“Ah, there she is,” Gessi whispered.
I followed where she had her beak trained. Sitting at a small table in the far corner of the room was Neepa. Her hat and a few stacks of sizeable books settled atop the table, one such tome open before her. Her eyes scanned through the pages steadily, her lips angled in an easy, resting smile. From how nervous and reserved she was from walking around earlier, it was truly a blessed sight to see her so relaxed.
Eva wasn’t anywhere to be seen. After letting my gaze pan once more, I spotted her burgundy tunic through the window. Out on the veranda, she stood with her back to the windows while staring over the railing. Eva certainly didn’t seem like the bookish type.
Koko started toward Neepa, but I set my hand on her shoulder.
“Wait,” I said quietly. “Let’s leave her be for now.”
Koko stepped back into the aisle. “What do you wish to do, then?” she asked.
I shot a quick glance at Eva. “You think you can give me a moment to myself?”
Koko closed her eyes and nodded. “As you wish.”
“Kokoliniasta, if you’re free, would you mind helping me reorganize a collection near here?” Gessi asked.
Koko turned her head back to me.
“Go on, I’ll be here,” I assured.
She gave a curt bow, and then joined Gessi’s side. I watched the pair walk off, ruminating on how strange a sight it was to see a mammoth talking bird next to a dragon-woman.
I wonder why Dragon Tales and Sesame Street comes to mind?
I carefully slinked across the space towards the windows. Slowly, I eased open one of the French doors. Though I did everything quietly and picked the farthest door, Eva immediately picked up on my presence. A lingering stare over her shoulder ensued, then her gaze returned forward.
I went to join her side, admiring the sprawling view. It wasn’t as impressive of a sight from our room, but it was still a lot to take in. This side of the academy grounds had large fields; small beds of flowers breaking the grounds up into different sections. There were some smaller buildings with smoke plumbing from their chimneys out near the academy’s walls. Off to the side was part of some massive archway attached to something, but I couldn't see much else from the angle of the veranda, so I just settled on staring at the distant mountains.
“Did anyone give you two trouble?” I asked after the silence started to become stagnant.
“No,” she said without looking. “That girl who showed us the way was a bitch, though.”
“Oh. Well, aside from her, no trouble? I was a little worried about having Neepa roam around a bunch of hateful mages.”
“They would’ve done nothing, unless they wanted to die.”
The memory of Eva fighting that hooded figure back at the university library flashed before my eyes. She held her own against a being of the Null incredibly well; another human wouldn’t have lasted a second.
“I’d hate to be on the receiving end of your knife, too.”
Eva shot me glare. “Not me, idiot. Any fighting in Lucinia’s walls will get you locked away. Abusing any magic will get you hanged without question.”
I gauged her truth; nothing but seriousness written across her features. “Whoa, didn’t know the rules were that steep.”
Eva let out an irritated sigh and dropped her chin onto the railing. “Magic can be dangerous. If people don’t learn to respect it, then the world would fall into chaos, then into the hands of our enemy. Those who hold great power hold the duty and responsibility associated with it, like using it for good, like fighting the Null, to destroy them.” Rage flashed across her face when she shot me a sideways glance. Eva closed her eyes and summoned a deep breath, holding it in until all her anger binded to it, then exhaled.
After everything I’ve heard so far, all the lives lost or affected by the Null, I could understand why she’d be furious at me for denying Julika’s offer so brazenly.
I stared somberly up into the azure abyss of the sky. “So that obligation and responsibility falls on my shoulders, then?”
“The Grand Mage was right?” she asked as she stood from the railing to face me.
I ran a hand through my hair. Damn it, I hate how long it’s gotten. I leaned forward, staring down at the considerable drop below.
“She did some tests, and, apparently, I am a Resonant. I can use all three principles, my light is white, and I can make sugar circles.”
She furrowed her brows. “What?”
I shook my head. “Forget that last one.”
“But you are one?” she pressed.
“I guess.”
