Chapter 5 - Velra
~Velra~
Ariana Martel had meant well.
She’d actually gone out of her way to connect me with the Healer and trauma specialist, Brandise Parker, revealing to me what she’d gone through and why she’d found it so helpful to see somebody like Brandise.
I knew it had been at Nyx’s request. Even though he couldn’t read me with the empathic abilities from his Incubus side anymore ever since my first death and Cassius tethering me, he’d obviously seen me struggling.
As someone who carried a great deal of trauma with him—and for similar reasons to me—he could recognize the signs better than most.
I pulled my phone out from the back pocket of my leather pants as I stared at the gates of Wraeven Academy, where Brandise was about to come through. Security personnel would have to open the ward briefly to allow her onto campus.
I tensed and paused, just staring down at my phone for a few moments.
I’d told Lazriel and Cassius that I would connect with them before I went in for my session. I wasn’t at the location for it, but they needed to believe I was. I couldn’t afford any suspicion from them. They would try to stop me from doing what I had planned. What needed to be done.
I sucked in a breath and fired off a text in our Group Chat.
Velra: Just got to the Mental Wellness Center for my session with Brandise. Have a good class.
Cassius: How are you feeling, little shadow?
Velra: Calm and as prepared as I can be.
Lazriel: We’re really proud of you.
Cassius: Without a doubt.
Velra: Thanks.
Lazriel: Sure you don’t want us there? I know you said it’s something you needed space with, but just checking that hasn’t changed now you’re there.
Velra: I’m good, sweets.
Cassius: We will see you right after my class. What would you like to do?
Lazriel: Stunting? Come on, love, picture it now… Cassius on a motorcycle. Stunting, Velra. Cassius.
Cassius: Is that mockery how you wish to enter my class? With that hanging over your head?
Lazriel: Nice try, but you’ve drawn a clear line between our personal stuff and your teaching. You won’t do shit to me.
Cassius: Immediately afterward, however.
Lazriel: Shit, yeah. Tell me more, Immortal hunk.
Cassius: Goodness.
Lazriel: Goodness? Nah, I was thinking a whole lot of dirtiness.
Sylas: You think you can bring that without me there?
Lazriel: It’s gonna be a tribute to you. Not as good as the original, but getting the job done.
Sylas: Fantastic comeback. How much you’ve learned.
Velra: LOL. We miss you.
Lazriel: Abso-fucking-lutely we do, necromantic heartthrob.
Cassius: Most definitely.
Sylas: You’re gonna choke me up. Miss you all too.
Lazriel: Is my dad still putting you through it? Making you prove yourself first and all that?
Sylas: All is well. He’s got me to deal with, remember? The calculative, manipulative motherfucker. That’s going up against a lot.
Sylas: Sorry, Lazriel. I know he’s your father, but it is what it is.
Lazriel: Just for right now?
Sylas: Things are going well, so I hope so, yeah.
I smiled. He was telling Lazriel that he believed he could find a balance, where he and Remnant could become true allies, an alliance built on trust, not just leverage and calculation, or manipulation of each other.
Cassius: I believe the consensus among the three of us is that we’re wondering why more progress hasn’t yet been made.
Velra: Nothing against you, we just want you back here sooner rather than later.
Sylas: Look, the truth is, most of the time I’ve been here we’ve been delayed because I’ve been sick.
There’s been a lot of me having to rest, Remnant’s magical scientists all over me working to stabilizing me.
It’s complications from the transplant and me not being able to let it settle and instead forced into battle because of Morien’s attack.
I choked.
That was why he’d been texting so much. He got so immersed when he was in research and problem-solving mode, so him making so much contact with the three of us had been unlike him.
Then all the GIFs and emojis he’d sent too…
that had clearly been him trying to inject some humor and levity while he’d been feeling so ill.
He couldn’t reveal the intricacies or precise details of what was going on in the Shadow Tunnels between him and Remnant, but admitting to having been ill from the fallout of the necromantic core transplant was him being transparent in other areas, making an effort to rise above that secrecy and to bring us in on it.
My gut twisted knowing that I was actually veering away from doing that myself.
After all my efforts to ease unilateral actions from the three of them, and now I was about to do that myself.
But with the circumstances… I had to.
Velra: You’re sure you’re stabilized now? Promise us.
Lazriel: Are you in bed now as you’re texting us?
