CHAPTER 17:
"Just open those eyes."
I stare astutely at the very image in front of me, he's writing down notes in such a concentrated form. Ember eyes conduct a form of strategy on the battlefield. Or rather, Elrond's battlefield, since Rowan thought it would be intelligent to place Creed in charge of sending Elrond, Taylor, Serenity, Genevieve and fourteen other potential candidates into the deep end of the simulations we'd done previously, "How ruthless would you get?" I ask him.
He looks up at me, "Have you finished going through the scrolls?" He asks me.
I give him a long look, "If you people invested in technology—I wouldn't be so inclined to run through section after section of maps that hold nothing different from each other except for an artists name or a researcher's opinion. Right and wrong. Left to right. There is nothing in these scrolls, I'll need to look elsewhere."
This was the fifth library we came to and while he helped me search maps and scrolls and research in the four other distinguished, old libraries, none of them held what I needed. The map to the mating runs pool that could identify the root of my problems—however, that can't happen if we can't find this stupid pool.
He glides his eyes back towards his battle notes, "There are three other libraries we can search, before the head capital may be the only option." He murmurs, I was still surprised he was helping me.
My phone vibrates on the table.
The twenty-fifth call from Athena Darkling.
Creed side-eyes the phone, "She won't stop until she hears from you."
"What can you tell me about your relationship with the so-called head kingdom of all that it surrounds?" I ask him, leaning back in my seat, getting comfortable while he moves his eyes over each line, likelihood of each new simulation that creates a whole new wave of nightmares for the students forced to go through with this.
"I am a freelance soldier." He accentuates.
I tilt my head at him, moving a lock of hair in front of me, "Kill for hire?"
He purses his lips, "No. I kill on my own terms, in case you didn't recall that professor who tried to hurt you, and a certain other species." He made note of, obviously.
"Yes, you keep shooting my enemies too early." I retort, giving him a flat look.
"I never did get a 'thank you' from one of those saves. Chivalry isn't dead in this realm—not yet at least. It must only run in the Darkling nature, along with that Elias fellow—where abuse was wrongfully used." He murmurs, eyes on me now and not the page in front of him.
"Speaking of, where is Elias?" I wondered, I smelt Elias on him a couple days back.
The smell of blood had been prominent.
"Well, in case his vial runs out, we can always get more." He mutters, making no expression as he turns the page on his notes.
I lean my arms on the table, "How are you defeating an elemental?" Elias is who I meant.
A muscle in Creed's jaw ticks. I stare at him, expectantly. He flicks the pen between his fingers and continues writing, "You learn what makes specific elementals tick, what they enjoy. What they dislike in passing times, what they crave and everything they lack and if respect, loyalty and plain choice isn't corrected in that, it's a soldier's job to correct such a thing. I am well-acquainted with pinpointing how this specific elemental ticks." He's torturing him somehow.
I purse my lips, "For information? That's what you're doing this for?"
"You understand the laws of justice, don't you?" He asks me.
"It's my justice, not yours." I argue.
He doesn't bat an eyelash, "Hence why he's not dead yet. That and if he is linked to you, properly, then you would have felt what's been done to him and based on observation, I'd conclude you aren't linked to the...what shall we call him? A coward? Dead meat?" He asks me, running a line of ink through a page.
I stare at him, "What has he told you?"
He levels with my eyes, that intense gaze doesn't make me waver. He had that strange, bizarrely beautiful look about him that was eternal, perhaps even ethereal to the eye. Sharp and poised, old age does that, wisdom too—however there was far more I couldn't get a reading on even if I tried when it came to Creed Legion, "Not enough." He says, cryptically.
"Creed."
He just stares at me, "Hale gave him to me easily. She clearly believes you won't mind, so do you?" He tilts his head in question.
I raise an eyebrow, "He's known me for a while. It's him I know barely anything about. I thought I knew, but nothing has ever been clear. Whatever you're doing, use a variety of tactics. Torture through physical activity is one thing, but mental strain—now that's a new opening if you haven't tried it yet."
"I have, it worked more effectively. It got a highly emotional response when I used a simulation that...well, I'm still working on." He explains, again, more vaguely. However, looking at him now, I observed that it was better if I didn't know. Plausible deniability. Except that this wasn't the human realm anymore and the laws here were almost entirely different. Creed's ember eyes hold mine, waiting for me to ask more, perhaps even object to more.
"Has he mentioned the ice king—the one with the younger dead brother?" I ask him.
He completely stops from his work and I realise the question was either extremely tactical or exaggeratedly dumb. He intertwines his fingers, "No, he hasn't. Care to enlighten me on information I will now have to torture out of him?" He proposes.
I lean forward and adjust a note on his simulation. Adjusting his words, adjusting the objectives of further experimentation when it's based on personal files and not the overall set fears distributed and known to most of those in the trials, "Ask him about Alastair. His devotion and employment to him. This king was told to be long dead, he's not, far from it. Both are old unplanned anomalies. Flush him out." I murmur.
