Shafts of morning sunlight beamed through the high-up windows, highlighting the glittering motes of dust dancing in the air in front of her. Her plum hair looked more vibrant in this light than ever, her chest prouder, her stance somehow more… regal. Regal? Maybe that wasn’t quite the word I was looking for, but there was something about her that felt different. Distinguished.
Maybe it was the fact that between the two of us, she looked a lot more like someone who’d graduated to become a full member of the Obsidian Order. She looked like she had authority, clout, and failing that, the ability to beat you into the dirt. In other words, Felice looked like someone not to be fucked with. I was proud of her. We’d come a long way.
“Looks like that,” I said. My forehead and chest were slick with sweat. I was still in a little pain, but the adrenaline coursing through me right now helped keep most of it at bay.
“I’m glad. You gave us a scare.”
“It’ll take a lot more than Valoel to put me down.”
“Looked to me like he beat you to within an inch of your life.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, that’s an exaggeration.”
“I don’t know…” she walked a little closer. “What the hell were you thinking, Seline?”
I frowned. “This is what you’re gonna do? Did you come here to scold me?”
Felice pressed her lips into a thin line. “Why didn’t you call for backup? Any one of us could’ve been with you in minutes, but you decided to go it alone. What would’ve happened if Valoel had killed you?”
“But he didn’t.”
“No, because you were lucky enough that someone else took matters into their own hands and made sure you had someone looking out for you. If that cat hadn’t talked, we’d have been scraping your remains off of that concrete floor, and Valoel would have three stones instead of two.”
“I thought I could take him…”
“Well, you thought wrong, and it almost cost you your life.”
I stared at her, slowly pointing my longsword at her. “I get it now… this was the kind of thing Draven probably wanted to say to me but couldn’t because he’s still walking on eggshells.”
“Draven should’ve said all of this to you already, but I’m not surprised he hasn’t.”
I dropped my head and shook it. “I thought I had a shot. I thought I could finish this.”
“I want to finish it too, believe me. It’s all anyone talks about around here. It’s exhausting.”
I looked up at her. “I promise not to do something stupid like that again.”
Both of her eyebrows slowly raised. “You really expect me to believe you won’t do something stupid again? Like, literally anything stupid?”
A grin spread across my lips. “I promise I’ll try.”
“At least that’s honest.”
“So, is that all you came here for, or are you going to train with me?”
“I can’t stay right now, I have a couple of things I need to do, but Fate is looking for you. Ness, too. I can go tell them you’re alright, but you need to promise to go and talk to them… that’s the only way I’ll get them off my back.”
“Another promise? I think you’re asking a lot of me today… I’m injured, remember?”
She rolled her eyes, turned around, and started walking toward the door. “Just go talk to them, okay?”
“Alright, maybe after another set or two…”
Felice stopped at the door and glanced at me from across her shoulder. “I really am glad you’re okay. You’re just about the only person around here I give a shit about.”
I swallowed hard and just stared at her. I’d known Felice for what felt like a lifetime, and I knew she didn’t open up about her feelings much. Hell, in the time I’d known her, we’d maybe had a handful of deep conversations where she’d had to give up something personal and intimate about herself.
I understood well what had just happened was a big deal, and not something to be taken lightly. “Thank you, Felice…” I said, “Be careful out there, okay?”
She nodded, then left me alone in the training room again. Tiny, pulsing orbs of light encircled me—dust motes moving through the air, cutting in front of the shafts of sunlight. I was going to pick up my sword again and go for another couple of rounds, but then I thought about Fate, and Ness. They were worried.
Maybe if I’d been confined to a bed, keeping them waiting would’ve been justified, but I had no reason to, now. I picked the sword up and walked it over to the rack. My back muscles, slowly cooling, complained about the pain they were in, but I ignored them as I made my way out of the training room and toward Fate’s room.
It wasn’t like I could do much about it, anyway.
The fortress itself was quiet this morning. Most people hadn’t properly woken up yet, I guessed, though they’d be getting up soon for breakfast and morning training. I decided to hurry along so I’d catch Fate before she left for breakfast. As I walked over to her room, however, a thought hit me. Rey. Where the hell was that little cat? I hadn’t seen him since last night, and I at the very least had to thank him for saving my life.
I also had to ask him about what he’d said before I’d been dragged out of the fight. “Not when you’re so close.”
Close to what?
A shudder filled me as I considered the question. There wasn’t much to go on other than what he’d said, though. If Felice was someone who didn’t open up, then Rey was easily ten times more closed off. He was a cat that could speak, but only when he wanted to, only when it suited him, or only when he wanted to flaunt his expert level sarcasm.
When it came to making sure the people he was talking to had all the information they needed, Rey was all sealed lips. Damn tabby.
I knocked on Fate’s door and waited. Already I could smell the delicious, mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked bread wafting out of the dining hall. My stomach grumbled. There was something I hadn’t done properly since easily yesterday afternoon. Eat.
