Raelia (The Medoran Chronicles Book 2) (50 page)

“I have to ask, Princess,” he said, “was it frustrating when, no matter how hard you tried, you could never discover any details in your dreams? Almost as if you were being…
blocked
?”

“How?” D.C. whispered.

“One of my associates is gifted in the art of neutralising the abilities of others,” Aven informed her. “It’s a very useful skill.”

Alex remembered the woman he was talking about from Sir Oswald’s dinner party—Lena Morrow. Once again she was grateful that her own gift kept her safe from manipulation, but she wished she’d had the foresight to consider the scope of Lena’s ability on others.

Hindsight truly sucked.

“I have Lena to thank for keeping you in the dark,” Aven continued, “since darkness was all that your dreams contained. It was fitting, really. I particularly loved how you lost so much sleep fretting over your, ahem,
friend
.”

D.C. looked horrified. The idea that someone had been tampering with her gift must have terrified her, especially when it had been occurring so frequently.

“You’ll regret this, Aven,” D.C. seethed.

“I doubt that, Princess,” Aven said mockingly. Then he turned to Calista and ordered, “Keep them quiet.”

Immediately Calista focused her gift to snap their mouths closed. Alex could hear her friends trying to talk, but the only noises they managed were trapped in their throats.

“You have my gratitude, Alexandra, for helping me return to my homeland,” Aven said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

She couldn’t speak. Not because Calista’s gift worked on her. It didn’t. Her mind simply couldn’t come to terms with what was happening.

“Actually, that’s not entirely correct,” Aven mused, deliberately drawing out his words. “I needed you to get me through the doorway, that much is true. Did you really think Marselle could have helped me? I would have found a way to Claim him long ago if that were the case, regardless of how protected the Library keeps him. No, Alexandra, he doesn’t
have the access you do, which is why he won’t be opening another doorway to save you. It’s also why only you could assist me in the end. But you proved to be much more tenacious than I’d ever expected of a human.”

“What can I say?” she managed to croak out. “It’s a gift.”

“The literal implication isn’t lost on me,” Aven said, his demeanour souring before he brightened again. “But no matter. I only had to find your weakness. It was really too easy; all I had to do was capture someone dear to you.”

Alex’s eyes flickered over to Jordan who stood silently between Aven and Calista.

“I don’t mean Jordan,” Aven said, seeing where her gaze rested. “I’m speaking of your beloved headmaster. And my deceit was twofold, since you had the added concern that he would grant me access where you resisted. It was perfect, really.”

“Roka will stop you,” Alex told him confidently. “Zain has probably already warned him that you’re here. They’ll be arriving any moment.”

Aven laughed deeply. “Zain? That poor excuse for an elite guard is half-dead right where I left him with my arrow sticking out of his shoulder blade. No, Zain won’t be warning anyone.”

Alex felt her stomach clench with fear for her friend but she refused to believe Aven. “You’re lying. An arrow to the shoulder would never kill a Meyarin—least of all Zain. It would take way more than that.”

“I love that you still have such naive optimism,” Aven said with dark amusement. “I almost feel guilty about bursting that little bubble of yours.”

She fisted her hands to hide their trembling. “Then don’t.”

“Denial isn’t a healthy state of mind, so I’ll tell you a secret,” he said. “There’s a creature, Alexandra, whose blood is so repulsive to Meyarins that it can incapacitate us at the briefest of physical contact. Among my kind, it’s called the Sarnaph.
Your race titles it
Daesmilo Folarctos
, but it’s more commonly known as a Hyroa. Have you heard of it?”

Pictures flooded Alex’s mind. She saw the day so many months ago when she’d witnessed Aven slay the terrifying, violent beast. She saw the Meyarin urgently checking his clothes and backing away when Gerald tried to hand him the vial of blood. She heard Fletcher comment on how the species was considered nearly extinct. And lastly, she heard the name
Daesmilo Folarctos
reverberate around her thoughts as she remembered the severe ‘allergic reaction’ she’d had after touching the murky-brown swab of what she now realised was Hyroa blood.

Aven had no way of knowing that there was Meyarin blood in her veins that apparently reacted just as negatively to the Hyroa blood as his own would. That was one secret she would do well to keep from him.

