Theia
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It’s been three weeks since the accident. When Valerian said he would take care of it, he really did. No one knew anything except of course, Nerine, who was barely stopped from strangling Zoe every time she saw her. It’s safe to say our dislike for her grew tenfold.
My lessons with Valerian, on the other hand, were a lot more fun now. I was able to fly, although not as graceful as he did. Watching us fly together was like watching an eagle and chicken together. But it didn’t matter to me, at least I improved.
The classes I had with the rest of the Onyx House were fortunately becoming more interesting now that we were past those first few lectures. My favorite though? Forbidden arts. It was just so ironic that they were actually teaching us about them at all, but I must admit that they were the most interesting. It was clear when you heard about them why they were forbidden in the first place.
“Did you find anything?” Ina entered the library where Nerine, Liam and I were sitting together, going through the books trying to find clues about who could be my real father. I decided to tell the two of them, seen as we really needed help. Shock wasn’t strong enough word to explain Ina and Liam’s reactions, but after some time, they were beyond excited to help us.
Letting my head fall and hit the book in front of me, I sighed. “Ugh, no. There’s literally nothing here that even indicates another archangel besides Raphael descended.”
“I agree.” Liam added. “We’ve been searching for weeks and every book just describes Raphael and what he did in the Great War. Are we sure your potential father descended the same time Raphael did?”
“Of course, not.” I said like it was the most logical answer. “It could be anytime from twenty years ago to way before that. Pick your year.”
“Come on guys,” Nerine interrupted, “don’t give up yet. We’ll find something that doesn’t add up and indicates who it could be.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure Ner.” I said. I wanted to know, maybe even more than anyone, but I wasn’t sure we would find the answer in these books. If there was something, people would’ve known by now, someone would’ve put two and two together.
She huffed. “Well, you three be pessimists elsewhere. I don’t need your negative energy.” Throwing her pencil at me, she returned to what she was reading.
I turned to Ina, who was, I now only noticed, holding full hands of food and snacks. “Gimme that.” My fingers danced excitedly. “I haven’t eaten all day, I’m beyond starving.”
She raised her brows in question. “You had breakfast this morning with us.”
Waving her off with my hand, I grabbed a sandwich from her. “I threw that up when Valerian made me do those freaking spins. My stomach didn’t like them very much.”
They all laughed at my misery, as always. “Valerian is being a tyrant again, isn’t he?” Ina asked with amusement in her eyes.
“Of course.” I replied while enjoying the most delicious food. “He always is. Completely merciless.”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “you seem to like your morning lessons despite your complaining.”
“That’s because she can gawk at the god himself and has a good excuse if she gets caught.” Nerine chipped in which made me glare at her. Her answer was to give me a beaming smile, as usual.
The truth? She wasn’t wrong at all. As so happens, I did use every chance I got to watch him. But I was pretty sure he was well aware of that. I could say I was only watching him to see how I should position my body or to see how to improve my landing, but Valerian was no idiot. I was pretty sure he knew. Plus if he could feel my emotions as he said, than he knew for certain.
I haven’t seen him last few days at all except for the time in the morning. I didn’t know what he was doing, but it looked like he was out of Academy a lot. Ever since that day he found me in the caves, he was not completely distant, but I could see he was thinking about something.
I, of course, never asked him what it was because I kept reminding myself he was not my friend and so, I shouldn’t pry. But it was difficult. God, it really was. I was too curious to know what was going on in his head; what it was that occupied his time. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted that damn cord to work both ways.
Thinking about it made me realize that Liam just might know something about it, and I never thought to ask. Being a history nerd, there’s no way he wouldn’t know some detail about the prophesy. “Hey, Liam?”
He lifted his head from the book to look at me. “Hmm?”
“I was wondering,” I began nonchalantly, looking at my sandwich as it contained the answers to all the secrets. “What do you know about the prophesy?”
“The prophesy?” he frowned, confused. “You mean the one about you and Valerian?”
“We don’t know if it’s about me, but yes. That one.”
