Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“How’s training?” I ask Raven the next morning in the cafeteria.
“Good. My brothers were like zombies last night when they were done.” Raven chuckles.
“Maybe this training and team building stuff will work.” I take a bite of the sausage on my fork.
Jayden sits next to me, his tray overloaded much like mine and Raven’s. I raise a brow at him but he shrugs.
“I got up early and did some training with my magic. It’s growing much the same as you guys.”
“Have you noticed any new tricks?” I ask.
“My shield is stronger. It’s more solid and I can create shadows from nothing, not just use what’s already there.”
“I thought you could already create shadows?” I ask, tilting my head in confusion.
“No, I have my own shadows as a part of my magic that come from me and then a lot of the times I call the shadows around me. This is different.” Jayden shoves a whole piece of bacon in his mouth.
Is that what I look like now when I shovel food in my mouth? That’s a little disturbing.
“You said your shield is solid?” Raven asks. “Can you make all shadows solid?”
My cheeks heat and I glance down at the tray, finding my breakfast a lot more interesting. We aren’t even talking about sex. It’s an honest question with a very embarrassing answer.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Jayden asks, laughter in his voice.
“Shut up,” I say.
“Okay, gross. I clearly stepped in something with that question,” Raven says.
“Yes, I can make all shadows solid. Before I was able to do small objects, but I have been testing the size of objects I can control,” Jayden says, putting me out of my misery.
“Could you make like shadow people?” Raven asks, bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Theoretically, I suppose I could but I’m not sure. That might require another power jump.” He shrugs.
“I don’t think being dosed with god blood a third time will go over well,” I say.
“Yeah, I don’t need more power. At this rate I’m already a garbage disposal. I don’t want to get to a point where I’m always starving. I’m good,” Raven says.
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a good time to me either.” I shake my head.
“I’ll work up to shadow people if it’s even possible,” Jayden says.
“An army of shadow people would be cool,” Raven says.
“I might not even be able to create one. An army of them is out of the equation at the moment.” Jayden shakes his head.
“I didn’t say do it. I just said it would be cool.” Raven shrugs.
Greyson tilts his head to the side. “What did Hades say?”
“He already told Orpheus to keep the line of communication open with Grant,” Jayden says. “He said that he doesn’t think the shifter problem is going to directly impact us.”
“It’s going to impact everyone if it gets out of hand,” Greyson grumbles.
“He doesn’t think that’s my fate to solve. I’ll help if and when it’s needed but he doesn’t think it will be my responsibility to go to war over it.” I kick Jayden under the table, glaring at him.
“Ow, baby. What was that for?” Jayden rubs his shin beneath the table.
“It’s called tact, Jayden. Of course the shifter problem with have an impact on everything. It just won’t be my job to fix everything.” I throw my hands up.
“Shit, yeah, bad choice of words there.”
“Let’s finish eating and head to the war room. We need reports before taking off for Arcadia.” I stab at the eggs on my plate.
We fall into a comfortable silence as we shovel food into our mouths. Jayden grabs my tray when I’m done and takes it to the bin for me, then we leave the cafeteria. The cool morning breeze feels amazing on my skin as we make our way to the war room.
“We’re all idiots. What are you looking at?” A shout rises from the training grounds as we near.
“No, we’re the idiots. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” someone else shouts.
“What is going on here?” I whisper to Raven as we step into the clearing.
“No idea. They’re insulting themselves and acting like it’s the others insulting them?” Raven asks. “I’m so confused.”
“Blah, blah, blah, we suck and you know it,” the first kid says.
“This is bizarre,” Jayden says. “It’s a little entertaining watching Brady insult himself, though.”
“It’s not funny,” I gasp in horror. “This is what Ares warned us about. It’s reached the academy already.”
“This isn’t good. Things are already volatile here. This is just going to make it worse.” Raven bites her lip.
“Why aren’t we being affected?” Greyson asks.
“Maybe it’s only affecting those who are angry at each other?” I rush forward as Mason slams his fist into Brady’s face.
“It’s devolving much quicker than expected.” Raven steps between the idiots fighting, holding up her hands in a stop motion.
“I thought we settled this yesterday with you two?” I yell at them.
Sara steps forward, shaking her head. “I don’t know what happened.
They’ve been fine since they went on their run yesterday, even stubbornly did what we demanded on the second set of laps.