Fate must have hurried to open the door, because when I saw her she was all messy hair, squinty eyes, and ruffled pajamas. Her silver eyes widened, the mercury inside of them expanding as her pupils dilated. She didn’t speak. Instead, she threw her arms around me and wrapped me up in a tight hug. Several bones inside of me clicked. More than a couple of muscles groaned. But it was a pretty decent hug. I returned it, sighing deeply into her shoulder.
“Holy fuck you’re alright…” Fate said, though her voice was hoarse and raw.
“Careful, everything hurts.”
Fate pulled away a little. “Oh, right, sorry…” she stared at me, the silver in her eyes seeming to dance inside of the little pools they were in. “So, you’re not healed yet? What are you doing out of medical?”
“I couldn’t stand being in that bed any longer.”
“Really? Because when we lived together, you used to be able to sleep whole days away.”
I shrugged. “I’ve grown up,” I said, smiling brightly.
“Yeah, maybe… come in.”
Fate let me into her room. It was darker and cooler in here than it was anywhere else. Small candles cast their light on the walls and the ceiling. On her bed, her cover looked full, thick, and inviting. “Did you make it this cold in here?”
“Yeah, turns out this is how I like to sleep—in a cold room, under a heavy cover.”
“Huh… makes sense, I guess.”
“It’s how I grew up. On the mountains, I mean.”
I sat down on a chair by her writing desk. “Have you been dreaming more, too?”
“Every night.” Her bubbly disposition deflated a little, and I noticed.
“What is it?”
She pulled her grey hair out of her face and tried to keep it under control, but it had a mind of its own and wouldn’t settle where she wanted to keep it. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Me? About what?”
“About what happened the night you fell…”
She paused. “I know why we ended up together.”
I stared at her, not speaking. “Oh…” I said again, because I had no idea what the hell else to say.
For me, my memories just about ended the moment I was pushed off the side of my city. Those aren’t the only memories I was missing, but no matter how hard I tried, no matter how deep my dreams went, I could never get past that point. Fate and I had, however, travelled through the rift together and wound up in New York.
We both understood she’d basically saved my life, but neither of us had any concrete details we could pull from the night we fell.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” I ventured.
Fate took a deep breath. “These could just be dreams, it could be nothing—nonsense—but it feels pretty real to me, so just hear me out.”
“I’m listening.”
She nodded. “So, the House of Mist, my House… we retreated to the mountains not long after the fracturing. We weren’t fighters, or diplomats. We weren’t politicians, we didn’t have any interest in waging wars or taking control of the Aevian race—we just wanted to learn the secrets of the world and write it all down in books. You and I should’ve never met, but the night that we did… I was breaking my House’s rules.”
“Why does that somehow not surprise me?”
“I have always identified more with rebels, haven’t I?” She shook her head. “Anyway, just listen. So, the House of Mist values patience and prudence as virtues, which means there wasn’t a lot of fun to be had in the mountains. And when something exciting did come along, like whenever someone discovered a new artifact that needed studying, or a new cave to go explore, the Elders would take ownership of the discovery. They’d then be the ones to decide what would happen with it. Fucking buzzkills.”
“Let me guess, you found something worth investigating and the Elders took it off your hands, so you decided to fly the coop?”
“I was the one who discovered the rift.”
“Wait, what?”
“I didn’t know what it was at first, it was only a shimmer in the sky. I remember approaching it and trying to throw my magic senses at it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. When I got back to the mountains, I had to decide whether I wanted to tell the Elders what I’d found or if it would be more exciting for me to examine the thing on my own.”
“So, you didn’t tell anyone about this gaping hole in the sky?”
“It wasn’t a hole when I found it, and it had been the first discovery I’d ever made. My people revere explorers and scientists.” She shrugged. “I wanted to be able to make a decision on what it was for myself before bringing it up to the attention of the Elders.”
“What would’ve happened if they’d found out what you were doing?”
“Withholding a discovery was a big deal. Not death penalty big, but still pretty big. I knew I needed to act fast if I wanted to analyze the rift before presenting it to the others, so I snuck out at night, broke curfew, and headed over to where I’d found it, only… it had tripled in size since the last time I’d been there.”
“Tripled?”
“It wasn’t just the size of it, either. There was lightning around it, the winds went crazy, and I could smell something really weird in the air. I can still smell it now, even if I can’t describe it. It smelled something like a fire chewing through old tires—rubbery, almost. I watched it for a while, and the more I watched it, the larger it got until eventually I had to move away from it. I could tell it wanted to suck me inside. I managed to get away from the pull of the rift, but then I saw you falling… bleeding.”
“Fate…”
“I raced up to catch you, but the rift caught me again, and every time I tried to fly away from it, it was like I was pulling the rift open further.
“Like a zipper.”
“Exactly like that. By the time I caught you, the rift had gotten so big… it had us both. It sucked us through. There was nothing I could do, I just wasn’t strong enough.”
