68
The Choice to Run
Melody
Later, we’re back in my room, where Blair is still snoring in bed, blissfully oblivious to the world around her. For a second, I envy her for it.
Before returning, we met Ryder outside on the lawn, and we all took Faye up to the temple, to Meanara, where I waited until she woke. Meanara assured me she was safe, that it had only been a sleeping potion. Faye just needed more rest—and apparently, so did I.
Ryder stayed with her while Aris and I headed back across the black-flagged campus, where fae had begun wielding their earth magic to coax a field of black flowers from the soil, all for the announcement of the queen’s death.
But I don’t really pay attention to any of it.
I’m still shaking from everything when Aris finally finishes his half-hour rant about me being reckless and irresponsible. I couldn’t really listen.
I keep fiddling with the stone in my pocket, my mind racing, my heart aching.
Caryan is Kirachat.
And Riven should have been my mate.
“You could be dead!” Aris finishes another round of scolding.
I finally whirl on him. “And you knew…” I growl back mentally.
He stills, eyes flashing. He’s shifted back into his baby-dragon form, and his tiny wings flare.
“You knew that Caryan is Kirachat. Is that true?”
I don’t need his answer. I only need his aura.
Hells. How could I have been so blind?
I could have asked Aris all along. All this time, the answers have been sleeping right next to me. I just needed to ask the damn questions.
I could slap myself for my stupidity.
His eyes glaze with fury—but hells, I’m angry too, even if it isn’t his fault he can’t tell me.
“Gods, no,” I breathe down our bond when I feel his aura shining with truth.
My fury drains away as suddenly as it came.
Fuck.
And I was bonded to a monster.
A monster Aris is still bound to as well, if only emotionally. Because he loves Caryan. And he loves Noxus too. Because he’s been like a damn father to them.
What am I supposed to do now?
The warning of the acolyte still rings feverishly in my mind.
But then—the way Caryan had been with me tonight; the way he laughed. Smiled. The way he finally told me something about himself. Seeing him so unguarded….
And what he said about fate. That it’s only a bunch of spiteful old women weaving threads together, and that it can be changed if cut in the right places.
Is that true?
The reality of it hits me like a blow to the jaw.
Caryan is my mate.
Caryan, of all people.
My mate.
And I’ve known him all along. Known him since I was a child.
And Riven…
I press my hands to my eyes.
Gods, my head aches from the lack of sleep and exhaustion. My thoughts spin and spin, and I don’t see them settling anytime soon.
Run, girl. You should run from the Dark Lord while you still can. Leave this place and run from him, girl. As fast and as far as you can. As long as you still can. Because he will chain and break you. I’ve seen it in my visions. Your future is dark.
I let out a sound that’s somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
Then I shove it all down into the void inside me.
Later.
I can think about all of this later.
Now I’ll do the only thing that’s ever really given me peace.
So I grab the brushes I’d left out on towels to dry, still too dizzy to think clearly. I should finish the last touch-ups.
I’m too restless to sleep and too wound up to talk to anyone either—even Aris, who keeps watching me like I might disappear if he looks away.
Even when I start working on the corner, adding the last colors to complete some ornaments.
Ornaments that probably symbolize magic.
I look at them more closely.
And my hand, holding the tiny brush, stills.
Just then, a warm breeze stirs the air. The campus. I glance up at the ceiling, as if I could somehow see its spirit up there.
It wants me to look. To pay attention.
And I do.
I take in what I painted with so much focus and care. I never really noticed that it’s actually telling a story.
“Aris—” I breathe, getting up and taking in everything I created over the last weeks.
It starts with three figurines at the top, where the ceiling meets the walls. They represent some kind of goddesses, painted in blue and surrounded by silver and pale light, one in each of three corners of my room.
But in the fourth, there’s a dark figure.
The shape of a man with torn wings, as if he’s half-dead.
The rest is filled with ornaments and symbols and magical creatures. I’ve been so focused on finishing the details quickly—since, like some kind of fresco, I had to paint the whole wall in one go before it dried—that I never looked closely.
But now, as I study it, I realize what I mistook for ornaments are actually shapes of shadow creatures.
I shudder.
Demons.
Just like the one that dwells in the archives.
And beneath the fourth image are two others. They’re men too. Shadows rip from them like ink, black dragons dancing around them, snakes and scorpions and other devilish creatures crawling at their feet.
