The energy subsided and I found myself staring over at Taylor and Lucas, who were silently throwing cold gazes of daggers at each other.
I cleared my throat slightly, "What was that?"
I looked over at Taylor, waiting for him to explain but Lucas cut in, "I'll tell you what that was. Taylor here, decided to swear his oath of loyalty to you. That is completely unprecedented."
He threw another angry glance at Taylor.
"As a Grimstaw I can do what I want," Taylor countered.
"What does that even mean?" I felt myself become more confused by the second.
"It means that he is not a normal Rogue running away from swearing the oath. He is part of one of the royal families which makes this even worse," Lucas groaned.
"Well, he's sworn your stupid oath. So he doesn't have to die anymore," I stared angrily over at Lucas. He was annoying me more by the second and I wanted to leave. I had had enough crazy for one day.
"Technically he is no longer a Rogue," Lucas admitted, it looks like the words actually caused him pain as they passed his lips. He pushed a lock of his blonde hair away from his forehead.
Taylor stepped closer to me, letting a small purple spark of his index finger trace over my lower arm closing up the wound as he went. I stared down as he erased any indication of the injury.
"How is this even possible?" I breathed.
His dark eyes met mine, a smile was playing in them, "Cara now that you have a warrior bound to you by our most sacred oath you should really learn a little bit more about magic."
"What is happening?" Lucas shouted out in a shrill tone. He was pulling up the torn sleeve of his left arm and staring down at the soft pink skin. As my wound had been erased by Taylor's magic as if Lucas wound was a mirror of mine, it was now disappearing from his arm at the same pace. My eyes locked at Lucas arm, I thought I had seen enough unbelievable things but this certainly topped the list – at least for now.
Taylor gently pulled down the sleeve of my cardigan, "All better now."
I stayed silent for a moment before he tugged at my sleeve, "Let's go."
I was just about to make a move to leave, when Lucas spoke up, "Not so fast. Cara, I need to speak to you."
I turned and face him, his cool blue eyes met mine. I made no move towards him.
"Without him," Lucas said and threw a glare in Taylor's direction.
I could feel Taylor stiffen by my side and the expression on Lucas face told me we were about to experience another boy-ish stand off unless I did something.
"Fine," I rolled my eyes and walked over towards him.
Lucas adjusted his slightly scuffed up suit and started walking, I fell in step with him and we walked a bit further down the alleyway. Lucas gracefully motioned with his hand towards the wall next a dumpster, such a sophisticated gesture given the surroundings.
I leant my back against the brick wall and stared defiantly at Lucas. If he wanted to talk to me, he was going to have to do all the heavy lifting.
"So..." he started, his voice a lot softer and almost hesitant now that it was just the two of us.
I stared back at him, trying to keep my facial features natural. I had to remind myself that I didn't know anything about him, apart from the fact that he disliked Taylor and took this whole oath swearing business really seriously.
"When I saw you in that hotel lobby," he hesitated for a moment before continuing, "I didn't quite realise what you were. I only acted on instinct, I knew Aaron wanted to hurt you so my natural reaction was to go against him."
"So that's why you helped me?" the question fell breathlessly out of my mouth. I tightened my lips and cursed myself internally for not staying silent.
"Yes. It was," he pushed that persistent blond lock of hair off his forehead again.
"But then I went home and started reading. I caught up on all those books we have in the library, I started reading all the legends of the Vortex. That's when it happened," his eyes searched me, as if I was holding some great mystery.
"I felt this pull towards you, as if I knew where you were. Almost like you had sent out your GPS coordinates on a map for me."
I nodded and thought back to the moment at Mr. Liu's when I had fainted.
"So what does it mean?" I heard myself ask, staying silent clearly wasn't my forte.
"It means you are tethered to her," Taylor broke in.
I felt myself jump at his voice, both Lucas and I instantly snapped our heads to his direction.
"Tethered?" Lucas voice was authoritative, any trace of softness gone. He clearly had not gotten that far into his reading.
"It means you're connected to her and she is to you," Taylor explained hastily.
Lucas involuntarily grabbed his left arm, for a moment he was rubbing it in silence as if the pieces of the puzzle was slowly falling into place in his mind. His demeanour shifted in an instant, he quickly grabbed my arm ready to pull me off, "You have to come with me."
Taylor grabbed my other arm, "She is not going anywhere with you!"
I started to feel like a toy in the sandbox again, I felt anger mixed with the hum of power swell up within me. Small sparks of blue energy ran down my arms, causing both of them to release their grips on me.
"I'm not going with either of you," I declared.
I leant back against the wall and stared angrily at them both. I had had enough crazy for a whole lifetime and I was done with being pulled around like a rag doll.
