TW: alcohol abuse.

Avaryn

My foot slid through mud almost causing me to fall flat on my ass. I shook it off my shoe. Ew. Why am I walking in a dark forest by myself you might ask? I had no clue. Why did I keep listening to Roz?

Each job she sent me on got worse and worse. Apparently this new herb she wanted was not being sold in the local shops. Because it was illegal.

The Shadow forest was extra creepy by myself. Shadows crawled across every tree like whispers as if there were hundreds of people in the forest beside me but I knew better, I was all alone. Which in a way was comforting. The sky above me was dark and the birds whispered secrets above my head.

I hated to admit it but The Shadow Realm was truly captivating. Everything about it was beautiful to me.

The herb Roz tasked me to find for her illegal witchy activities was apparently supposed to grow out of a tree stump to a specific kind of tree. The trees were called Dark Willows and Roz showed me a painting of what they looked like but I can't seem to find them.

It felt like I'd been traveling for miles before I saw something. A faint glow in the distance. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to follow this strange light. I knew that I was out here for Roz, but I've always been a curious person before anything else. I had to know what was ahead.

I strode forward until I reached the periwinkle glow that came from above the trees. I sucked in a sharp breath as I stared up.

I felt a smile bloom on my face. I was speechless.

Above the trees in dozens of swarms were some kind of butterflies. Or at least I thought they were butterflies. They had more than four wings, they had double stacked atop each other almost like mirrors. And they were extremely big, not the size of a palm like normal butterflies. But those aren't the things that amazed me.

They were glowing.

Bright and blinding like a christmas tree. They were all types of colors. Red, purple, green, white, black, gold.

They were wondrous. I had never seen anything like them before. I felt like I had just discovered something that nobody knew about. The glow of the butterflies surrounded a small part of the forest creating our own secret bubble. I lifted my hand up as if to reach for them, maybe they could take me with them, maybe my life could be as simple as a pretty butterfly.

They slowly wandered towards my outreached palm as if hesitant whether or not I was going to hurt them. After a minute they seemed to decide that I was decent and landed all up my arm. It looked like I had a glow in the dark arm.

I laughed when their wings tickled me. A feeling had warmed in my stomach and I realized I was happy. It was funny that such a small thing could bring out an emotion I hadn't felt in weeks.

I suddenly froze when I heard a rustling behind me. The butterflies seemed to hear it too because they all hurried away. I wanted to drop-kick the person who scared them. I slightly turned my head over my shoulder. My heart lurched in my chest. Was there someone in these woods with me?

As soon as I thought about it, it clicked.
I huffed, "might as well come out Raiden."

Seconds passed in silence and nobody came into view. I narrowed my eyes behind me. I was too paranoid at this point to believe that the noise was in my head.

Someone was following me and It wasn't Raiden.

I slowly gripped the dagger in my waistband. "Come out!"I hissed putting the dagger out in front of me.

Footsteps rang behind me and I quickly whirled around to see that nobody was there. I could hear them. I could hear someone but I couldn't see them. Was this all in my head?
A hand gripped my shoulder and I reacted before I thought, slashing my dagger behind me where the intruder was. I spun around once again, my hair whipping across my face, to find I was alone.

What is happening?

"Face me, Coward!" I snarled. Maybe calling the person trying to attack me names wasn't the best idea but I didn't care. At the moment I didn't care for anything. Who would be trying to attack me? Or what?

I wish I had my fire.

What do I do against an enemy I can't see?

What would Raiden do? I rolled my eyes. First of all he would know what was attacking him because he freakishly knew everything.
Something shifted in me then. I let go of the worrying, prestigious and good Avaryn and let the other side of me awaken. The cruel and cunning side. It was the only way I could win.

I closed my eyes and focused on my other senses. After a few seconds I felt warmth near my neck and I lashed out with my knife before the person could touch me. I heard a low grunt from the right of me and swung as fast as I could trying to remember everything Raiden and Roz had taught me.

I could feel the second my dagger cut across flesh. I smiled with satisfaction but I quickly dropped it when I still couldn't see anyone.

God were they invisible or something?

