“For your information, I’m the only feline present in the Fortress. And whether or not my visits to the city are of a conjugal nature is none of your business… but as it happens, your friend Bastet is often surrounded by some of the most remarkable females I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I don’t know why they flock to her, but they do.”
“Gross. I also didn’t want to know you that.”
“You did ask. And I don’t sneak out—I’m the King. I go where I please.”
“Tell you what, why don’t we get Draven in here? I’m sure you won’t use that King line on him.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you’d love to get Draven into your room, wouldn’t you?”
I scowled at him. “Don’t talk bullshit, Rey. It’s unbecoming.”
“And don’t you forget that I am, in fact, a dream wizard which means I can get a backseat view into just about anyone’s dreams if I please. Since I choose to spend most of my nights with you, your dreams are my only source of nightly entertainment.”
I went to grab him, but Rey was too fast. “You’ve been hitching a ride in my dreams?”
“Remember you made a deal with me; I sleep here, and in return I help you dream better.”
“I don’t remember a deal being made.”
“A verbal agreement is still binding around here. Don’t believe me? Ask this very room’s last occupant.”
“I’d love to, where can I find them?”
“Six feet underground because he’s dead, because he made a deal with me that he didn’t honor and fate itself stepped in and killed him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s a lie, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but I was making a point. I was just being theatrical about it.”
“And what was your point?”
“I don’t remember anymore, and frankly I’ve lost interest in this conversation.” Rey hopped off the bed and sauntered over to the door, where he sat, swishing his tail.
“You need me to open the door, don’t you?”
“I could use magic, but I’m still very, very tired.”
“Grumpy, too,” I grumbled. Stretching the rest of the stiffness out of my joints, I stood, walked over to the door, and opened it. Rey hopped out of the room quickly, breaking into a run once he had enough room to do so. I watched him disappear down the stairs at the end of the hallway where he almost ran straight into Fate, who happened to be coming up the stairs at the same time. She was wearing her black bodysuit—the prospect’s uniform—and had her grey hair held up in a neat ponytail.
Waving at me, she approached. “What’s his problem?” she asked, cocking a thumb back over her shoulder.
I shrugged. “I think he’s getting laid too much. Everybody’s getting laid more than I am around here, it’s frustrating.”
Fate blushed, her milky white cheeks turning bright pink. “Heh, yeah… well, you know how you can fix that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, then she pointed at her collar, and there were her silver strips.
I smiled brightly at her, then hugged her. “I’m so proud of you,” I said. “How do you feel?”
Fate pulled away from me. “Good,” she said, “Today’s my first day of training as a silver prospect, I’m not sure what to expect.”
“You’re gonna do fine.”
“Really? Because I still don’t have a clue what I am and my instructor, Zenith, is supposed to be a real ball-breaker.”
“I know Zenith. Or, at least, I know of him. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Besides, you’re way more proficient with magic than I am. I’ve seen you turn into a cloud of mist!”
“Yeah, but… yeah, you know what? You’re probably right. I’m overthinking this.”
“I know you are. You always do. And if he gets shitty with you, just show him a little cleavage. Works every time… not that I have any personal experience, it’s just what I’ve heard.”
Fate slightly unzipped her jumpsuit and checked her breasts out. “I don’t know if mine is impressive enough, but I’ll give it a try.”
I smiled at her again and ran my thumb along the silver trim of her collar. “I’m happy for you,” I said.
“Really?” she asked, returning the smile.
“I am… look at us. Two months ago, we were eating dried Ramen and binging reality TV shows day in and day out.”
“I liked our life, but this is better.”
“No, you were right about staying… this place is amazing, and I really feel like we’re doing something good with our lives. I don’t know how long it’ll take for us to truly remember who we are, but I feel like that’s coming, and it never would’ve happened if you’d just decided to leave the Order with me.”
“In my defense, I was kinda in the middle of something really good when you interrupted me. I’d have said anything to get you out of my room for another two hours.” She paused, then sighed.
I cocked my head to the side. “What is it?”
“I wanted to tell you before you got a big shock to the system when it happened.”
“What’s going on?”
Fate paused. “Remember how I told you it’s good to be sleeping with the guy who handles some of the admin around here?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, turns out now that the Black Fortress is getting a little full, he’s been tasked with assigning dormitory space to prospects and…”
My face lit up. “You’re moving in with me?”
Fate half-smiled. “Not quite… but you are getting a new roommate today.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“I don’t. I just know that it’s happening.”
“Dammit. Don’t suppose I can appeal this? I want us to be roomies again.”
“Appeal to who? Draven?”
Fat chance of that. I hadn’t spoken to him in three days, not since the bathtub incident, as I liked to call it. In my head, not aloud. It made sense that I hadn’t talked to him since. He had stuff to do, a potential prisoner to interrogate, and it wasn’t like I seen him with my own eyes. I caught a glimpse of him flying into his tower two nights ago, so I knew he was alive.
I had questions, sure; like, who was the guy we saved? Are the Crimson Hunters about to attack? Is Aaryn okay? Aaryn, I hadn’t seen, and I was starting to worry about her, especially because this was the week of the final silver trials, and I didn’t know if she would be leading it or not.
