Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
~ Shade ~
It’s easy to forget I’m confined within the academy barrier now that I have Elgen and Tarlaz with me.
Because they’ve been trapped in the academy building for so long, they’re so grateful to see outside that they make me feel like I have the whole world at my fingertips.
The pair of them had marveled at the forest as we’d walked between the ancient trees, and I’d never heard Elgen laugh so freely before.
If they’d had their way, we never would have left the forest, but sleep pulled at me, and eventually, my mates took me back to our rooms.
Thankfully, my mates aren’t nearly as mad as I thought they would be. I think somehow, they knew I needed this. I needed a win after everything that’s happened recently, and as weird as it sounds, binding the shadows to me gave me that.
The next morning the demon commanders and students continue their combat training, but in the afternoon, Xera and Ravyn make a surprise visit to the academy and announce a last-minute war council.
I’m not sad to find out I’m not invited.
The last thing I want is to be near the originals, or stare at Germain’s smug face so soon after what happened to Borshoz.
I know Germain didn’t physically kill the zenali, but by his actions, Germain contributed to his death.
Borshoz knew what was coming next, and he chose to go out on his own terms.
My mates are reluctant to leave me, but I assure them I’ll call if I need them, and I return to my dorm to spend the afternoon with Kenzie.
Carefully placing my phoenix’s egg in her nest near the window, I bring my knees to my chest, leaning against the cushions in the alcove.
Wrapping my arms around my legs, I hug myself.
I’m not sure why I’m sad. I mean, I’m glad I didn’t have to go to the council meeting.
It would be all big egos, talk of blood and death, battle tactics and torture, and none of that interests me.
Except…I can’t stop thinking about Borshoz’s words: I leave gladly knowing you are here.
Knowing that someone else will be listening…
I keep asking myself, if it would have been good to be at the meeting and hear about their war plans.
But then I remind myself that it doesn’t matter.
It’s not like I could do anything to help.
I mean, I’m a prisoner at the academy for one.
Still…I can’t shake this unsettling feeling. I sigh heavily, stretching out my legs.
Kenzie sits on the edge of her bed, her brow furrowed in concentration, and I distract myself by watching her.
Shadows shoot out from her hands, and she grins when they wrap around the black vase sitting on the small, circular table in the middle of the room.
There’s a few more seconds of concentration and her shadows bring the bunch of red roses to her, gently placing the vase on her lap.
She grabs hold of it and her smile is infectious when she turns to me.
“Did you see that? I’m getting better, right? ”
“Pretty amazing,” I say sarcastically, then regret it a second later. “Sorry. It actually was really great. I’m just cranky.”
“Let me guess, you’re hungry? Or are you just missing your mates?” She gives me a wry grin. “I told you. Being that obsessed is unhealthy. Is it time for an intervention?”
Snatching the cushion from behind me, I grin as I throw it at her. Her shadows catch it when it’s halfway across the room, and she places it on her bed. “You’ll get that back when you start acting reasonable again,” she teases.
“I am acting reasonable,” I protest. “Reasonably annoyed that I wasn’t invited to the meeting.”
She gives me a look. “Well, you are prophesied to make us lose the war. It makes sense they wouldn’t want you at the war council,” she says, smirking.
“Well, it’s not like I can do any harm while I’m trapped here.”
She shrugs. “But why tempt fate?”
She’s right, of course, and only telling me what I’d already been saying to myself, but I make a defeated sound anyway. Leaning back, I slide out my sketchbook and open to a blank page, gripping my pencil with too much force.
I stay like that for a while, alternating between tapping my pencil against my head and hovering the tip over the paper.
It’s too hard to focus when all I can think about is what the others might be discussing and planning.
I still feel guilty about getting the demons involved in this, and while I might not be that helpful when it comes to strategizing, I want to hear the plan.
I want to know that there’s a solid way to defeat the Xalgrith.
Preferably one that doesn’t end with any of my loved ones dying.
Even better if no one died at all, I mutter in my head, though I know that’s completely unrealistic.
Still, in my daydreams the Xalgrith just up and leave, the guys close the fold where the monsters had been entering, no one dies, and everyone lives happily ever after.
