Chapter 8
Non
She will be with you shortly was the understatement of the year.
It had been the better part of two hours since Ail Llew scurried off to finish licking Granny’s boots. Since then, I’d not seen a soul pass by, nor had there been any sign of life from what I could only assume was Granny’s study.
I’d contemplated knocking a few times, even got as far as standing in front of the door with a raised fist. But after my less-than-amicable interaction with the big bad Ledr Bron this morning, interrupting her meeting would only make her already bad mood even worse.
To busy my wandering mind, I held my palm out just like D?n did in the carvings. With everything I had, I focused on my empty palm, demanding the alleged power within me appear.
Just like my childhood lessons with Granny, the effort was futile.
I kept trying on and off for another hour or so, but all I managed to do was manifest the need to vomit. My stomach churned, likely a result of not eating with a raging hangover, which inconveniently reared its head at the worst time.
Pushing off the bench, I decided to go in search of a glass of water, maybe even something to eat. Although I was convinced my grandmother sustained herself by drinking the blood of the innocent, I hoped there was some kind of kitchen within the castle.
Looking both left and right, I headed in the opposite direction from the way we came earlier. Ail Llew wouldn’t be best pleased if he caught me wandering around.
I took no more than two steps away from the bench, heading down the corridor, before I smacked into something rock solid. My nose exploded with pain, and I was thrown backwards, landing on my arse. Granny’s taste for expensive carpet might just have saved me from breaking my tailbone.
The pain was unbearable, and a familiar trickling sensation of hot liquid ran from my nose. I touched my fingertips to my upper lip, and as I pulled them away, blood stained each finger.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, cupping my hands under my chin to stop the flow dripping onto the carpet. It was the same shade of red as my blood, but knowing my grandmother, she’d be able to tell if there was a stain even if the human eye couldn’t see it.
I wiped my hands on my jeans, thankful that they were dark enough to hide any evidence of my blood.
Turning back to look in the direction of the wall I must have bounced my face off, I saw nothing unusual.
The corridor was as empty as I remembered it being a few moments before.
But just as I went to move my line of sight elsewhere, a quick flash of light danced over the empty space, gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
I noticed an iridescent shift out of the corner of my eye, barely visible.
As the candles flickered, they outlined a translucent wall that spanned the width of the corridor.
I noticed the same shift of light on the opposite side of the corridor as well.
No one had come by to throw up a magical shield in the last few hours while I sat twiddling my thumbs.
But still, I moved forward cautiously, not eager to break my nose for a second time.
The pain from the first incident had faded surprisingly fast, but I wasn’t keen on testing my luck again.
With my arm stretched out in front of me, I took a hesitant step forward.
When nothing happened, I took a few more.
Ten feet away from the spot where I smashed my face up, my outstretched arm began to tingle.
At first, it felt like pins and needles, slowly making their way from my palm towards my shoulder.
But the closer I got, the more it felt like my hand was meeting resistance.
As if I were pushing two magnets with the same poles towards each other.
Digging my heels in, I pushed a little harder against the invisible wall, determined to get as far away as possible from this freaky fun house Granny called home. Then I felt it, the pressure gave slightly, and my hand pushed beyond the iridescent veil.
Just as I muttered out a victorious yes under my breath, my whole body was launched backwards. My breath was knocked out of my chest with such force I was sure I’d broken my sternum.
The resounding crack the back of my skull made when it connected with the opposite shield was enough to bring up the entire contents of my stomach. The pain was blinding, and how I was still breathing was beyond me.
How long I lay in the corridor, squinting up at the flickering chandeliers, was a mystery. My vision swayed, and each chandelier appeared with double edges for some time. Trying to stand any time soon would have been a mistake.
When I heard the faint scuff of shoes approaching, I was at peace with the fact that someone, likely my grandmother, would find me here in a pathetic heap, bleeding all over the floor.
A light so bright it made my eyes water appeared in my vision a few moments later, causing me to groan and gargle, “Turn it off,” through my mouthful of blood.
