Chapter 26: Reversal
IT WAS A SHOCK TO deal with, and he didn't feel happy. "Why don't I know this? Why didn't anyone tell me?" he murmured, more to himself than Amber. He’d said so many things, accusing someone of doing things that were despicable. Till he pushed himself over the edge and threatened to do those same despicable things to him. I know you're part of Vortex. You killed them. And I’m going to kill you. With just my magic if I have to. Nicholas’s smirk flashed in his head. Think carefully about what you saw that night. Remember with a clear head – you’re Mind, you should know that.
And yes, he should have known, should have thought harder, looked deeper. The person he’d blamed for everything bad that had happened now turned out to be the one that had made all the good things happen. Nicholas had given him Camp, the Daron twins, his kouhais. And his brother – Kayden. You can join him in hell. He’d been blind not to pick up on it before. Nicholas’s brother was a touchy topic for him. He didn’t die in a Demon attack. That’s what it said in the official records but isn’t that the same for your parents? He died protecting someone too.
Across from him, Amber stood with her back to a bookshelf and nodded, and the motion brought him back to the here and now. "My only guess is that we're not supposed to know all of this. Nicholas only knows because he was directly involved."
He glanced at her. "Where is he now?"
Amber shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't ask him what he was going to do."
"Why?" he demanded. It occurred to him that he sounded more and more frustrated.
"Nicholas can do what he wants. It's not my problem what trouble he decides to get into," she answered.
"But it is our problem. We're the Emblems, Amber. We're a team, we have to stick together through thick and thin or we'll never get anywhere!" She just raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical but unwilling to argue. He stood up. "This changes everything. I need to find Nicholas and apologize to him. The way I've been treating him..." He shook his head and started to walk out again.
"Daniel," she said suddenly. This time he turned. What now? "Saying sorry can wait. Think about it, Daniel. Vortex killed your parents. Aren't you going to do something about it? And if Vortex knew to keep us alive, even keep Nicholas alive when he was stationed at my parent's house, doesn't that mean that they knew we were the Emblems even before the Delegates?"
"Vortex is powerful, and back then they may have had sources that the Delegates didn't. But it doesn't matter now. We're the Emblems and we're here in the Athenaeum. The Delegates are keeping us safe. All we have to do is fulfill our own role: Grow stronger," he told her.
Amber just looked up at him, gaze like a storm, grey and roiling. "And what about your parents?" He caught the question hidden in the shadow of her tone: what about your revenge?
His hands clenched into fists and he closed his eyes. He had hated Nicholas White and the Vortex organization for more years than he could count, but now? Now he found that the former was innocent, had not deserved any of his blame at all. When he spoke it was finally and slowly: "I'm over it already. I've accepted that my parents were murdered, but I'm not going to go after their killers, even more so since I've been blaming Nicholas all this while for nothing. Becoming Emblems, saving the world, proving that Vortex is wrong - that's enough revenge for me. That’s all that matters now."
She stood as well, and leaned against the bookshelf. Under her gaze, he fidgeted, hands tugging at the hem of his shirt before reaching into his pocket and finding the one thing that has never left him through his childhood. Nicholas returned it to me. He isn’t that cold-blooded killer.
He played with his shuriken, turning it over and over in his hands. “You know, I just feel like putting this aside and forgetting about it,” he told her. It was more of a contemplative thought, but she jumped on his case the second it left his lips.
“What?”
“Now that we’re going to be Emblems and stuff… my past doesn't seem so important anymore,” he explained.
Her eyes widened. “But I thought you—”
“Wanted revenge? Yeah, I thought so too. But after meeting the Delegates, this,” he showed her his shuriken, so that the light reflected off its edges, which were sharp enough to cut wood, “just doesn’t have meaning.” Amber looked like she wanted to say something, but shut her mouth. After a beat, he held it up again. “Hey… do you want it?” The words left his mouth quickly, lightly, as if on a whim. “You’ll have more use for it than I do, since I totally suck at long-range weapons. A gift of… friendship, I suppose?”
Looking away, Amber pushed away his offered hand. “I don’t need it.”
“Consider it like a piece of me will always be by your side.” He thrust it out again and wiggled his eyebrows, trying to get her to agree.
“It won’t be a piece of you if you have no more use for it,” she said quietly.
He froze at her words, looked down, spun the shuriken around his index finger once and then shoved it back in his pocket. His words had left him, for some reason. Amber, too, seemed content to let the silence stretch out. He racked his brain to search for something that would mean no, I don't agree with that, but what really came out of his mouth was: "I think I have a new family now. At Camp with my kouhais and here, with the other Emblems. I don't need a reminder of my past. And I think that to truly belong here I need to give up my past, get over it so that I can move on."
"Yeah... And Leone is part of that 'new family', or something?" He didn't like that sarcastic tone in her voice.
But he smiled anyway. "Of course," he said. "Leone is a great person. I'm surprised that Nicholas isn't that close to her. If he was, he might start smiling a little more. But you...?"
