Void (Black Onyx Academy #5)

Chapter One

Farren

Laikynn nods, confirming that I am correct. “Yes, and no, it is what you call the Void, but it is not the Void that others in the Fae Realm have been gifted with travelling through, you have never actually had Void magic.”

My brain stutters over the information.

“What the hell do you mean she doesn’t have Void magic?” Kill asks in his blunt way, and quite frankly, I could kiss him right now because, what the fuck?

“Of course she has Void magic,” Storm adds. “We go with her through the Void. I’ve walked through it with her.”

“So have I,” Hades mutters. “I am aware that the Void is more than it appears to be, but it is still the Void.”

“Are you sure that this is the Void?” Laikynn asks Hades, a knowing glint to his eye.

Khaos curses and pulls me closer toward him, “It doesn’t feel like the Void. Where the fuck are we?”

“Khaos is right. It doesn’t feel like the Void like I have known it before, but I have always assumed that it’s just because Farren is so strong and so is her affinity with it, so it feels different.”

I frown and turn my head to look up at Khaos, “This is the Void though. This is the same place that I always come to. This is the Void, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind. I feel safe here, at home.”

“You feel safe here?” Adrastos exclaims in pure shock and then shakes his head rather adorably and adds, “Hang on, not the fucking point. Can you all understand him?”

“I’m guessing that we shouldn’t be able to?” Loki asks, his eyebrow arched, although he doesn’t seem to be too surprised that we’re doing something that we shouldn’t be able to do.

Aldrastos shakes his head, “No, you shouldn’t. He should have killed you the moment that he saw you.”

“Rude,” Laikynn mutters, and then snaps his teeth at Aldrastos, making me smirk as Aldrastos takes a snap back and narrows his eyes at him.

“Can we get back to that later? I want to know what he means by saying I don’t have Void magic, and this isn’t the Void,” I ask him. Because I’m freaking out, I feel the need to repeat, “This is the Void. I have come here multiple times. I was coming here daily at one point.”

“This isn’t the Void,” Aldrastos replies as he stares at me with narrowed eyes. “This is my realm. This is Siorraidh. This is not the Void.”

“Erm,” I reply eloquently because I have no idea what else to say. It is the Void. I know that it’s where I come. I know that this is the place that heals me when I need it to, the place that gives me power. I know that. Yet, there’s no denying that Aldrastos is equally sure that this is Siorraidh.

One of us is wrong.

Mayhem’s eyes are wide as he asks me, “Wait a fucking second. You mean to say that this whole time that you’ve been travelling through the Void to get to places, hell, you’ve been taking us with you, you haven’t actually been travelling through the Void at all but through this realm that no one has been able to get in and out of for thousands of years? ”

I shake my head. I don’t know what the hell is going on.

“That’s not strictly true,” Laikynn decides to speak up again.

Aldrastos’ eyes widen. “Hell, I can fucking understand him now. Maybe I hit my head. Did you guys drug me?”

Ignoring his breakdown, because that’s clearly what’s happening right now, Rival asks Laikynn, “What do you mean?”

“Well, Farren has been able to get in and out of the realm for her whole life,” Laikynn confirms. He then repeats, because he clearly sees that we all need to hear it again, “This isn’t the Void, this is a realm. This is Siorraidh.”

“That’s impossible,” Aldrastos replies, having managed to calm himself down rather quickly, considering a moment ago he thought we may have drugged him. Although he might have just decided to lean into it, that’s always a possibility.

I want to agree with him.

Laikynn’s words sound impossible, but the trouble is, my instincts are telling me that they’re right. That I haven’t had Void magic like I thought I did, like everyone, even Monty and Magnus, thought I did, but rather that it’s a different kind of magic.

My Void magic has never behaved like it’s supposed to. I’ve always known that. I’ve told them that.

“You say that a lot,” Storm points out drily to Aldrastos.

Loki chuckles, “He definitely seems to. Give him time. He’ll get used to us.”

I burst out laughing, and Aldrastos shoots me a warning look. I would be pissed if it weren’t for the genuine concern I see lurking in his gaze, and admittedly how hot I find that look.

For fuck sake, now is not the time.

“You may know this creature, but there are things that are far more dangerous lurking in the darkness, and it would be wise to be quiet,” he warns.

He then adds, speaking directly to Laikynn this time, “You are mistaken, there is no way that Farren has been able to travel here. It took me . . .” he hesitates before changing what he was going to say and saying instead, “. . .changing, and several extremely strong supernaturals to send me over, and they weren’t sure that I would make it.

Farren simply can’t have been travelling through the realm with such ease for so long. ”

Laikynn studies Aldrastos for long enough that Aldrastos starts to glare, clearly uncomfortable as a growl builds in his chest. He must be some sort of shifter then?

Although Khaos and Kill growl, they aren’t shifters, so maybe a demon of some kind?

Before Laikynn can say anything, I decide to prove to Aldrastos, and if I’m being truthful to myself as well, that this is what I’ve been calling the Void. If it is, then I should be able to leave like I have always been able to do.

“Name something that’s in your office at the academy,” I challenge Aldrastos.

“What?” He asks, my sudden question surprising him.

I repeat myself, “Name something that is in your office at the academy, something that can only be in the office at the academy.”

Aldrastos smirks, clearly seeing where I’m going with this and expecting me to fail, “Okay. In my desk drawer, the top one, is an engraved bone. It’s one of a kind.

