9. Asha
Asha
“Well, that was rude,” I say to the window and shiver.
I’m staring down at the courtyard. It’s still raining, and it splatters against the glass under the dark sky.
Moments later, I see Tobin crossing it towards the library.
The rain curves around him, which looks suspiciously like him using magic he doesn’t want us to know about.
Before, he has allowed himself to get drenched and nearly drowned in that blasted river under the library.
He doesn’t look up, but I bet he knows I’m scowling at him.
“Here,” Hale says and drapes his shirt around my shoulders.
“Thanks,” I say and pull it closer. “You are too sweet to me, and I’m such a bitch. I don’t deserve it.”
Silence.
Then he breathes out audibly. “That was very melancholy. Where did Asha go?”
“Asha doesn’t exist,” I say, lifting my hand to the vague reflection of my face in the window. “So who knows what she is really like?”
Hale comes up behind me. His heat reaches through the shirt, chasing the cold from my skin.
“You’re still you. A name doesn’t decide who you are.”
“It helps.”
“You’re the woman I chose.”
“The academy dragged you towards me.”
“That got me to the stairs. Everything after that was my choice.”
I stare at his reflection, tilting my head back because he is so much taller than me. He says it without hesitation, leaving me nowhere to place my doubt except inside myself.
“That’s disgustingly sincere.”
His hand settles against my stomach over the shirt, pulling me closer.
Leith steps up beside us. He has dressed, though his black shirt hangs open. Death magic still moves beneath his skin. Now that I can see it properly, I can’t understand how I missed the sheer depth of it before.
“I don’t know if I trust you,” I say to him. Hale goes still behind me.
“I have given you no reason not to,” Leith replies.
“Except your face appeared on the ghost of the god I killed.”
“The god of death,” he points out.
“Are you related to him?”
“Who knows?”
“Who are your parents?”
“Livia and Jackson,” he states.
I snort. “Why do those names sound so normal?”
“Because they are. Normal reapers in a supernatural realm. Nothing to see here.”
“Except you are at an academy for elite supernatural beings,” Hale points out.
Leith buttons his shirt with deliberate calm. “My parents are powerful.”
“Powerful enough to produce someone carrying sovereign death?”
“They’re reapers. Death runs through the family.”
“And your grandparents?”
He purses his lips for a split second, and I know I’ve hit the jackpot. “I don’t know either set.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” I drawl.
“Not really,” he replies stiffly. “My parents were from two separate clans. They were forbidden to be together. Their parents cut them off.”
“Two separate clans, and they just happened to produce an heir who is beyond the normal version of powerful. With a face of an ancient death god. Me thinks someone needs to talk to their parents.”
He gives me a sour glare. “No. What is the point? Neither of them will talk about it. They clam up. I think it’s magical so they literally can’t.”
I frown. “By themselves or their parents?”
He shrugs. “Who cares? If my great-great-great-whatever grandfather was a death god in StormGate, why was I born in SilverGate?”
“Okay, that’s a fair question if the door was sealed behind Yseld. But something doesn’t add up. Why would that vision show us your face if you weren’t somehow related to him?”
“I can’t answer that. Obviously, or I would have by now to end this incessant and irritating interrogation.”
“Fine. Your parents are out. If they can’t speak about it, there is no point in this conversation,” I say. Not that I’m overly concerned. I’m not bothered if Leith is a death god. Better for me if he is, truth be told.
Hale’s hand tightens over my stomach. “I’m bothered.”
“You’re bothered by everything involving me.”
“I’m bothered that the male you’re fucking might be tied to an ancient god you decapitated.”
“When you phrase it that way, it does sound awkward.”
Leith finishes the last button. “I’m not him.”
“Wonderful. Mystery solved.” I turn in Hale’s hold and look between them. “Where did Tobin’s mind go? He heard one theory, dressed and fled without demanding we stay together. That isn’t normal.”
“He wants answers,” Leith replies.
I step away from Hale before I lead us back to bed. My body objects to that decision, but I ignore it and retrieve my clothes from the floor. “We should go to him.”
“No,” Hale says, shaking his head. “When Tobin gets like this, he needs the quiet. Us turning up and stamping all over his findings will piss him off. Back to bed,” he says, taking my clothes from me and guiding me back to the bed.
I don’t argue. Hitting the library at this hour was not something I was looking forward to doing.
Hale pulls the covers back with offensive satisfaction.
“You look pleased with yourself,” I mutter.
“I got you back into bed without a fight.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Leith takes the other side, but he doesn’t lie down. He sits against the headboard with his attention fixed on the door.
“You’re waiting for Tobin,” I say.
“I’m waiting for whatever sent that memory through me.”