He studies me, "Good to know."
I thank the goddess this one time that Creed doesn't ask for more, "I'm going to look in the restricted section." I mutter, getting up and leaving him to his boring choice of spending his time. I trail my fingers over the elemental knowledge thrumming through the shelves. I was in my own mind until a pair of ember eyes was suddenly in front of mine in the other isle.
I hitch a breath before giving him a well-deserved glare, "Are you helping?" I wonder. He walks around the isle, folds his arms and gives me a look.
"I would be if you were," He points to me, "You are revealing a slight snap of anger for me. Is it because I chose to torture something you might label as yours?" He asks me, keeping his expression neutral. He speaks of Elias, did he think I would object to his advances?
"Wrong assumption, sweetheart. I'm pissed because you didn't seem to catch onto what Rowan was doing or you let it happen on that hill. One way or another, I'm trusting you to help me find this thing, and I'm trusting you with those vials. I bloody trusted Athena too. I'm not pissed you're torturing someone that I, in due fact, actually want well and truly dead, so you can drop the jealous act right now. You have the patience to torture this particular enemy, okay." I gesture to him, folding my arms. It's that very defensive measure, protecting oneself with the ability to defend their core.
Creed doesn't blink, "I wasn't focused on him at the time." He confesses, clenching his jaw now as his hands drop to their sides. I wanted to bite back, but bit my lip knowing it would be wrong. He wasn't Nicolai, he wasn't Alastair and he wasn't Elias.
I turn back to the shelves, my fingers trace the shelves before rolling along the spines of each book like just one swish could give me the answer to everything, "Should I have never trusted her? She is a Darkling, she just seemed genuine - and why help fake my death just to get away from her kin?" So many unanswered questions.
"You can easily be both genuine and a traitor. Just look at Rowan. No matter his past, his first mistake was trying to force you." He mutters, making my fingers pause and my eyes swish to look his way, if not briefly. Rowan had a lot more to him that I had yet to know, the question was more related to whether I needed to know. The pieces of every puzzle is supposed to be important, they're all necessary to complete the big picture, except my every piece was changing. The bigger picture grew more blurry with each second that ticked by. I needed an anchor, and that meant trusting myself or someone else wholeheartedly.
How could I even trust myself when I didn't understand, or even see the bigger picture?
Leviathan was one thing, something that could be to do with my ancestry—if I am connected at all.
The Kingdom of Abernathy, it wasn't the kingdom of paradise. Not like what Serenity called it, but Genevieve—she knew it personally. Her history with it is darker than what I knew, and Athena, she lied—to protect someone or to run me on some ridiculous goose chase—she was stalling for something. And Elias. Someone Creed was torturing before I'd known about it, not only that...where was Alastair if Elias wasn't by his side, at his every beck and call like one predictable, personal slave.
"There's nothing on the Rune Pool in any general library. It's more important than something so accessible to the public." I murmur, folding my arms, I didn't think going to these other libraries would do me any good.
"The Central Kingdom might." He says slowly.
I clench my jaw, "And the only way in there is by entering those trials. Something I won't ever do, I need another way inside. First, I should confirm whether they have anything at all." I say, whilst turning to look at him.
He purses his lips, "I've never had to try and search for a Rune Pool before. I haven't read up on it in such a Kingdom. However, there may be something else we can try." He says, as if a lightbulb dinged on atop his head. He looks to me, before nudging his head over to the end of the corridor.
I follow, only cautiously while he stops and flicks his finger at...a bloody concrete cobblestone wall.
"Am I supposed to see something I'm not seeing?" I ask him, slowly.
"What are you seeing?" He muses.
"Literally just a wall, Creed."
He smiles and steps forward, running his hand over the wall before a red concoction smears against it, I hitch a breath when his palm comes back with a small cut, "What the hell are you doing?" I whisper-yell at him. His other, healthy arm stops me, before something clicks open in the wall and stilling in both astonishment and intense anticipation, the rock forms and transitions, to reveal a...tiny book in its place.
I blink at it, "You had to sacrifice blood for a book only tiny Tinkerbell could read?" I whisper.
"Who's Tinkerbell?" He asks me.
"Peter Pan's fairy. Never mind, I'll have to take you to Earth at some point and show you the ropes. You'll look weird out there without me, surely get arrested just for all your obvious, stand-out weaponry." I gesture to the twin swords attached to him at all times. Fingers brush down my side, making me tense before I look up at his...intense gaze.
"Grab the book, Tinkerbell." He nudges his head to it.
"She was an air fairy. I am a fire fairy. Big difference."
"You called her tiny. You appear similar in description." He smirks down at me when I give him a flat look before reach for the book, only it doesn't give me time to land on it, let alone open it because of the sudden swish of magic that whooshed around it, opening the pages and it's instantaneous page blowing until we have a floating book with a hand drawn picture of a mountain surround by rough seas of water is right in front of me.