“Did you accept Julika’s offer?” Eva stepped closer. “Are you going to enroll?”
“I—no, I didn’t accept. We just talked for a while and she didn’t press anything. We just… talked and they filled me in on this thing.”
Eva stood still, waiting to see if there was more to my statement. When there wasn’t, her blonde brows drew together.
“If you finally have your proof, why not accept?” she asked. “If there’s all this potential power, why not use it? Is it because you’re scared?” Her voice became more heated as she took another step into my personal space. “Everyone’s scared. I’ve seen men and women piss themselves in the face of the Null’s horrors, yet they buried their fears and fought. Not gifted mages. Simple warriors. If they can do it, why not you?”
She delivered a shove, barely a tap that moved me.
“Why?” she asked.
Another shove, this one pushing me back a step, Eva following.
“Why?” she asked, her voice breaking.
Two hands delivered the next shove, almost toppling me over.
“Why?” she asked through her teeth, arms trembling at her sides that looked as though she would start swinging. “You’re a fucking coward. No. You are a child that’s too afraid—”
“I’m not afraid of fighting those monsters!” I snapped, lunging at Eva and hoisting her up by her collar.
Surprised by my outburst, she stared down at me, letting herself hang limply from where my fists bundled up her tunic.
My arms trembled. Not from the strain of her weight, but from sheer, seething anger that boomed into existence like an explosion. Not at her, but the Caster, the monsters, and the Null. But above all that evil, what I hated the most was the truth.
I shut my eyes tight and sucked in a sharp breath. I lowered Eva until her heels touched the ground and released her. I hunched over the railing while my stomach did somersaults. If something threatened to rise, at least it had somewhere to go.
Once the uproar of anger and associating sickness passed, I squeezed the railing till my knuckles popped and I found my voice.
“If the fatigue didn’t stop me, I would’ve kept beating in that Caster’s face until it was nothing more but one, big, bloody stain on the floor. If it was just me and more of those forsaken creatures, then I’d keep on swinging with my bare hands. My anger is stronger than my fear and I want nothing more than to just kill those things. Just butcher them for all they took from me.”
“Then why?” Eva demanded while she smoothed her tunic back over where it rode over her midriff. “Why refuse?”
My parents flashed across my mind again. It took everything I had not to break down.
Then Caroline.
The one person I tried my hardest to protect. The one person who I assured with absolute certainty that things were going to be okay, died.
A liar. A failure. I failed everyone.
The muscles in my jaw cinched so tightly that my molars threatened to give.
“In the end, the people I tried to help all died,” I admitted. “I couldn’t even try to protect my parents. That power, that responsibility, Eva, I just don’t know.”
“Al,” Eva said in a surprisingly soft voice, “there was nothing you could’ve done then. You were ignorant of what was happening; you couldn’t have done anything. Maybe it was dumb luck or maybe it was fate
, either way, you’re alive and you have stop feeling guilty for it. But it’s different now. You’re here.” She waved her arms in an arc, gesturing to everything around us. “They’ll show you how to use that power. You could save thousands, maybe even millions, if what the Grand Mage says about Resonants is true.”
“And if it isn’t? That title, that position.” I shook my head. “The stakes are much higher. If I’m put in a position where I’m the deciding factor and fail, then that would be thousands, maybe millions of lives that I failed to protect. Defending people on a multi-global scale is… Fuck, Eva. I don’t know.”
I tore myself from the railing and faced her.
“Eva,” I said exactingly. “I don’t want to give people false hope just to fail them. Not again. I can’t protect anyone.”
Eva stared at me blankly, commenting no further as her eyes carried a look of disbelief and the venomous traces of anger. To spare myself from the sting of her gaze, I turned my back to her and shuddered.
Fuck. I hate how much I just want to crumple to the ground and cry; when did I become such a bitch? I thought I would’ve been able to come to terms with my situation and move forward with a smile on my face, but all I’ve done was just sweep all my turmoil under the rug. Even in death, I’m failing Caroline.