I froze at my own thoughts. Of course they were invisible. I pursed my lips to stop from smirking arrogantly. I chuckled under my breath. "Come on," I whispered, my eyes flicking around me. Some kind of clenching in my chest had started. It wasn't a bad kind of feeling ... It was a need. bloodlust. There was something so satisfying about fighting someone and knowing you could win.

I kept my eyes closed, letting my other senses dominate me. I felt a shift in the air, wind hitting my cheek, and quickly dodged to the right. There was a low groan as the invisible person hit the ground trying to tackle me.

Before they had the chance to get up I kicked hard at the ground in front of me and instead of meeting the forest floor, I hit bones and heard a rewarding crack. A low moan came from the invisible person. "Show yourself or I'll break your other leg."

I heard a shaky exhale and then a glimmer faded through the air below me. A body was lying on the grass at my feet. The body of a Greer soldier. Anger bursts through me expanding throughout my whole body. I lurched my heel out and kicked him in the gut. He coughed and moaned in pain.

"Please ..." he rasped, his voice breaking at the end. He didn't look like much. He was scrawny and maybe a year younger than me give or take. My guess was he had an ability that made him be perceived as invisible. Why would he be hunting me? "Don't kill me."

I frowned. Kill him? I would never kill a person. (Well depends on the person) But then again he didn't know that.

I smiled and made sure it looked cruel. "If you don't tell me who you are and what you want with me I might just have to. Or perhaps I'll take out one of your eyes? An invisible person surely doesn't need sight right? Oh! Or maybe I'll cut off your-"

"Please!" he rasped, his blue eyes expanding with fear. "I-I had to."

I was about to make another threat to the poor boy when I froze. The presence of someone behind me was unmistakable. Only one person felt like that. Only one person felt like a wildfire. I chuckled under my breath but it held no humor. I was angry. I was livid.

I whirled and threw my dagger in a rush of rage. It soared through the air before It hit the tree Raiden leaned against, just missing his neck by a sliver.

My heart was in my throat with wild fury in my veins. "I'm gonna kill you."

He only had time for one amused smile before I lunged for him. He could have dodged me without effort but he let me slam him against the tree stump. "You set this up?" I hissed at his face.

His dark eyes held little to no emotion. But I knew what that meant. I was right. Without thinking I hit him in the face with so much force he flinged to the side, stumbling back. I hit him again before I could process what my body was doing.

The rage in me was just growing and looking at him didn't help. He stumbled back again, almost losing his footing. He was letting me do it? Why? That did nothing to subside my anger. In fact it made it worse. I wanted a fight.

I grabbed his shirt and pushed him back against a tree. "Fight back!" I growled.

He did nothing.

His eyes ... something was off about his eyes. And the way he stood, it was as if he was slumping, as if he was leaning on the tree for support. I immediately let go of him and took a step back. My eyes briefly caught sight of something moving to the side of me and I figured it was the boy soldier running for his life.

I turned my eyes back to Raiden in disbelief and pushed at his chest with my palm. I watched him stumble.

I blinked. "You're drunk." it was not a question. I knew without a doubt.

His only response was a foolish smile and an even foolisher, slurred, "if you wanted me against a tree darling, all'd you have to do is ask."

Something was terribly wrong. If Raiden had let go of control of himself, something awful must've happened. His eyes had begun to close and he slid down the tree. Oh no. he was not getting away that easily. I sat in front of him, on my knees.

I grabbed his chin and yanked his face towards mine.

His eyes flung open, surprised. He stared at me in bewilderment. He had a bruise underneath his left eye. I knew it wasn't from me, even though I was angry I had been holding back when I had hit him. Who had he let close enough to hit him? Anger struck through me at the thought of Raiden letting someone hit him. I was angry he let me hit him.

Something bad happened.

I put my hand fully against his cheek, trying to seem soothing and gentle. "What happened?"

He said nothing, his dark eyes still wide with shock, like he couldn't believe what was happening. Finally he seemed to relax, letting out a breath, or a sigh, and I felt him lean into my touch.

I stared, confused. Something really really bad must've happened. He was being vulnerable. He was never vulnerable. I felt something pull in me. Something that felt horrible. Like my chest was squeezing closed. I leaned my forehead against his, hoping that would ease the strange tug in my throat. "What happened, Raiden? Who hurt you?"