"Cara you have to go with me," Lucas voice was suddenly soft again. I could almost feel the frostiness emanate from Taylor.
"Why?" I heard myself ask.
Lucas groaned for a moment before taking a deep breath, "You won't understand this... But, I am fighting for the throne. I am one of the royals who are next in line to be king."
"Unless one of the other royal families don't get there first," Taylor added sourly.
"If you and I are linked. If my injuries become your injuries," he pointed at my arm, "Then your injuries could become mine."
He straightened out his suit and stared at me, his eyes had shifted to an intensely blue colour, "I can't risk having a weakness like you left out in the world unguarded."
Taylor huffed at my side, "She won't be unguarded. Remember? She has a warrior now."
Lucas snorted and rolled his eyes, clearly not calmed by the statement.
"You have to come to court with me. I can protect you, if you stay with me," his blue eyes were begging me know, for a second almost fooling me that he worried about my safety.
"That's not very smart of you, Mathlow," Taylor said.
Lucas raised one eyebrow at him but stayed silent.
Taylor continued, "Seeing as you are so worried about your safety. How do you think that all the back stabbing warlocks at court will react when you suddenly have a human in tow. A Vortex no less?"
I could almost see the cogs in Lucas head moving as he was thinking.
He spoke out loud but it was unclear if he was directing his words at anyone in particular, "If they find out that I am linked to a Vortex..."
Taylor finished his thought, "they will use Cara against you."
"I don't know what the two of you think," my eyes sent them both sharp glances of warning to stay silent. "But I have a job, I have rent and bills to pay. I'm not just going to drop everything because of all of this," I waved between the two of them.
"Fine, you can stay where you are," Taylor admitted. I frowned at the fact that he thought he has some sort of jurisdiction over my life, but I decided to let the comment slide.
"I can take care of myself," I continued.
"Plus I will keep her safe," Taylor added.
Lucas frowned for a minute, "I suppose a Grimstaw warrior is acceptable."
I could feel Taylor's instinct to argue back, "Don't." I pulled at his sleeve.
He stayed silent, eyes locked on Lucas.
"You two can continue your staring match," I sighed. "But I am going home now."
I started walking down the alleyway and a moment later I could hear Taylor hurrying after me.
"I will be in touch," Lucas words echoed ominously down the alleyway but I did not turn back.
I continued walking, turning back out onto the small residential street and continued down to the corner of the high street before Taylor had caught up with me. He was pushing his bike next to him, meeting a lot of irritated frowns from the pedestrians who had to navigate around it.
"Are you okay?" he asked hesitantly.
"No," I stared at him angrily. I knew none of this was his fault, but I couldn't help to feel anger towards him. My life had been perfectly normal until he had shown up.
He looked back at me, for a moment his eyes held a hurt expression before he stared to one side, navigating his bike past a couple of pedestrians.
My anger simmered down and I suddenly felt a bit guilty for being so harsh towards him. I took a deep breath and shot him a small smile, "You have a lot of explaining to do, Grimstaw."
He gave me a weak smile in return, "I will. Let's just get back to the flat first."
I closed the door behind us and hear the small click noise as it the lock slide into place. I felt myself lean back against it, studying Taylor. For a split second, it felt like he might actually hold all of the answers to all of the crazy, magical nonsense that had been going on in the last few days but before I could question him, he shocked me with a question of is own.
"Why did you tell me you had met Lucas?" his eyes bored down on me.
Instantly, I felt disarmed, "I'm sorry." I felt my lower lib tremble, "I just forgot."
His facial expression softened instantly and he quickly closed the distance between us, enveloping me in a hug, sighing into my neck, "I forget sometimes how new all of this is to you."
I allowed him to hold me for a moment, before stepping out of his embrace. This time it was my eyes who pierced him, "What do you mean?"
I stared him down for a moment, as I did so something flipped in my stomach as the realisation of how little I really knew about him hit me.
"Look Cara, why do you think Lucas called me a Rogue?"
I shrugged my shoulders, "I don't know..."
He took a deep breath before starting to explain, "A Rogue is a warlock who doesn't align themselves with any of the Royal families."
"So that's what the oath is about?" I breathed.
"Yes, you have to swear your allegiance and if you don't, they classify you as a Rogue."
"So then you die?" I heard my question echo through the empty flat.
"Yes, it's not quite that simple...." Taylor shot me a dark look. "The reason why I didn't swear my oath, Cara, was because I didn't want to feel like I had pledged my life to this world."
His face was cloaked in sadness for a moment, as he looked away. He shrugged his shoulder and fixed his eyes intently on me once more, "I guess I can relate to how you are feeling."
"How so?" I stared back at him.
"You have been thrown into a world you never asked to be part of – just like me."
