Page 24

Keahi

I wake up to Malia stroking my hair gently.

Without opening my eyes, I muse happily and turn onto my back to look at her.

The library is flooded by sunlight.

"Morning." She smiles at me, and I return the gesture half-heartedly.

I’m in no way shape or form a smiley person but she makes it a little easier for me to mold my face into the unfamiliar expression.

"Good morning," I hum, then enjoy her head scratches for a little longer before asking for the time.

"It’s six am so we still have time before we’re expected anywhere." I nod in acknowledgement but don’t try to fill the ensuing silence.

Not when I’m half asleep and her short nails on my scalp feel so heavenly.

I just want to enjoy the moment for a little while longer and Malia doesn’t seem to mind. Whenever I crack open an eye I either catch her smiling off at the bookshelves ahead or leaning back with her eyes closed as she caresses me.

At seven, we decide to leave the library.

I jump up and offer her a hand to get off the floor.

She smirks and teases, “Who would have thought you could be so gentlemanly.”

I shake my head at her antics but reply either way.

“No one would believe you if you tried spreading the news, so don’t start getting ideas now.”

She bumps her shoulder against mine, on her feet at my side now, but when she tries to pull her hand from mine, I tighten my grasp.

It’s an unconscious reaction, really.

My body seems unwilling to stop touching her right now. There’s a flash of surprise in Malia’s eyes, quickly followed by satisfaction as a smile tugs at the corner of her full lips. She tries to hide it by glancing away, but her reaction isn’t lost on me.

“Would it be such a bad thing to let people know you’re not as scary as you pretend to be? That you’re actually nice under all that spikey armor?” she muses, keeping up with my long strides as we head out of the library.

Would it? Heck if I know.

“I’m not nice, Princess.”

“You are to me.” Her eyes burn a hole into the side of my head, but I ignore the temptation to meet her stare.

I have half a mind to ignore her statement, willing her to come to her own conclusion, but my tongue has its own agenda.

“That’s because you’re not like the others.” I fight harder not to look at her now, wanting to see her reaction to my words as much as I want to swallow them back down.

“Not like them how?” There’s laughter in her voice.

I huff.

“Fuck if I know.

You’re just different. Smart and kind and selfless, you make it impossible to not like you. Everyone else here pales in comparison.” The words are a jumbled mess of hurried letters, as if my lips tried to spill them as incoherently as possible. I take a deep breath to smother my embarrassment. What on earth am I even saying?

My company gasps in mock outrage.

“Keahi are you okay? Do you want me to show you to the infirmary? Have you hit your head?”

“Ha-Ha, very funny.” I push through the library’s door, my heart racing a little, and have half a mind to drop her hand as we enter the first corridor.

I reconsider when I find it dead silent and empty.

It shouldn’t matter but it does. Gossip spreads faster than a contagious disease in these halls and I’d much rather see where this thing goes privately. This is all still too new and fragile to put a label on. If we had to have any sort of talk about it right now, I just know I’d say something stupid and hurried. Nope. First, I need a few hours away from this girl and her intoxicating presence and see where my head is at then.

“It’s a serious concern.

You said you liked me, after all,” she goes on, oblivious to my rising anxiety about this foreign position I’m finding myself in.

“Please, I never said I liked you.

You’re the bane of my existence.”

She nods solemnly.

“Right.

And I take that job very seriously.”

Her laugh is cut short when a screeching voice pierces the peaceful air around us.

"What on earth?" My heart stutters, my easy grin dropping from my lips like a cold stone and my usual scowl replacing it.

Eteri is standing in the corridor we just turned into, hands on her slim hips as she takes turns glaring at me and Malia.

The two of us stand closely together, close enough to be suspicious, and I pull our intervened hands behind my back to hide them from Eteri so I don’t make matters worse.

"Is this why you broke things off with me? Because of her?" Eteri snaps, her voice a pitch too high, and I almost wince at the second-hand embarrassment.

