ya know I love ya; you’re the only wretch in this gilded shithole I give a damn about, but… it’s just a dream. She doesn’t exist.”
“Seraph, she does! I can finally feel her, a light in my chest leading me to her. Scáil felt it, too. What if she’s in trouble and needs me?”
“Okay, okay.” She takes another deep breath, trying to piece herself together to be the responsible one for once.
“Let’s assume she does exist. What if she doesn’t recognize you?
What if ya go all the way north and actually find this magical being from your dreams and she wants nothing to do with you?
Now your heart is broken, and ya have Tyranny trying to pry a vow proposal out of ya.
What if you go off the deep end and lose control and the dark voice that calls to you finally gets what it wants from you? ”
“I have failed saving her in my dreams for years now. I have nothing to lose if I find her and she doesn’t feel the same. But if I do find her, at least there is a chance to build the love story that is tattooed into my marrow and branded into my soul.”
“Celestials,” she sighs, fingers grazing over her face as she shakes her head. “If you do find her, promise me you’ll chill it with your hopeless-romantic poetry Ritherin-shit. You’ll scare her right the fuck off.”
“Or maybe it will positively woo her?” I croon.
Seraph smacks me over the back of the head.
“I’m serious. I don’t want to have to go pulling ya out of a broken-hearted pit of despair.
Ya know I fucking will, but they are finally giving me reprieve from mission now that I have the trials and will be at Gildorea.
I plan on fighting and fucking my way through my newfound freedom. ”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“I was planning on doing it with you, ya fuckwit.”
“As much as I enjoy pleasuring females by your side, imagine what you can do without me getting in the way.” I wink.
Seraph elbows me in the gut and chuckles as we stroll together to magic combat training. I know she’s angry I’m leaving her. She needs to unpack the shit that’s been eating away at her soul for months now. The unspeakable things she has to do on her covert missions.
Her powerful Visci abilities to shapeshift into any form had her put to use as a weapon way too young, stealing her innocence.
Her brash humor and shit coping skills are her own mask, keeping the broken girl that falls asleep crying in my arms hidden from the world.
We are each other’s anchor in the storm.
Always there for one another, sweeping up the broken pieces left behind and gluing them back together again and again.
I sheathe my swords along my back, dressed and prepared for the first trial today.
Hera was right. The trek to Snomas was abysmal, especially having to tiptoe a very delicate line with Tyranny.
I retreated so far beneath my mask, I worried I’d lose myself completely.
But that ray of light kept weaving around my heart.
Tethering me to reality. Reminding me why every tortured scrape of Tyranny’s affection to get here was worth it.
Once the trial is out of the way, I’ll have time to search for her.
I check into the pit without grievance from administration, thanks to the queen’s intervention. I turn on my heel to join the other trialists before my assigned slot.
My knees buckle. Air punching from my lungs, radiance cinching my heart as I gasp.
Long translucent hair glimmers like liquid crystal in the sunlight. No. Starlight. A female perched on the bench, like a falling star frozen in place.
Gravity crumbles beneath my feet, her orbit swallowing me, spinning me off axis, pummeled in a storm of unrelenting emotion, threatening to shred my last thread of restraint. My shadows lacerate my veins, gnawing their restrained bars of my marrow, roaring for release to suss out if it’s truly her.
“Ground yourself. You control your magic; it doesn’t control you,” Scáil reminds me, commanding me to retreat to the library of my mind. I cradle the book that contains my power, thumbing the worn parchment pages as I settle my shadows.
I steel myself, rethreading the binding of my composure, slinking to the top row of seats.
Fear and doubt rattle from their books on the shelves of my mind, begging me to read their poison, let their black words seep in to control me.
I know better than to give in. I am afraid, afraid it’s not her, but what if it is? Hope has always been my greatest power.
A wisp of shadows curls like smoke from my fingertip, spilling down the ledges beneath the amphitheater seats. Zigzagging strategically, so as not to draw her attention.
Her muscles stiffen, my powers freezing out of sight, yet her head snaps to their location. Her gaze latching onto my shadows when they should be invisible in the shade, as if she can sense my magic. They recoil, retreating back into me.
No one has ever been so aware of my powers.
The thought chisels at my fear and doubt, releasing a landslide to bludgeon me, to suffocate my hope.
What if she hates me, rejecting me for my shadows like everyone else?
What if I’m not worthy of her? What if the dark voice is right, and I am only ever meant for him?
My shadows rive, clotting into dark pitch with my spiraling thoughts.
“You are no one’s but your own making, S?las. Do not forget you are worthy of all the love and light your parents beamed into you,” Scáil beseeches.
“I would be lost without you, my dear friend,” I respond back down the bond.
“No, you wouldn’t. You already know these wisdoms. Sometimes you just need reminding.”
“You need to stop coddling him. He needs to learn to remind himself,” Calais’ sharp voice grates along the shared tether to my mind.
“Always a pleasure, Calais.” I roll my eyes.
“S?las Zyon,” the announcer rings out overhead, and I Shadowwalk down to the pit floor, the burst of magic taking the edge off my power gnawing for release. I saunter to the center, faltering a step.
The radiance spooling around my heart… tugs.
I suck in a breath, letting it lead my gaze. Time slows down. My attention dragged into the inescapable orbit of the frozen, fallen star.
Our eyes collide, unraveling reality as I fall.
She is everything, and yet no one, for I know her deeply and not at all. But she is here. Truly here. In front of me, finally within reach, and I will never be far from her again.
I soak in her every detail, savoring them like I’m sipping on her sunlight.