I engraved it myself, and it’s from a creature that doesn’t exist in your realm.

In the highly unlikely case that you can bring that back to me, then I will believe that you are not using the Void to travel but instead can somehow use this realm that has been locked down for thousands of years and is on the verge of dying. ”

“Oh, the snark is strong with this one,” Kill smirks.

Hades shakes his head, looking equal parts amused and sorry for Aldrastos as he warns, “You really shouldn’t have challenged her, mate.”

Aldrastos shrugs as his gaze meets mine, and he smirks again, challenge in his eyes as he says, “Prove me wrong.”

I smirk.

You would think that his blatant disbelief in me would piss me off, but rather, it just makes me want to prove him wrong. I’ve been underestimated pretty much my whole life. In fact, it has been my whole life until I met the guys, and even then, they underestimated me at first.

Well, Kill and Hades didn’t.

They never have actually, and I love them for that.

Occasionally, being underestimated has pissed me off, but most of the time, I have used it to my advantage. It came in particularly handy when I was doing the jobs for my father and going against his wishes and relocating people to the Shadowlands.

He was always underestimating me.

I also have to admit that I love proving people wrong.

Admittedly, there is a small part of me that is worried that I may not be able to use the Void to go back to the academy and that Laikynn is wrong and that this place isn’t what I’ve been calling the Void.

If he is wrong and this isn’t the Void though, then how is he here? He’s from where I travel to, which is the Void.

This is going to get confusing really fucking fast.

Unless, of course, Aldrastos is wrong about this being his realm. If he were, that would beg the question of why the portal brought us here, and what went wrong with the spell that was given to him in order to call the portal.

Either way, one of them is wrong, and I’m curious to see which.

I grin, and salute Aldrastos making his eyebrows raise as the guys chuckle, and then I call what I’ve always assumed to be the Void, and instead of calling a door to me like I usually would when I’m in the Void, because something is telling me that I shouldn’t, I simply step to the side, and I find myself in Aldrastos office back at the academy.

Well, I’ll be damned.

I really am using an ancient realm to travel and not the Void.

“I have to admit,” I say to Poca, who of course stepped through with me, “I didn’t really expect that to work.”

Meri, who is still curled up on Poca’s back, makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like a scoff, and Poca rolls his eyes at me and grumbles like he had absolutely no doubts at all and that he always knew that it wasn’t the Void that I was using. To be fair, he probably did.

“I’m going to assume that Oryn is still in the Void- that’s not actually the Void, but an ancient freaking realm?”

I may have let my freakout show a little bit then, but fortunately for me, there’s no one else here apart from me, Poca, and Meri, and they are more than used to my freakouts by now.

They have seen plenty of them.

Poca watches me closely for a few seconds, like he’s waiting to see if I’m done or if there’s more of the freakout coming, and then he simply nods in order to answer my question.

I feel a knock on the bond lines, and I open them all up so we can hear each other.

“So, are you snooping in his office?” Loki asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

I chuckle, “You bet I fucking am.”

“That’s my girl,” Zev replies instantly, making my heartbeat faster as a smile stretches my lips.

“Don’t worry, we won’t tell him,” Reaper adds. “I think we all want to see the look on his face when you prove him wrong.”

I burst out laughing before remembering that I should probably be quiet in here and cutting my laugh short. “Thanks, guys. I should be back soon. Is there anything else you want me to get while I’m here?”

“No, I think we’re good,” Khaos replies. “Stay safe, I mean it, Farren. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Something big is going on. Just get the bone and come back.”

I shouldn’t smile at the sound of the worry in his voice, but I really can’t help it.

“I will, don’t worry, Khaos,” I reply and then say a quick goodbye as I close down the bond lines and refocus on what I’m supposed to be doing.

“Alright, let's find this thing of Aldrastos’ so that I can prove him wrong, and get back to the Void, or er realm. Fuck this is going to be confusing for a while.”

You wouldn’t think that a hellhound can look at you with amused exasperation, but Poca sure as hell can. Meri has clearly given up with the whole situation and is curled up fast asleep on Poca’s back, completely ignoring me.

That’s fair.

Ignoring Poca’s exasperated look, I head over to Aldrastos’ desk and try to open the top drawer where he told me the bone was. I should probably be weirded out that he keeps a bone in the top drawer of his desk, but I have four princes' heads in a pocket in the Void, so who am I to judge?

I’m fairly certain it’s weirder that I have heads. The fact that I’m unsure probably suggests that it is.

Wait, does that mean that I’ve actually been storing things in pockets of Siorraidh and not in the Void? Is that even possible?

Well, it must be, or I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Unless I’m somehow putting stuff somewhere, but that wouldn’t make sense either.

Refocusing, I reach for the drawer. As I touch the handle, the drawer zaps me, and I curse.

The fucker didn’t warn me that he had spells guarding the drawer, but then again, he didn’t really think that I could get back here, so maybe he thought I wouldn’t need to know that there were spells guarding it.

At least I hope it’s that reason and not that he was being an ass, because then I’d have to throw something at him, and it seems like he’s going to be with us for a while, so it would be a bummer if he were an asshole.

Fortunately, these spells, while not something that I have come across before, are no match for my magic, and within a few moments, I’ve pulled them apart, opened the drawer, and added the new spells to my growing repertoire of spells in my mind.

Reaching into the drawer with my hand, I stop myself and send a tendril of my magic in instead. If the drawer had spells guarding it, then the chances are that the bone does as well.