Here's the next chapter! Sorry for the major delay; I had school exams which were really tough! But I hope you guys like this chapter and please vote and comment for it! :D I'm still dedicating the chapters to my loyal readers so please vote and comment to identify yourselves to me. Picture of Kayla, Troy and Benjamin on the side. :)
Chapter 13
“Kayla? Kayla?”
Her head jerked upright as she snapped out of her daze. Glancing up quickly, she met Hunter’s familiar brown eyes, filled with concern. Her gaze flickered back down to her full plate of food and then around to see Cedric staring at her too.
“Are you okay?” Hunter asked in a low voice. “You kind of spaced out.”
Kayla nodded bleakly, trying to remember how she had got there. She had been lost in a swirling haze of memories, thoughts and worries about Jenna and the House of Glamours, so much so that she had forgotten where she was.
“Do you need to eat something?” Hunter asked, leaning towards her from across the table.
“I’m fine,” Kayla muttered irritably.
Hunter raised an eyebrow at her harsh tone, but he let it slide.
Troy had taken the four of them down to dinner: Dahlia, Tamarak, Arulan and Kayla. The dining hall was large, with four long tables for each of the four kinds of magicians. Kayla was sitting with Hunter and Cedric at the Earth table; all the magicians sat at their respective tables.
“Anyway, I was asking where have you been all day,” Cedric repeated, picking up a chicken drumstick from the platter on the table. “We were collecting spears all day and we haven’t seen you since morning. Lucky you; you got out of collecting those weapons in the blazing sun!”
Kayla thought quickly. She didn’t want to lie to Cedric and Hunter; she had told so many fibs already to all of her friends. But all the same, she didn’t want Cedric to know about Jenna’s existence: Troy, Dahlia, Hunter and Arulan had found out that day. Sapphire and Tamarak had known for a very long time and judging by Luna’s divination powers, she also knew about Jenna.
“I was with Troy and Dahlia,” she finally said.
Hunter glanced sharply at her. She had not lied; it was true, but what she had done all day was her secret.
“Well, did you hear that someone tried to assassinate Luna?” Cedric asked eagerly. “The Moon Children are furious.”
“You shouldn’t sound so excited,” Kayla scolded him, grabbing a drumstick for herself from the platter; she had not eaten since breakfast that morning and she was starving. “She’s your friend and you sound thrilled that she was attacked!”
Cedric rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not happy that she’s been attacked, obviously,” he retorted. “And she’s more than a friend; she’s like my younger sister. I just wondered if you’d heard about it.”
“Yeah, Troy brought Dahlia and me to Luna’s tent,” Kayla said through a large mouthful of chicken and chips.
“She’s fine, right?” Cedric asked, his eyebrows creasing together. “None of the Moon Children let any of use near the tent; they wouldn’t let any of us in to see how she is.”
Kayla frowned, remembering Raven’s predicament. Raven being unconscious in the hospital wing might make it easier for her to defeat the House of Glamours, but strangely, it didn’t make her very happy. Raven was even more innocent than Dahlia and Troy; she had only been introduced to the magical world about a month ago. She hadn’t even been claimed since Niccolo was in Varmer’s custody. Without her shape-shifting ability, she was helpless to other magicians.
“Kayla?” Cedric repeated.
She snapped out of her reverie yet again, mentally chiding herself for getting distracted. The slightest distraction in the magical world could get you killed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Is Luna fine?” Cedric repeated, chewing on a large bite of chicken pie.
“Oh, yes,” Kayla said. “But Raven isn’t.”
“Raven?” Hunter repeated. “What happened to her?”
Kayla explained to Cedric and Hunter what happened to Raven in a low voice and how Raven had saved Luna’s life. Then she told them about how Sapphire had saved Raven but now Raven was in a coma in the hospital wing.
“Oh boy,” Cedric said when Kayla had finished her tale. “Poor Raven! Do you know if she’s okay?”
Kayla shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She turned around to look at the Water table. Dahlia and Sapphire were sitting next to each other, their blonde heads close together as they talked. Dahlia caught Kayla’s eye and waved, smiling. Kayla nodded back.
“Why is Sapphire here?” Hunter asked. “Shouldn’t she be looking after Raven since she’s so sick?”
Kayla shrugged, turning back to the Earth table.
“Maybe Jared’s looking after her,” Cedric suggested.
Kayla pivoted around again to look at the Air table, scanning her eye along all the magicians. Cedric was right; Jared wasn’t there.
“Look at Romulus and Tamarak,” Hunter muttered.
Kayla looked. They were glaring at each other and alternating that and eating their dinner. Remus, Romulus’s twin brother, sat between the, glancing awkwardly at them and trying to keep the peace between them.
“Merry Christmas, Sapphire,” Cedric joked. “That’s what happens when you’ve got two guys after you at the same time.”
