Page 18 of Ever Dark Academy, Vol. 3

There’s so many things I want to ask you about shifting! Julian admitted. Daemon tells me I can become any animal I want like he does. But I’m not him. So I’m not really sure about that.

You are of his blood. But you are unique so we don’t know what the extent of your powers will be. And you are very young. The first spirit though is special. If you have more they’ll seek you out more easily than this first, Ryder explained.

Right. Okay, I have a plan. I’ll let you get to that meeting now. And thank you! Julian called before winnowing down their connection.

Ryder shouldn’t have been shocked that Julian was so down to earth and yet he was.

The prince was warm, generous and kind. Brave, too.

Exactly what he would hope for in a fledgling himself.

He was so glad that Daemon had been given such a brilliant one.

He looked forward to helping Julian find his spirit animal or animals.

He is everything to me, Daemon’s mind voice flooded him with love and affection.

You should have the best, Ryder sent.

I thank you for your kindness and welcome to him. We will hunt together, my friend, Daemon’s voice drifted away.

Daemon’s acceptance warmed him and kept him happily walking to the Eyros Palace at an accelerated rate, but here he was now, hesitating outside as if waiting for yet another invitation.

Ryder had been inside twice this life. Who knew how many before. Not that it had likely looked like this back then. Now it was lovely with lots of dark wood and books. Comfortable and luxurious sofas and chairs. Loads of velvet and silk in lush reds and deep blues.

All of the palaces he’d seen so far–including his own–had walls covered in books and scrolls.

The internet hadn’t quite come to the Ever Dark yet.

But electricity apparently now had. And with scientists–and Daemon’s approval–they were working on some form of electronic communication here, though it wouldn’t require satellites or ugly cell towers, he guessed.

The Ever Dark adjusted to what they wanted and needed and imagined.

He was certain so long as Daemon allowed it, they would have it.

But each Immortal had a little part of it.

A little territory that they controlled and kept all but Daemon out of if they so chose.

“You feel it, too?” Fiona asked.

Ryder didn’t jerk. She had teleported in beside him, but his keen senses had picked up her perfume a moment before she had, which was strange. He would remember that.

For what? He wondered. We’re on the same side. But if any of her Bloodline works for the Sect it will be useful.

“I didn’t feel it before,” Ryder admitted.

What they were talking about was a barrier around the Eyros Palace. It was actually permeable and they were allowed to cross it. It had likely always been there. But until he had realized–or perhaps accepted–he was an Immortal, he had not been truly aware of it.

“Balthazar is welcoming us in, but you still stay out here,” Fiona remarked.

He turned towards her. “I am not quite myself. Or maybe I am too much myself. But I’m glad I’m here when you arrived so that we might speak privately for a moment. I wanted to thank you.”

She lifted a delicate eyebrow. She was a beautiful woman with the intelligence of ages behind her eyes at times as she remembered herself as Wyvern most likely.

“I cannot imagine what you have to thank me for,” Fiona admitted.

“For what you said to me that time before the Ring,” he explained.

“Ah.” She inclined her head. “No thanks are needed. I just thought, knowing a bit where you were coming from and heading to, that I could offer some… encouragement.”

“You did. And I thank you for it.” Ryder inclined his head.

“Both of our Masters were children of our War,” Fiona said with a sigh. “Yet I still wanted to weep with the unfairness of it all that I had to give her a Second Death.”

“I only regret not eliminating Lawson earlier,” Ryder admitted. “He caused so much pain and damage.”

She studied him quietly. “You exiled most of your Bloodline.”

“According to Amaris and Kayne, they were already exiled,” Ryder said.

“Ah, old names. Old blood. I don’t remember them exactly, but I sort of do.” She nodded.

“I feel the same way. But it was a shock to me to find out I was born into a bunch of exiles,” Ryder snorted.

“Haven’t we all been so far? You were born to Lawson, just as I was born to one of the War Children and so was Balthazar,” she pointed out.

“I’m not sure I want to draw meaning from that if there is any meaning to find,” Ryder admitted with a grunt.

“Our just desserts? To see up close the damage we caused?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. She wore a cropped rose-colored shirt and a long skirt of a slightly darker red.

Strappy black sandals were tied up to her knees.

There was a broach made of diamonds around her throat.

She looked elegant and civilized as could be.

As far from the War as he could imagine, but she spoke of it with the bitterness of having been in the thick of it.

She was , Weryn whispered. She could go behind all enemy lines even when the cities were locked down given time.

“None of my fledglings accepted the new ones that were born in the War and after. They still stay distant, but some are coming back,” she murmured.

“I’m not sure what I want. When I meet them, I study their faces to see what they think of me, to glimpse in their eyes the crimes I committed against them and others that I cannot remember. ”

“Cannot? Or don’t want to?”

Her silver eyes lifted to his. “You and I have the same problem, Ryder. If I remember I will likely lose who I’ve become. Fiona Darksilver will be buried under a million metric tons of memories. I will be like a candle flame in a hurricane. I will be gone and it will be as if I never was.”

“And you like who you are?” He was genuinely curious, but he shouldn’t have been surprised as she seemed so very comfortable in her skin, even in leading.

“Sometimes.” She smiled. “But other times I think I am just afraid to know who I was . So I cling to what I know and can control. It also allows me to claim ignorance and not have to apologize. Too much anyways.”

He grunted. “No one looks at you as if you are the Devil though. There is that.”

“I am an Immortal and I was a Confessor in the Order so in my own eyes I should be right up there in the Devil’s pantheon, thank you very much.” She softened the sting of her words with a smile.

“We all know that Kaly may have started the War, but I turned it into the conflagration that it became,” Ryder said, surprising himself how he so honestly admitted and owned this. Fiona was incredibly easy to talk to and he wondered if they had been friends.

Yes, Weryn whispered. She sees much further than we do. She was our Scout.

He put that to the side though. It interested him to see who fought together and who did not. But he didn’t want to make only those connections again. Grayson was right that they all had to come together as one, as Immortals, now to face the threats that were against them all.

“King Daemon is content for us to live in the present and make a new future,” Fiona said, tapping her chin with one black painted nail. “He doesn’t speak of the past at all. Yet I sense no anger from him about it. No blame. Not at us in any case.”

Ryder nodded. “Shouldn’t he be angry though?”

“Probably.” She flashed another smile. “Definitely. We let him down. We forgot him. We allowed him to starve while we destroyed everything. As much as I now hate what the Order truly was–Kaly’s construction to control us–it might actually have saved us.”

“It might,” he admitted reluctantly.

The Order’s stories had seemed much like the stories in the Bible to him. He listened to them, but felt no truth in them. They seemed too simplistic and had no bearing on the world he lived in. But now, maybe they meant more to him than he knew.

“You know that Kaly was the one to warn Eyros and Seeyr about their other selves’ plans, don’t you? That they put this all into motion to fix things. Things they did and things we did.” She made a mixing motion with her hands. “We’re only here because of them.”

“But that’s both good and bad.” He shook his head. “They caused the War and found a way to restore things.”

“It is. But the present is good, I think.” She nodded more to herself than him. “The present is full of possibilities.”

“I want to feel that way.”

“Wanting is the first step. Shall we take another step, Ryder, into the future and leave the past behind?” She offered him her hand.

She sees farther than us, Weryn whispered.

With a smile, Ryder took Fiona’s proffered hand and said, “Lead the way, Fiona.”