“You protected Neepa,” Eva finally said. I looked over my shoulder to see her expression, for once, had softened. “And me too. She told me everything, you know? The shot you took and how you continued to fight with a knife in your stomach, she said she would’ve been corrupted if it weren’t for you. To us, that’s a fate worse than death. Being reborn into a monster. You stopped that from happening to us.”
Eva held me thoughtfully in her gaze, then asked, “Even when you stepped in, did you honestly think you were going to win?”
It was hard to answer. Saving them or winning wasn’t in my head at the time, just the need to kill him first.
After chewing on it for another minute, I answered, “No.”
Eva absorbed that, then leaned over the railing again, staring off into space. “No matter how strong you are or how hard you fight, you can’t save everyone or win every battle. There’s no such thing as guarantees during a war.” Eva turned her head and stared at me squarely. “But one thing is absolutely certain: you can’t protect anyone if you don’t fight.
“If you didn’t fight, then you, me, Iason, and Neepa would be dead. You won one battle. Don’t give up before another hasn’t even started. I fucking hate people who give up.” The usual edge to her voice returned.
She contemplated me with her gaze, her eyes offering insight to her mind of all the things she wants to say, but dismissed it all with a sigh. She said all that she wanted, and heard all that she could bear.
I watched Eva walk off and let herself inside through the nearest door. Neepa perked up from her book. She saw Eva, then saw me standing outside. Her smile grew a fraction wider as she rose.
As I was about to greet her, Neepa lunged at me with a tight hug, nearly choking off my air with her arms. The sentiment made me realize how desperately I needed to be held at that moment, so I returned the gesture and embraced her, drawing in her berry-tart scent and enjoying silken hair against my cheek. Staring over Neepa’s shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Eva watching us. She rolled her eyes and looked away before dropping herself into a chair.
“Thank you,” Neepa said.
“No trouble I hope?”
She shook her head. “Most left as soon as they saw me.” A grin broke on her face. “It only meant more books and privacy for me. Gessi has been very helpful and kind.”
“That’s good. Say, what is she?”
“She’s a Papilionianus gigalus. Or a Papi for short. They’re apart of the civilized beasts that we coexist with. But Gessi is the only one within Scintillion.” She knitted her brows. “Did your talk go well? You seem tense.”
Damn her intuition.
I broke away and stared out toward the distant forest. “Just... more than I bargained for. I learned how to use something called an odsci. My color was white, which Merula said that it meant I can use all three principles.”
“Really?” Neepa gasped.
“Yeah. And I made a circle with the sugar.”
Neepa cocked her head. “I’m sorry?”
I massaged my brow, the magic behind Merula’s magic giving me a damned migraine. In fact, any time I tried to understand magic, I'm just left with a headache.
“Uh, nothing.” I waved off. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Did those works have what you wanted?” Gessi called from the doorway. She dipped her long neck under the frame and joined us on the veranda, Koko a step behind her.
Neepa clasped her hands in front of her and bowed deeply. “Yes, absolutely! I cannot begin to thank you for showing me where everything was. It’s a shame I’m not enrolled to check them out, but what little time I had was worth it.”
Gessi clacked her beak. “Nonsense. I’m told you’re here for another day. You can take what you can carry and hold onto them until your departure. This is my library and I set the rules. The books will be in good hands, I’m sure.”
Neepa’s eyes sparkled like she was about to cry. She bowed deeply once again and said, “Thank you.”
“Al,” Koko said, stepping up. “It is almost time for lunch. Shall I gather her books and prepare your meals?”
“I’ll carry the books, just handle lunch, please.”
“It is no issue, I can––”
“Koko,” I interrupted. “It’s fine, really. I think I can handle a few books. How heavy can they be?”
A lot, apparently. Standard book material in my world was pulped paper, cardboard, and glue. Here, the books were made from parchment, wood, and thick leather. The stack of eight books Neepa picked out looked reasonable. But that was until I loaded them into my arms. The encyclopedia-sized books would’ve weight about one to two pounds back home; these weighed something like five pounds each.
