by Alicia Fabel
“That’s what happens after I roll through the snow.”
“Ian doesn’t get cold,” Annessa explained. “So I thought you guys didn’t feel it.”
Elion snorted. “Ian gets cold. He’s just a better faker than me. Everyone gets cold—why do you think we keep campus warm? The eight months of snow we get here is miserable.”
“Eight days of snow is miserable,” Annessa countered. She couldn’t imagine eight months.
“Come on, let’s get inside before we lose something to frostbite.”
“You’re coming in?”
Elion gave her a funny look. “Unless it’s not okay for me to come inside my own home?”
Annessa rolled her eyes and didn’t reply. By the time they stripped off shoes and socks in the front entry, Annessa looked like a drowned penguin. She stood with her legs planted wide, and her arms held out from her body to keep her clothes from touching her skin more than necessary.
“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Elion told her.
“Wow, you’re so wise.” Annessa rolled her eyes again and waddled toward the stairs.
Elion followed her.
She spun around to face him. “Where are you going?”
“My room?” he said it like it was a question.
Annessa mumbled some choice words under her breath about that room of his.
“What do you have against my room?” Elion asked behind her. “It didn’t seem like you had a problem with it when you went snooping for books and Frisbees.”
“I wasn’t snooping.” She’d totally been snooping. “I was just looking around and found it by accident.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?” Elion asked, following her to her room at the top of the stairs instead of heading the other direction.
Because there was. But she wasn’t going to admit how much it had hurt to find her final letters, which had gone unanswered. So instead, she lashed out. “I wasn’t aware you were capable of feeling, Elion.” It was a low blow.
Elion reared back. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to hurt you,” he said roughly. “But that’s bull, and you know it. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And he stalked away.
All of a sudden, the cold felt colder.
Flowing water chilled Annessa’s feet. A shallow trickle washed over the stone floor around her. Annessa didn’t recognize the room with its arched ceilings. The walls were divided into panels of finely detailed woodwork. Each panel featured art that was equal parts beautiful and unsettling. It was like each mural had started out with wonder and then halfway through the artist had taken a turn toward the deranged. At the center of the room, a pedestal fountain ran freely. That’s where the water was coming from. It flowed over the edges and onto the floor.
Annessa wondered if it was broken. Or maybe it had been left on my mistake. She padded through the icy stream and searched for the knob to turn it off. There wasn’t one. There wasn’t anything like a knob or any buttons along the walls either. She should probably report it to the staff before the whole mansion flooded.
Before she turned away, the fountain’s ornamental details caught her eye. It looked like glass eggs had been set into the edge of the basin. Inside one of them, something moved. Whatever was inside the egg spun and swirled ever so slowly. The others appeared empty. She extended a finger to run it across the surface of one of the still eggs.
“Careful Annessa,” Elion warned.
Annessa jerked back. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” he replied.
“Oh.” Annessa looked around them. “Where are we?”
“In the heart of the mountain,” he said.
“How did we get here?”
“I brought us here.” Elion tucked a lock of Annessa’s hair behind one of her ears.
She pulled away. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to touch her like that.
“I thought you would like it here,” Elion explained.
“I think it’s beautiful,” she told him.
“I think you’re beautiful,” he replied.
Annessa shook her head and took a step away. “I don’t want you to say stuff like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll hurt more later,” she answered.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Elion flickered and then he became Ian. “Would you rather if I was here instead of Elion?”
“Yes,” she said honestly. “Ian doesn’t hurt me.”
Ian smiled. Annessa thought it looked like a sad smile, but then he pointed out the glass eggs. “I like the one with the galaxies inside it. Which one do you like the best?”
“I don’t see one with galaxies. I like the one that looks like it has ocean waves inside it.”
He leaned closer. “Which one is that?”
She gave him a puzzled look and then pointed to the one with the swirling waters. “That one.”
Ian studied it for a moment. “Is it warm like the ocean?”
“I don’t know.” Annessa caressed the top of the egg. It warmed her finger at first, and then she felt the bite of ice that burned her finger. She pulled back. “It’s cold.”
“Maybe it needs you to warm it up?”
Annessa shook her head. “I don’t want to. I’m cold, Ian.”
“I’m sorry you’re cold, Annessa. Let’s get you warmed up.” Ian took her by the hand and led her away from the fountain. There was a door in place of one of the panels.
“I’m not ready to leave,” Annessa complained.
“We can come back another time. Right now, your toes are freezing.”
Annessa looked down at her bare feet and the water rushing around them. “Okay.”
Ian opened the door and and indicated for her to go ahead. She walked through and darkness swallowed her.
Annessa jolted from the dream. Part of her wanted to analyze where it had come from, but the light of the moon on the snow told her it was still the middle of the night. She was tired, and her feet were seriously cold. No wonder she’d dreamed about cold toes. She pulled her knees up, tucked them against her chest, and drifted off. This time, she didn’t dream about weird rooms or fountains with eggs.