Sure, she might be hurt right now, jumping to all sorts of conclusions, but this act is below her.

She isn’t entitled to any of my truths, least of all when they concern Malia. Not when I ended things with her; things that were never serious to begin with.

"You know why I broke things off with you." I hoped my tone would convey the depth of my disinterest in having this conversation with her, but she ignores my dismissal.

"And yet, you’re here with her.

Seriously Keahi? That gutter rat? After everything we’ve said about her for years? I thought you hated her.” My stomach swoops at her comment, my muscles locking up knowing Malia is hearing this.

Do these words bother her? Hurt her? We had a very public rivalry going on for years so our disdainful feelings toward one another were never a secret. Still, after last night, I don’t want Malia hearing this kind of shit if it bothers her. I sure as shit don’t want Eteri calling her names.

Not issuing a reply to her statements since there I’ve got no defense, I stay on track trying to freeze her out as quickly as possible so I can do some damage control with the only girl I want to talk to right now.

Or ever.

Not that there’s much I can do regarding my behavior towards her in the past expect maybe owning up to it. Would that help?

I need to figure that out once I’ve dealt with Eteri.

Damn it, this is exactly why I wanted to keep this private first.

“Just stop, Eteri. You’re embarrassing yourself. It’s time for you to take the hint that I’m not in the mood to deal with your antics and leave,” I force through gritted teeth, feeling my temper rise with a mix of emotions raging war inside of me. My skin feels too warm and tight, and I know there are flames dancing in my eyes. I’m not good at dealing with this kind of thing, especially not when there’s a person around that I want to protect from this very moment and any venom that might spew from it.

That’s why, when Eteri offers me an ultimatum and with it, a quick out, I take it in the hopes that it’ll finally make her leave.

“Tell me she means nothing! If you want me to leave, I need to hear you say it right now.

I deserve as much." She deserves drastically little right now in my eyes, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that Malia is as stiff as a board at my side, and I can’t take another second of this.

"Of course, she means nothing," I drawl in a calm voice that contradicts the war raging inside of me.

The words taste bitter on my tongue, and if I thought that Malia would catch on to my act and be fine with it, I was sorely mistaken.

She pulls her hand out of mine so quickly I almost flinch, and I instantly miss the heat of her skin against mine.

The temptation to look at her is almost unbearable but I know if I can keep it together for just a little longer now, I get to have a private conversation with her sooner.

She must know I’m lying, right? She knows my tells.

"Good thing that’s settled.

Now come to breakfast with me," Eteri demands, looking content.

Her one-eighty mood switch almost gives me whiplash, but instead of showing it, I simply glare at my former friend, for a lack of a better title.

"Fuck off Eteri, don’t try to tell me what to do.

I did what you asked so finally get out of my sight" My voice is colder than it has ever been while speaking to Eteri, and it does the trick.

Looking properly chastised, Eteri gives me one last bitter look, directs a venomous stare at Malia, then rushes off with blazing cheeks.

As soon as she’s out of sight, I turn toward Malia.

The strangling knot in my stomach is instant.

Malia looks on the verge of tears and the evidence is clear despite her best efforts to hide it. I’m painfully aware that I’m the reason for it.

Unsure what else to do, I choke, "I’m sorry about her." It quickly turns out to be the wrong thing to say since Malia’s jaw drops.

She gapes at me for a second, pulling away when I desperately try to reach for her.

Damnit! I rack my brain for words, anything to make Malia hear me out, but I come up empty.

For the first time in my life, I’m completely tongue-tied.

If I would just stop feeling so much at once for a second! Then I could think clearly and find a solution. But with every step Malia takes away from me, that stricken expression on her face, the foreign emotions turning my stomach intensify.

When she looks about ready to leave, I croak a hoarse, "Malia." Her name sounds desperate on my lips, but she just shakes her head.

I hear faint voices in some distant corridor and look over my shoulder.

"Let’s go to the janitor’s closet.