“Anyway,” Fate said, “Now that you know, I should probably head down to the gym. My group starts training in a few minutes.”
I nodded. “Alright, well… good luck,” I said, “If you need anything, you know where I am.”
“I know. We should make some time to chill this week. Maybe before your trials?”
“Sure, sounds good.”
Fate smiled, then made her way down the hall, disappearing the way Rey had done a few minutes ago. Siren’s sudden appearance in my bedroom as soon as I shut the door was timely, if inconvenient. The magical construct manifested out of thin air, green mist swirling and taking the shape of a warm, bubbly, semi-transparent human.
“Hello, Seline,” she said.
“Hi Siren,” I said, grabbing my bodysuit from my drawer and getting ready to throw it on.
“I am here to inform you of a change in your living arrangements.”
“Oh really? What a surprise.”
“I must also inform you of a slight change in protocol.”
I perked up. “Protocol?”
“Due to the Black Fortress’ current capacity almost nearing maximum, silver prospects must now be paired with a bronze prospect who they shall help tutor through their trials.”
“Wait, what?”
“Please make the best of this situation.”
It was like talking to a recorded message. I shook my head. “So, I’m getting a roommate and a… a what, a little trainee that’s going to be asking me to help train them?”
/> “Your concern is noted, Seline, however, all silver prospects have been paired with a bronze—you have not been singled out.”
“Hey, I didn’t use those words, you did.”
“Please ensure your dormitory is prepared to receive your new guest. Thank you for listening.”
Siren, smiling, nodded and burst into a cloud of green sparkles and light, leaving behind a faint mist where she’d been standing. Great. This was gonna be fantastic. I didn’t like people, and the two people I did like were both silver prospects. It was going to be someone else, someone I didn’t know, someone I’d have to roll the social dice with to see if we’d fit well together.
I gave them a week. No, a day. This wouldn’t last.
Without giving my impending roommate assignment any more thought, I slipped out of my sleeping clothes and slid into my bodysuit. I then walked over to the mirror and tied my hair up so it wouldn’t get everywhere during today’s training session. Then I noticed the scar. I angled my neck up and tugged slightly on my collar to get a better look at it.
It was strange how you always noticed a new change to your physical appearance every time you looked at yourself. Usually my eyes would go to my hair, or my eyes; my two most striking features. Now, though, my eyes pulled me straight toward that scar, and straight back to the bathtub.
My stomach fluttered at the thought, a tingle beginning right at the pit. I took a deep breath and ran my fingertips along the line of discolored flesh, my own movements reflecting Draven’s as he applied the healing salve to my neck. I swallowed hard and watched my throat work, saw my teeth pinch my lower lip between them. I hadn’t told them to do that.
Shutting my eyes, I sighed, turned around, made sure I looked decent, and waited a second before opening the door muttering “Please don’t be a douchebag,” under my breath.
I didn’t find a douchebag on the other side of the door, but rather the only other person I thought I may have gotten along with… assuming she learned how to say fewer things. Nesbeth. She was carrying a big bundle of clothes in one hand, a black case in the other, and she had a backpack slung over her shoulder. “H-hey roomie!” she said, her voice catching slightly as she spoke. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, I hope you’re not busy. Are you busy?”
Maybe if you’d given me ten minutes. “No, come on in. Nesbeth, right?”
“Or Beth, or Ness, up to you. I’ve trained myself to respond to both instead of making people choose only one.”
“But not Nessy.”
She walked into the room. “Right, because that’s the name of a monster in Scotland if you believe the stories, and I’m not a monster. It’s a pretty fascinating story, actually. The creature’s supposed to be millions of years old, though one’s ever seen it before; there’s literally no scientific data to support its existence—but people believe it exists and are still trying to go out of their way to find it. Isn’t that crazy?”
It was like she didn’t need to breathe. “Humans do a lot of crazy things.”
“I know, right? I can take this bed? I prefer sleeping on the left side, something about the orientation of the room helps me get to sleep at night, otherwise it’ll be hours before I finally start snoozing and then I’m totally useless the next day.”
I shook my head. “Nope, take it. That was my old roommate’s bed.”
Nesbeth set her things down and then did a little turn, scanning the walls, the ceiling, the dresser, and nodding. “Looks exactly like my old room,” she said, smiling. “I actually had a few things hung on the walls” she reached for the black case and opened it. From inside, she produced what looked like a sketchbook filled with drawings. As she went to open it, some of the pages fell out. “Shit, sorry,” she said, “Typical me, total klutz. I’m rambling and nervous, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be nervous about anything,” I said, kneeling to help collect her pages.
“I know, it’s just moving in with someone new is pretty terrifying. I wasn’t expecting this to happen today.”
“Yeah, why did that happen? You were already a bronze prospect, weren’t you already rooming with your pair?”
Ness, as I’d decided to call her, fell silent and looked to the floor. “He, uh… he didn’t make it through one of his trials.”