So sure, the version also involves me and the guys frolicking into the sunset, which is perhaps the most unrealistic part seeing as my men would never frolic, but it is what it is.
The fantasy is still playing out in my head, when I’m distracted by a stream of sunlight that hits my phoenix’s egg. The black and blue scales shine in the light, and I try not to worry about how my creature still hasn’t hatched.
“It’s not normal, is it?” I ask the shadows. “She should have hatched by now.”
“There is no normal, girl,” Elgen replies. “I’ve learned things tend to happen in their own time.”
It’s strange but her words are oddly comforting.
Trying not to let myself think about it, I look back at the blank page and finally start to draw.
The tip of the pencil glides over the textured paper in smooth strokes, and my anxiety eases as I set about the task of drawing my creature.
Not the egg beside me, but the majestic creature I remember from the amphitheater.
The one who’d bonded with me, aiding me with her strength before I’d almost thought I’d lost her.
I’m just working on the fine detail of her tail feathers when someone raps on our dorm door.
Determined to finish the piece, I ignore the visitor and keep going, squinting with my neck craned as I add the extra fine lines.
“Commander,” I vaguely hear Kenzie say from across the room as she answers the door.
At first, I don’t register what she’s said, and I remain fixated on my drawing, but then her greeting slowly filters in.
Commander? But my guys wouldn’t be back so soon, and in any case, Kenzie would have said ‘Professor’ not ‘Commander.’
“Watch it, child,” Elgen rasps in my mind. “This one’s trouble.”
Awareness prickles over my skin and something shatters. I jolt, looking up as pieces of the vase Kenzie had been holding, scatter across the floor, bits of ceramic and red roses spreading out like spilled blood.
Kenzie falls unconscious to the carpet, and I jump to my feet as I stare at the man standing in the doorway.
“You could have warned me!” I hiss at the shadows.
“I did warn you,” Elgen retorts.
I don’t have time to argue.
A sadistic grin darkens Germain’s face as he watches me, his shadows retracting from Kenzie’s body and moving back to slither in the air around him.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” he tells me casually. “I couldn’t have your little friend here being a nuisance.”
My heart pounds as I stare at Kenzie, checking that her chest is moving. She’s still breathing.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, but my voice wavers showing my fear.
Seeing Kenzie on the floor has rattled me.
I hadn’t thought Germain would be so bold as to come to our dorm.
In fact, I hadn’t thought he’d come here at all.
Why isn’t he at the war council? My stomach drops then, because it all makes sense.
He’s only here because he knows Knox and my other mates are preoccupied at the war meeting.
Crap, can’t a girl get a break? First Professor Yevar, then the incident with Borshoz, and now this…
I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m getting tired of the bullshit or if I’m hangry, but I don’t stop the next words out of my mouth. “Let me guess, you’re still looking for someone to torture? Especially after the shekel deprived you of that opportunity.”
Germain’s lips quirk into a smile, and he moves further into the room, his shadows closing the door behind him.
“It’s funny, I thought you’d be more subdued when you were alone.
” He huffs a dark laugh and brushes a speck of fluff off his shirt.
His gaze travels around the room, and for a frightening moment I think he’s going to spot Elgen and Tarlaz.
Thankfully, they’ve hidden themselves beneath my shirt.
The last thing I need is Germain spilling that information to the shadow queen.
Especially because I don’t know how she would react to discovering I’ve bound myself to them.
Germain’s gaze lingers on my phoenix’s egg before his attention returns to me.
I’m about to shadow whisper a message to my guys, because it’s obvious Germain came here to cause trouble and I know better than to face him alone, but before I can speak, Germain’s shadows spear across the room.
They wrap around me, one of his icy tendrils diving into my mouth.
The shadow is like oil against my tongue, and I cough and splutter, instinctively trying to get it out.
“Don’t let him gain control,” Tarlaz says, but Germain is too strong.
My shadows go to respond, but they can’t do anything to stop Germain’s power.
The man is an immortal, an original, and I’m…
well, a human with a few shapeshifting tricks.
I try to focus my power, to shift form in the hopes I can get rid of the shadows in my mouth, but Germain is in front of me a heartbeat later.