Kayla raised an eyebrow at his insinuation; Cedric had just perfectly described what Dahlia was going through with him and Troy, although Dahlia didn’t have any romantic feelings for Cedric.
Hunter changed the subject. “The Moon Children are furious that their Queen almost got killed,” he told Kayla. “They might even break off the alliance with us.”
Kayla’s thoughts snapped back to Luna. She knew that the alliance between the magicians and Moon Children was shaky, but she hoped that it wasn’t dire enough that they might turn on the magicians at the Elementary and start fighting for Varmer.
“Luna can stop it,” Cedric said confidently. “She can do anything.”
Kayla raised an eyebrow sceptically.
“I think,” Cedric added.
“If someone tried to kill her, they might even still be on the island,” Hunter said. “It’s creepy; I could be sitting next to the assassin and I wouldn’t even guess.”
Cedric smirked. “Yup, I’m going to gut you with my spear, Hunt,” he joked.
Even as Cedric spoke, Kayla suddenly made the connection in her head. Maybe, just maybe, Troy was right; some magician with a glamour had replaced Jenna and that magician had tried to assassinate Luna. There couldn’t be that many evil magicians on the island, could there?
Unless, it was the spy!
Before Luna had left to find the Moon Children, Dahlia had discovered the existence of a spy in Avalon, most likely one of the magicians who was allowed in Arulan’s private meetings. But to find out which theory was true, she had to ask Hunter, without alerting Cedric to Jenna’s disappearance.
She groaned audibly.
“What is it?” Cedric asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she mumbled, attacking the last of her meal. “I’m just tired.”
Fortunately, Cedric did not read between the lines well at all, either that, or he was not as inquisitive as Troy and Dahlia. That made Kayla like him; he knew when there was time to ask questions and time to keep quiet.
Hunter, on the other hand, eyed her for a minute before slowly eating his food. Kayla was grateful for his silence.
None of them spoke until the dessert came. Kayla helped herself to a piece of chocolate cake and dug in. Both boys grabbed some cake too from the platter of food.
“Tomorrow is the day of funerals,” Hunter said, taking a bite of a jam tart. “We shall spend the day respecting the magicians who died during the battle.”
Kayla nodded. Many of the magicians who died were kept in their elements at their death. The Magicians of Fire were cremated, the Magicians of Earth were buried, the Magicians of Air dissolved into air like when they died from excessive use of magic and the Magicians of Water were encased in ice statues for eternity.
“We don’t have to do training tomorrow,” Cedric said. “Arulan told us a couple of hours ago.”
“But we can train if we want to, right?” Kayla asked.
Hunter shrugged. “It’s kind of like a respect thing,” he said. ‘I don’t know much about the customs of the magicians for stuff like funerals and parties. Do you, Cedric?”
Cedric frowned. “When I lived at the immortals’ palace, I attended one funeral for an old Magician of Earth. We buried him, but since that custom is the same as it is for humans, I don’t know whether that is compulsory for every single magician. We took the day off from training then too, though.”
“Did you train that day?” Hunter asked.
“Nope,” Cedric responded. “It was like a mini vacation.”
Cedric’s tone made Kayla understand; the training at the immortals’ palace had been rigorous and taxing, like the training at the Elementary. They savoured their small holidays.
Five minutes later, Arulan dismissed all of them and there was a loud scraping noise as all the trainees in the hall stood up to leave. Kayla, Hunter and Cedric sped up to catch up with Troy, Dahlia and Sapphire. Cursing her stature, Kayla glanced around, but she couldn’t spot Tamarak and Romulus.
“How’s Raven?” Troy asked Sapphire as they mounted the staircase.
Sapphire shook her blonde head. “Her condition isn’t deteriorating, nor has she recovered. She just lies there.”
“Can’t you do anything to help her?” Cedric asked.
“Nope,” Sapphire said grimly. “I’ve tried healing her and Jared had tested all his healing potions but none of them are working. I just hope that the poison didn’t do something irreparable to her. We’re treating her like a guinea pig; we’ve never come across a poison quite this complex before.”
Kayla felt sorry for Sapphire; her friend personally had to heal anyone and everyone who got injured or was ill and she alone had to watch them die if she failed. No one, not even Jared, had that big a burden for although Jared could make healing potions, he was not solely a healer like Sapphire was.
Suddenly, Kayla became aware that they were no longer moving through the crowds. A barricade of human bodies blocked the path up the stairs to the barracks.
“What’s going on?” Dahlia asked.
“I don’t know,” Kayla began as a chant came up from the front of the crowd.
“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”
“Oh, no,” Kayla said.
“Who is it?” Sapphire demanded.
Hunter, who was the tallest of the six of them, squinted over the heads of the trainees while standing on his tiptoes. Then he gasped in alarm.
“Who is it?” Cedric asked.
“Tamarak and Romulus,” Hunter muttered.