Please," I plead with her all the while thinking that I’m acting pathetic.

She’s overreacting, right? And so am I. This isn’t a vital turning point deciding the course of our future relationship. It’s just a little hiccup. A bump in the road. No need to freak out. Better to let her go and talk when we’re both calm and away from prying eyes.

That way, the anxiety of being discovered here pleading with my known rival would finally abate.

No one can see this moment of weakness, of confusion.

My reputation and familiar routine of the last elven years would crumble and leave me in shambles I wouldn’t know how to pick up. Maybe things would be better. I could be happier. Malia makes me happier. But that’s only been happening in private. There’s no saying how things would develop between us in the public eye. I don’t even know that Malia wants me. At least not publicly, and why would she. I don’t even know how to be decent to other people, let alone make friends, and she’s liked by everyone. We don’t match.

I would like to talk this out, to put another smile on Malia’s face and replace this hurt expression, but I’m not that person.

I can’t soothe and comfort.

How could I when I’ve known neither of those things since I was five years old and my closest confidant since then has been a trainer that yells at me more than he doesn’t.

Still something inside me tells me I really shouldn’t let her walk away right now.

I must be pondering things for too long since Malia’s face finally shuts down, her mouth closing and eyes cooling as if she were looking at me for the first time, confirming my vicious insecurities.

She seems almost revolted - as she should, I’m a coward - but I can see the pain beneath that.

She turns around and goes without another word, leaving me behind feeling stupid and confused.

I’m not even supposed to like her.

She is supposed to be my enemy...

so why does her leaving me here sting so much? We’ve done worse to each other, right? She’ll come around.

Malia

I’m an idiot.

I repeat that truth to myself over and over as I stomp down the mostly empty corridors leading to my room.

I know Keahi is just used to pushing people away and that he didn’t mean what he said but it still affects me. He said that to make Eteri leave. I should have let him talk. He asked me to talk but I let my own issues get in the way and walked away like a child.

I’m so embarrassed.

Still, I can’t help but feel a little hurt.

And stupid.

No one except Kaz that one time has ever seen me have a panic attack, and I couldn’t hide it from Keahi- Ugh. He’s going to start thinking of me as a charity case if I keep being this dramatic.

Honestly, I’m not sure why it came over me so fast.

The library was just so quiet and my mind wandered to the day before yesterday.

I saw flashes of the boy and then my own wound and before I knew it, I could hardly breathe. I felt cold, and shaky, and my vision blurred. I hate how weak it made me feel. This utter lack of control over my own body.

I’m glad to find my room empty when I reach it.

I take a shower and put on some clothes before heading to breakfast.

Keahi’s eyes pretty much stay on me until I leave for my first class, but I don’t look at him. What if he’s laughing about me. Like Aiden. Like Eteri. Like he’s done many times before.

I try not to think about it, but he stays in the back of my mind for the whole morning.

At lunch, I finally meet his eyes.

While it’s hard to read his expression over the distance, I’m glad to see he’s not laughing.

Still, I avert my eyes quickly.

When I walk past his table to head for our training room, he gets up after me.

He doesn’t stop to talk to me since he’s walking with Helia.

Instead, he drops a balled-up piece of paper as he passes.

Meet me in the janitor’s closet after training, is written in his neat handwriting.

Below that, there’s a small I’m sorry, Princess.

My heart skips a beat and I carefully place the note in my back pocket, some of the nagging worries in my head waning.

Alright, so maybe things will work out after all.

Our group is incomplete when I enter the training room, so Kaz pulls me aside to talk

"We are going outside again.

If you don’t feel ready or completely comfortable with the thought, I can arrange for you to stay inside with another group.

There would be no shame in that." He places a hand on my shoulder, and I smile up at him.

"I’m not scared.

Worst case scenario, we’ll have another sleepover in the infirmary," I joke, and I can practically see the worry drain from my trainer’s eyes.