I took a deep breath and let the information sink in. Slowly I set a hand on her shoulder. “Fate, you did everything you could for me…”
“I brought us here.”
“And if you hadn’t been there to do that, my injuries would’ve killed me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Going through the rifts makes us look human, right? Our bodies change to fit this world… if that hadn’t happened, how do you know I wouldn’t have died from blood loss?”
“Because the actual fall wouldn’t have killed you, and I know you’d have found a way to survive. If not for me, you’d still be on the other side.”
I shook my head. “No… if not for you, I’d be dead. I’m always going to have you to thank for my life.”
She let her head slump. “Nobody else knew about the rift but me. If I’d told someone, maybe they could’ve done something about it. I fell before I could get the word out.”
“There’s nothing you can do about that now, Fate. Please don’t beat yourself up about this. You did a good thing that night.”
She looked up at me and nodded, smiling. “It’s weird, getting my memories back. I don’t feel like the same person anymore.”
I sighed. “Tell me about it.”
“What about you? Have you had anymore dreams?”
I hadn’t told her about the stones yet. Not everything, anyway. The only people who really knew anything about them were Draven and Bastet. Telling Fate that the stones were powerful things given to our entire race by Gods and entrusted upon my bloodline to protect was probably going to blow her mind.
“Some stuff,” I said, “I’m still trying to make sense of it all.”
“And Draven?”
I shook my head. “I’ve barely seen him since the night I found the blue stone. Last night I saw him for the first time since then… I don’t know what to do, or how to act around him. I need to figure it out.”
“You always do. Just…”
“Just?”
“Whatever Draven was, he’s not that anymore. Neither are you.”
“Are you saying I should forgive him because the guy he is now isn’t the person who destroyed my home?”
“Look, I’m not even going to pretend I understand just how messed up your relationship with Draven is, but you two had something. Have something. What happened back then was terrible, but it’s not who you are anymore, and it’s not who he is.”
“I miss them now, Fate… my wings. I’m dreaming about flying, something I was really good at, and then I wake up and I want to go out and stretch my wings, and they aren’t there. It’s like they were taken from me yesterday.”
Fate nodded. “That’s… something else I can’t hope to understand. When I rediscovered my kithe, it was like I’d gone my whole life without feet and suddenly I had feet. It was awkward, and weird. Flying didn’t come naturally to me.”
“Do you wish you’d never found out the truth?”
She shook her head. “No. But the burden of knowledge is usually pretty tough to bear. I know this is hard for you right now, but you’ll get through it and you’ll be better for it. I know you will, because you’re Seline, and you can do anything.”
I smiled at her. “Thanks, Fate... I mean it.”
A knock at the door stole both of our attentions. I stood, walked over to it, and after waiting for Fate to give me the go-ahead with a little nod, opened it. Ness was out there, her red hair falling wildly around her face. She looked pissed.
“Everything okay, Ness?” I asked.
“Yeah, except, I heard you were up and around again and nobody told me. I figured I’d find you here.”
“Oh… shit, sorry Ness, I was gonna come and see you.”
She stuck a hand out at me. “Save i
t. I know where I’m not wanted.”
I grinned at her. “Come on inside.”
“I heard about what happened last night,” Ness said, settling down next to Fate.
“Felice made sure the news got around,” Fate put in.
“How are you feeling?” Ness continued.
“Better, I’m still sore as hell, but it was close.”
“Do you want me to do something for the pain?”
I waved my hand. “You really don’t have to do anything. I’m fine. It’s just residual aches and pains. I’ll get over it.”
“Are you sure? If it’s sores you have, I can fix you up quick. I can also help you sleep, if that’s what you need.”
“No, nothing like that… I actually wanted to talk to you anyway.”
She angled her head to the side. “Okay? What is it you need?”
“I had another vivid dream yesterday. I mean really vivid.”
“Do you want to document it like we’ve been doing with the others? I think we’re making really great progress with them. What was it about?”
I took a breath. “It’s about… the day it all happened for me. The day Draven, you know.”
“Right. Bastard.”
Fate cocked an eyebrow. “That’s an exaggerated response, isn’t it?”
“Not if it’s true,” Ness said.
I couldn’t help but crack a grin. Ness didn’t share Fate’s opinion about Draven.
“Anyway,” I said, “I learned a couple other things about that day. I was about to turn eighteen, my birthday was in two days, and on my birthday I was going to recite a speech.”
Ness nodded. “That kind of thing isn’t uncommon among royals… of, well, any race. People gather to celebrate the day their liege was born, they eat, they dance, they drink, and at some point they get to hear their liege speak. It’s a party for everyone.”
“Right, but this was more than that. There was magic in the speech I was going to give, an incantation that I had to recite perfectly.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Incantation?”
I took another breath and let the pause hang in the air. “What I’m about to tell you I’ve only told two other souls, but I’m telling you because you’re probably the only person who can help me figure this out.”
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 66