“Whatever you’re about to say, I won’t believe you,” Alex told him boldly. “I don’t care about incapacitating blood or whatever, because I saw Zain only a few minutes ago. You wouldn’t have had time to attack him and then follow us through the Library.”

Aven smirked at her. “Are you sure it was Zain you saw?”

“Of course it was…” Alex closed her eyes when she realised just how well Aven had played them. “
Skyla
.”

“Yes, Skyla,” Aven confirmed. “Your friend has an impressive gift. If she wasn’t so simpleminded, I might have considered adding her to my collection.”

Alex quaked at his words, but he continued before she could say anything.

“Even without Claiming her, it wasn’t difficult to convince her to assist us, but she was a painfully slow student. We had to meet with her a number of times so she could learn her script, so to speak. Such a foolish child. But we managed to make her believe she was important enough for your Stealth and
Subterfuge teacher to consider taking her on as an apprentice next year. She was under the impression that today’s events were a test to see how well she could remain in character as both Jordan and Zain.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Alex asked, her heart racing at the rapidly darkening tone of Aven’s words.

“I thought you might appreciate the truth before you could no longer hear it from the source,” he said offhandedly. “The girl performed admirably, but she wasted too much of my time learning her role. And I… Well, my patience with her has reached its limit. Calista?”

It happened in a split second. Alex didn’t notice the command in Aven’s words. All she heard was a whimper and a
crack
, followed by the sound of Skyla’s lifeless body dropping to the ground.

“
No!
” Alex gasped, seeing Skyla’s face pressed into the snow, her neck bent at an unnatural angle and her empty eyes staring out into nothing.

All it had taken was one word from Aven and Calista had broken Skyla’s neck without lifting so much as a finger.

Alex glanced fearfully up at D.C. and Bear who were still trapped by Calista’s power. Tears were streaming down D.C.’s face as she stared at the girl on the icy ground, and Bear looked more haggard than Alex had ever seen him.

“Don’t you want to know how I managed to pull all this off?” Aven asked. “Even I, as brilliant as I am, couldn’t have fooled you without help. Aren’t you curious about Jordan’s role in all this?”

No
, Alex begged him in her mind, already knowing that whatever he was going to say would bring him great joy and her great pain.

Please.

Don’t.

But Aven couldn’t hear her thoughts, and he continued, almost gleefully, “Aren’t you curious about how long your friend has been in my service?”

Alex felt her entire body stiffen with dread.

No
.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. But she couldn’t help dragging her eyes back to Jordan’s scarily blank face.

“Dear, sweet child,” Aven purred. “Didn’t we already decide that denial is unhealthy?”

“You’re a liar, Aven,” she returned heatedly. “I know you. All you do is lie.”

His golden eyes flashed. “Watch your tone, Alexandra.”

She stared at him defiantly. “Make me.”

Alex watched Aven bury his rage beneath a relaxed smirk. “Jordan, tell Alexandra to be quiet.”

Jordan’s empty eyes stared straight through her as he opened his mouth and said, “Alexandra, be quiet.”

Alex felt her breath stutter at the sound of her friend’s dismissive monotone. “Jordan?” she whispered.

Jordan lowered his gaze again, his expression showing no emotion. Alex watched him for a moment before she turned her face up to capture Aven’s triumphant look.

“What have you done to him?” she demanded.

Please, please, let him only be drugged.

Aven tilted his head to the side as he stared at her, and then a smile broke out on his face. It quickly turned into a laugh. It took a full minute for him to calm down enough to gasp out, “Do you truly not know? How can you be so blind?”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t want confirmation of what she feared was true.

“Jordan, show Alexandra your hand so she can see my mark for herself.”

At his words, Alex had the answer to what she’d refused to believe. When Jordan raised his hand, the glowing scar across his palm was all the evidence she needed.

No
.

“Release him, Aven.” Alex’s voice was unrecognisable to her own ears. It was as cold and hard as steel. “Let him go and I’ll allow you to leave this place. You can do whatever you want in Meya and I won’t stop you. I won’t tell anyone you’re here. Just let Jordan go.”