It was so faint I was sure I imagined him saying, "I did." The words were so quiet and slurred I barely heard them.

Before I could open my mouth he leaned his head against my shoulder and his arms wrapped around me, his hand clinging so fiercely you would think they were hanging on for their lives.

His voice was shaky as he said,
"tell me a story."

I froze, I didn't know how to handle this. I didn't know how to handle him like this. He was so ... vulnerable and so unalike him. I took in a deep breath then I slowly placed my hand against the back of his head and let him lean on me.

My heart broke when I heard the agony in his voice. Who did this to him? What had happened? He seemed so fragile at that moment, like he was on the verge of breaking. A fierce and wild urge to protect him from everything that would want to do him harm flowed through me. I was supposed to hate him.

He betrayed me.

And yet ...

I leaned against the tree and he leaned with me, his body moving with mine. I wasn't stupid enough to ask what happened a third time so I let humor flood into my voice, "I'm pretty sure that's my line."

I felt his lips twitch against my shoulder.
I said the first thing that came to my head. "When I was fourteen I stole a diamond ring worth fifteen-thousand dollars."

He said nothing but I felt his smile widened. "How did you manage that?"

I knew he needed a distraction and I knew this was helping, considering his grip on me had loosened a fraction, but his head still remained buried in my shoulder. I snickered. "I'm a damned good thief, you should know this by now. Don't you have any faith in me? "

"Always, but you were fourteen."

I froze.

We'll always be enemies.

I could still feel the cold and bitter feeling of his dagger piercing through my skin like it had just happened. I could remember what the pain felt like, how it felt to see him in that throne room standing beside him. His father.
Raiden's grip on me tightened, he could feel me withdrawing and with his touch he begged me to stay.

I couldn't think of that now. I didn't forgive Raiden, not one bit. I still hated him. But I couldn't walk away when he was like this. I just ... couldn't. Not when he was vulnerable and drunk. Somebody could easily kill him. And they would take away my kill.

He was mine to kill.

"Okay so maybe they had taken it out of the case to clean it. And maybe I purposely knocked my best friend into a cart of boxes to form a distraction. But I still did it. I still have it too. It's tucked away in a shoe box beneath my bed."

I heard him snicker but it was muffled by my shoulder. I flicked his ear. "Hey! No making fun."

He rubbed his now stinging ear on me. "I can just imagine little Avaryn pushing her friend under the bus just so she can get something shiny."

I chuckled with him, I continued to tell him stories about the stuff I had stolen in the past. I continued to give him a distraction, because that's what he needed. I told him stories until I felt his breathing even out. I told stories until my eyes grew heavy and I sunk against the forest floor with Raiden in my arms.

***

My eyes opened slowly and I stared at a cold stone ceiling with strange symbols. I shot up from my bed feeling immediately confused. I was back in the castle? Memories of last night swarmed through my head. Memories of me falling asleep on the forest floor with Raiden in my arms. Memories of Raiden being drunk and vulnerable. Had that really happened or was it just a horrible nightmare? Surely I hadn't actually comforted him? After everything he'd done, I didn't try to make him feel better, right?

The castle was extra alive today, servants hustled around, their arms filled with random junk. Their talk and gossip spread through the halls in echoes. The town folks were also inside the castle today. Bringing in what looked like decorations.

Oh god, I thought, please not a ball, I hate balls.

I saw Roz instructing people and throwing out orders. I strode up to her and yanked her by the elbow. "What is going on? And please tell me it is not a ball."

She shrugged off my hold and rolled her eyes. "It's not a ball, it's dinner. It's Black Rose."

She stared at me as if I was supposed to understand what she just said.

I blinked.

"It's a very important holiday in the Shadow Realm and it's tomorrow."

"Oh."

"Did you happen to get the herbs I asked for?"

"I couldn't find them," I lied through my teeth, as easily as breathing. "I'll try again tonight."

She nodded her head, accepting my answer. Something gleamed in her eyes then. Something hesitant. "Did-have you- have you seen Raiden at all?"

The way she had said those words ... the vulnerability in them. It was the most I had ever heard her express emotions for Raiden. Something was deeply concerning her. "Why?"