“Oh, um” Liam scrunched his face in thinking, while Ina and Nerine watched me carefully. “Well, not much. No one does. But I know it’s about two archangel descendants, something about their compatible magic being important part. Why?”
“Wait, aren’t they supposed to be like, mates or something?” Nerine added, interested in the topic.
“It’s possible, but it’s not a sure fact. The prophesy was kind of made of riddles…well, not riddles per see, but it’s not really clear. So naturally, people who lived then understood the two would be soulmates.” His green eyes locked on me, his face serious. “I don’t think anyone can claim that since we never heard it. It’s all just speculations.”
“What?! I never thought that was actually a possibility, I’ve just said it to kind of make fun of Zoe because she was obsessed with him.”
“Well, do you feel any kind of connection between the two of you? Anything strange?” Ina asked. “I mean, if it’s even partially true you’d know it, right?”
Yeah…well, no. I wasn’t sure I would. The only strange thing is that cord that somehow connects us sometimes, but I don’t feel any different. “No.” I said finally. “I don’t feel any different.”
I decided it probably wasn’t worth mentioning. Now, however, I couldn’t get the possibility of what Liam said out of my mind. It never crossed my mind because I never really believed in that. I knew Zoe did, so I went with it whenever she boasted about something or other…but now? Shit. No, I don’t believe that, for fucks sake. The cord is probably something that happens between archangels, and that’s why we feel it…right? Right.
“Oh my god!” Nerine suddenly shouted, making us all jerk in our seats. The librarian gave us a stern look we knew all too well.
“You just took three years of my life.” Liam shook his head, leaning down to grab his fallen pencil.
Nerine was completely unbothered. “ It’s not like you need them, you’ll live far longer. Anyway,” she raked her gaze over us all, smiling excitedly, “I just remembered tonight’s the opening of a new club in Whitemore. The owner is a descendant of some kind and I heard his clubs are insane. So, I say we should go.”
I didn’t even need time to think about it. I really wanted to go, and besides, it was quite some time since we broke a rule or two. “I’m in. Are we gonna have trouble entering?”
“Nope, we have me.” The two of us looked at Ina who was nodding her head in agreement. Liam, however, was completely other story.
“Liiiaam?” my smirk appeared as the three of us ganged up on him. “You know you want to come with us. You’ll have fun, like always.”
He gave me a droll look. “You mean, like when we ‘borrowed’ someone’s car and almost ended up in the lake? Or do you mean the time when you made me listed to the two and a half hours of opera just so you could sneak into the dressing rooms to see that one guy half naked??”
Well, when he put it like that. “Uhh…yeah. Just like that.”
“No.” he snipped.
“Come on!” it was Ina this time. “It’s a club, you’ve been to clubs before.”
“I was. To those I’m permitted to enter and when I’m not breaking a curfew. This thing you’re all thinking about,” he pointed his finger at our faces, “is not that. I don’t even want to think what will happen this time.”
“Nothing will.” We said in unison. “We’ll just go there, have fun and return before anyone notice. It’s weekend tomorrow so it’s not like you have something to do anyway.” I added.
“What if I had something to do tonight?”
My eyes turned to slits, trying to decide if he was hiding something from us. Liam’s eyes held mine steadily, but there was, for a moment, a flicker of something in them. “Mhm. Like what?”
Shrugging, he made sure to look bored but I wasn’t sure I was buying it. “Nothing special, but I’m allowed to have my own plans.”
“Sure.” I replied, still a little skeptical. Deciding to drop it because he obviously didn’t want to talk about it, I asked, “So, when do we leave tonight?”
Nerine had her wicked grin on. “Eleven.”
***
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It was nine in the evening and Nerine, Ina and I were getting ready in my room. Liam said he had ‘plans’ whatever those were. Sitting on the sofa, with a glass of gin in my hand, I had to admit our preparation for the night was going well. We were almost ready…drinking-wise that is. As for our actual clothing, I was still in my pajamas and Ina and Nerine weren’t far from that.
“Do we know where exactly is the place?” I asked. I didn’t know anything new was opening in town so I had to wonder.