As I lay there swatting at the light, a cold and painfully bony hand snatched my wrists and forced them to my chest. The bright light above me dispersed from my line of vision, and a voice so shrill it could make nails across a blackboard sound pleasant spoke in my ear.
“Get up, you worthless idiot. You’re bleeding all over the fucking carpet.”
Although something about the unpleasantness of the voice was familiar, it had enough authority in it that I didn’t argue about remaining on the floor.
Pushing to a sitting position was almost as painful as the fall itself, but after a few minutes of deep breaths with my head between my legs, my vision stabilised enough that I could look up.
I realised then that it was not in fact a bright light that had crowded my vision, but the face of the person that now stood in front of the office door, chest puffed with entitlement, a knight protecting its charge.
“You’re a mess,” the woman, I guessed, from the feminine ring to that shrill voice, snapped.
Possibly due to the nasty head injury I was nursing, it took my mind a few beats to register who exactly was talking to me.
But when my eyes focused on her alabaster hair, skin so translucent it made even me look tanned, and piercing sapphire eyes, I knew I was talking to Seren. Someone I had once called my cousin.
“I’m spoiled for choice with all these family reunions today,” I said as I stood, groaning through the aches.
As I ran my eyes over Seren, I was reminded of how comical it was that we were blood related, although very distantly.
Not long after Granny crashed into my life, I was introduced to Seren.
Aside from us both being on the taller side for a female and both having fair skin, everything else about our appearances was the polar opposite.
As far as I knew, she was my only other remaining blood relative.
She was my grandmother’s niece. And despite my attempts to form some kind of friendship with Seren, she was as tight-lipped as Granny when it came to talking about her family.
She had briefly mentioned her mother had passed away when she was a baby, at which point Granny’s sister had also died.
Leaving only Granny to take her in. When I had asked about her father, the only answer I received from Granny was a swift smack across the back of the head.
Seren was all sharp angles, a severe face that I had never seen crack a smile. Her hair was slicked back and tied tightly at the nape of her neck. Now, as a twenty-something-year-old, her likeness to my grandmother was uncanny.
She wore the same purple tunic as Ail Llew, the only other Wielder I had met today.
Although this one was considerably more ornate than his, with beading stitched around the outline of the horse; it fit her trim figure like a glove.
The embroidered fabric and her stoic stance with hands clasped behind her back made it look like she was wearing armour.
“I have been sent to remind you to stay put until Ledr Bronwen is ready to receive you,” she said with a sneer.
“That’s exactly what my new best friend Ail Llew told me when he escorted me here. But that was hours ago. My diary is hardly full today, but don’t you think it’s still a little ridiculous to make me wait this long?”
The look that passed over Seren’s face was anything but sympathetic.
“Okay, so she’s busy, I get it,” I continued, “but don’t you think caging me in with invisible walls is a little much?”
“She knows you are incapable of following simple instructions.”
Shit, she got me there.
I hold my palms up in mock defeat, “Okay, but what if I need the toilet or something?”
“Do you?” She quirked a disgusted eyebrow.
“Is that why she sent you here? To escort me to the bathroom?” I snickered, trying to bait the miserable bitch.
Cold fury passed over Seren’s features, her gaze becoming almost murderous.
Like a flash of light, she flew at me across the corridor.
Within seconds, my wrists were restrained and my back pressed against the sandstone wall.
A cold hand gripped my throat. Not hard enough to make me pass out, but enough to make me feel lightheaded.
Flicking my eyes down, I noticed she held me a foot off the ground, but there was no hand holding me at my throat.
Magic had always come easy to Seren when we were children, and it seemed she’d spent the last nine years honing her weapon.
Unlike me, who spent the time so high, I didn’t know the name of the stranger I was fucking.
“You haven’t changed one bit, have you, Non?
You’re just as much of a fuck up as you were nine years ago,” she said as she bared her teeth.
“I heard what happened to you last night. Seems like it was a long time coming.” Anger sparked in my gut at her insinuation that any of the previous night’s incidents were my fault.
Clawing at the phantom hand she held at my throat, I managed a gargled, “Let me go.”