We all followed Gessi down the winding stairs back to her desk. With a deft hop, Gessi was back behind her desk and browsed the wall of miniature marked drawers behind her. She pulled out four, three-foot-long drawers filled with business-card-sized slips of paper divided by spacers that featured more of the strange alphabet of this word. Gessi effortlessly withdrew a series of cards with her talons, then closed the long drawer with the same foot. After cross referencing the cards to Neepa’s books, she deposited them to an adjacent wall of miniature drawers.
Admiration filled me as I saw the curious bird creature keeping tabs on her books with a system that would probably make Melvil Dewey go insane.
We bid Gessi farewell and left. Koko guided us to the guarded doorway of the glass elevator and informed us she would be up shortly with our lunch. The robed guards used their magic and sent us to our desired floor. Good thing our room was dead ahead from where we got off. My arms and lower back burned, the magic elevator causing my already tense muscles to shudder nervously.
Eva was kind enough to open the door while I scrambled in and unloaded the books onto the coffee table. My muscles sang in relief, freed from Neepa’s hungry need for knowledge. I went to stretch my back, but paused when I saw something waiting on the table.
I sat down on the couch and stared at the long box stained in the same dark cherry as the table it rested on. The box looking like nothing more than a cancerous growth on the table. It had no business being there.
After undoing the latches and lifting the lid, I saw the last thing I wanted to see: the bokken training sword. In the velvet interior was a folded piece of paper of erratic lines in capricious ink.
“Al?” Neepa asked, sitting beside me. “You okay?”
My eyes never left the sword. “Yeah.” I handed her the paper. “Would tell me what this says?”
Neepa looked the note over. “Regardless of your choice, this weapon is yours and yours alone. Your heart beats in harmony with the One. Theref
ore, your heart beats for all. I have faith that heart will know what is best. Sincerely, Julika,” Neepa read off.
I took the note back and stowed it in the case before closing it. I rested my forearms on my knees, knitting my fingers together as my eyes burned holes into the case.
My world, my home, my family, everything lost to evil incarnate, and all that remains is a legendary weapon that is no more than a fancy stick. And a poor excuse of some sort of legendary hero.
I’m a Resonant, one capable of wielding great weapons and harnessing the power of all three principles. I’m of the first heroes to create beacons of hope for those who cower in the wake of the Null. My power can level armies, heal the sick, and feed the starving.
If all that is true, then why don’t I feel a damn thing in my heart?
There’s only nothing.
“Al?” Neepa asked, her voice laced with worry.
“It’s nothing.”
Chapter 15
Koko arranged two servants some time later to come with our lunch. Neepa, Eva, and I ate in relative silence. Though, my stomach didn’t particularly crave anything, so I only had a few bites. And wine, a lot of it. In fact, at one point it became known that I didn’t recall the meal at all. Of all the things I wanted to forget, but it was a start.
Before the servants left us to eat, I asked them to bring up extra wine, which they did, thankfully. Alcohol served as a way for me to drown the unease that’s been brewing within, but to also keep Neepa happy and unaware.
And it did just that. She was completely absorbed in her books and drank gaily. Even though she wasn’t stress drinking, Neepa already had two bottles in her today and was sharp as a tack. Eva, on the other hand, retired to the bedroom to nap after lunch.
With the wine and one of Neepa’s potions, I was feeling leagues better since my talk with Merula and Julika. Though, neither alcohol nor medicine could quell the ever lingering anxiety in the depths of my gut.
I stowed away the sword in my room, just to keep it from sight, and came back to the main room with my notebook and the primer on magic Neepa loaned. Almost all the consonants and vowels were committed to memory, the knowledge coming together as I tried forming three character words. Though, there was much time before I’d be able to read from anything, even at the kindergarten level.
Heart of the Resonant: Book 1: Pulse (Resonant Series) Page 24
