Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
I see something of how I feel in his posture. Sense some connection.
"Couldn't sleep?" I ask, my voice barely carrying over the soft night breeze.
He doesn't answer immediately. With Raith, the silence seems to be a kind of language in its own right. It carries weight and meaning.
His profile is sharp in the moonlight, the scarred side of his face catching the light in a way that makes my chest ache.
"No," he finally says, the single word rough around the edges.
I move to stand beside him, not too close, leaving space between us. We both stare out at the academy grounds, the green field where we were all unloaded from Empire carriages as offerings. It was only five weeks ago, but it already feels like I was another person then—naive, terrified, unaware of the power building beneath my skin. Unaware of what terrible potential might lurk within me.
Beyond the fields, I see the forest and finally a ridge of mountains rising like black teeth against the star-filled sky.
"Bad dreams?" I ask, the words feeling inadequate for the weight they carry.
His jaw tightens, the scarred side of his face catching moonlight in a way that makes the damaged tissue look almost silver. "Always."
I nod, understanding more than he probably realizes. Even before I began dreaming of the beast in the dark waters, I was haunted by dreams about a storm so massive and powerful it destroyed everything in its path. Three years ago, the nightmares of the storm included horrific glimpses of tanned, familiar hands rising above churning waters—the last glimpses I ever had of my father and brothers.
Compared to these new dreams haunting me, those all feel quaint and gentle by comparison. "Mine are getting worse. More real," I admit, the words raw in my throat. "Like something's trying to claw its way into my head."
"What do you dream about?" he asks, surprising me with the question. He seems different tonight. More approachable, somehow. Maybe it's the simple fact that he's not glaring like he wants to kill me. Or fuck me. With Raith, it's honestly hard to tell. Or maybe it's my own confusing attraction to the man clouding the picture, making me see what I want to see.
I hesitate, unsure how much to reveal. My fingers absently trace the disguised mark on my hand. "Water. Darkness. Something watching me, hunting me. It feels ancient, hungry." I swallow hard. "It feels like it's waiting for something."
His eyes shift to me then and my breath catches in my throat, an electric current racing down my spine. "Since when?" he asks.
"They started maybe three weeks ago, I think, maybe before. But it's every night now. The same dream, but... more. Clearer." I wrap my arms tighter around myself. "What about yours?"
I don't actually expect an answer, but I'm surprised when he exhales slowly, a sound so weighted with pain it makes my chest ache. "Fire," he says simply.
The word hangs between us, heavy with everything he isn't saying.
Fire.
My memory flashes with the image of his fear when fire sprouted from my fingertips during our training match that first day. The way his eyes widened, the way his body went rigid.
It makes sense. How else would he have those twisted scars running up half of his face and the right side of his arm and hand?
I almost ask him how he's managing to not just survive but thrive as a fire affinity—how he could stand to be bound to the thing he must fear. My fingers itch to reach out and touch his scars, to trace their jagged paths.
And yet I don't need to ask, because I feel I understand completely.
Fire took something from him. What, exactly, I can't say. But he's learning to use the thing that hurt him—to control what he fears.
Isn't that exactly what I tried to do by choosing to join the water affinities? Only I'm hardly learning to channel. It feels more like I'm fumbling in the dark with my unbound power. The book Bastian gave me will hopefully hold some information I can use to improve, but I'll have to keep finding time to work through the complex code, and spare time isn't something we have a lot of here at Confluence.
"Do you always come here when you have bad dreams?" I ask, my voice softer than I intended.
"Ever since my first night here." His gaze remains fixed on the distant mountains.
"It's peaceful," I say, my eyes drawn again to the vast expanse of darkness before us.
"It's quiet," he corrects, but there's no edge to his words.
He's right in his own way to correct my wording, I realize. Peace is an illusion here. There is quiet, yes. There is sometimes even the semblance of calm. But there's always danger nearby, isn't there? Always a threat hanging over our heads, ready to strike us down when we least expect it.