17
Annessa grunted when she landed hard on the mat. Again.
“Okay, what’s up?” Elion asked her. “You should have this by now. We’ve been going through this move for a week. It’s like you’re not even trying.”
“I am trying,” she argued. She could barely believe it had been a week since the Phyton had captured her. When had time at the Academy decided to fly by?
“Then what’s going on in there?” He tapped her forehead.
Annessa recoiled. “Don’t touch me.”
“Kinda hard not to touch you when I’m teaching you how to defend yourself.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” Elion threw his hands out from his sides. “I’m doing my best here to respect your right to be pissed at me, but I honestly don’t know what more you want from me.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Well tough,” he said. “Because I’m the only one right now who can make sure you have a fighting chance if anything happens outside those gates.”
Annessa pushed to her feet. “Why can’t Axton train me?”
“Because Quinn is better at this than her brother,” Elion replied. “And she’s not even been here a full year.”
“Fine, then let Quinn teach me. Or Ian.”
Elion shook his head. “No.”
“Why? Because you like torturing me?”
“Yes, Ness. I’m doing this because I enjoy it. Doesn’t it seem like I’m having a great time?”
“Then why do you insist it be you?” She clenched her fists.
“Because I’m the best.”
Annessa rolled her eyes. “Your modesty is astounding.”
“I don’t have the time or energy for modesty after
putting up with your attitude day after day,” he threw back at her.
“Then let someone else do it.”
“I can’t.” Elion dropped his head back to shout curses at the ceiling. Then he looked at her and said, “My parents decided I’m the only one allowed to train you.”
“That makes no sense,” Annessa said. “Your parents don’t like me anywhere near you.”
“That’s not true,” Elion protested.
Annessa raised a challenging brow.
“It’s more complicated than that,” he clarified.
“Yeah, you’re the heir to Legend Academy, and I’m a norm. Oh and also, I’m not the blond Barbie they have picked out for you.”
Elion stilled. “That’s the second time you’ve thrown another girl in my face. The thing is, I have no idea who you’re talking about. And even if I did, why do you care?”
“Oh please.” Annessa rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Then what is the problem, really? Because if you were still upset about what Samara and I did, then why aren’t you still this pissed at her too?”
“That’s different,” Annessa scoffed.
“Explain to me how that is any different.”
She couldn’t admit it was different because he had the power to break her all over again. So instead she gave a different truth. “You’ve lied to me so many times that I don’t trust a thing that comes out of your mouth anymore. Samara lied to me once.”
Now he seemed offended. “You know why I couldn’t tell you about the guilds. And the only other thing I lied about was when I told you that I was moving on.” He sucked in a breath, clearly not finished. “But ever since I walked away from you, all I wanted to do was run back, fall on my knees, and beg you to forgive me. I barely remember what happened for months after I left. I was trying to get through one day to the next, knowing that I’d destroyed the person I cared about most in this world. I hated myself for what I’d done to you.”
And dang if the self-loathing that shone from his eyes didn’t just about make her want to fold. But with Elion, the risk of being shattered again was too great. He was a loyal soldier for the guilds. And Annessa wasn’t sure she had the strength to put herself together the next time he chose them over her.
“You didn’t just move on,” Annessa reminded. “You made me think I’d imagined everything that happened between us. I thought I was going crazy. So even though it wasn’t my fault, I was desperately trying to fix it. Trying to get back the friend that I’d lost.”
Elion stepped into her bubble. His hand hovered by her arm, as if he wanted to touch her but knew he shouldn’t. “Ness—”
“No. You don’t get to Ness me. I wrote to you every month, just like we’d done since we were kids, begging you to forgive me. And I know you got them because I saw them.”
“I thought it would be easier to move on if you hated me,” he admitted.
“Easier for who? It sure as heck wasn’t easier for me.” Annessa planted both hands on his chest to shove him away, but he didn’t budge.
Elion narrowed his eyes. “You cannot believe that was easy for me.”
“Oh that’s right. Poor you, not knowing what you want. Good thing you have your parents around to tell you when to take a piss. That must be such a relief.” Because pushing him had felt ridiculously good, she pushed him again. She silently cheered at his darkening expression.
“You don’t want to keep doing that,” he warned.
“Aww. Poor baby.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “Being jerked around isn’t any fun, is it?” She shoved him again.
“I was not jerking you around.”
“Well what do you call pretending to love me until I fall for you and then saying oops, changed my mind. Right before convincing me it was all in my head to begin with.”
“That is not what happened.”
“Really? Then why don’t you break your version down for me?”
“I…” Elion sucked in a breath, nose flaring. Then he snapped his mouth closed, pressed his hands into his eyes, and turned away with a holler of frustration. “You are making this so much harder than it needs to be.”
“Yeah, not being able to play me for a fool anymore must be tough for you.” Annessa headed for the door. As she brushed past him, though, he snagged her arm.
