by L.L Hunter
Legend
Scarlett checked her watch, it showed 5.30 p.m. She had half an hour before dinner, just enough time to get information about Archangels. And with Dyston staring at her like she was a specimen under a microscope, the task was very hard indeed.
She climbed the ladder to the third floor landing, where Dyston had pointed out the area in which to find the most likely source of Archangel information.
“How do the professors handle doing this every day? I’ll end up having to shower before dinner,” Scarlett puffed as she climbed.
“They have their ways,” said Dyston, watching her from his post on the second floor banister.
“You know you could get up here and help me. It would make this a heck of a lot faster.”
“Certainly,” he said, reaching down to pull her up. She hesitated before taking his hand.
“How…” Scarlett was confused. She gazed up at him and back to where he had been sitting a few seconds ago, several stories below. All he did was smile, which did crazy things to her stomach.
“All you had to do was ask,” he said, pulling her towards him so that their bodies were touching. A shot of electricity surged up through her body and ignited her. She felt Dyston put his arms around her, and she couldn’t breathe. And then she heard the sizzle.
“What’s going on?” She quickly jumped away from him.
“You were on fire,” he chuckled.
“I what?”
“That’s never happened to you before?”
“Uh… no.” She lied. In fact, it had happened to her before in high school.
“It’s very rare for your Trait to come out now. They usually begin to appear during the Second Year.”
“So… you think this is my Trait?”
“Yes, I do. I could sense it on you when we bumped into each other in the hall earlier.”
“You could sense it?”
“Yeah. There are some things that you’ve yet to learn about becoming a full-fledged Angel. Such as, Angels have more than five senses and have the ability to place dreams into people’s heads.”
Dreams into people’s heads.
Now it all made sense.
“It’s you who’s been giving me the dreams every night,” she gasped.
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Look, I can’t tell you now, not here,” he told her in a hushed voice. “After dinner, go straight to your room. I’ll come to you.” He brushed a stray hair away from her face.
“Okay,” she replied. As she began to turn to climb back down the ladder, Dyston’s hand stopped her and pulled her back into an embrace.
“Be careful, Scarlett,” he whispered, and the church bells tolled. They were so loud this time that Scarlett had to cover her ears. They must be closer to the bell tower, she thought, as she gazed up at the glass dome.
“How do you…” She turned to face him again, but he was gone.
That night’s dinner was Chicken Korma, which didn’t help the fact that she was already burning up inside due to her fire Trait and from her encounter with Dyston. As she ate, she scanned the room for him, but he wasn’t seated at his usual table next to Jacob. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She then realised that Emer had been trying to talk to her.
“Huh?”
“I said, where have you been? I came by your room earlier to see if you wanted to hang out with Del and me. We were doing each other’s hair,” said Emer, turning her face from side to side as if to show off their work.
“Sorry, I was, um… in the library doing research.”
“Uh, huh, research, got ya,” Del said with a wink.
“I really was.” Scarlett’s cheeks flushed, and she felt like she was blazing up again.
“Aww, she’s blushing,” teased Thomas.
“Leave her alone, guys. If she likes someone, good for her,” Kat said in defence.
“Thanks, Kat.” She smiled at her friend and then looked back down at her Korma. How could they know about her and Dyston? Nothing had happened between them yet—not really.
Scarlett opened her door and stepped in. The room felt cold, and she realised that the French doors were open. As she hurried to shut them, she noticed a figure sitting on her bed. She would have screamed if it hadn’t been for Dyston moving to stand beside her.
“Sorry, I promised I wouldn’t sneak up on you.”
“That’s okay. You just have this silence about you that’s… frightening. You’re like the calm before the storm.”
“Is that how you see me?” he asked, moving in front of her.
“What? Don’t you like that description?”
“No, I like it just fine, I love it in fact.” That was when she noticed he was holding her black feather.
“My feather.”
“No, in fact, it’s my feather.” Before she could reply, he took her hand in his. “Let me show you something.” He led her out into the night air.
“It’s freezing out here, Dyston.”
“Not with your Trait it’s not.” He stood at the railing and faced her. “Breathe in and think heat.”
Scarlett followed his instructions. She breathed in and thought, I’m warm. I’m not cold.
“It’s working.”
“Good. It’s rare for a First Year student to do even that.”
“Why is it so rare?” she asked. Dyston looked around, not that anyone was watching, and stepped closer to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze.
“There’s a legend that an Archangel came to earth and fathered a child,” he told her reluctantly. Her eyes widened.
“A real Archangel?” she gasped. He nodded. “Is it in The Chronicle? Because I don’t remember reading about it.”