Cassius: Do you and Remnant’s scientists require another core? A dose of Celestial magic, perhaps, to assist with the stabilization?
Sylas: It’s all good. I’m up and about again. The intense concern from you all is touching, though. Got me choking up for real now. I’m all good. I swear it.
Lazriel: Thank fuck.
Sylas: Right there with you on that.
Yeah, Sylas had been through so much with his sickness, and it had been one thing after the other for him, something that had taken a massive physical toll.
I wished the transplant had been the permanent solution, not only a holdover until the true cure was acquired
But it was just a matter of time.
That’s all it was… time.
Emotion clogged my throat and threatened to get the best of me. I couldn’t allow it.
Velra: I need to get to my session. See you all soon. Sylas, you don’t be a stranger.
Sylas: Never. And believe me, that’s not an option anymore thanks to you three motherfuckers burrowing deep into my fucking bones. You’re stuck with me forever now.
Cassius: The fear is real.
Lazriel: Damn, you’re getting better with the banter, Cas. Love it.
I exited out and stowed my phone away.
I’d known with what I was about to do that it would test me emotionally, so I’d performed a spell on myself earlier that could temporarily mute my emotions outwardly.
It should be just enough to prevent Cassius from feeling any surges from me through the Soul Brand so he didn’t cotton on to what I was up to.
Hell. From me encouraging and then convincing him to reopen the Soul Brand to me… and now… this. I mean, I wasn’t totally shutting it down. I wasn’t actually shutting it down at all. Especially not in the way that he had. But I was muting what he could feel from me, what anyone could feel from me.
It was a special kind of Dark Fae illusionary magic.
Back when Sorin had actually been my brother and we’d played hide-and-seek around the Dark Fae palace with the kids of other Royal Fae Court members during our parents’ long meetings, he’d taught it to me as a trick to hide effectively.
Everyone had been using amplifier spells to feel others in order to penetrate physical illusions being used to hide.
But this trick had enabled the two of us to have a major advantage and, as a result, we’d always won.
As I turned back toward the campus gates, a flash of indigo magic erupted, and Kelsana materialized, her striking wavy green hair brushing the shoulders of her gold romper.
Despite everything, I smiled at the sight of the gold and pink bracelet encircling her wrist that matched with her twisty earrings.
I’d made them for her, indulging in my jewelry making hobby during the moments of downtime when I’d been staying at Cassius and Ketheron’s apartment.
We’d talked about it during our hangout at Vantiqe, her wanting to change up her look and I’d mentioned that I made jewelry.
I’d left them outside her dorm room the night I’d returned to campus, and she’d been so touched that she’d come by to thank me.
It was as sweet as it was upsetting—her reaction made it clear that she wasn’t used to people being kind to her.
I wished we could have left it in the innocence of that, but the night she’d come by and I’d been alone because Cassius had been at Solumira checking on Ketheron while he was in Ariana’s care, and Lazriel had been catching up on a whole lot of reading, I’d been looking into something. And she’d seen it all.
Something that had been nagging at me ever since Victor Halrow’s attack on Sylas and Lazriel at his home. It had been the tail end that had caught my attention—that Dark Fae Puritas contingent that had arrived amongst all the rest.
The Light Fae, vampire, wolf, and other magic-wielder contingent hadn’t been a surprise.
But Dark Fae beings didn’t like working with others.
It was really rare for them to strike an alliance.
The Dark Fae Realm was more cut off from the rest of the supernatural world than any other realm.
While there was the younger generation like me and Kelsana who didn’t see things that way, those older and in positions of power still held to that mentality.
But then yet again, Dark Fae had allied with others in the form of Morien Morgrave during that battle with the corrupt necromancer at the CRS facility. Dozens of them.
Sorin was an exception to Dark Fae beings not allying with outsiders, or anyone. And because he was specifically one such exception, it had caused major suspicion to spark. Especially given his connection to Puritas and his high-ranking position within their despicable organization.
“Hey,” she greeted me warmly.
I smiled. “Right on time.”
“Well, I get that you need to time this just right or it’s going to be a no-go.” She scanned the immediate area, then asked me worriedly, “Are you sure Lazriel isn’t near?”
“I’m sure. He was just texting me and from the Dining Hall. He’s headed to his class now, a class that Cassius is teaching over on the other side of campus, so we’re good.”