“Yeah, it’s at one of the cliffs beyond Bloody Passage.”
“Oh!” my brows went up in surprise, “I didn’t know there’s place for a club there.”
“Well, me neither. That’s why we’re going there tonight, aren’t we?” Nerine giggled from her seat at the floor. She was already half-buzzed. “Let’s hope I won’t need to sing anyone to their deaths tonight.”
“Yeah, let’s not do that.” I agreed. “Are we using school teleporter or not?”
There was only one teleporter near school grounds but it was usually supervised. We couldn’t really go and return unnoticed. I didn’t know if it was worth trying to sneak back that way, and we would have to if we left through it.
“I hope not.” Ina interrupted. “If we do, we’re busted for sure.”
Nerine waved her hand and looked at us incredulously. “Of course, not. What do you think I am? Idiot? No. We have a drive there; Faolan will drive us there.”
Um, I’m not sure I knew who that was. “Who?”
“My sister’s boyfriend. He’s in one of the Units positioned at Whitemore, so he’s agreed to help. Thank God he’s not uptight like Viola.”
I scrunched up my face trying to remember if I’ve ever seen him with Viola in any of the pictures or if he was there with her when she visited Nerine, but I don’t think I did. But whatever, I was just glad he wanted to help. If he was anything like Viola, he would already be here trying to keep us in place. Sometimes I wondered if Nerine was the reckless one of the two sisters just for that reason. I mean, if my brothers tried to stop me in everything I tried to do, I’d go a little crazy too.
“Let’s dress then, and move. I can’t sit here anymore.” Ina stood and started pulling us with her towards our clothes on the bed. Yeah, it was time alright.
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Sneaking through the dark paths away from fairy lights, the three of us headed towards the main road, a few miles down the hill. Of course, being in complete dark, we walked far longer than that. I could bet we went the wrong way at least three times.
By the time we exited thick trees, a black SUV was already waiting for us. There was a figure leaning on the side of it, silently smoking a cigarette. “You took your pretty time.” Faolan, I assumed, said.
“Shut up.” Ner snipped. “It’s not the easiest thing navigating these freaking forest in complete dark. You’re lucky you didn’t wait longer.”
Exiting the shadows, Faolan, who was actually average height but bulky, went to hug Ner. He was dressed in all black Unit’s uniform. Nerine introduced him to Ina and me and we were on our way.
It didn’t take us long to get into town; it was just twenty or so minutes. The town was mostly quiet except for few bars we passed that had plenty of people mingling around. In no time, we reached the Bloody Passage and Faolan stopped. “I’m sorry but you’ll need to walk from here. The road is not big enough for a car.”
“It’s fine.” I replied. “We’ll manage from here.”
“Yeah,” Nerine added, “No worries. We’ll call you to pick us up?”
After his nod, we headed toward our pathway. It may wasn’t the easiest thing walking on partly frozen pavement in heels, but if we survived the forest, we could do this just fine. As we walked, the pavement turned into cobblestone path. Icebergs were on our both sides, rising well into the air. There was snow everywhere except on the thin trail. It was merged with red, winter flowers that oozed some kind of rosy liquid. I never dared touch it, but people say it could heal if used properly. Regardless, I wasn’t planning on going near them.
As we proceeded forward, further into the icy crack, we started feeling hints of the bass. I already felt excitement filling me; I couldn’t wait to go inside. If it was as good as I hoped it would be, the night would be fantastic.
Coming to a stop, I couldn’t help but gawk in awe. “Woah. This is definitely something.”
“Yup.” Ina agreed, just as much in awe.
I stood watching number and number of icy, sparkling cliffs positioned one atop of the other. They emitted illuminating glow in the darkness. The club Ner was talking about was positioned on the top of the cliff nearest to us. The outside of it was almost like an igloo. The entrance, though, was made of huge crystals decorated with the same red flowers as the passage.
“Alright. Do we know the plan?” Nerine asked once more.
“Sure. We’ll let you deal with security at the entrance.” Ina replied.
“Correct. Now, move. I really want to see the inside of this glorious place.”
And so we did.
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