Aven laughed again. “What makes you think I’m keeping him here?”

That made Alex pause. “What are you talking about?”

“Jordan,” Aven said, his voice authoritative, “tell Alexandra how you came to be in my service. Give her every detail, using your own words and emotions.”

Jordan blinked and his blank face cleared of its empty expression. “Alex,” he whispered brokenly, stepping forward to reach out to her.

“Stop,” Aven commanded. “You’ll only speak to her. Nothing more.”

At his order, Jordan froze to the spot, and his anguished face begged her to understand. It was the most expressive he’d been since his return from Chateau Shondelle three weeks earlier.

Wait a second.

Chateau Shondelle.

Jordan’s unusual behaviour.

No
.

“Jordan?” Alex breathed, hoping desperately that she was connecting the dots incorrectly.

“I couldn’t say anything,” he told her, his voice pleading with her to understand. “I was ordered to act like normal. There was nothing I could do.”

“Tell her everything, Jordan,” Aven said, his voice firm. “From the beginning.”

Jordan swallowed thickly and whispered, “I had to, Alex.”

No
.

“Aven says my brother is alive. He’s going to help me find Luka.”

No
.
Wrong. All wrong.

“Alex, you have to believe me,” Jordan begged. “It was the only way.”

“Tell her the complete truth,” Aven commanded again. “Tell her how you came to be in my service.”

With emotion-filled eyes, Jordan said, “I went back to the chateau for the weekend because my parents asked me to. I didn’t want to go, especially since I knew you, Dix and Bear were so worried. But they said they had something important to tell me.”

He hesitated for a second before he continued. “When I arrived at the chateau, Aven was there. He and my father are… close. I swear, I had no idea. I tried to escape, but Lena was there too, neutralising my gift so Calista could hold me captive. It was horrible. I was trapped.”

His eyes shadowed at the memory until they brightened again. “But then my father promised me that everything would be okay as long as I listened to Aven. Then they’d let me go. So, I listened. And what I heard—Alex, I don’t know what to say.”

Alex didn’t know what to say either. All she knew was that with every word of his, she felt as if her heart was being ripped out of her chest. Judging by D.C.’s muffled sobs and Bear’s choked expletives, she wasn’t the only one falling apart.

“Aven told me that Luka faked his own death,” Jordan continued. “I didn’t believe him at first. But then he showed me some surveillance footage dated a month ago—a
month
ago!—
where Luka broke into a Techno lab in Mardenia. He’s alive, Alex. Can you believe it?”

No
.

“My parents told me they’ve been trying to find him for years,” Jordan said. “Apparently they’ve known all along that his suicide wasn’t real, but they didn’t want to tell me because they knew how upset I’d be. I was so angry with them, but they said that no matter how hard they looked and how close they’d come, they’ve never managed to find him. I would’ve been devastated if I’d known he was out there and I couldn’t contact him. They did the right thing.”

No
.
Wrong
.
Stop.

“But then Aven made me an offer,” Jordan continued. “He said he’d help me find Luka if I did something for him first. I had to help him get to Meya. All I had to do was use my gift to hide him and Calista so we could all slip through the doorway when you opened it. It was almost too easy to orchestrate everything, especially after I suggested we use Skyla’s ability to help us. She took on Zain’s appearance to get you going, and then she made herself look like me to make sure you opened the door and came through. It was perfect.”

Alex struggled to draw breath into her lungs.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” he continued. “I know how important you thought it was to keep him away. But Kyia and Zain and Prince Roka, they all lied to us. It wasn’t Aven who murdered those humans and tried to steal the throne—it was
Roka
. He framed Aven, making it look like he was innocent, while Aven took the fall and the banishment for his brother’s actions. Aven’s the victim here, Alex.”

Try convincing Skyla of that
, she thought.

There was no way the Jordan they knew and loved would fall for such a fictitious story. And he would
never
refer to Aven as a ‘victim’, not after everything the Meyarin had done.

Alex turned to look at Aven with hate-filled eyes. “That’s not Jordan talking. My friend would never believe the words coming out of his mouth.”

“Finish your recount, Jordan,” Aven ordered, ignoring Alex.