That made no sense, but I wanted to keep those privileges so I stayed quiet.
“I want to go home.” I told them.
“We know, dear. You’ll be allowed to return to the human realm when you complete the task.” Netalia said. “Then tell me what the task is now, so I can get it over and done with,” I snapped. “Why all the dancing around it?”
“Netalia will take you to the library first. She will stay with you and escort you anywhere you need to go.” I didn’t budge, though I’d obviously been dismissed. “I want to go home,” I told them firmly. “Who are you to take me out of my life to do your bidding? Home. Now.”
From the look on Iain’s face, he was working to conceal the fact that I’d greatly pissed him off.
Good. “The thing is, dear,” I noted the fact that the ‘dear’ was very forced. Netalia went on. “Without the man who got away, we can’t send you back to your realm. We’re hunting for him, though. We will find him and send you home.”
I saw the catch immediately. “Let me guess,” I said slowly, leaning my hip against Iain’s desk. “You’ll conveniently find this man when I complete whatever task you want me to do.”
“You cotton on quickly,” Iain said, but the praise was empty and cold. “From that, I’m certain you can deduce that we may never ever find this man. Wouldn’t that just be so terrible... You’d be stuck in this realm forever.”
I bit my lip, forcing back a plethora of responses. They had me in the palm of their hand; they could crush me whenever they wanted.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. It felt like admitting defeat. “Tell me what the task is.” “I think you might want to get your head around the fact that you’re in a different world first,” Iain said, beginning to go through some of the papers littering his desk. “In a few days maybe, we’ll talk.”
I didn’t say anything, but left the room before Netalia. I didn’t want to feel like I was being towed by someone. The library was magnificent, and I did get caught up reading some of the books. The large room was empty, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was usually occupied. When I asked Netalia about it though, she said that the library was hardly ever used; that it was just her and Iain in the castle.
As I stuck my nose back into my book, I remembered the boy who’d come down to my cell. He’d recognised me, I was sure of it. As they were yet to mention him or offer any explanation for him being there, I was guessing that Iain and Netalia had no idea he’d seen me, and vice versa. And Netalia had let slip that this building was an Academy. What kind of Academy didn’t have students?
As far as I was concerned, they’d slipped up twice, and could do so again.
~Chapter Six~
The next few days passed without incident. I was allowed into the library, and at one point, the stables. Only one horse was present, a pretty bay mare, but as I passed by the other stalls, I noticed that they were all made up, as though there’d been other horses occupying them before I arrived.
My dinner was brought up by Netalia though, and when I asked about the girl who’d brought my breakfast, I was immediately interrogated as to what she looked like, what did she say, did I recognise her.
“How could I recognise her?” I’d asked, arms folded. “Have I been here before?” “Of course not,” Netalia had said instantly. Her composure was slipping. “It means we’ve had an intruder into our castle. Let me know if you see her again, dear.”
When she’d left, I’d hurled a plate at the closed door. “You’re slipping up,” I said to myself one night before I fell asleep. The sentence brought a small smile to my lips. “Soon I’ll learn the truth.”
Apparently they thought the same. A few mornings after I’d made the mistake of bringing up the girl, I was brought to Iain’s office.
“I hope you’re settling in,” he said, not looking at me. “Are you ready to discuss your task?”
“Finally,” I said, sitting down in the one chair in front of his desk. “Lay it on me. I want to go home.”
Netalia came to stand behind my chair. I made sure not to show them how uncomfortable I was.
“Do you know this man?” Iain slid a portrait towards me. On the parchment was a painting of a young man with long brown hair. The artist had coloured his eyes a bright orange. Even through the painting, I could feel the intensity of his gaze.
“No,” I said honestly. “Am I supposed to?” “Of course not,” Iain folded his hands on his desk. “Your task is to kill him.” A bead in the glass bar behind him rattled before clattering down the other end. The whole thing tilted to the right.
“Kill him?” I repeated incredulously. “You want me to kill this man?”
“Yes.” Netalia said from behind me. “Are you crazy?” I asked them both. “No, are you actually insane? I’m not going to kill this man just because you say so. Also, I don’t know what you’re thinking. I’m no assassin, I’m a year twelve student; I should be studying in my room right now.”
“You are the right person for this task.” Iain said. “Why?”I shot back angrily. “I want answers, Iain. You can’t just point to a random guy, say ‘kill him’ and for me to snap to.”
“This man is a very bad man,” Netalia said, apparently resorting to simple words for me to understand. “He will cause death and destruction for a lot of people.”
“You can’t punish someone for something they haven’t done,” I retorted, pushing one foot against Iain’s desk so my chair leant back. I folded my arms. “Besides, if he’s so bad, why don’t you guys do something about it?”
They exchanged glances. I could tell they were trying to work out how much to tell me.
“If we kill him, he’ll just come back,” Iain said finally. “He’ll reincarnate again.”
I let the chair fall back to all fours with a resounding ‘ bang “Ok, you two are seriously off of your rockers. First all this magic crap, and then wanting me to kill someone I’ve never met before, and now reincarnation?”