I thought it was over but then they started hurling weird as fuck insults that don’t make a damn bit of sense. ”
“Things are getting worse and I don’t think they are going to be better until we get Hermes’ item of power back,” I say with a sigh.
“What are we going to do about them?” Raven asks.
Jackson jogs over to us. “They just need to get their aggression out or we just need to let them hash things out in the ring.”
“The problem with that is they both have the power to call weapons to themselves. If we let them have it out the way they’re being affected by this now, then it will get bloody.” I rub my forehead.
“I can put a ward on the ring,” Sara says, shrugging. “It’s an Athena thing. The goddess of wisdom loves the rules of engagement and a few of us can do it as part of our power.”
“That could be extremely helpful in the coming battle.” I grin.
“If we could ward the academy so that anyone who comes in can’t call weapons to them once inside, that could turn a tide for us when the queen attacks,” Raven says.
“Any way I can help, I’m all for it. I’m so tired of this hanging over all our heads.” Sara plants her hands on her hips.
“You and any others who have that ability, go ahead and start warding the rings. I’m going to send everyone on a circuit of the academy and once they’re back they are going to have a tournament without weapons. The winners will be helping with training the losers.” I clap my hands together.
“We can’t stay that long, baby. We have to leave as soon as possible.” Jayden pats my shoulder.
“I know. Sara and Jackson will be running the show.” I turn to the rest of the students. “Listen up. Because people still don’t understand the rules, you are all running three laps around the perimeter as a group. Go now.”
Everyone groans and a few shoot hateful glares at the two jackasses who forced my hand.
“Let’s go. Move it,” Jackson barks.
He takes off running and no one falls behind as he commands them with the confidence of a leader.
I’m glad that he’s gotten his head out of his ass and learned a lesson.
He’s a good team with Sara and leaving them in charge of training while we’re gone gives me a small bit of hope that we can be ready when the time comes for battle.
“Thank you,” I tell Sara. “Give them hell while I’m gone, yeah?”
“Oh, absolutely. They have no idea what a drill sergeant I can be when I need to be.” Sara’s grin is malicious.
“We need to get to the war room and then out of here.” I glance over my shoulder at the others who are all nodding.
“This is more important than babysitting adults who clearly need adult supervision,” Raven says.
“A lot of them are your brothers,” Jayden says.
“Brady is never going to live down that sucker punch.” Raven grins.
“You won’t let him.” I chuckle.
“That’s what happens when you play stupid games.” Raven ducks and a tree branch barely misses her head.
“They win stupid prizes.” I giggle. “Kind of like you with the dryads.”
“Whatever.”
“Seriously, they are just fucking with you because you insulted them. When is enough going to be enough, babe?” Greyson asks.
“They started it,” she grumbles.
A giggle sounds from the trees and I jump to my right as a low-hanging branch tries to swipe my feet out from beneath me.
“What did I do?” I shout to the dryads.
“Guilty by association or maybe just a casualty of this war they have with Raven.” Jayden lifts me from the ground as a vine attempts to trip me.
“I was trying to get her to apologize and this is the thanks I get?” I throw my hands up.
“They aren’t logical, Beth,” Raven says. “They’re deranged.”
“Stop it. I’m tired of getting caught in the crossfire.”
“Look, the armory is just over there.” Jayden squeezes my hip. “We’re almost out of the war zone.”
I glance over at Raven who jumps to avoid another vine that attempts to wrap around her ankle. She glares at the vine before looping her arm through mine and rushing to the clearing where the armory is looming before us.
I place my hand on the scanner, opening the door to the war room. Kira paces around the room with Dax attempting to calm her down.
“Princess,” Dax says. “It’s okay. We will fix this.”
“It’s not okay, Dax. There is nothing okay about people dying in fiery plane crashes we could have prevented.” She throws her hands up.
“What’s going on here?” I ask slowly.
Kira is usually so composed that seeing her so frazzled is disconcerting. Even when we were expecting the volcano to erupt and annihilate the entire academy, she wasn’t this freaked out.
I glance at Thad and his eyes widen in disbelief. She is scaring us all.
“We have some major problems, Beth,” Kira says, shoulders slumped.
“Yeah, we usually do, but what’s the problem now?” I ask.
“The problem is that overnight the number of plane crashes, and just mechanical issues with planes that were getting ready to take off, have doubled. Overnight thousands have died. People are calling it the apocalypse,” Kira shouts.
“Hold on, what? You’re saying multiple planes crashed overnight?” I ask for clarification.