Twelve
A drop of liquid hit Alex’s cheek. Another hit her eyelid. A rumble of sound followed another sprinkle, enough to draw her awake, only to discover her situation hadn’t improved—it had worsened.
It was still night. She was still in the middle of the sky. But thunderous rain clouds now obscured the stars, with flashes of lightning illuminating the otherwise dark emptiness surrounding Alex.
“Aw, come on!” she cried, not sure if she was aiming her ire at the Library or Mr. Mystery Man.
As she rose carefully on the narrow platform, the rain began coming down in earnest, lashing against her in stinging waves and disappearing into the clouds amassed beneath her.
“This is impossible!” she yelled up into the stormy sky. “I don’t know what to do!” She lowered her head and looked down at her feet, repeating in a choked whisper, “I don’t know what to do.”
There was no way for her to reach the door. No matter which way she looked at it, she couldn’t come up with a solution; she couldn’t figure out how to not fail the task.
Another rumble of thunder, much louder this time, as well as a blazing streak much too close for comfort. Before that streak, Alex had presumed the storm was just for show, certain the Library would keep her protected. But she’d felt the energy brush against her skin, the tangible static of warning as the air around her filled with the heavy weight of anticipation. Whatever was happening, she wasn’t safe from it. And worse, with her position on the platform, she was a ready-made lightning conductor.
But… if she made a move, if she took a metaphorical leap of faith and ended up falling, then her lessons with Mr. Mystery Man would be finished before they’d properly begun.
Swiping her sodden hair off her face, Alex knew her chances weren’t good. She squinted against the lightning now streaking all around her, aware that every second she delayed increased the danger. And so, with a shuddering breath, she made her decision. Alive but without Mr. Mystery Man’s help was better than dead and… well, being dead. She wouldn’t be able to save anyone if she was dead.
“I’m sorry,” Alex whispered to no one—and everyone. A crash of thunder drowned out her words, but she didn’t wait around to repeat them. Instead, she stepped off the platform.
Time seemed to slow for a fraction of a moment as Alex began to fall, just long enough for her to see a spear of lightning strike the platform where she’d been standing, causing it to explode in a shower of sparks.
All of this she witnessed in a heartbeat because, before she could so much as gasp, she had fallen too far to see any more.
And she continued to fall.
Lungs frozen in her chest, Alex plummeted down through the darkness, through the clouds and the rain, through the eerie flashes of light against the night’s sky. Until, suddenly, she wasn’t falling anymore.
Between one breath and the next, one blink and another, she found herself lying on the floor of the bright white room again, the cloaked man standing impassively above her.
With water dripping from her body, Alex rose on shaky legs and waited dejectedly for him to say the words.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“You fell.”
Eyes downcast, Alex said, “I did.”
“That means you failed.”
She focused on the liquid pooling at her feet and responded with a quiet, “I know.”
Silence.
And then—
“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Alex’s neck snapped back up to stare at his hidden face. “What?”
“I’ll thank you to no longer refer to me as Mr. Mystery Man,” he told her with an offended sniff.
Alex could only stare at him and repeat, “What?”
“Athora is my name. You will remember my requirement and not share it with anyone other than your once-Claimed Meyarin. Is that clear?”
More staring. “I—Wait, didn’t I fail?”
“You said it yourself, Alexandra,” Athora said. “Indeed, you screamed it to the heavens in quite the dramatic pique. It was, as you claimed, an impossible task. One in which you were doomed to fail.”
Alex gaped at him. “Then why—”
“What’s my rule, Alexandra?” he interrupted sharply.
Cringing, she answered, “Don’t question your training.”
With a rustle of his cloak as he crossed his arms, Athora said, “Sometimes I will tell you why I do things. Other times, I will not.”
When he said no more, Alex decided to press her luck. “Any chance I get to pick and choose which time is which?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” she mumbled, toeing the steadily growing puddle around her shoes.
“But in this case, I will allow you to hear my reasoning.”
Alex glanced back up with curious eyes.
“I told you that your task was to reach the doorway,” he said. “That if you didn’t manage to do so, if you fell, you would no longer be my student.”
Alex nodded, fully aware of his words.
“I lied. On both counts.” His monotonous voice was without the faintest trace of shame. “Your true task was to learn the hard lesson of failure.”
“Wha—”
“You needed to fail, Alexandra,” he interrupted, “because you needed to understand that sometimes failure is unavoidable. Success is never a guarantee, in any area of life. You needed to accept that. You needed to embrace that. And you needed to take a step forward while knowing your actions were unlikely to result in victory.”
