Page 51 of Above
Cal grabbed it next, his blue eyes distant as he drank. I waited, knowing, as always, he’d have something to say. He had been the most difficult to convince of the plan, but there was no other future. We needed to take over, or else we’d lose Dajahim to impurity.
“This entire thing is ridiculous. The stars don’t care about purity. If they did, they’d stop giving people like Nova magic.” It always came down to her. With Talon. With Caleb. With me, too, unfortunately.
“Cal, if you keep saying such blasphemous things I’m going to beat your ass,” Dove hissed, throwing a pillow shaped like a peony at Caleb’s head. He caught it, but his face was missing his normal teasing smirk. When Cal got serious, things got bad.
“Tershetta is nice. And funny. And smart. And, apparently, pretty fucking good in bed seeing as your brother is so obsessed with her he can barely breathe on his own. Maybe she’s more like us than we care to admit.”
“She’s anakhata,”Pri spat, shoving Caleb away from her and sitting up. “She will always be a disgusting mistake that the stars only make because they’re bored. If anything, it further proves that this plan our parents have concocted is the only path forward. We can’t let the stars continue to grow displeased.”
The four of them began to bicker, growing louder and drinking heavier. For some reason, I couldn’t handle it. My mind strayed to the demands Captain Zade had made earlier, ordering me to go faster and harder. Insisting I like it.
I needed space. Solitude.Something.
“I’ll be right back,” I mumbled, swiping one of the unopened bottles of whiskey on my way out. None of them paid much mind to me, too caught up in their own problems. Which was fine. Weall had something to plague our minds, we didn’t need to worry about one another as well.
Slipping out of Pri’s door, I closed it quietly behind me, my eyes flicking momentarily to my room before landing on Talon’s. I could use this time to talk to him. Perhaps corner him and finally have a useful conversation. If I could stop my temper from ruining it, that was.
No. He was probably with the problem herself. Instead, I made my way to the stairs, taking them slowly. I preferred this way when I was alone. It was nice to have the peace they afforded. My feet were loud, though my mind was louder. It rarely shut up these days. Too much was coming all at once, and I didn’t know how to slow it down.
By the time I reached the bottom of the concrete stairs and pressed through the doors, I had decided that I would head to the beach. It was nicer there, in the warm breeze. Tipping back the glass bottle, I drank heavily, wishing it would work faster. When I faced forward again, I saw her, tucked beneath a tree with her bare feet buried in the sand and a book in her lap. Around her floated tiny specs of light, a sort of ring that mirrored the sky.
She was always doing something. Why didn’t she sleep or relax? It was so strange.
I crept slowly toward her, not wanting her to know I was there just yet. Whatever she was reading must have been engrossing, because she didn’t even twitch at my presence. Or maybe I noticed her more often than she noticed me.
When I was close enough to read over her shoulder, I bent low and willed the liquor back to my barracks room, feeling excited at the prospect of scaring her. Of unsettling her as she did me. Because I was so tired of her having any power over us.
“While the shadows enhance the magic given to a shaytan on their twenty-fifth birthday, they are not solely something thatmakes one stronger,” I read aloud, chuckling when she jumped. When she moved to snatch the book away and round on me, I quickly reached out, placing my hand on hers and forcing her to still. “They allow the user to create something out of nothing rather than utilizing resources around them.”
“Get away from me, Altair,” she hissed, ripping her hand out from under mine. A louder, fuller laugh escaped me. She was so easy to rile up.
“That isn’t a book we were given by the academy,” I noted, ignoring her order. She huffed, wrapping her arms around the large tome and standing. Her hair was twisted into two knots on top of her head, curls poking out in places. She wore academy assigned sleepwear and had left her face bare. A mess of a creature.
“So,” she countered, lifting her chin. Peering down at her, I realized that her tight jaw and flighty eyes might mean more than just distaste for my presence. Tershetta was hiding something. I allowed myself to study the book, seeing its worn edges and the gold embossing on the spine.Shadows that Breathe.Nothing I had ever read, but clearly something old and likely expensive. More than that, it wasn’t something just anyone could get their hands on. Eadi weren’t allowed to learn about magic afterall.
“Little Void, I never took you for a thief.” That got to her. She let out a low growl and shoved her shoulder into me, walking away without a glance back. But I wasn’t done with her. Jogging toward her, I caught up in seconds, smiling as I spoke. “Does your lover boy know you steal? Or did you fuck someone else for access to this?”
Tershetta’s warm brown cheeks pinkened beneath the weight of my stare and the light of the moons. And it hit me then, how right I was.
“Scandalous,” I teased. I could use that against her if I needed to. Maybe finally convince Talon that she was using him. Tershetta stilled, rounding on me with one arm wrapped protectively around the book and a finger pointing my way.
“You are a sociopath and a monster, don’t you dare judge me for whatever I’ve done to keep up with all of you!”
“Sociopath? I’ve yet to have a healer or a medic diagnose me with that.”
“Ugh! You’re insufferable!”
“Well that makes two of us, then.” Oh I was really getting under her skin, and Ilikedit there. She clenched her teeth, staring up at me as if contemplating murder. How I’d love to see her try. Leave it to an akhata to overestimate their abilities.
“You’re the one following me, Snake. If you don’t want to be in my company, then stay the fuck away from me.” Her words were icy, spoken in a low and borderline wicked tone. And I wondered as I looked at her if she wanted to kill me as much as I wanted to kill her. If she didn’t just hate me, but rather, she loathed me entirely.
“You’re so testy tonight. Did the second illusion get to you?” She had been noticeably shaken up after, but her improvement was obvious. Whatever Talon was doing to ready her was working, which only served to make my job of ending her harder.
“Please,” she huffed as she stomped up the path, heading for the academy gates. Her body seemed to radiate heat, as if her fury were a fire in her chest. As I stared at her, I realized that her bottom lip was bleeding. My gaze flicked down to her nails, seeing dried blood in them. Stars, she was out of her depth. “You know just as much as I do that it’syouthat gets to me. You haunt me like a ghost, always eager to scare me into submission or knock me off balance. But I’m still here, Altair. And despite your vile dreams, I will graduate. And when I do, I will prove toall of Dajahim that your little purity plight is nothing more than an excuse to maintain your undeserved power.”
Suddenly feeling my own anger rise, I snatched her wrist, using our momentum to push her against one of the towering trees no more than twenty feet from the gate. Her breathing accelerated, her eyes wide. Pinning her wrist to the bark above her, I snatched the book and tossed it to the ground, securing her now free hand beside her other one. A gasp crawled past her torn lips, her large eyes watering ever so slightly.
“You are far less special than you give yourself credit for, Little Void. Hopefully you learn that before it’s too late.” I dared to bend my neck, our noses grazing. Bumps rose across my skin, my instincts screaming at me to take action. To do something. A thrum of energy began within me, my magic a swirling storm.