“No, it’s not. It happened after The Chronicle was written.”
“How do you know about it then? Since it’s not in The Chronicle.”
“Because it’s my job to find her.”
“Find her?”
“Yes. Listen, it’s very dangerous, no one can know.”
“Know about the Archangel baby?”
“No. Know that you’re the Legend.”
Zachariah Blackbell sat at his expensive oak desk, writing in a ledger with a large white quill. Suddenly, there came a knock at the door.
“Come in,” he said in a deep authoritarian voice. The door opened and his son stepped in.
“Father, we have a situation.”
“What is it, Lakyn?” Zachariah didn’t look up from his writing.
“There’s something… different about our new student, Scarlett Porter.”
“What do you mean, son? I’m not wasting my time with another one of your fantasies.”
“This isn’t a fantasy. What do we know about her?” he asked, putting his hands on his father’s desk. Zachariah sighed. Then he stood up and went to the filing cabinet where all his student files were kept. He pulled out Scarlett’s file and read.
“Scarlett Porter, aged twenty-one. It says that there was a fire that killed her mother shortly after she was born. Her father is unknown.”
“She could be the child of the Archangel,” Lakyn suggested.
“It’s possible, but there isn’t enough proof. Wasn’t Dyston meant to track her down?”
“Maybe he has. He did request that Scarlett’s room be situated directly under his.” Zachariah turned around to look at his son. His eyes widened and narrowed just as quickly.
“That’s still not enough evidence to support this. He is a twenty-five year old Nephilim, after all. Keep an eye on them, and keep me updated.”
“Yes, Father.”
Scarlett stared at him in disbelief.
“No, you must be mistaken. I can’t be the offspring of an Archangel.”
“All the signs are there -your Trait appearing early… today wasn’t the first time was it?” Dyston asked.
“No,” she admitted. “It first happened when I was fifteen.” She suddenly had a vision of fire, but this fire wasn
’t from six years prior. She saw black wings and a baby crying. She met his eyes.
“What just happened?” he asked her, concerned. “Did you remember something?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s a memory or a dream. There was a fire when I was a baby…”
Dyston tensed and pulled her close, wrapping his arms and wings around her.
“Dyston, what’s wrong?”
“Listen to me. I want you to keep your Trait hidden, for now. There are people out there who would do anything to get their hands on you.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say right now. Just please promise me, don’t stand out, be a part of the crowd.” He took her face in his hands and then stepped back, taking something out of the hem of his jeans. It was glimmering and beautiful silver dagger. It lay balanced across his palms. Scarlett gasped. “I want you to have this,” he told her. “I want you to carry it with you at all times and only use it at precisely the right moment.”
“I promise,” she breathed, and then he kissed her. It was quite unexpected, but she went with it because she didn’t know what else to do. His lips were like ice and hers like fire. They balanced each other perfectly. Whenever she felt as if she were burning up, Dyston’s touch would cool her right back down. She smiled against his lips knowingly. She had just figured out his Trait.
Emer bounced around helplessly in the air.
“I can’t do this.”
“You’ve been here a week and you haven’t even tried, Emerald,” Professor Anna, their instructor for Aerial Ability, told her. She was a short woman with blonde hair, petite but with good muscle development. She was built like a ballerina.
“Why don’t you show her, Joshua? You seemed to pick this up easily on the first lesson.”
“Okay.” Joshua climbed into his harness and the other students hoisted him up into the air. Then he stretched out his arms as if he were flying.
“It’s fun, Emer.”
“It’s scary.” She swallowed back hard as she watched him soar gracefully around the room, coming close to her several times.
“Don’t do that!” she cried out, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Take my hand, Emer. It’s okay.” She opened her eyes slowly.
“Don’t go too fast.”
“I won’t, promise,” he told her, reaching out for her. She reluctantly pushed off the platform she was perched on and grabbed hold of his hands. She screamed and closed her eyes.
“Shh. It’s okay. Open your eyes, Emer.” He held her close to him, his arm wrapped around her waist. Emer opened her eyes one by one.
“Oh, my goodness,” she gasped.
“See, it isn’t so bad,” he told her. But she didn’t reply. She just gripped his hands tighter. When they touched the ground again, Emer let out her breath.
“You were amazing up there,” Joshua told her as he took off his harness next to her.
“Really? I thought I was a screeching banshee.”
“Not quite,” he laughed. And that was when she noticed his eyes.
“Hey, you have green eyes like me,” she smiled.
“Um, yeah,” he replied nervously, looking down at his hands.