Ancient language is highlighted on the corner of the lower page, Creed leans in and speaks it under his breath. I felt that cold brush of air is if we were in the picture. Creed's fingers move around my lower back this time, "Hold on."
"What for—CREED!" I scream when we're twisted and pulled, tugged and ripped apart in some sort of time continuum and shift all at once. Freezing cold winds suddenly shudder my clothes. Creed's strands fly around too.
"Where the hell are we?!" I yell out.
"The Book of Answer is in every library, I didn't think of it until now. It directed us here, this is one important stepping stone for all that you wish to know. To learn. The book shows you the first step and the rest gives you clues. There should be an open cave just below us, we need to find a way to get down to those rocks to find the opening!" He yells over the harsh wind, pointing below us as specs of rain flutter like pins and needles against whatever skin can be seen on me. I grab Creed's hand and teleport us down to the rocks.
Splashes of harsh, salt water against black sand was the first thing I could see before feeling it against the tip of my nose where Creed crowded over me to take the brunt of the splash. I place a hand on his arm, leaning in with gratitude in my expression.
Stepping around rocks that were the size of cars, the black sand didn't sink under our shoes or weight as I moved on instinct, trying to find what I assumed would be easy to find, a simple cave opening, "Do you see anything?" I call out to a dripping Creed.
He squeezes my hand, "You seem to know where." He says to me.
I glance over, "Yeah, I don't quite know how." I mutter under my breath, before moving us around a truck-sized rock and pausing at twenty metres ahead of me, dark-seaweed infested stage opening, flat-surfaced and an entrance, darker than hell itself, was staring me down.
Creed blocks another wave coming toward us, before I begin the climb, it's soft and easy at first, moving from rock to rock, before leaping towards the upwards slope. He's not a step behind me, grabbing ahold of jutted out black rock next to me. We proceed to climb up, the icicle breeze feeling like I was trying to climb Mt Everest without any special gear. He gets to the top first and turns, grabbing my hand, before lifting me effortlessly up onto the surface.
I hitch a breath, he's close and towering over me, "You alright?" Drips of salt water brush his long lashes. I nod, so as to try to focus when I look behind him at the dark ruins of the cave entrance.
"Light us the way." His lips brush against the shell of my ear, like he knew what he was doing. I close my eyes, configuring a ball of fire within my palm, envisioning it on a strong ball of light with lines that coordinated the perfect sphere inside the fire. It's warmth shelters us both as we step inside, on more uneven ground.
"What do you know about this place?" I ask him once we're out of the rain and covered in here. The flame can only illuminate at a certain distance from me. I felt the resistance and I felt it diminish a little when I tried to force it higher.
He places a hand on my arm, "Don't drain your fire, we're going to need it here. This place is the Mountain of Bones, specifically ones of the dead formed on the island. That and anyone who crash-landed here and was forced in here, instead of willingly entering. Like the Book of Answers though, it has qualities in locating lost ruins. The Rune pool for example. If we're lucky." He murmurs, helping me over an uneven rock before we move into the black sand, flatter and more reliable.
My stomach clenches as each step feels heavier, "That's normal. It's like sirens luring in sailors. Do you smell anything alluring?" He asks me.
I look up at him and shake my head, "Smells like the salt water still. Why, do you?" I ask him.
"Smells like your wolf a little. A forest smell." He whispers above me.
He keeps my hand on his while dread and despair touches my skin, like the ghosts of the dead bodies in here become more potent and apparent the further we walk in. I brace myself when a sea of broken boats and gold, treasure beyond name glitters and shimmers down below. I move the light further in and watch in fascination at a silver transparent rock formation in the middle of the mouth of the cave, "Do you know what that is?" I ask him.
He steps in next to me, "No. I've heard tales, just never knew what was within. Come on, it has sand around it and behind it, there's a landing just over there." He tells me, before we move to the edge of the water.
I step closer to him, before hearing a creak behind me, against the walls.
"Don't look. Just keep moving." He tells me, reaching for me and with one arm around my waist, he hauls me against his chiseled chest. I balance on two small rocks.
"What are they?" I ask him.
"Something we don't want to awaken." He breathes out, eyes penetrating mine. His nostrils flare the way a werewolf male does, only it's sexier from my view, inhaling...that scent. Why can he smell something but I can't?
I ask him as much, he shakes his head, close his eyes for a long moment, "Nothing, it's—it affects differently for those who willingly step in. Desires are namely different." He murmurs, quietly.
"Okay, because for a second there I was worried my wolf senses were failing on me." I joke, looking back at the rock formation, "Let's keep moving." I tell him, moving out of his protective embrace, I follow and grip the edge of the mouth of the cave. He's close by.
So close by.