The End of Fire and Ice

chapter 16: desire

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
ೃ⁀➷ William Shakespeare

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°

It was only the beginning of training, yet the end of our book. With the final quote said, I closed our copy of Romeo and Juliet and looked over at Jay's stupefied face.

"Jin, I did not like how that ended. They didn't have nearly enough time to let their love grow! And I want justice for Mercutio!" He stood up from his spot in protest.

"If you didn't like how that story ended, then you'll just have to read another one." I too stood up, book in hand, and started walking over to the shelf it had come from with Jay trailing behind me.

I let my hand trace along the spines of the books on the shelves, looking for my mind's next destination when Jay spoke up from beside me.

"Can I see your marking? The one on your wrist? I've never seen the ice blessing tattoo up close before."

"Sure... can I see yours too?"

"Of course."

I held out my left wrist to him and he traced over my snowflake tattoo with his finger.

"It's pretty," he said, smiling down at it.

"It hurt like a bitch to get, though."

"It wasn't as bad as getting the tracking device."

He held out his wrist to me and I traced my hand over the little flame. It was simple but still nice looking. Underneath it, I could feel a bump where the tracker was placed.

"You're right. Sometimes I forget it's even there," I murmured, removing my hand and returning my attention to the book shelf.

"I wish I could forget."

"I'm sure we can do something to take your mind off of it. Which book do you want to read?"

"I was thinking... we should do something different today." He pulled me to a further part of the library behind a series of shelves encasing a large empty space.

"Where are you going with this, Jay?" I narrowed my eyes at him as he sat down on the ground.

"We should show each other our powers."

"Oh. That could be dangerous, though," I countered, sitting down in front of him on the floor.

"Or it could be fun." I saw that spark in his eyes and I knew he was right. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen the fire blessing this close in action before.

Here at the facility, we blessed walked the line between practice and mastery of our powers. They want us to know how to use them to defend ourselves and protect the world, but they don't want to risk the ender knowing too much or getting too powerful.