“How are you feeling?” She asked.
“Tired,” I responded blankly.
“Eileen Frost, I don’t need your attitude.”
I stared at her with that blank, emotionless look on my face and said, “What attitude?” Her silver eyes narrowed, yet she didn’t persist and instead, looked away and at the assortment of herbs that littered the table.
“What happened tonight?”
“Why don’t you pry into my memories?”
“Because I am giving my own daughter the benefit of the doubt and doing it the humane way.”
“That would be the first.”
“Eileen,” she snapped.
“The first time I have seen my parents, and it had to be now. Not at any family events, or at any of our birthdays. A day where I was nearly killed because a mad mage wanted me dead because my Guardian killed his son. That had to happen for you to care.”
“What has happened to you? You have never once spoken out like this before. This is unlike you.”
“No, this is me, the real me and not the girl you wanted me to be, Mother.” I looked away from her cold and calculating stare and took hold of the herbal drink and took another sip. “Headmage tried to kill me. The only reason he approved of us to go to Mage Academy was so that he could get close to me and frame one of my friends. He wanted revenge. He used dark magic and turned into one of my friends… Lawliet Clarintine, and lured me out to the back oval, where he tried to kill me. I don’t remember much. My Guardian came to fight his phoenix, and I tried to fight Headmage, but I was weak and… I can’t remember what happened after that, only that Lawliet carried me back, to where Hopper came out and I went back here and now here you are.”
“Why did you leave with Lawliet Clarintine?” Mother asked.
“He was helping me find out who wanted to harm me and claimed to have known who it was.”
“And not once did you decide to contact us?”
“You would have answered?” I questioned. Mother seethed a hiss-like breath out. “Besides, Headmage knew also and told us that he would take care of things… unfortunately, he was the culprit all along.”
“Hmm. That seems to entwine with what Silas and Lawliet Clarintine had said.”
“What did they say?” I persisted.
“Lawliet Clarintine went to talk to you about his findings for the day when you weren’t in your room, but the window was open. He then knocked on your front door and asked for you, but Silas said you were in your room. Both of them immediately then headed out to find you when your scent lured them to the back oval, where they were able to penetrate the barrier and fight off Headmage.”
“But… the woods were burning.”
“It wasn’t the classiest sort of fight, I would say. Lawliet’s brother, Darius, had admitted that Lawliet Clarintine has no control over his dragon side, and when he saw his friend hurt, spiralled out of control. Fortunately, no one was harmed. Aside from Charles, that is.”
“What about Spencer?” I then suddenly asked. “He had nothing to do with this. You shouldn’t blame him for his dad’s actions. He tried to stop him, but Headmage was too powerful.”
“We know. He came clean, but we would still need to keep an eye on him. Mage Academy is closed for a week until we can find another Headmage to take his spot. We already have a list; it shouldn’t take that long. You should take that time to rest and recover from what has happened that night.” She stood from the seat and brushed down her suit jacket. “We will be around for a few days, watching over the Academy, making sure everything is running smoothly before we head back to Organisation. We should all have lunch sometime, like a family before we go.”
“Mother… did you get my letter?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed and hands balled into fists. “Yes.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“Prepare yourself, Eileen, you have a busy interrogation underway at the beginning of next year, make sure you are ready for the onslaught of questions Organisation has for you.”
I nodded firmly and placed my hands up to my chest and tried to steady this rapidly beating heart of mine.
The door opened to Donte and Nixon’s room, and Father came out, a broadened grin on his face, and my brothers crowding around him, showing him all of their diabolic plans, they have installed for this year.
I spoke to Silas briefly before I decided to go into my room. He was really concerned for me and told me basically what Mother told me. He gave me a kiss on the forehead and told me to get some rest, and I obliged. I was still tired from everything that happened tonight, and I am not sure if it was physical tiredness but also mentally tired and drained.
I shut the door softly and turned around into piercing golden eyes. He sat upright on my bed, against the headrest, atop of the covers. He smiled and pet the sheets beside him. I willingly crawled towards Lawliet, and as he opened his arms, I rested my head on his chest and let those broad arms wrap around me in a comfortable cage filled with warmth.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
Lawliet chuckled and said, “I should be asking you how you are feeling.” I didn’t say anything. Lawliet then sighed and said, “I feel agitated and wired, but being around you seems to be calming me down. Did your parents tell you what happened?” I nodded. “Did they tell you how Headmage died.”
“No, she didn’t tell me that. How did he die?”
“Your Guardian finished him off while Darius helped keep me under control. I am surprised I didn’t get in trouble for burning the woods to the ground.”
“If it were any other circumstances, it would have been vastly different.” He laughed, and that made my heart lurch and stomach do backflips. “I saw you tonight… the real you.”
“Were you afraid?” There was an edge to his voice. A tone that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I sat up and leaned against my arm and looked into those melancholy golden eyes of his. “You were the most beautiful creature I have seen in my life, Lawliet.”
He looked away, his cheeks turning red. With my other hand, I touched his cheek and forced him to look back at me. I gazed at him and took him all in. Those high cheekbones of a Highborn mage. That soft, liquid gold in those wide eyes of his. My thumb dragged along those parched, dried, burning hot lips of his and the desire and spark of attraction between us built to new highs that were about to explode.
