Heavens Whisper | K.TH

V's Trial

WHITE

I've been sitting blankly for the last hour in V's empty room, not being able to concentrate at all. After I'd possibly made the worst mistake of my life, he'd wordlessly pointed at the ground and had briskly walked out of the room.

The look on his face is still clear in my mind.

Sighing heavily, I fall back to the ground and close my eyes.

Why couldn't you just have controlled your damn temper? And he's always done that kind of stuff to you.

Disappointment clouds through my mind when I realize that he's probably never going to speak another word to me anymore. Why would he try to help me survive when I'd done that?

And my Test Trial—

I freeze.

Immediately jumping up from the ground, I rush out his room and practically sprint towards the window overlooking the Main Courtyard, where the Trials were always held.

What if there were Marks?

If he was going to take his Test Trial today, that meant he was going to have to fight. And that also meant the Marks I'd probably made— just not seen earlier— was going to give him pain.

What if the Marks were invisible?

My face pressed against the glass, I watch with my head clouded with worry as I see him already in battle. It looks like it had started just seconds earlier, with the both of them just standing and sizing each other up.

His green eyes are visible from all the way here, ringed with kohl. A white bandana is wrapped around his forehead, Winter's insignia marked in the center.

I squeeze the windowsill with my hands, afraid that he was going to break into painful spasms any moment.

But when the other Blessed— some man with pale blonde hair and wearing a weird insignia of flames— lunges at him, he doesn't show any signs of weakness.

It looks like he's almost gotten faster.

Fire.

That's what it was. Thanking Siren's lessons to get me to learn all the Houses and their Blessings, I recall House Hearth, and their ability with fire.

One touch, and you'll die burned to ashes.

And then I see V do the same thing he'd done to me. Scarlet flickers into white fire, surrounding the outline of his body with fierce flames.

Then the blonde Blessed screams.

The sound travels all the way to here, resounding through the glass and chilling my skin. I watch in horror as he crumples to the ground, body wracking with agonized screams and spasms.

I wince.

I knew exactly how that felt like.

But different from me, he keeps his eyes on the Blessed like he wasn't going to stop his mental torture anytime soon. Then I get a clear glance at the look he has in his dull green eyes, and run towards the Main Courtyard.

He's not focused.

_________________________

Thankfully it's just a flight of stairs down from Winter Wing to the Courtyard, so I don't have to end up running a mile and nearly blowing my lungs to ash.