Chapter 36 #2
“This kind of power… Gods, do you even understand what she is?” Noa’s voice shakes—not with fear, but with awe. “Becoming water itself. Not just bending it. Not just wielding it. Invisible. Unstoppable. No one’s ever seen anything like it. It’s… fucking extraordinary.”
“And dangerous,” Gavrail snaps, voice low and gritted.
“But you have been the voice in her ear, in her mind, from the start. Telling her to hide it. To hide her. Stifle her—” Noa’s accusations are sharp, his disdain bitter.
Gavrail interrupts, his voice laced with ice so cold it could freeze the very room. “What do you think her professors would say? What would someone like my father do if he knew what she was capable of? Someone who could go through any door. Any wall. Vanish. Shape light itself.”
He looks at me then, his gaze heavy with the truth.
“They’d turn her into a weapon. A spy. Something loyal only to them.
She’d be taken from everything she loves.
” His jaw clenches. “You think I just disappeared? That I left without a word for no reason? I’ve seen what my father does to Magicks he thinks he owns.
Why the fuck do you think I stayed away? ”
“Gavrail…” His name breaks from my lips before I can stop it—fragile, exposed. I step toward him.
The truth hits all at once, jagged and fast, like shrapnel finding its mark.
“You… That’s—that’s why you never wrote.” It comes out strangled, more breath than words. My thoughts scatter like rain on glass, everything I thought I once knew.
He nods once, eyes still locked on Noa. “I was trying to protect you,” he says finally, voice cracking—just barely.
“I’m always trying to protect you.” He’s shaking—hands curled into fists at his sides, jaw locked.
The calm mask he wears so well is gone. “I left so no one could use me to get to you.” He steps closer, and I hate how the air between us bends, like it belongs to him. He draws in a breath, stealing my own.
I can see him, trying to pull it all back—the years of fear, of worry, of walking a line too fine to hold. Torn between keeping my secrets and keeping me safe.
His shoulders slump finally, as if the weight of his choices is pressing down like a physical burden.
“I thought distance would shield you. That silence would be enough. But it just built walls between us—walls I can’t seem to fully tear down.
” His eyes meet mine—anger, bitterness, grief, all radiating so deep it’s impossible to look away.
So rare in its exposure that my breath freezes in my chest. “I was trying to protect you… but maybe all I did was leave you alone in the dark.”
A silence drops, thick and absolute.
Then—
“Your father, Cel… He knew. He knew everything. He was a water-wielder, like you. He made me promise to protect you—from people like my father. People who would twist your power with promises of love and purpose, only to use you.” He flicks his gaze to Noa for just a second, the implication sharp.
My thoughts stumble. My heart pounds.
“My father?” I breathe.
“His real name wasn’t Thomas Farris,” Gavrail says. “It was Selric Thalrien.”
The name slams into me like a cold wave.
Thalrien.
Professor Straits’s voice echoes in my memory: The Thalriens were an ancient, powerful water family—possibly the oldest known—famous for a rare form of magick… coveted…
Hunted to extinction.
“His parents, your grandparents, were murdered when he was just a kid,” Gavrail continues quietly. “He was sent into hiding. Homeschooled. Years later, he met a woman—Valarie Normandy—and they had a son. Orren.”
He swallows once, almost imperceptible, steeling himself against the truth he’s kept from me all these years.
“One night, while your father was away, Magicks broke into their home. When he returned, Valarie and Orren were gone. No bodies. No traces. Just… gone.” His voice breaks.
“That’s why he hid your power. Why he never let you near water.
He was terrified it would awaken something he couldn’t protect you from. ”
I can’t speak. Can’t breathe.
Gavrail continues, softer now. “Thalriens have been hunted for centuries for what they believed. For the kind of power you hold. Your father saw it in you. He lived every day worried he’d come home to find you gone too.
” He pauses then, searching my eyes. “I found out he was a Thalrien about a year or two after we met. My father knew. I overheard him talking late one night—I was practicing my shadow magick, hiding in his office.”
A flash of regret crosses his face before he starts again.
“The night I learned we were moving, I ran to your house. I was going to tell you everything, say goodbye, but your dad was in the garden.” His look is hesitant, laced with ghosts and the truth of our past. “He said he was glad my family was leaving… but that he’d miss me.
He said he knew I was a good kid—and maybe I’d grow into a better man than the one who raised me.
” He exhales. “As I turned to head upstairs to you, he said, ‘I know.’ I looked back. He was staring at me. He said he knew about the lake. About the shadows. About you discovering your magick.”
He meets my eyes again.
“He told me he trusted me to keep your secret. To keep you safe. And he made me promise never to contact you again.” He almost chokes on the words. “I gave him my word. Even though it broke me. Even though I knew it might break you too.”
Tears fall freely down my cheeks now, silent and burning. Images crash into me, one after another, everything unraveling. Fragments of memories, dragged from the shadows of my mind.
My father’s voice. His hands guiding mine away from the lake.
Whispered warnings. Locked drawers. The faint blue crest hidden in velvet, shaped like a mermaid.
Gavrail’s eyes the night he left me. Gavrail and me. Noa.
Water that always seemed to know me better than I knew myself—guiding me, pulling me, hiding me.
It was always there. Waiting.
And I never saw it.
Water remembers.
My ribs feel too tight. My skin too thin. Like the room has shrunk around me and the air has turned to glass, jagged and sharp, slicing through me with each inhale.
The weight of it all—secrets, lies, love, loss—presses down on my chest like a tide I can’t outrun.
My hands tremble. I can’t breathe.
“I… I need a moment,” I whisper. The words are barely mine.
Noa takes a step forward, reaching for me, but I step back, flinching like his touch might burn.
“No, please. Just… I need some time to think.”
Panic floods me—fast, bright, and blinding.
I grab my coat and bag with shaking hands and bolt for the door. The scent of Noa’s cologne clings to the collar of my jacket. I want to breathe in the familiarity of it. I want to remember it.
But all I feel is the salt on my lips. The burn in my throat.
The cold night air hitting my skin as I run.
I don’t look back.
Revelations crash over me, heavy and relentless. Every breath is a battle.
Everything feels like it’s unraveling—my past, my present, my power, the people I thought I could trust.
And worst of all… I asked for this. I opened the door.
Now I have to decide what to do with everything that’s come spilling through.