"Cannot stand her," Amber supplied without even hesitating. "Just like Nicholas. Her smiles are fake."
"Are you sure?" he questioned. "I mean, I can't say anything about that, but I can vouch that she really cares about us."
"Does she care about us, or the Emblems?" Amber shot back. "Does she really love Nicholas, if she dumped him with the Beasts when he was a toddler?"
"You don't know Leone, Amber," he told her, his tone rising into something hard, defensive, like a wall. "You haven't even talked to her outside training yet. Get to know her before you make assumptions like that."
She stared at him, grey eyes cold and unblinking. He almost looked away. "You know what, Daniel? I think I made assumptions about you too."
He chuckled. "I thought we really knew each other too. But we haven't talked like this in a month. Do you think that's a long enough time for people to change?"
"You've changed," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"So have you."
She shook her head. "You're the one that stopped talking to me. After that, I had no one. Not even Sol counts."
"You say that like I gave up on you," he shrugged. The words came to him like a waterfall. "To me it's more like you gave up on yourself. You’ve never tried to talk to anyone, even though you're an attention seeker. The Delegates are trying to help, I'm trying to help, but everything is an attack to you. Even Leone was there for you, but all you see are enemies everywhere."
"I'm not an attention seeker," she said, turning her face away. "I don't even want anyone near me. I'm dangerous, remember? I'll hurt everyone."
"You push everyone away," he said. "But no matter how much you repeat 'I'm dangerous' you still want to be around people, talk to people." He should be leaving now. This conversation wasn't going anywhere. But the words kept coming, spilling out like the tendrils of his own deepest thoughts.
He took a deep breath, kept going. "When people come to you you tell them to go away, and then keep the conversation going for as long as you can. It takes so much effort to get to you, when you're constantly pushing them away, and then looking so broken they want to...to get close again." He cast her a look, one that he hoped said no, no more. She looked at him, grey eyes slightly wider than normal, arms lowered from crossing over her chest to hugging her own torso. "You act strong but you're weak. Some people might decide that it's not worth it anymore."
She was silent for a while, and just as it crossed his mind that he should be going, should be apologizing to Nicholas by now, she asked, "Worth what, Daniel? Your attention? Your care? Your constant worrying, your constant hovering? Maybe I am needy. Maybe I am weak. Heck, maybe I'm an attention seeker. It's not like any of that means shit right now."
Her chest expanded as she inhaled, and searched his gaze for something important. But she probably couldn't find it, since she expelled all her breath in a sigh seconds after. Waving a hand, she continued, "You know what? I don't want to argue with you about Leone, or about how you've changed, I've changed, our friendship, relationship, whatever, has gone to the dumps.
"I'm leaving the Athenaeum tonight," she said. "To go after Vortex. I thought you'd want to come with me, but I guess I'll be going alone. I thought you of all people would understand though."
Revenge, for her parents? What is she thinking?“Don’t you think that we should just let it all go?” He spread his hands, trying to reach out to her, make her just think for a second. “The past is the past, and our parents are already gone. I don’t think your mom and dad would want you to take revenge for them. I know mine wouldn’t.”
“I have every right to hold a grudge, Daniel. And you can’t stop me from leaving. The Delegates aren’t helping me anyway.”
He stared at her face, which was set in determination or stubbornness, he wasn't sure anymore. Somehow it felt like they'd switched places since that evening on the Ferris wheel. He wanted to say something like the Delegates have been doing everything they can to help you. "It's not safe outside the Athenaeum," he said instead. "You could get captured by Vortex, and then what? We'll lose an Emblem, the whole world will be doomed."
"I'm willing to take the risk," she replied coolly. Lifting up the hem of her shirt, she gave him a glimpse of silver steel, tucked into a leather belt at her waist. A dagger, and some kind of wooden stick?
Once more, his hands clenched into fists. This time the words weren’t a waterfall but a geyser, an explosion from inside that he couldn’t contain. “Amber! Wake up, okay? This is bigger than you. It’s not just petty revenge for a past slight. This is being an Emblem, saving the world! You can’t be that reckless when so many people are depending on you. Don’t throw your life away for this, okay? It’s not worth it.”
She went silent, and Daniel thought for a moment that his words had gotten to her. But when she lifted her gaze to meet his, her eyes burned like molten steel. “So you think that I’m selfish? Petty? You think that our parents’ murder was just ‘a past slight’?” Amber gave a bitter laugh, before her eyes flashed an even brighter silver. “How can you be strong enough to save the world, when you can’t even kill the person who murdered your parents?” Daniel, left with nothing to say, could only stare as she turned, slowly, and started to walk away.
He watched her retreating back and finally remembered how to speak. “Wait!” She stopped, but didn’t look at him. “Amber, just don’t…” Don’t what? The sentence could end in so many ways, but he couldn’t say them all.
“Yeah.” Amber answered as if she had somehow heard all the words that could’ve filled the gap, and was promising on every single one. “I won’t.”