As Alex processed his words, Athora continued, “On the path ahead of you, with the challenges you are yet to face, you will see your share of failure. It is inevitable. And when it comes, you need to have the strength of character to continue on, to rise again after you fall. Because you will fall, Alexandra. Of that much, you can be sure.”
“Are you saying—” Alex swallowed. “Is this some kind of warning that I’m doomed to fail? That I won’t be able to stop Aven?”
Athora’s cloaked head tilted to the side and he took a long moment to study her. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, he quietly said, “I would not waste my time on a lost cause.”
A spark of hope reignited in Alex.
“However,” he added, “whether my confidence in you is misplaced or not, only time will tell.”
And just like that, her spark was snuffed out again. But the memory of it remained with Alex as she left the Library, sent a quick mental call to let Niyx know she had survived, and returned to her dormitory for the night.
She was not fighting for a lost cause. If the sombre Athora could believe that, then Alex could, too.
A strange kind of routine settled upon Alex’s life over the next few days, but so too did a growing sense of urgency to start putting her plans into action—a feeling that had only increased since her meeting in Darrius’s office.
While part of her questioned whether she should skip her schooling and leave the academy to begin warning the other races of Medora immediately, she couldn’t forget Lady Mystique’s insistence that she remain on campus and continue her studies.
‘I can’t stress the importance of this enough, Alexandra,’ is what the ancient Tia Auran had said.
So, despite Alex’s better judgement—and with the assurances of her teachers that the world most likely wouldn’t end if she waited until the weekend before venturing from the academy—Alex reluctantly kept attending her classes.
It was surreal for her to wander through her days like a regular student, acting as if her biggest concerns were finishing her homework on time or helping Jordan and Bear avoid detention. Her instructors, at least, were treating her like a normal student regardless of her purported role in the upcoming war.
But she wasn’t a normal student. No longer did she have fears of getting beaten up in Combat, prodded by Finn’s Taserstick in PE, or being trapped by a snare in SAS. Her Meyarin abilities made her Gamma-level Archery targets almost too easy, while Equestrian Skills left her suppressing tears from the acute realisation that riding a horse was nothing like flying the skies on the back of Xira.
Somehow, though, she managed to play her role perfectly. Like her peers, Alex scrunched up her nose when she learned the health benefits of Korsobear droppings in Species Distinction; she ingested different toxic berries in Medical Science and then concocted their corresponding antidotes; and she hid her laughter along with everyone else when Fitzy failed to notice that he’d set his moustache on fire during Chemistry. In Core Skills, Alex encouraged her classmates when they struggled to control their gifts, while in History and SOSAC, she spent her time trying not to not show how mind-numbingly restless she was.
The drain of acting like a normal student was taking its toll on her. But that was mostly because, with every passing day, Alex was growing more and more concerned about what Aven was doing—or rather, what he wasn’t doing.
Although Niyx assured her daily that the new ruler of Meya was too busy reacquainting himself with his city to make his next move, Alex wasn’t convinced. Aven had spent millennia planning his overthrow of the Meyarin throne. It didn’t make sense that now, when he was exactly where he’d always wanted to be, he was willing to take his time settling in rather than utilising the formidable forces he had at his disposal.
To avoid lingering on her fears, Alex kept her mind on the upcoming weekend. At Hunter’s suggestion, on Saturday she would be visiting the Undersea Islands—the territory of the Flips—and afterwards, Maroo—the treetop city of the Jarnocks. Presuming things went well enough that she and her friends returned in one piece, they would tackle the Shadow Walkers and Dayriders the following day.
Until then, Alex had to figure out how to balance everything else in her life—something that was much more challenging than she would have liked.
There were only three reasons why she was able to get through the week with her sanity intact. The first was her friends, who offered their silent support when she went on—and on—about how concerned, frustrated and powerless she felt while she waited for the time to come when she could act. Jordan, Bear and D.C. must have heard the same ravings from her every day, and yet they didn’t snap at her, they didn’t avoid her and they didn’t rebuke her impatience. Instead, they listened. They offered moral support in the form of hugs and comfort food. And they reminded her that no matter what happened, they would be with her through it all.
It helped that there was another bright light in the darkness thanks to her friends. And that was because something had happened with Jordan early on in the week. Alex wasn’t sure what, exactly, but the shadows under his eyes were fading, his overzealous appetite had returned and, most notably, his smiles weren’t as fake anymore. It was as if a weight had been lifted from him, like he’d found some inner peace to act as a balm against what he’d been through.