Hale gets in behind me. His arm settles over my waist, and his heat floods the bedding. “Nothing is getting through that door.”
“The last thing came through the walls.”
“I’ll burn those too.”
“Still a terrible plan,” Leith says.
“Still better than your plan of sitting there looking sinister.”
“I am sinister.”
I close my eyes. “Could you both shut up? Some of us are trying to recover from being fucked senseless and learning we were created by a realm out of pure chaos.”
Hale presses his face into my hair. “You started the conversation.”
“I also ended it.”
He goes quiet. Leith does too.
The silence should help me sleep. Instead, my thoughts return to the battlefield. Eirwen kneeling beside my body. The crowned god wearing Leith’s face. StormGate choosing chaos.
Choosing me.
I jolt awake to find Hale and Leith are already up and have brought food up. Well, I assume that was all Hale. That hellhound could eat all day long if you let him. “Tobin?” I ask with a yawn.
“Not back yet. Eat.” Hale shoves a plate of what I have come to understand is breakfast-type foods at me. “Suppose we should attend class today,” I mumble.
“Suppose we should. Blackridge won’t be understanding about the impending deadline if it loses him points with us playing truant for the next five days,” Leith says.
“How long until the bell rings?”
“An hour or so,” Hale says, stretching before he lands his arse on the bed. “Eat up and get showered.”
“The bathroom is—”
“Fixed. SilverGate repairs itself,” Leith interrupts.
“I was going to say haunted, but good to know.” I glance towards the en-suite.
The door stands open, revealing an intact mirror above a clean basin.
SilverGate has removed every shard of glass, repaired the cracked tiles, and erased the death magic from the walls.
I breathe out quietly. I wasn’t looking forward to showering with whatever the fuck that was last night.
I finish up the breakfast quickly and enter the en-suite, shutting the door firmly and locking it.
I need a minute to process all of this. Alone. I turn on the shower and wait for the water to warm, watching the mirror in case it decides to resume our argument.
Nothing appears.
I step beneath the water and scrub away the remains of last night.
Bruises cover my hips and thighs, courtesy of three males with limited restraint.
Purple light flickers through each mark when I examine them with my new sight.
Thin black threads sit beneath the bruises Leith left.
Silver glimmers where Tobin’s magic touched me. Gold heat lingers from Hale.
They’ve marked more than my skin.
I press my palm to the wall and concentrate. Silver wards run through the tiles. Beneath them, deep enough to avoid detection, rests one black thread.
SilverGate didn’t erase all the death magic.
It hid some.
The thread responds to my attention and travels towards my hand. I pull away before it touches me.
“No. We’re not doing mysterious death visions before lectures.”
The thread stops.
I finish washing, shut off the water, and grab a towel. By the time I’ve dried off, the black power has retreated behind the tiles. I consider telling Leith, but that will produce another hour of warnings and grim expressions.
I unlock the door.
Hale stands directly outside it.
“Were you guarding the door?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I move past him. “I’m beginning to understand why Tobin fled.”
Leith stands near the desk. His attention moves from me to the en-suite before returning to my face.
“Anything happen?” he asks.
“No mysterious messages. No ancient gods. No one tried to consume my power. An excellent shower.”
His blue eyes narrow. I give him an innocent smile.
Hale studies me with open suspicion but says nothing.
I get dressed in silence, ignoring the way Leith keeps glancing at the en-suite door like it’s about to sprout teeth and bite him. It doesn’t. I check.
I finish lacing my boots as the marks under my skin have settled into a low hum, and for the first time since I woke up in this body, I don’t feel like something’s actively trying to claw its way out of me. Small mercies.
After I grab my bag, we head down together, Hale on one side, Leith on the other, both of them walking like they expect the corridor itself to attack me. Given the last twenty-four hours, I can’t really blame them.
“What is your first lecture?” Hale asks.
“Combat theory,” I say, checking the crumpled schedule I dig out of my bag. “With Dain.”
Hale groans. “Same as me.”
We reach the bottom of the stairs and shove the doors open to hit the courtyard already thick with students moving towards their first lectures. It’s still raining.
Leith peels off towards a different building without a word, which I’ve decided is his version of a goodbye. Hale falls into step beside me, close enough that his heat cuts through the rain before it can properly soak me.
We cross the courtyard at a pace that’s technically a walk but feels more like running from our problems. Students part around Hale without seeming to notice they’re doing it. I’ve stopped being surprised by that.
The lecture hall sits at the far end, stone steps slick with rain, and I take them two at a time to get out from under the worst of it.
Hale beats me to the door and holds it open.
I lead him inside, and we sit near the door, looking towards the podium where someone who definitely isn’t Professor Dain awaits.