The scenes continue into bloody battles, alternating with beautiful creatures and goddess-like fae, with pixie wings and horns and forests guarded by unicorns.
At last, my gaze drifts down to my feet, to the scene I just finished.
Blair’s wyvern.
It was pictured once farther above, and again down here, almost hidden by the furniture if I hadn’t pushed aside my nightstand to paint.
I stare at the image of a rip—something like a veil between worlds—and the dragon behind it.
As if it’s waiting.
Again, that breeze rises, and my heart suddenly pounds faster.
“Aris, I think the campus wants to tell me something. I think those rips might actually be portals.”
He doesn’t say anything, but when I turn to look at him, his eyes are wide and burning gold.
He inclines his chin once.
A nod.
“And…what the acolyte said—is it true? About Caryan and Noxus? That they shouldn’t be reunited? That we should run? Leave the campus? Now?”
Only as I say it do I realize how much it hurts to even think about leaving.
Because this has become my home.
For the first time in my life, I have a home. A real home.
I have Blair and Aris and my friends.
They’ve become my family.
And leaving them all behind….
It breaks my heart.
He hesitates, and pain flares through his aura, as if admitting it hurts him too. Because he wants to stay. Because he senses how much I want it. Because not seeing Noxus—not meeting his son and bringing him back from wherever he is—breaks his heart.
But after a long moment, he nods again.
“So we really need to leave?” My mental voice breaks, and I feel lightheaded, still not fully catching up to the fact that this is real. “Because I have that damn stone and Caryan will, sooner or later, learn about it. And force me to call his brother.”
I spill it all out because he can’t.
“And because the twins must never be reunited.”
Aris looks so unbearably sad that I want to scoop him up and hold him until it’s over.
But I can’t.
Because it won’t be over.
This is real.
Whatever he knows, we need to leave.
My own sadness hums through our bond when he nods a third time.
Hells.
Neither of us wants to go.
“I’m afraid we must, little one,” he finally says.
“Where do we even go?” My mental voice is hoarse.
“We will find a home,” he promises.
I nod, running a hand over my face. I’ve always been good at running, so we just need to get this over with. Right? Then it will be better. We’ll settle down somewhere. Eventually we’ll be happy again.
“What the hells are you doing?” Blair whines sleepily, pulling a pillow over her head to block me out when I start gathering clothes to pack.
I walk over and rip it away. “Get up and dressed.”
“What? Are you insane?” she snaps furiously, snarling, her claws shredding the pillow in my hand when she tries to yank it back.
I quickly let go before she does the same to my fingers. Feathers flit through the air as if a goose had been torn in two.
“Then don’t poke the bear!” she hisses.
I pull on my riding leathers. Once I’m done, I grab the leather bag Blair brought from the human world and start stuffing clothes into it. Blair watches me with a frown, finally sitting up on my bed. She snarls again when I toss her own clothes at her.
“That fucking belt hit me on the head!”
“Good!”
She shoots up with fae speed, coming toward me, but a furious snarl from Aris makes her stop. Her rainbow hair is a mess, her mascara smeared, and she looks damn terrifying when she bares her teeth at me like a beast.
A prickle of instinctive fear ghosts down my spine before I shove it away.
It’s still Blair, damn it.
“Sometimes you’re a scary little monster!” I grind out, grabbing one of the two steaming cups of glorious cappuccino the campus has delicately conjured on my desk.
The other sits beside it.
On one cup, a wolf howls at the full moon in cocoa powder.
On the other, a wyvern circles the sun.
As if the campus really wants to hammer the point home.
Got the message: dragon behind rip. Then leave.
Gods.
I’m going to miss this place. I’ll miss you, campus. I blink back tears, fighting the impulse to stay. To pretend none of this has happened.
But Caryan is Kirachat. He’s taking over Avandal. And if he reunites with his brother, the world will drown in darkness.
And the rip between worlds might lead us to Blair’s dragon.
I have to go. And what better time to run than when Caryan is busy with his coronation?
But I can’t leave Blair behind.
I hand her the cup with the cocoa wyvern.
She stares at it, blinking a few times, then looks at me. “What the heck are you up to?”
I let out a sigh. “Okay. Don’t freak out—”
“That alone is enough to make me freak out!” she blurts.
I hold up my hands, keeping my voice calm. “We’ve gotta go.”
Before she can argue, I quickly fill her in on everything that happened, including the gods-damned stone Noxus gave me.
I finish with, “And I have a wild theory. One I might want to try out as we go.”