I stared at him in wonder as he turned around and started walking towards my bedroom, stupefied I followed.
I closed the second door behind us and looked at him. Taylor had seated himself on my bed He patted the mattress at the spot next to him, gesturing for me to sit down. I sat down silently and looked at him, not sure what he would say next.
The next words out of his mouth shook me out of whatever state of disbelief I had been in, "So you are tethered to Lucas..."
I nodded coldly.
"As he told you, he is fighting for the throne."
I nodded again.
"You won't know this, but warlocks will literally kill each other for the throne."
I breathed in heavily. Taylor's eyes got cold and he grabbed my hands, I could feel the hum of energy from his hand pass up my arms, "Cara, trust me they kill for the throne."
His eyes were icy cold.
"Why is that my concern?" I asked defiantly.
He huffed angrily, "Have you not been following? Lucas and you are tethered, your injuries are his. Imagine if someone fighting for the throne, for example Aaron finds out?"
I felt a cold shudder of fear crept up within me at his last comment.
"So what do we do?"
"You have to learn how to control your new power..." his eyes were suddenly intense.
"So how do we do that?" I stared back at him.
"Firstly, you need to know something about warlocks..."
"And what is that?"
Taylor release his grip of my hands and cleared his throat, "Warlock's don't have an unlimited amount of magic..."
I raised an eyebrow in surprise but kept quiet, wanting him to continue to explain.
"We can recharge our powers by keeping magically inactive for a few days, but it's always going to be a limited resource..."
"And why are you telling me this?" I couldn't help but ask.
"That's the key thing warlocks fear from the legends of the Vortex," his eyes examined me for a moment, hesitant before he continued, "it's said that a Vortex who has once connected to a warlock's power could drain them of magic."
I felt myself shy away from his words, "So why would that be bad?"
I knew it must be stupid question to him, but being a human my whole life I didn't really see what the issue with not having magic was.
Taylor's eyes instantly went dark as if I had say the worst of curse words, "According to our laws of magic, a warlock who no longer holds any magical powers must be eliminated."
The seriousness of his response choked my words, all I could do was push out a jagged, "Why?"
"Because someone non-magical knowing that much is too big of a threat to our existence..."
Silence laid between us for a moment, I stared out at the glaring street light positioned right outside my bedroom window. Its cold yellow light illuminated the room, I turned my gaze back to Taylor, "So what do we do now?"
"You have to learn how to control your power. Aaron is after you and being tethered to Lucas only puts you into graver danger."
I felt my throat close up as I considered the prospects, I knew there was people hunting me and I knew he was right. I had no idea how I would do it, but I would have to learn how to protect myself in this slightly absurd magical world.
"So what do we do?"
He stretched out his hands towards me, allowing purple glow to light from his fingertips, "First step, you have to learn how to absorb magic from a warlock."
"How do I do that?" I asked hesitantly.
"Like you have done every other time," he replied encouragingly.
"Okay," I hesitantly stretched out my hands letting them hover over his outstretched palms.
I closed my eyes for a second, focusing on the energy flowing from his fingertips. I could feel the soft vibration of power. I tried to focus on absorbing it and for a second it felt like it was working.
I opened my eyes and smiled at Taylor, "Like that?"
He smiled back at me, encouragingly, "A bit more than that. If you were in a fight you would have to take more than that to be able to protect yourself."
I nodded at him.
He let the energy flair up from his fingers, "Try it a bit harder this time and picture yourself being in a proper fight this time."
I closed my eyes and focused on the energy, feeling the faint hum of it as it slowly drifted from Taylor's finger tips into my open palms. I let my mind drift to when I had met one of Aaron's men in the alleyway. I saw the grey haired man's face in front of my eyes, the arrow as it flew towards me. I felt the fear pulse through my body, as if it had opened a faucets in me I felt the magic flow freely between Taylor and I.
Happy with the result I opened my eyes, still allowing the energy to flow freely into my palms, in the wild sparks of purple energy engulfing us in the eye of a tornado I saw Taylor, his face was ashen and his body unresponsive as he laid outstretched on the bed. I pulled my hands away from the storm of energy as if I had burned myself on a hot stove.
Author's Note: I just wanted to say sorry, this chapter is not as well edited as I would have liked. But I prioritised getting it up this Thursday rather than being late. It's currently 22:00 in the evening here in London. I do hope you'll enjoy this chapter nonetheless and please do remember to VOTE if you did enjoy it :)
So --- What did you think of the ending? What do you think will happen to Taylor? Also, how do you feel about all the new information shared about the magical world and the warlocks in this chapter?
Song: WoodzSTHLM - Underwater (feat. Flores & Olle Grafström)