by Lynette Noni
“We understand that it’s going to come down to you against him,” Jack said gravely. “And if you don’t succeed, he will kill every mortal left in this world. Including us.”
Okay, perhaps they did understand.
Slowly, Alex said, “And you’re fine with me facing him?”
Their faces turned disbelieving.
“Of course we’re not,” Rachel said, her tone revealing just how absurd Alex’s question was. “But if we told you not to, would you listen?”
Unable to meet their eyes, Alex shook her head.
“Which means, even if we weren’t present for much of it, we somehow still managed to raise you right,” Jack said, his soft voice prompting Alex to look at them both again. “I wish more than anything that this wasn’t your battle, baby girl. But I’m— we’re—prouder of you than we could ever say.”
Rachel nodded, blinking quickly against her glistening eyes. “Whatever happens, happens to us as a family. Agreed?”
Repressing the urge to crawl into their arms and never let go, Alex instead whispered, “Deal.”
Quickly, before they could say anything else, she went on to add, “But on one condition…”
Alex found her friends in her bedroom, just as she had presumed she would.
Kaiden and Declan were there, along with Jordan, Bear and D.C., but after a quick hug from Declan and a quicker kiss from Kaiden, the two boys left Alex alone with her three best friends, quietly reminding her of the time as they left.
At first, no one spoke. But then Alex rushed forward and threw her arms around all three of her friends, drawing them close.
“You guys scared the crap out of me,” she said, holding on tight. Pulling back, she looked them all firmly in the eyes and ordered, “Never, ever get kidnapped again, you hear me?”
Three nods met her demand, even if amused eyes accompanied those nods. It was their humour that showed Alex they were truly all right, even after everything they’d been through. D.C. may have been Claimed, Jordan may have been stabbed by his girlfriend, and Bear may have been tortured by the man who killed his father, but they were alive, and they were together.
Their humour faded, however, when they looked at her with serious eyes. But before they could open their mouths, she said, “Please don’t. Can we just…” She flailed and looked around her dorm room. “For a few minutes, can we just spend time together like we used to? Can we act like noon doesn’t exist and—and—” She wasn’t sure how to finish, how to beg for a moment of normalcy before she had to face what was next.
But her friends knew her well enough that she didn’t need to continue, and Jordan quickly said, “I’ll go get snacks.”
D.C. pressed a hand to his chest, holding him back as she read the look Alex sent her. “No, we’ll go get snacks. Come on, Bear. Lend me your muscles.”
“I have muscles too, you know,” Jordan said pointedly.
Ignoring him, D.C. strode towards the door with Bear in tow and said, “I need chocolate. It’s been seven weeks. That’s way too long.”
Alex’s brow furrowed. “Actually, it’s only been one—”
“Seven weeks, Alex,” D.C. called over her shoulder as she disappeared through the door, Bear chuckling as he followed close behind.
Alex’s lips twitched, but her amusement fled when she turned back to see Jordan’s guarded face, as if he already knew what she was going to say.
Quietly, she asked, “Did someone—Your dad—Has anyone told you…”
His guarded look remained as he answered, “Yeah. I know.” He paused, then added, “Your parents also spoke to me when I was in the Med Ward, so I know their view on things, too.”
That, Alex hadn’t known.
Tentatively, she said, “When I went there, your mother—”
“I’m not ready to see her yet,” Jordan interrupted. “Maybe in time, but… Despite what my father did in the end, it’s… hard.”
Alex nodded with understanding. “I’ve never been the biggest fan of your dad, but what he did for us…”
Jordan’s throat bobbed, and Alex walked closer to him as she continued softly, “He saved our lives, Jordan. He did that for you.”
It took him a moment, but when he was able to speak, he said, “Bear ran into him at Graevale, after your vatali targo.”
Alex blinked. “What? Why didn’t he say anything?”
“He didn’t remember,” Jordan said, rubbing his forehead. “My father isn’t—wasn’t—just a mind reader. He could alter short-term memories. That’s what he did with Bear, making sure he recalled nothing of the encounter. But after he—after what happened yesterday, Bear’s memory returned.”