That balm may have been in the form of a fiery red-headed princess, because the one thing Alex did know was that Jordan and D.C. had finally admitted their feelings for each other—to each other. The two of them were now joined at the hip—and the lips, more often than Bear and Alex cared to witness. A hint of pain still swirled in Jordan’s eyes when Alex looked at him sometimes, usually when he didn’t know anyone was watching, but for the most part, it seemed as if he had begun to recover from his time with Aven, inasmuch as he could.
Alex had no doubt that D.C.’s continued devotion was largely responsible for the change in him, for helping him step out of the darkness he’d been so determined to make them all think didn’t exist. It helped Alex feel less guilty that her time and attention were divided elsewhere, knowing that her friends were there for each other just as much as they were for her.
The second reason she was able to maintain her sanity was because of her daily training with Niyx. While his sessions were more ruthless than ever before, every morning when he hauled her out of bed and whisked her up to the top of Mount Paedris was another morning where she increased in strength and skill—which meant one more notch of confidence in her ability to go up against Aven and his Claimed warriors when the time came.
Noticeable improvement or not, Alex still had to rely on a steady supply of laendra to survive their workouts, as well as to provide the energy she needed to get through a full day of classes afterwards. But ingesting the sweet flower was hardly a sacrifice given how pleasant it tasted and how good she felt afterwards. That, and having her own personal stockpile meant she spent less time in the Med Ward with Fletcher after some of her more injury-prone classes, something for which both she and the doctor were grateful.
The third and final reason she was able to stay relatively sound of mind was due to her nightly training with Athora and the fact that he claimed she was already making discernible progress.
She had feared after their first two encounters that his continued tasks would all be just as extreme and time-consuming as the lake and air-platform tests, but that wasn’t the case. The challenges he set her were varied and, to Alex’s thinking, utterly bizarre, but she stuck by his one rule and didn’t question him.
She didn’t question him when he had her stand on one leg with a banana resting on her head for as long as she could hold her balance, and then made her repeat the task but while hopping.
She didn’t question him when he had her roll what had to have been at least a hundred balls of yarn, before unrolling them and then re-rolling them once again.
She didn’t question him when she had to spend hours putting together a jigsaw puzzle where the seemingly unending pieces were all completely blank with no distinctive marks whatsoever.
And she didn’t question him when he gave her a book and told her to read aloud, but ordered that she do so by shifting the letters of each word to be spelled backwards. That had been an arduous task, and by the end Alex had been very tempted to mumble, “Ereht dah retteb eb a tniop ot lla siht, uoy suoiretsym, ylkcirp nam.”
Eccentricities aside, Alex found an unanticipated kind of comfort in Athora’s presence. She was a curious person by nature, so having to stifle the urge to ask questions was frustrating but also oddly liberating. If he wanted her to know something, he would tell her. Full stop. He was the teacher and she was the student. All she had to do was follow instructions and forget, at least for a time, the outside world and all its demands.
Her hours in the Library were like a sanctuary, a break from the pressures that smothered her as soon as she stepped back outside. And so, along with her friends and Niyx, her time there with Athora somehow made its way onto the list of reasons why Alex was able to get through her week without losing her mind.
She could only hope it would last.
But when Friday night rolled around, something happened at the end of her session with Athora.
… Something that smashed her carefully maintained sanity to pieces.
“Before you leave, there’s someone you need to meet.”
Alex looked up at Athora in question. She was sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the blazing fireplace, back in the same darkened room where she’d been transported after her experience with the lake. He was once again seated in an armchair that had materialised from nothing, and he’d remained unmoving the whole time she’d been sprawled out across the floor attempting to assemble the frustratingly blank jigsaw puzzle.
Now that it was done, she knew they should be finished for the night. Normally, Athora wasted no time in dismissing her, so she was intrigued by the delay to her departure.
“Someone I need to… meet?” she repeated, her voice full of curiosity.
“Another student of mine,” he said, and her brows rose with surprise. “My only other student. And someone who I have been working with for much longer than you.”
Sitting up taller, Alex couldn’t help asking, “You have another student?”
“Regardless of what some might allow you to believe, Alexandra, the universe does not revolve around you.”
Alex chose not to feel stung by his words or his uncharacteristic acerbic tone. She was actually somewhat proud of herself for prompting him to break out of his near-constant monotone.
“Who is it?” she asked. “And why do you want me to meet them?”
“I have business to attend to this weekend, so I’ll be unable to continue our sessions until next week,” Athora said, not answering her questions, though she was relieved by this news given the busy weekend she had planned.
“You need to meet him now,” he continued, “because from Monday’s session onwards, you will be training together.”
That, Alex thought, was unacceptable. And she couldn’t keep from immediately saying as much. “That’s not going to happen.”
She actually felt the air in the room change, right along with Athora’s mood.