“Sky-” “Also, can you stop calling me that?” I stood up, shunting the chair backwards. “My name is Rose. Rose Evermore.”
“Fine,” Netalia was grinding her teeth. “ Fine. Rose, then. Please. You must hear us out.” “Nuh-uh. I’m out. I’m done.” I began to walk towards the open door, but stopped in my tracks as it slammed shut.
“We can’t allow you to leave the castle, Rose,” Iain said slowly. “As for your consternation about magic, well...” I turned slowly. Iain was still standing behind him desk, but in his hands was a white fireball. I watched, disbelieving, as he transferred it to both hands, and stood there, ablaze.
“What’s that?” I asked quietly, my mouth dry.
“Magic.” Iain answered simply. I was suddenly filled with the desire to touch the fireball, like it was a possession that I owned, and had owned, for a long time previously. I swallowed nervously, and then reached out a hand for it.
“May I see?” I asked. Iain closed his fists, and the fireballs disappeared except for a few sparks that flickered between his fingers before dying. I curled my fingers into a fist and then let my hand drop.
“So that’s magic,” I said. “It’s real. Or you’ve drugged me. Probably the latter.”
“We haven’t drugged you,” Netalia said. “In fact-” “That’s my magic, isn’t it?” I wasn’t really asking, and they knew it. “You said you’d come to take my magic again, that you’d never had to take it twice.”
“Yes, well, we succeeded a second time, though it took almost dying to accomplish it,” Netalia replied, disgruntled. “You held onto it fiercely.”
I suddenly remembered the sport’s day at my school, how easily everything had been for me. I’d been aided by my magic, I realised now.
“Why did you need to take it a second time?” I asked. “Have I been here before?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything?” “When you crossed back to the human realm, you lost your memories in the transition,�
� Iain said. “This man,” he tapped the portrait. “Is responsible for that.”
I looked at the portrait, and something hot stirred in my chest.
“I lost a year, because of this man?”
“Yes,” Netalia said, watching me closely. I picked up the portrait, feeling the coarse parchment. I ran a thumb over the painting, the brush strokes rough against my skin.
“What’s his name?” I asked eventually. “He is known to us as Phoenix,” Iain said. “He’s a year older than you, and a disaster waiting to happen. He has the ability to start a war. You need to stop him before that happens.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Won’t he just... reincarnate?” “Not if you kill him,” Netalia replied. “There is something special about you. If you were the one to kill him, he will never reincarnate.”
That didn’t really make sense to me, but I had too many questions to dwell on the one.
“How many times has he reincarnated?”
“This is the third.”
“Is it immediate?”
“No. It can take many years for him to be reborn.”
“So how long has it been since he was killed last time?”
Iain sat at his desk heavily.
“Roughly one thousand years.” He said.
I stared down at the portrait, my hands trembling.
“Why has he reincarnated again? Didn’t the last person do their job properly?” I demanded.
“No. He was killed in battle, and not by the person that needed to do it.”
I put the parchment back down on Iain’s desk. I hugged myself, cupping my elbows in my hands.
“Am I a reincarnation?” I asked quietly.
Only Netalia’s sharp intake of breath behind me gave away the fact that I’d just stumbled upon something. “Yes.” Iain said slowly, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head, trying to work out how much to reveal to me. He paused for a second too long.
“Just tell me, Iain!” I shouted, slamming my hands down on his desk. “Stop hiding things from me! Tell me the truth, or I swear I’ll hole up quite happily in my room and grow old. You can have your damn war, but you won’t be getting any help from me.”
The sudden silence in the room was broken only by the rattling of the beads in the glass bar. “Well apparently the stick isn’t working,” Iain said, completely nonplussed about me shouting in his face. “So how about a carrot? You help us, and we’ll give you your magic back.”
My breath caught in my chest. That beautiful fire? The power that I could almost taste when it took a hold of my veins? I held my hand out as though he’d just hand it over.
“Not now. After you kill him.”
I told him to do something unlikely. Netalia gasped.
“Charming,” he said. “Do we have an agreement?” “You’re asking me to kill someone,” I said, my voice low. I still had my hands on his desk. We were about eye level. “I’m not going to agree to that.”
Instead of answering, he lit a small ball of fire in the palm of his hand. My throat tightened as I saw my magic again. The white flames danced, tinged with green. I needed it back.
“Do we have an agreement?” he repeated.
As though someone else had taken control of my body, I heard one word fall from my lips.
“Yes.”
~Chapter Seven~
The next few days passed in a blur. I barely
remembered agreeing to kill this man, this Phoenix, who threatened war. All I could think about was the white fire, the magic that they’d stolen from me. Home seemed a distant place now. I could barely remember what my bedroom looked like. I couldn’t remember the sound of my mother’s voice. My waking hours were consumed by the thought of the magic, the feeling of it rising with the adrenaline in my veins.
I was obsessed. “May I see it?” I asked Iain for the thousandth time, at the end of one of my training sessions that they’d insisted on.
He held out his hand, and the ball of fire gleamed upon it. I watched it for a few seconds before I instinctively reached out for it. He closed his hand on it, the fire dying immediately.