“I am in love with you, Lawliet Clarintine.”
“And I am in love with you, Eileen Frost, and I will do everything in my power to keep you by my side, even if I have to burn cities to the ground and turn bones into ash to stop myself from being summoned away from you.”
We both leaned in, connecting in the middle and letting the bitter memories of tonight wash away because we had bigger demons to face. We have to convince Organisation to let Lawliet be a mage and not the dragon everyone sees him as.
Next year will be the most important year of our lives. I just hope I get to save him before he turns eighteen.
Lawliet’s POV.
The window was already open, and her curtains flapped in the breeze. The lights were off, and there was no sense of warmth inside, and her scent was against the windowsill, and moved away from her room altogether, which confused me. To her door, the lock rune was activated, which meant she wasn’t out in the living area.
I hopped down from the windowsill and opened her door, uncaring who could see me at this point and went around to the living room, where Silas sat, glued to the television screen. He must have noticed me from the reflection because he jumped to his feet and raised his arm, I suspect to grab his staff, but thought better of it, and relaxed his hand.
“Lawliet, how did you get in?”
“Where’s Eileen?” I demanded. There was no time for chit-chat, something terrible was happening, and Eileen was gone.
“She’s in her room.”
“I just came from there; she isn’t in there.” I took a step forward and felt the
anger rise because I didn’t have time for this, but I also knew I needed help, for that bloodlust I smelt in her room was too strong. “Someone is out there trying to harm Eileen, and I think they have her, I don’t know how, but I need your help.”
“Why help?”
“You are the only mage I know I can trust. I would ask Donte and Nixon as well, but they are too much for me.”
“You feel my pain, I like you. Alright, lead the way.”
Eileen was right, Silas is… weird.
Her scent was faded, but easy for me to track. I desire her so much that out of everyone, her aura and smell come out stronger than anyone else. However, I didn’t expect the trail of fragrance would be pink, considering she was the one that said she didn’t like pink, it was the colour that came to mind when I pictured her scent. Not yellow nor any other colour. It was the colour of roses.
The rose scent leads me outside, and into this fierce wind that lashed out and surrounded Mage Academy. It was the same wind from before when Eileen and I were on the tower, and I was helping her with the stick rune. There were this undeniable hate and anger, and I wasn’t the only one that sensed it as well. Silas looked at me, wide-eyed and mortified. This was the first time he saw this wind, and this time, I could hear it whispering in my ear as well, all the vile and hateful things it wanted to do to Eileen.
As we walked through the blizzard and howling wind, I had to clutch at my chest and swallow down the frothing flames that swelled up, deep within my belly. The hunger wanted to tear me apart and turn me into an uncontrollable beast, but it wasn’t the time, we haven’t even found Eileen yet.
We got to the back oval when Silas raised his hand and forced me to stop. I went to snap at him and tell him we didn’t have time for this when I looked up at this barrier. Through the howling wind, it sparkled. If I didn’t learn about barriers nor following Eileen’s scent, the power of this barrier would have steered me away and back towards Mage Academy, that’s how strong this barrier was.
“No student is strong enough to build this kind of barrier yet,” I shouted over the howling wind. “How do we get through?”
Silas dug into his pocket and took out a crystal. The crystal sparkled like lightning, zapping a yellow and white colour inside. “If you are sensitive to intense light, I suggest you close your eyes.”
“Do it.”
Silas threw the crystal into the wall, and blinding white light struck, like standing right beside a lightning bolt. Sparks flew when the crystal hit into the barrier, and it sounded like bones breaking as the crystal tore the barrier in two, leaving a gap for us to walk through.
“Quickly, before it closes.”
We both stepped through in time before the barrier sealed shut and turned back into its translucent, glittery form.
“Why do you have a mighty crystal in your pocket?” I asked. “Are you stupid?”
“I would be stupid if I left it at home, within the grubby hands of Donte and Nixon.”
“… good point,” I admitted.
A loud screech tore through the quiet, silent and clear woods. I looked up at flames engulfing the air. A phoenix was circling and fighting something smaller than it, but my eyes – even knowing they are heightened than a mage's eyes – couldn’t see what it was, it was cloaking itself in golden aura. That’s when I suddenly realised, that must be Eileen’s Guardian, and seeing her fighting made me even worried for Eileen, now that I couldn’t see her.
“What’s that?” Silas asked from beside me. “It looks like a wall of fire.”
I looked ahead and to precisely what Silas had said. It looked like a wall of fire, but not any fire, one created by a Guardian, and my best bet would be that phoenix above, in the sky. I went to walk towards the fire when Silas grabbed the sleeve of my shirt.
“It could burn you. We should find the most effective way to get through it without…” he trailed off when I reached out and touched the fire.
Control it. Use it as fuel. Bind it with the dragon breath, and make this fire your own. I took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the fire when the wall of fire dropped like a veil and left nothing but a scorched ring around a blanket of white snow.
“How?” Silas stammered out.
“Dragon fire is the strongest fire. Every other fire is a slave to ours.”