“What did he remember?” Alex breathed.
“That my father had read his mind and learned you’d been to the past, but before he wiped the memory, he said he wasn’t Claimed and saw no reason to tell Aven.”
Alex jolted, realising how catastrophic that knowledge could have been at the time, had Marcus chosen to share it.
“He also said—” Jordan’s throat bobbed again. “He also said I was lucky to have Bear as a friend, and told him to look after me.”
Alex reached out and placed her hand on his arm, seeing the turbulent emotions flood his face.
“He was a bastard,” Jordan whispered, as if trying to remind himself. “But he was still my father. I don’t know how to reconcile what happened yesterday and what your parents told me with everything else I know of him. Not yet. One day I’ll have to face it all, and face my mother, but until then… can we just—can we not talk about it anymore?”
Alex closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. “We can do that, Jordan,” she told him quietly. “But if you ever want to talk, I’ll be—” She broke off abruptly, realising that she might not be able to follow through on what she’d been about to offer.
Jordan pulled back and looked deep into her eyes. “You’ll be there for me, I know.” Firmly, he added, “You will be there, Alex.” His blue gaze brightened and a hint of a smile broke through his shadowed features to tug at his lips as he said, “Before we know it, you’ll be old and grey and ugly-wrinkled.”
“Ugly-wrinkled?” Alex slapped his chest. “Firstly, that’s not very nice. Old people might be wrinkly but they have charm. They’re oaks of wisdom.”
Jordan snorted. “Oaks of wisdom? Where do you pull this crap from?”
“And secondly,” Alex said, ignoring his question, “you’re going to be old and grey one day, too. That means you’ll be ‘ugly-wrinkled’ as well.”
Pointing to himself, Jordan smirked and said, “Do you see this face? It’s a genetic impossibility for it to be anything but attractive.”
Alex rolled her eyes, but inwardly, she was floating on air at the light-hearted moment they were sharing after such a difficult conversation. “You would have given Niyx a run for his money on the modesty scale. I’ve never met anyone more conceited than him.”
Jordan watched her carefully, as if fearing her grief might reappear, but when she continued smiling openly at him, he just grinned back and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Humble’ is my middle name.”
This time it was Alex’s turn to snort, but before she could reply, D.C. and Bear returned to the room, their arms laden with what looked like an entire convenience store’s worth of food.
“We didn’t know what everyone wanted, so we got some of everything,” Bear announced as he dropped his pile onto Alex’s bed. “Good thing the Rec Room doesn’t have a limit.”
“The chocolate is mine,” D.C. warned, dropping her load onto her own bed before collapsing onto it. “But I’m willing to share, since that’s the princess-y thing to do.”
“I’m not a princess, but I’m still willing to share,” Bear said, slumping down near Alex’s pillows and picking up a chocolate bar. “Come on, you two. Dig in.”
Alex and Jordan needed no further encouragement, nor did they need a reminder that t
hey were on borrowed time. For this moment, Alex was determined to just enjoy the company of her friends as they moaned over the offering D.C. and Bear had returned with.
“Do you guys remember the first time we did this?” D.C. asked, leaning against Jordan and stealing some of his honeyed popcorn.
“I don’t remember that, but I do remember hearing about how you three snuck into the Chem labs to make my surprise birthday cake this year,” Bear said, his dark gaze filled with mirth.
Alex and D.C. both choked on their laughter, while Jordan groaned.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Alex said, recalling how they’d wanted to make something special for Bear, but since the Rec Room had no cooking facilities, they’d had to get creative.
“I wish I could forget about that,” Jordan grumbled, pressing his arm that wasn’t wrapped around D.C. to his middle. “I vomited for three days.”
“Blue,” D.C. corrected. “You vomited blue for three days.”
Alex snickered, and Bear dryly said, “For three people of reasonable intelligence, you’d think one of you might have considered what else was cooked up in the lab ovens that day.”