“Dammit,” he growled and then spun her around. “What’s tough is not being able to touch you when that’s all I want to do—I never wanted to stop.”
Annessa’s breath caught as he took in her face and his eyes paused on her lips. “But you did,” she whispered.
Elion brushed a thumb over her cheek. “You are my world and I want to keep you safe. You’ve been my world ever since you dropped that crab down my swim trunks and called me a snobby butt-face.”
“Because you stopped talking to me when you found out I was the cleaning girl,” Annessa added, flustered.
“When I found out you weren’t from a guilded family, I was scared you’d find out my secret and destroy everything I loved.”
“I was eight.”
“Yeah well, I was nine and terrified I would get my family killed by the Phyton.”
“So you made it your mission to prank me for a week straight?” Annessa asked.
“You put a crab down my swim trunks.” He shrugged one shoulder. “My pride was wounded.”
“Except your parents found out later and made you send an apology letter.”
“You wrote back and told me I should jump off a bridge,” Elion recalled, stepping so close that Annessa could feel the heat coming off him.
She cleared her throat and said, “I still stand by that advice.”
Elion’s lips quirked. “When I say I don’t know what I want, I really mean that I’m torn between what I want and what I want for you.”
“What you want for me?”
“Basically, all the happiness in the world,” he explained.
“It hasn’t had much to offer lately,” she informed him.
“I want that to change. But it won’t if I’m in your life.”
“El…” She hesitated, one-hundred-percent certain she was about to ask a question she was going to regret. “What do you want?”
Elion closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. His breath washed over her face when he cupped her cheek. “You. Always you.”
Annessa shifted, and his lips were only a hair’s breadth from hers. But neither of them crossed the distance.
“It doesn’t change anything, Ness.” Elion’s shoulders dropped. “In two weeks, it will be you walking away this time. You have to walk away.”
Annessa blinked back the burn in her eyes. The idea of walking away was supposed to elate her. It most definitely wasn’t supposed to make her heart wrench like it had just then. She was over Elion. So why did she feel like she was right back where she’d started? Because she was a hopeless idiot.
“I hate you,” Annessa whispered against his mouth.
Elion claimed her lips. Annessa rose up to meet him. His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her close. She pressed against him, weaving her fingers through his hair and tasting the cinnamon on his lips. But then Elion’s arm loosened. He turned his head to the side. Their chests rose and fell heavily together.
“I shouldn’t have done that.” He squeezed his eyes tightly and stepped away from her. “I am always doing the wrong things when it comes to you.”
Annessa put a hand over her swollen lips and then swiped away a stray tear. Damn him for making her cry again. And damn her for letting him. She clenched her back teeth and balled her hands into fists as the ache in her chest, the one she thought she’d buried, reared its ugly head. “Yeah, because who cares what I want.”
Elion’s eyes widened. “That’s all I care about.”
“Really? Because I can’t recall you ever asking me what I want. You just do whatever the hell floats your boat. And honestly, I’m tired of it.” Annessa stormed pa
st him, blinking to see through the blur of tears.
Ian was waiting for her in his usual spot when she slammed out the training center doors. He looked her over and cringed. “Yikes—”
“Shut up, Ian. And get out of my head.”
A shroud went over her mind—Ian’s way of giving her privacy the only way he could.
“I’m not up for a riding lesson today,” she told him.
“No problem.” Only instead of walking away, Ian grabbed her hand and tugged her across the training field. “I have an idea for a different kind of fun.”
“I’m not up for fun at the moment.”
“You’ll like this. I promise.”
18
“What is this place?” Annessa eyed the bales of straw and targets.
“The archery range,” Ian replied like it was obvious.
“You thought this would be fun for me?” Annessa scrunched her nose. “And here I thought you knew me. You know—since you rummage through my head every day.”
Ian tipped his head and gave a disarming smile. Hair the same color as the hay behind them fell across his forehead, making him all the more charming. And he was clearly aware of this fact too. “Which is exactly why I thought you might enjoy this. Look.” The targets shifted into replicas of Elion’s face.
Annessa recoiled.
“That’s an interesting change of pace,” Ian remarked, looking very much like a gossiping teen.
Annessa was glad for the super-shield he’d put in her head. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You don’t want to shoot Elion targets, which you would’ve enjoyed a few days ago.” Ian lowered his voice. “Are you falling for him again?”
“No.”
“So that wasn’t a make-up kiss I saw in your head when you stormed out of your training session?” Ian persisted.
“No.”
“Nice. You were going at it angry-style,” Ian concluded. “That’s hot.”
“Ian,” Annessa growled. Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly, she sang. Loudly. So it would be heard through the shields.
“Shit. You win. Make it stop.” Ian covered his ears as if that would help. “Not like I need you to spill anyway. Not after that lovely shade of green you turned at the thought of shooting Elion in the face with an arrow.”