“Hey. They’re nice. They’re more lime green though, while mine are em…”
“Emerald,” he finished for her, and they both laughed.
“Hey, do you want to watch a movie with me tonight after dinner?” he asked her, fiddling with his curls.
“Um… will it be just us two?”
“On the date, yes. In the cinema, no.”
“I thought you had a thing for Kat? I saw you watching her. What happened?” she asked.
“Didn’t you know? Kat likes someone else.”
“She what? Okay, I thought she was my friend. And how do you know?”
“It’s just something I’ve come to observe,” he said, as they helped Professor Anna put the equipment away.
“Okay, you have to tell me everything tonight,” she pleaded, as they left class together.
Exactly a week had passed since she had met Dyston, and already Scarlett felt as if fate had brought them together. All the things he had said were swirling around in her brain as she lay in bed, unable to drift into sleep. Her father might be an Archangel, and she had been born in a blaze of Heavenly Fire. Had her mother known? Scarlett looked over at her nightstand and took Dyston’s feather that was sitting there, leaning against her copy of The Chronicle, its golden leather cover so worn that it was almost falling apart.
She only had to think of him, and he was right there beside her, so silent. She wondered randomly if he was a good warrior.
“Why can’t you sleep?” he asked.
“Just going over everything in my head.”
“I shouldn’t have told you. It’s too much of a burden on you. I’m so sorry.” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled away and sat up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked
“Why do I feel like I know you, before this past week?”
“I sent you the dreams.”
“No. It’s more than that. I feel like we have this connection I can’t explain.”
Dyston rose from the bed and walked over to the balcony. Scarlett followed him.
“Dyston?” She asked. She was almost afraid to touch him, his expression scared her. Then he turned to face her.
“It was my Task to find you,” he said.
“This was before I came here, right? I mean, you’ve been sending me the dreams for years.”
“Five years. I first found you five years ago, when you were sixteen.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like a creepy stalker. How?”
“There were reports of unexplained fires, so my father sent me to investigate.”
Scarlett buried her face in her hands. “The school fire. How did your father find out about that?”
“He had a source there. He marked you down as ‘one to watch,’” he told her.
“So your father knows about me?”
“He doesn’t know what you are, just that you’re connected to the fires.”
“But he’ll figure it out, right?”
“Maybe, if we don’t keep your Trait hidden,” he told her, as a warning. Scarlett went back to her bed and sat down, pulling her legs up under her.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, watching her.
“I was thinking about…” She turned to face him. His wings weren’t showing, so he looked like a twenty-five year old human. “About why you always smell like rain.” This made him smile.
“It’s my thing, my Trait. I can make it rain anytime I want,” he said, moving to sit beside her.
“That’s better than setting things on fire. Can you show me?”
“Not right now, later. Now I want you to sleep.”
“But my brain is so active at the moment, I just can’t.”
“Would this help?” He leaned close and pressed his lips against hers, then trailed kisses up to her forehead. It immediately cooled her heart and her soul. His kiss had the most amazing calming effect on her that in no time she was asleep.
He couldn’t bear to leave her, not with how sacred she was. He kissed her head one more time and leapt out the French doors, unfurling his wings mid-air.
He didn’t expect to have anyone waiting for him on the Dome as he landed. Lakyn was there, sitting and waiting, looking out over the city.
“You called?” Dyston asked, annoyed.
“Have you found the Legend yet? Rumours are that she’s a Legacy, as well.”
“No. I haven’t,” he lied.
“I have a feeling you’re lying to me, to us.” Lakyn was now on his feet.
“I’m not. I haven’t found her.”
“Are you sure, little brother? Because I know when you lie, your eyes flare up.” His face was now really close to Dyston’s. “Which one is she, hmm?”
“I told you, I don’t know.” Dyston quickly turned away and faced the c
ity.
“I bet it’s your flame-haired girlfriend,” added Lakyn. Dyston spun back around to face his brother.
“You leave Scarlett out of this!” Dyston replied in defence.
Lakyn chuckled. “How sweet. You’ve fallen for your assignment.”
“Scarlett’s not my assignment,” Dyston growled.
“I don’t want to fight you, little brother, because it will be an easy fight. Plus, Dad won’t agree with spilt blood on his pretty glass dome.”
“You can spill my blood, but you will never spill Scarlett’s!” spat Dyston.
“Whatever. This is the reason you will never be welcome into the Realm of Fire again,” Lakyn replied, as he pushed his enormous wings back and took to the air. “I will find her, Dyston. You can’t keep her locked away forever.” With another flap of his marbled-black and silver wings, he blended in with the night sky.
Chapter Five