I sighed and let my hand fall. The swords they’d been training with were on my back in sheaths that crossed over, their hilts poking above my shoulders. I loved them almost as much as I loved the sight of my magic. I’d been thrilled when Iain had handed them to me for the first time.
“They’re engraved.” I’d said in wonder, examining the shining blades. I carefully traced the outline of small vines that had been etched on the left hand sword. The other had flames that spanned the length of the blade.
“Yes,” Iain had said, rather disgruntled. “If you find a way to get it off, let me know.”
“Who engraved them?” I asked, and when he didn’t tell me, came to my own conclusion. As they taught me how to use the swords, I tried not to remember why. Whenever I remembered the man in the painting, the image of Iain holding the white fire, my magic, forced his visage from my mind.
After a week of training, the swords had become part of me. They were merely extensions of my being. Netalia couldn’t hide her surprise - or her disappointment, curiously - about how fast I’d picked them up. Iain, however, was more focussed on the task at hand.
“You are ready,” he said at the end of a particularly gruelling session. “We will lure him here, and you will meet in the rose garden.”
The rose garden seemed like a strange place for an assassination, but I didn’t argue. Guilt was beginning to rise like the tide in me. Iain must’ve seen the doubt in my eyes, because he held out a small portion of the fire to me.
I grabbed at it like it was a lifeline. To my surprise, he let me, and a small flame transferred to my fingers. I spread my hand, watching the fire dance upon the tip of each finger. Even with this small amount, I could feel the power beginning to leech into my veins like cheap wine.
When Iain tried to take it back, I let him, unwilling to jeopardise my chances of getting it back for good.
I’d all but forgotten my victim. The day of the assassination dawned bright. I felt hollow, empty inside. I was teetering on the edge of indecision, but then I’d remember the power, and how it felt in my blood. I needed it, and if this man was the key to getting it, then I’d go through with it.
By the time Netalia came to get me, I was dressed neatly, my hair pulled back into a tight bun so as not get in my way. My hands were loosely clasped behind me.
“You’re eager,” she said, almost disapprovingly, like this wasn’t what she’d wanted all along.
“Of course I am,” I told her, following her out of the door. “I get my magic back today.” I watched her closely as I said it, searching for any signs of deception. But when she didn’t display any, it only increased my certainty that by the time the sun went down, I’d be brimming with that delicious power, that beautiful white fire.
“You mustn’t let him speak to you,” Netalia said as we descended the stairs. “He’s an accomplished liar. Anything he tells you is false at best.”
“Why has he agreed to see me?” I asked as I followed her into the bright sunshine. She didn’t answer, instead leading me to a bench in the midst of the roses, their flowers heavy and dipping towards the ground. I noticed that the bench was situated in the middle of some blood red blooms; fitting, I suppose. I sat on the seat.
“Your swords are under the bench, within easy reach. And Rose,” she cupped my face in her hands, for all the world a wise grandmother. “Don’t hesitate.”
She strode away through the roses, back into the castle. I turned my face to the sun, allowing myself, for just a second, to enjoy the heat. I kicked my boots off and wiggled my toes in the warm dirt. I had my eyes closed, half smiling, when I heard someone approach. I opened my eyes and turned towards them.
“My gods. It really is you.” The man called Phoenix stood in front of me. His dark hair hung loose, brushing the tops of his shoulders. He looked down at me, his eyes full of something that made m
e shiver.
Don’t hesitate I rose from the bench slowly. Suddenly, the thought of the white fire consumed me, and before I could control my actions, I’d swung my right sword across my body, on a path directly towards his throat.
He moved quicker than should be possible. In a flash, he’d deflected my sword with only a small dagger. I felt my arm cross down, in a position that I knew I couldn’t guard from. Obviously Phoenix realised it too, for he reached down and gripped my wrist tightly until I was forced to release the sword. It fell to the soft ground with a thud.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes full of confusion. I didn’t respond, instead reaching behind me to the small of my back from the dagger I kept there. I inwardly cursed myself for only snatching the right sword, but the left had slipped from my grip.
Phoenix saw what I was doing, and whilst my hand was still behind my back, he held it there and pulled me close. He looked down at me, our bodies pressed together.
“Let me go!” I snapped, struggling, but his hold was like iron.
“Sky, this isn’t you,” he said, his eyes searching mine. “Why are you trying to hurt me?” “I’m not,” I replied, still trying to wrench free of his grasp. I saw the white fire in my mind’s eye again. “I’m trying to kill you.”
He frowned, the lines appearing between his bright orange eyes.
“Why?”
“He’s an accomplished liar. Anything he tells you is false at best.” “Because you took my memories from me!” I choked back sudden tears as I said it. “They said you took my memories... I lost a whole year.”
Suddenly, all of the pent up frustration of the past few weeks of being kept in the dark burst forwards. The tears that had been welling in my eyes spilled down my cheeks as I felt the full brunt of shame hit me.
I was trying to killthis man. Though evidently, I hadn’t done a very good job, my intentions still stood. “I didn’t take your memories, my love,” he said as I cried into his chest. “Iain did. And I know you don’t remember anything, so it’s purely my word against his, but I hope you believe me.”
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