“Oh… I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, I mean, we weren’t close or anything… okay, we were a little, at least as much as I shared a room with him. He was the closest thing I had to a friend around here, and he didn’t really talk to me much. It hurt when they told me that he wasn’t coming back, but that’s just what happens around here, I guess.”
I reached for her shoulder and squeezed it. “Hey… let’s not think about that, okay?”
Ness nodded and smiled. “Okay… I won’t.” She shook her head and smiled. “Easy.”
I noticed, then, a small cluster of brown leaves falling out of her auburn hair and onto some of the sketches that lay scattered on the floor. I picked one of them up and examined it, then I looked at Ness. “Is this normal?”
“Oh, yeah, that happens all the time. The glamor can’t keep it in.”
“What… I mean, if you don’t mind my asking, what are you?”
“So, I’m a Dryad on my mother’s side, but a Spriggan on my father’s side, so, underneath the glamor I’ve got pointy ears, shining green eyes, and my hair is made of leaves, but I’m not bound to the forest—like, I can leave a forest and it won’t kill me. I guess that’s kinda what landed me here to begin with.”
“Okay, so, I’ve never met a Dryad before… or a Spriggan; I’ve also never even heard of either race.”
She extended her hand. I took it and shook. “Now you’ve met both,” she said, “Oh, and just so you know, Spriggans aren’t exactly known for their sunny dispositions, so… don’t think we’re all like me. I think I take after my mom way more than I do after my dad.”
One of the pictures on the floor caught my eye. I picked it up and looked at it. “This is amazing… you did this?”
“Yeah. Mostly I draw what I dream about, so I guess I’m drawing home.”
In my hand was a sketch of a beautiful vista of tall, lush trees, a rolling landscape covered in fallen leaves and rocks, and a beautifully detailed waterfall with a house just next to it, overlooking the cliff. Hovering above it all, like silent guardians, a pair of crescent moons I knew I’d seen before, and recently, only my mind couldn’t quite draw the picture quite as well as this sketch could.
“Kennia and Nuruna…” I whispered.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I pointed. “Them.”
“You know their names?”
“I guess I do… at least, in my own language, anyway.”
“That’s awesome… I have more. This thing’s full of pictures.”
I cycled through some of the sheets of paper that had fallen from the case. Some, earlier sketches I figured, were murky and almost out of focus, but as I flipped through them, the images became way clearer, almost to the point where they were lifelike. It was in one of the last pages that I saw something that made my heart leap into my throat. I showed the page to Ness and pointed.
“That,” I said, “What’s that?”
She looked over the sheet, pulling some of her hair behind her ear. “I have no idea what that is,” she said, “But I’ve seen it in my dreams a few times, only when the sky is clear.”
“I know what that is…”
My heart was pounding, hammering like a wild animal as I stared at the sketch. Here, the vantage was from above the waterfall. I was starting to think was possibly Ness’ home. The water frothed as it reached the edge of the cliff, then fell into a river that sailed off into the horizon, the sun glinting off its surface. Scattered amidst the trees there were small houses, some with smoke puffing out of their chimneys.
A flock of birds crossed in front of the setting sun, their small forms little more than dots against the backdrop. Above them,
their faces shining against the light of the sun, were the twin moons dancing closely together. But they weren’t the thing about this piece that had caught my attention. There, high in the clouds, faintly sketched in comparison to the rest of the detail on the piece, was the unmistakable form of castle towers glinting against the sun.
There must have been six or seven of them, each a different height and tipped with what looked like glass domes instead of spires. I couldn’t see much beneath the tips of the domes themselves, the clouds were just thick enough to obscure anything lower from sight; that meant I also couldn’t see what in the world they were standing on, considering there was nothing but clouds underneath them. No mountains, no tall trees, nothing that could support their weight, and yet, there they were, floating in the sky.
“You know what that is?” Ness asked. “That’s great, because I have no idea. What is it?”
I took a breath. “Home…”
Going from bronze to silver had been easy. Most of the training required to pass the trials was physical in nature, and I was good at that. I was up every day at dawn, ready to step into the gym and swing the daggers around with anyone who wanted to go a couple of rounds. When there were no contenders, I’d run the obstacle course, or I’d punch the bag around a bit, or I’d run laps. All of this I could wrap my mind around. I was good at this.
But ever since I entered the silver tier, I’d found myself on the backfoot, especially when compared to people like Ferrum, or even Felice; and trust me, I compared myself to them an awful lot. Like, way too much.
Ferrum, for example, was incredibly passionate about everything he did. He had never half-assed a single thing in his life, and that meant he would hit his training with all the energy and enthusiasm of a professional athlete. He’d be good at it, too; I had to give him credit for the things he’d accomplished.
He also liked letting everyone else around him know just how great he was. Ferrum would constantly show off his skills with a sword, or make fire with his thoughts.
Most of all, he liked to make sure I knew just how great he was. For weeks I’d found this weird, since his whole take on me was that I was this little broken thing with no place among the prospects and no real shot at passing these trials. If I was so insignificant, so far below his level of mastery, why waste any effort making sure I witnessed his physical and magical prowess? A potential reason had crossed my mind, but it was so juvenile, I had dismissed it almost immediately.
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 27