“We can’t all be geniuses,” Jordan said, throwing some popcorn across the room at Bear. “You should be thanking us for the thought we put into your gift.”
“If memory serves, you couldn’t resist tasting the cake before giving it to me,” Bear said, his tone still dry. “You have only yourself to blame.”
“He’s right, you know,” D.C. said to Jordan, grinning. “Alex and I waited. You didn’t.”
“And I paid the consequence,” Jordan returned. “For three days. Not even Fletcher could help me. ‘Better out than in’— that’s what he said. Can you believe it?”
Alex laughed again, and she wasn’t alone.
“We’ve had some really good times here,” D.C. said, looking around at them all. “It’s sad to think that we only have a year or so left together.”
“Or three,” Bear reminded her, “if we’re taken on as apprentices.”
Alex was pulled back in time to the similar conversation she’d had with Kaiden. Just like then, she was grateful that her friends were going along with her request for normalcy, for acting as if they weren’t all about to face death with a slim hope of conquering it.
“Remember that time we snuck out at night to go riding in the forest?” Jordan said.
“I remember Bear’s screams,” D.C. said, her eyes dancing. “I’m surprised he didn’t wake the whole academy.”
“I don’t like horses, okay?” Bear’s cheeks were tinged with pink as he shoved more chocolate into his mouth. “And the feeling is mutual. I still maintain that the devil beast was trying to kill me.”
D.C. laughed, but then her face softened as she said, “Your dad didn’t like horses, either.”
Bear stilled and looked across at her.
“Before I met you, he often accompanied me on my rides at the palace.” She shook her head and laughed again. “He was terrible. Almost as bad as you.”
A sad smile flitted across Bear’s face, but it stretched and filled with humour as he said, “We went on a family holiday to a farm once, years ago. Mum thought it’d be a fun idea for us to go on a beach ride all together. Dad fell off three times, which was only one less time than me. The two of us were hobbling around and moaning for the rest of the day until Gammy stuffed us with painkillers and sent us to bed.” He chuckled quietly. “For the rest of that holiday, neither of us went anywhere near the stables, and anytime someone tried to make us, Dad pulled out his Stabiliser and threatened to shoot them.”
The idea of kind-hearted William making such a threat had them laughing all over again at the imagery, with Alex also fighting the burn in her eyes at the sight of Bear amused right along with them at a memory of his dad.
‘Better than okay.’
That’s what she had promised Bear. And that’s what he had promised in return.
“What about you, Jordan?” D.C. asked, if carefully. “Do you have any fun memories from your childhood?”
Alex sucked in a breath, wondering what D.C. was doing. But Jordan just pulled a face and said, “‘Fun’ wasn’t a word we used much in the Sparker household.”
“There must have been something,” D.C. hedged. “Some nice moment.”
Jordan shrugged, his face closing off enough for Alex to fear he’d been pushed too far, too soon. But then, as if forcing himself to think beyond his years of pain, he admitted, “It wasn’t all bad. When I was a kid, my mother made me learn the piano. Said it was what ‘all proper young men’ should know.” He rolled his eyes and reached for more popcorn. “I hated it. But she was adamant that I practise for hours every day.”
“I didn’t know you played,” D.C. said, looking at him with a dreamy expression.
“It’s been a while,” Jordan said. “But once upon a time, yeah.” He chewed and swallowed before continuing, “Whenever my father was home, if he heard me practising, he’d always come into the music parlour and watch over my shoulder. For so long I thought he was making sure I wasn’t screwing up, but one day when my mother wasn’t around, he whispered in my ear that when he was my age, his parents had forced him to play, too, and he loathed it. He then told me that Luka was on his way home for the holidays, and I was excused from practising for the rest of the summer. I don’t know how he did it, but even after Luka returned here, I never had to practise again.”
A nostalgic look passed over Jordan’s features, and D.C. snuggled deeper into his side.