I took a step forward when I immediately froze. Veins crawled to the surface when I noticed Headmage standing there, staring at us, bewildered. Heck, he can’t be stunned to see us, we should be stunned to see him here. He was the one all along that wanted Eileen dead? Why? For what reason?
“Eileen,” Silas breathed.
My eyes darted to the right, and to the snow that looked to have been pushed to the side like a body was dragged. Before the tree, slumped there, not moving, was the girl with golden hair, her rose-coloured scent swirling around her, an intense hit, but it wasn’t as fierce of a hit as the anger that suddenly plagued me.
Silas raced over to her, kneeled down and dragged her up into his lap. Her arm had the blood covering it, and it soaked into the snow beside her. Silas then took out a crystal and slammed it down into the ground. A blue emergency light zipped up, high in the sky, alerting anyone nearby, heck, even Organisation, if they saw it. That there was a high-classed emergency crystal.
A hiss-like breath escaped clenched teeth. I glared at Headmage that was smirking at me. That cold, vindictive smirk of a monster. Heat built up, and I heard the sizzling of snow. Steam rose around me, spreading like wildfire in dry grass, catching everything alight. Burning hate that I couldn’t control burned up to my throat, and the hunger to sink my teeth into Headmage’s throat grew in size until I felt the scales form along my skin, and my bones thicken, doubling in size. A white aura swirled around me, and everything that I have known, loved, adoration, happiness, all turned into this burning desire of hate, and it swelled to the maximum, and I wanted it to. I wanted the creature within me to escape. I wanted Headmage dead for what he had done to Eileen.
Fire. The fire was always my friend, and I wanted it to burn the vicinity and melt the flesh from his bones, and turn is bones into ash at my feet.
A loud and ear-splitting roar tore its way out of my throat, and with it, hells fire spewed out and burned trees to a crisp, charring them, and letting the woods catch alight and engulf the night sky with blackened smoke.
I saw red when I looked at Headmage, and I went to fly towards him when my head hit the burned ground. Sharp claws dug into my scales. I glared up to the purple-eyed dragon, Darius’s mouth near my forehead.
“You aren’t a killer, Lawliet. You aren’t like that man over there. Calm down before you burn everything, even your precious Eileen and her brother.” I dragged my eyes to Silas that had placed up a protective barrier up around him and Eileen. “You can do this. Listen to my voice and my words and control that hunger and bring it back, brother. Bring it back not for me, but for Eileen. Think of her.”
I closed my eyes and images of Eileen falling came back. The first time we met, she was falling off of the tower building. Those silver eyes of her filled with curiosity as she looked up at me, that blank expression gave nothing away, but hidden underneath, I saw the spark of fire I never even saw before behind her eyes. A fire I wanted to know more, and so I reached out to catch her when I was too late, and missed her hand by an inch, and watched her fall instead.
I took a deep breath that rumbled the ground and relaxed when I heard a gargled cry. My eyes darted open, and my head lifted up, and I pushed Darius away. Silas and Eileen were still in their protective bubble, but Headmage had blood dribbling out of his mouth, and at his chest, the top of a very sharp blade struck out of him. Pitched black eyes glared from behind him, the ravenous hunger of a Guardian I had not seen before came from behind Headmage. She had more hunger than me, and her bloodlust was strong. She was stronger than any dragon I had met before, and that immediately made me go on the defensive and step towards Eileen.
“Silas, we n
eed to get help.” Darius shimmered into human form and walked towards Silas and Eileen.
“But my sister.”
“Let Lawliet and her Guardian take care of her, we have more problematic matters to attend to.”
“What’s that?”
“Organisation has arrived.” His eyes widened, and he nodded and took the crystal away and let the barrier diminish. “I should talk to my parents before they interrogate Eileen, I want them to go easy on her, she deserves that much from them.”
“Yes, well, I don’t know your family dynamics, but I believe they are quite screwed up,” Darius chuckled.
Once they were out of sight, I took two easy steps to Eileen, making sure I was composed the whole of the way. Her scent was much more intoxicating in dragon form that I had to breathe out of my mouth to diminish some of her scent. Above her, I went to look down when I noticed that I wasn’t alone. Her Guardian stood over Headmage’s body, clearing her blade. I went to speak, but a low growl rumbled deep within my throat. Exasperated, I tipped my head up to the sky and puffed a breath of smoke, irritated that I didn’t know the basics of being a dragon, and that is talking.
“Lawliet Clarintine.” Her words were harsh, like a crack of a whip, and held a lot of power within them. Her eyes narrowed when I looked down at her. “I am leaving before the Organisation shows up, I don’t necessarily want them to see me, I am not very liked. She may have a lot of questions about me, and if she asks, tell her I will come when she is strong enough to summon me, then, I will tell her everything she needs to know about me. I will watch and appear when she desperately needs me, until then, you take care of her.”
I nodded once, and when I raised my head, she was gone. I looked around, wondering where that Guardian went when I heard a slight intake of breath. I moved my massively large head down to Eileen and those silver eyes that peered at me.
THE END.
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Emotionless (The Emotionless Book 1) Page 35