“I beg your pardon?”
Resisting the urge to backtrack and immediately beg forgiveness, Alex stood her ground—or at least, she did so from her seated position. “There’s too much at stake here for you to divide your focus between me and some other random student of yours. If you need to change the time we meet, then change it, but you can’t expect me to only receive half of your attention when what I need from you is so important.”
Alex thought her reasoning was logical and eloquent. The silence that met her ears led her to believe Athora must have thought so, too. But when he finally spoke, it was in a tone Alex had never heard from him before. A tone that made even the fire dim in the hearth until it almost went out entirely, casting the room into near darkness.
“You were offered one chance to break my rule, Alexandra,” he told her, his voice sending shards of ice down her spine. “Now that you have done so, consider yourself warned. If you question my judgement again, it will be the last you ever see of me.”
Alex sucked in a stuttered breath.
“Do you understand?”
The intensity emanating from him was like a tangible force, freezing Alex in place. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even nod. All she could do was sit there in the shadows and stare up at the outline of his cloaked figure, her body numbed to the core.
“Do you understand?”
She jumped at his hissed question and, as if waking from a trance, was able to choke out a whispered, “I understand.”
Just like that, the heavy atmosphere lifted. The fire roared back to life in a surge of flames, and with Alex’s heart pounding, warmth began returning to her veins while she rubbed feeling back into her limbs.
“Now,” Athora said, standing to his feet and gesturing for Alex to do so, albeit shakily on her part, “had you given me the chance to explain, this would have been one of the rare cases where I told you why you will be training with a partner.”
Alex was still so intimidated that she couldn’t utter a word in response, not even to offer an apology.
“My other student has a unique gift,” Athora continued, “one that has required much training on his part in order to learn control. He has studied with me for years and is now well adept at managing his ability. And, indeed, using it in extraordinary ways.”
Alex finally summed up the courage to re-enter the conversation. “I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”
“This student, his gift acts as a conduit.”
Shaking her head in bafflement, Alex said, “I don’t—”
“That means,” Athora spoke over her, an edge of warning in his again monotonous voice, “that he is able to take on the gifts of others whom he comes in contact with.”
Alex’s eyes widened as she comprehended what he was saying. “That’s insane,” she gasped out. “The things he might be able to do—” She broke off, and then whispered an awestruck but somewhat fearful, “No one should have that much power.”
“Which is why it was integral for him to learn control—how to control his own gift so he doesn’t take on the abilities of others without choosing to do so, and how to control the gifts that he decides to adopt as his own.”
Alex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This student of Athora’s… he could, hypothetically, do anything—assuming he encountered the right person with the right gift. He could be telekinetic, like Calista Maine. He could nullify the gifts of others, like Lena Morrow. He could read minds, like Signa Zu. He could turn invisible and walk through solid objects, like Jordan. He could shape-shift, like Skyla. He could charm others with his words, like Bear. He could manipulate people’s emotions, like Pipsqueak. The options were limitless.
“I’m presuming by your expression that your thoughts have wandered from what this has to do with your training,” Athora said. “You appear… alarmed.”
“Alarmed?” Alex squeaked out. “I’m not alarmed—I’m full-on panicking!”
Athora’s head cocked to the side. “Why?”
“Because… Because…” She couldn’t even form a complete sentence. “Because who is this guy? How do you know he won’t go all Anakin Skywalker on you?”
Athora’s head cocked even further. “Who is this Anakin—”
“Eugh, never mind,” Alex said, waving a frazzled hand dismissively while pacing back and forth. “My point is, we already have one megalomaniac to worry about, we don’t need—Flipping hell!” Alex cried out as she was hit with a terrifying realisation. “What if Aven learns about this guy? We’re already screwed, but we’d be even more screwed!” She threw her arms in the air and finished, quite hysterically, “That’d be, like, an unfixable amount of screwiness!”
Near on hyperventilating, Alex almost didn’t process the quiet chuckle she heard over her rapid breathing. But then an amused—and familiar—voice spoke up as its owner moved out of the darkness and stepped into the glow of the fire.
“I have to admit, Alex, I’ve never been called a megalomaniac before. But it’s always nice to know I have options.”
Stunned to silence at who she was seeing, not to mention, where, and, apparently, why, all Alex could do was stand there, frozen mid-step, and stare.
Athora broke into her silent shock, a touch of smugness in his otherwise bland tone as he said, “I believe you’re already acquainted.”
Son of a biscuit, Alex thought as she continued her wide-eyed staring.
“Alexandra Jennings,” Athora said, “I give you your new training partner.” He paused, before unnecessarily finishing, “Kaiden James.”