“Nice try. You’ve not been yourself since she stepped foot into training.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, right. My mistake. You haven’t been yourself since your Transference. Maybe, instead of thinking just about you, you give Cal and me a thought.” She steps back a pace, and I take in her words. “That day changed everything forus, too.” Her voice wobbles, and guilt kicks me in the gut. She’s right, and I see the vulnerability that she never lets others see, too busy being the best Warrior she can be. “We had plans, Ten.” She reaches forward for my hand, no second thought, no worry. Our powersmeshed before the Transference and posed no danger beyond adding to my own abilities.
Everything that Ever’s didn’t.
“Years, we’d planned for what we’d be when we grew up. And now, it’s all changed, and I get that it was hard, and your dad’s a royal bastard, but you’ve forgotten us. Me.” She clenches her hand into a fist. “And now your new little plaything’s come along, and you won’t even look at me.” The sorrow in her voice hardens, and the venom I know is in those teeth begins to drip. “So, I’m doing this for you. For Calix. And to show you both that I’m the bigger person. And maybe you’ll remember that we were your friends long beforesheshowed up.”
I should let her leave after saying her piece. This has been under the surface for weeks, but I can’t let her go without making sure she understands me completely.
“There isn’t going to be anything more than friendship between us, Crim. Not now. Too much has changed for me.”
“Oh? Really.” Lines crinkle around her eyes as her body goes still.
“Please, Crim. I want us to be friends. You’re important to me, it’s just…”I don’t love you like that.
She doesn’t say anything before she shakes her head, dropping her head before a funny bubble of hysteria breaks from her throat. “Remember, it’s you who threw our chance away.” She raises her head, and her golden hair frames her face as she glares at me, making sure her words sink in, before she storms off.
The pull to knock on Ever’s door as I head back to my room is torture to ignore, tugging me towards her, but I don’t know what to say, and after the showdown with Crimson, it feels wrong to rush back to Ever.
It’s there, on the edge of my mind, to reach out with my power to see if I can get a sense from her, or if I can push myvoice into her mind from this distance. But I shoot all those ideas down.
Not tonight, at least.
We’ve been through a tough day. Several tough days. She needs space.
Tomorrow will be better.
I wake early, my regular meeting with Kamari set before class, like the other mornings I’ve visited.
Ever will be training with Calix, and sure enough, as I close my door behind me, I hear footsteps and perhaps a smothered laugh as they leave the building.
My fists ball at my sides at the sound.
It drives me crazy that I want to shove Calix or yell at him. Zuns, growl into his face that he should leave Ever alone every time he’s within touching distance of her. But I have no claim or right to do that. He’s helping her, just like me.
Ever makes me irrational in a way that overrides sense, like nobody before, and it has dialled up every emotion, every feeling I have.
I count to five at my door before heading in the opposite direction, towards the food hall, and grab myself something to eat before making the journey over to Kamari’s office.
My hands are clammy as I climb the tower to her office. I have secrets I definitely don’t want her to know about now, and I’m nowhere near competent at blocking my emotions or shielding them from anyone yet.
After watching her in the hall with my father, knowing more about Ever than I’m happy with, I’m left with the question oftrust and if Kamari is someone to keep it or sell us out. But she’s the head of the Guard Order. I need more information, and the plan involves getting that information.
The door is cracked, so I knock and push it the rest of the way open.
“Come in.” She’s pacing back and forth, her purple skirts billowing around her legs as she walks and doesn’t stop as I enter and stand near the bookcase on the left.
“Aten. Thank you for being so prompt. It’s been a busy week.”
I nod. She looks distracted, her attention elsewhere, and something about that sets my nerves on edge.
“Have you been practising? I want to know every detail of what you’ve seen with Ever.”
Here we go. There’s nothing I want to expand on past what happened in this office together, so I recount the initial visions, the colours and flashes of how it started between us, and the waterfall, but leave out any personal details there.
“So, she has the gift of seeing the future.”
