Page 32 of Shattered Darkness
I almost have this craving for the games, although I don’t actually think that it’s for the games but more for adventure and something more than what we have here. Up until recently, I didn’t feel like we actually have a purpose here; now we do, and I’m starting to feel more like myself again. I trust that the Goddess has a plan for us, and I understand that, but I kind of wish she’d hurry up a bit.
“Be careful what you wish for, daughter,” the Goddess’s voice warns.
She’s right. I need to stop thinking about what ifs and focus on what’s going on now. We need to help the teachers before it’s too late, and we need to train and learn more about the Warrior Bond as well.
Over the next couple of weeks, it becomes increasingly evident that the teachers are still very much under the influence of the Order, in fact they’ve got worse.
Chapter Eleven
Sage
Training with Cain has been going well over the last few weeks, and we haven’t had to use the spell that we spent ages trying to find yet, as the teachers haven’t tried to attack us. Instead, they’re just trying to instill fear of us into the students, and unfortunately, it’s working. This means that they’re not back to normal like we had hoped they would be after Magistrate Godfrey was killed and are instead trying to paint us as villains. The students have known the teachers for longer; they’re trusted, so despite some being very confused and giving us unsure looks every now and then because we’re not actually doing anything threatening, they’re avoiding us even more than they were before.
I have to admit that I was in a strange way relieved that they didn’t suddenly become friendly and good teachers again because that means that I’m not going to have to go back to the monotony of lessons and learning politics, which, while I admit have their place I’m simply not interested in. I want to be doing, actually, no, it’s more than that I need to be doing. I’m very aware that we need to deal with the Order, somehow, even though we delivered them a massive blow when we rescued the Centres, they’re already gaining traction again, and it’s clear that they had a contingency plan, most likely multiple ones.
We can’t stop the Order if we’re stuck here; well, we can’t if we’re still stuck here after we’ve fixed the teachers and put everything back to normal. There is no point dwelling on it at the moment though, we have something that we need to focus on, and we’re actually learning a lot from Cain. I’m getting a lot steadier fighting in the air, but rather than regular practice exhausting my magic it seems to be exciting it and making it grow. I consciously have to keep a lock on the Darkness, and that is exhausting me, although it’s not making a dent in the exuberance of my magic, and now that I’m actually thinking about it, that’s what it is. It’s like an excitable puppy, almost like my magic knows something that I don’t know, which is great and all, but if it could share it with me, that would be even better.
Another thing that has happened in the last few weeks is that my mother, or rather the woman that I thought was my mother but actually isn’t, has been appointed as the headmistress of the Earth Realm Academy. For obvious reasons, anything to do with them is still a massive sore point for me, and although I know it’s not healthy, I’ve pushed it to the far reaches of my mind, and I’m ignoring it. I don’t have the capacity to deal with it right now, and I’d much rather focus on the Order and doing something about them.
Cain has carried on talking to the teacher that he mentioned before, but he is taking it much slower, planting small seeds of doubt rather than outright telling him that it’s wrong and something is happening. He didn’t want to cause any adverse effects for the guy. As far as I’m aware, it’s going well, and he’s gradually becoming more and more suspicious of what is going on around here and has actually even started to ask Cain questions. Cain said that he could begin to feel the hold of the magic fading; I did ask him how he knew that, but like most things, he didn’t bother to answer.
We are all hopeful that the control will break completely soon, and then we will have another person who can help us with the other teachers and who can try to locate the main object that is being used to control them. That was something else that Cain had worked out; he managed to convince the guy to give him his bracelet, the one that has the unique stone in it from the Dragon Realm. It didn’t change the level of magic that Cain could feel from the spell, which he said means that there’s definitely a primary object, and the jewelry with the stones in just kicks into gear if they leave the grounds or go out of range of the object, whatever the fuck that is.
“What time are the others getting up here?” I ask Harry.
“In about ten minutes, I think,” Harry replies.
His friends have been keeping an eye on the other students and actually the teachers for us as well, since the more eyes that we have the better. They are now officially the only other students that are completely okay with us, and I appreciate that massively. It’s not very easy to be feared, in fact, it’s downright fucking horrible. I’m used to being ignored; I’m not used to being treated like I’m the biggest villain in the damn place. I know that the treatment of us by the other students here is starting to wear on the others as well, and classes for the guys have become pretty miserable, I can see how its affecting everyone and if we don’t sort it out soon I’m going to insist that we find a way for us to leave with minimal fuss so that we can regroup and then get to the bottom of this situation away from it.
Admittedly, that would make it slightly more challenging to deal with as we’d have to break into the school in order to get to the object that’s controlling the teachers; that is obviously easier if we’re here and can move around with slightly less suspicion, I say somewhat less because everyone watches us with suspicion now.
The couch bounces on either side of me as Kai and Jax sit down, and both turn to look at me with concern.
“You’re thinking very hard over here,” Jax comments.
While Kai gets straight to the point and says, “What ’cha thinking about Beautiful.”
“All the stressful things,” I reply somewhat vaguely but not at all untruthfully; there are a lot of stressful things that we’re dealing with at the moment.
“We figured,” Jax replies, as he grabs my hand and threads his fingers through mine, “any specifics that you’d like to share?”
I shrug, “I guess the main thing I’m worrying about is that we’re all fucking miserable. If we don’t fix this issue soon, I want us to get out and fix it from a distance. In our worst situations, we’ve still managed to keep up morale, and I feel like we’re struggling now, all of us.”
“I agree completely,” Kysen replies and I had no idea he was listening, but as I look around it’s clear that I have everyone’s attention.
“So do I, but we have nowhere to go, and I’m not even sure that we can just leave,” Levi says with a deep frown.
“Maybe we should talk to Cain and see how difficult it could be, we have the money; surely we could buy somewhere big enough for all of us?” Dash suggests.
“Yeah, okay, let’s do that.” Levi agrees.
“I hate to be the devil's advocate,” Asher starts, a book in his hand like usual, “but I really do think that we need to sort this issue out from here, it would be almost impossible to get back in here and break the control if we were to leave.”
I sigh, and so does most of the room. We all know that he makes a good point, and we know that the most sensible thing to do would be to wait, but that doesn’t mean that any of us like it.
“You’re right,” Levi agrees, his arms crossed over his broad chest and what seems like a permanent frown on his face.
Asher glances up from his book and looks around at us all, “I’m sorry guys. Why don’t we think of this like a mission and not somewhere that we are stuck, we do this job, and then we can leave and find somewhere that we can call our base, away from everyone, and where we can properly plan how we’re going to take the Order of Kronos.”