He needed this reassurance that I’m still the resilient fighter as much as I did, and I’m glad the words ring true. I’m not more scared of going out now than I was before. Whether that be because I know what happened to me isn’t likely to reoccur or because I pushed all thoughts of it into the far depths of my mind doesn’t matter to me. Point is, I’m fine again. The door opens and with one last nod, Kaz leaves me.

"Today, we’ll duel outside for a change.

Your powers will be enhanced since you are closer to nature and your natural elements, so try to ease into it.

No one is walking off today, understood?" he says, and everyone nods. A few of my groupmates sneak a glance at me, though, passing their silent judgement. Or maybe they’re just curious.

Either way, I realize I don’t really care about what they think.

I don’t regret having intervened.

I only regret not having done it properly.

We follow our trainer outside.

This time, we are closer to the academy as we stand on the field near the vent.

We line up in a row in pairs of two, so Kaz has a good view over us.

Unfortunately, there’s a duo between my pair and Keahi’s, which means I can’t see or speak to him, which I find myself quite eager to do.

Not sure why, but it feels very urgent we get past the mess we’ve made this morning.

It’s silly, of course.

We’ll be stuck in the same Academy for two more years until Keahi becomes a guard.

That’s plenty of time to figure stuff out.

Kaz gives us a few more instructions before telling us to get into position.

Helia, my partner and a girl I’ve been getting along with well enough, raises a challenging brow at me and widens her stance.

Familiar anticipation burns through me and the cool of my powers coming within reach accompanies it. I’m ready to block any upcoming approach, but a hollering cry rings out from the woods before she can attack.

"What on earth?" Helia asks, whirling around to squint into the thick flock of trees ahead.

I do the same, only looking away to gaze at my trainer when he addresses us.

"Everyone, back to the academy!" Kaz’ voice booms over the field just before the first person appears out of the shadows of the trees.

We don’t have time to run, as we’re surrounded by strangers in black uniforms not unlike ours apart from the masks covering their faces from neck to nose.

With only their eyes and hair visible, there is something mysterious about them.

That’s all I can take stock of.

Before I can get a feel of their numbers or their formation, one of them closes in on me, demanding my single-minded focus. My nerves stand on edge, skin prickling painfully with dread, but my inner source is alert and ready for the confrontation. A lot more than I can say about my mind.

These strangers move unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed as they try to herd our small group closer together.

They’re unnaturally light and silent on their feet, their bodies unnervingly in tune with their surroundings.

All sorts of daggers and blades are strapped in the thick belts around their waists. Still, I know with a certainty I can’t explain that they’re handlers like us.

Our group moves closer together and Kaz steps in front of us.

Memories of war strategies tickle my memory, but it’s Keahi that acts first, stepping up next to our trainer.

Without any more hesitation, I do the same.

The first stranger shoots toward Kaz with his colleagues on his tail.

One attacks me with a blaze of fire, but I’m quick to dodge.

There are no instructions from Kaz, no guidelines, and despite the worry and confusion haunting my mind, my body acts on instincts, fighting like I’ve never done before.

I am mildly aware of Keahi fighting an earth handler to my left.

While I’m able to hold my own well enough, a knot in my stomach tightens as I realize he’s struggling.

This is not a drill, so much is clear.

When I manage throw my opponent on his back with a heavy beam to his solar plexus, I can finally risk a glance over at Keahi.

His earth handler has made small compact bullets of dirt and is now shooting them toward Keahi, who tries to stop them to no avail.

The bullets are too fast, shooting right through his flames.

In the corner of my eye, I see my own opponent has gotten back to his feet, ready to resume our duel.

If I don’t focus on that and fend him off right now, he’ll get the upper hand no doubt.

Yet I can’t tear my eyes off Keahi’s dire situation. He’ll die.

So might I.

It takes me less than a millisecond to make the decision between defending myself or saving boy that held my hand as I stood on the railing, straining to see the moon.

My rival.

The boy that has infuriated me for most of my time here.

I conjure up a protective wall of water.