“You should play something for us all sometime,” Bear said, his voice husky, as if he, too, was relieved that Jordan had at least one happy memory from his childhood, one kind thought regarding his departed father.
“Definitely,” Alex agreed, her voice also husky. “I love listening to piano music.”
“Do you have a favourite piece?” Jordan asked.
“Only from Freya,” Alex said, “so nothing you’d—”
“Rise of the Dreamers,” D.C. interrupted with a wistful sigh.
Jordan looked down at her. “André Parovel? I can do that.”
Her eyes glazed. “It’s my favourite. I always swore it would be my wedding song.”
Alex’s brows rose almost to her hairline and Bear coughed and hid his face.
D.C. then realised what she’d said and quickly turned panicked eyes to Jordan as she spluttered, “Not that I—We’re only—That’s not what—”
He chuckled lightly and kissed her flushed cheek, saying, “I guess it’s a good thing it’s my favourite, too.”
Alex could have melted into a puddle at the look they shared.
This.
This was why she was fighting today. This was why she’d been fighting all along, willing to risk her life over and over again. To save this. Her friends, the love they shared, the futures they all hoped for.
Aven couldn’t take this from them. Not even in death. But she hoped, she so desperately hoped, that they would live beyond this day. That they would have time to make more memories together, to grow old and grey and ‘ugly-wrinkled’ by each other’s sides.
This moment with them was just what Alex had needed to remind her of how much she stood to lose, and how determined she was to win. For her friends, for her family, for her world.
And as Jordan, Bear and D.C. realised, like Alex, that the time had come for them to face what came next, instead of questioning her judgement or trying to talk her out of her plan, Bear spoke for them all when he said, “We’re with you until the end, Alex. Tell us what to do.”
Thirty-Six
When eleven-thirty came around at what felt like warp speed, Alex, dressed again in her Tia Auran armour, stepped out of the dorm building with Jordan, D.C. and Bear, along with Kaiden and Declan, who had joined them minutes earlier. The six of them, who had been through so much together, ventured across the grounds—grounds that were now teeming with people of all shapes, sizes and races.
Overhead, the skies were filled with circling draekons, all of whom had been ordered there by Xira after Alex had mentally shared about Aven’s deal—as well as shared the only plan she had to defeat him. Xira, like the Library, had encouraged her to ignore her doubts. He’d also promised that he and his race would be fighting to help save Medora, along with all those who remained on the ground.
Amongst the sea of beings Alex walked through, she recognised faces of Shadow Walkers, Dayriders, Flips, Jarnocks and humans alike. Her teachers were there, other students were there. So many innocent mortals, all of whom were caught up in a war they had done nothing to deserve.
The Meyarins were there, too. Dressed in Zeltora armour, they also wore bold yellow armbands on their biceps to help the allied forces identify them as not being Claimed. Together they stood side by side with the mortals to fight the coming battle.
Alex was no fool. Like Kyia had said, Aven would not honour his ‘you for them’ agreement. She, like everyone else, knew there would be bloodshed this day. But his deal saved her from having to seek him out. Instead of having to fight her way to him, she would meet him on even ground. It allowed the smallest chance for her plan to succeed. But in order for that to happen, she first had to face him—and survive.
Sick to her stomach, Alex’s hands were fisted with tension as she walked stiffly through the crowd of people who had silenced upon her arrival. Who she was, what she had to do… most of them had no idea about the history that had led to this. And yet, they comprehended the gravity of what she was about to attempt. They comprehended that their fate lay in her hands.
… Hands that were going to be torn to shreds by her fingernails at any moment.
Or, they would have been, if Kaiden hadn’t reached over and unfisted one of her palms, linking their fingers, while D.C. did the same on her other side.
Together, Alex and her friends walked hand in hand until they reached the base of the Tower building, where the members of the earlier war council had assembled, along with Alex’s parents. Bear’s family were all there, too; Johnny and Blake, both of whom were fully armed, while Gammy, Dorothy and young Evie were standing next to Jack and Rachel, who were with Natasha Sparker.