"Urm ... he hates black rose," she said, "It's something to do with his mother, I don't know why, he has never told me but he sort of gets a little out of control every year."

"So that's why he was drunk," I muttered under my breath, without meaning to say the words out loud.

"He was drunk?" Roz hissed with urgency. "When? Where? Please Avaryn you need to tell me-"

"Woah. calm down this was last night but its fine nothing bad happened."

Her eyes had gone wide and frantic with some sort of panic I didn't understand. "Last night? Have you seen him since then?"

What was going on? Why was she so concerned? Roz had always come off as the type of person who only cared about herself. When you looked into her dark eyes you could see the shadow of a girl who had stopped feeling. A girl who had lost hope in everyone but herself. And it would be a bad thing if she didn't admit it. But she did. That is what I liked about her. She didn't try to cover up the fact that she didn't have a care in the word.

But right now ... right now she was showing a lot of concern for her older brother.

"What's going on Roz?"

She hesitated, I didn't know if it was because she didn't know whether or not to trust me or because it wasn't important enough. "Have you ever seen Raiden use his power?" she had used her words carefully, picking logically the right way to say them. I didn't give her enough credit.

I thought back to every moment I've had with Raiden. "No," I said, "I've never seen him use them."

"That's because he doesn't know how to control them."

I frowned. That couldn't be right. She had to be wrong. Raiden was never not in control. Besides last night, he was always in control of everything.

"When he loses control of himself. Like being drunk, the casualties could be deadly. As in, I don't know, he could burn down all of Arawyn."

"He wouldn't though, would he?"

The look Roz shot me was as if I should know better.

"Roz!" a cheery voice said from the right of us.

Roz stiffened at the sound of the voice and a certain amount of annoyance and rage fiddler her big eyes. She put on a fake smile and turned towards the girl. "Lada, hello."

Lada was a new face around here. I hadn't seen her before, wondering about the castle. Hair hung below her back in slick back curls. Eyes so blue you'd think they could cut right through you. She was beautiful but then again I hadn't seen a Devara or a Greer who wasn't.

"I wasn't expecting to see you till the feast," Roz remarked, in a kind way but there was an edge to her voice. She really didn't like this girl.

"Well, my father had some business to discuss with yours and, well, here I am," Lada said, "I've been searching everywhere for you and Raiden."

The girl completely ignored me as if I were not standing right in her line of sight. As if I were not important enough to address. Maybe i could just slip away without her noticing-

"Lada, this is Avaryn Alastor," Roz said before I could even think about the luxury of slipping away. "She's royalty, she's a very powerful Greer and she's quite valuable to my father ... and Raiden."

And Raiden? I stared in confusion at those words.

A flash in those ice blue eyes, a flash of an uncontainable rage, a flash of murder, before they returned into fake joy.

Oh, I get it now. Roz was trying to piss her off and she used me to do it. She truly had no shame.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Lada Mercuricy. Daughter of General Mercuricy."

I nodded and let my lips twitch upward like I knew who the hell she was talking about. "The pleasure is mine, but I'm afraid I have to get going."

"Oh! Right! Didn't you say you were meeting Raiden in the gardens?" Roz prompted.

Her eyes threatened mine to just play along.

I pretended to giggle as I said, "Roz that was supposed to be a secret!" She owes me for this. I turned back to Lada who now looked like she wanted to rip my head off. "Have a lovely day, Lady."

She smiled kindly but behind it she plotted all the ways to kill me. "It's Lada."

I know. "Oh, my apologies, Lada."

With that I walked away, far from Roz and her enemy.

That was strange.

That girl was so jealous of me I could practically feel it coming off her in waves. As if she had mentally shot me in the chest. She was jealous because she thought I was with raiden. Did that mean she had been with Raiden? Had they dated before? Why did I suddenly feel some sort of squeezing in my chest? It certainly wasn't jealousy of my own, right?

I pushed those thoughts away and focused on the task at hand. I needed to find Raiden and make sure he didn't burn down Arawyn. I needed to make sure he was okay.

***

I had no luck finding Raiden, it was as if he had disappeared. He wasn't in the gardens, or in his rooms, or gallery. Though I did not look well. I opened the door, felt my heart lurch in my throat and quickly closed it. The memories of Nisha's corpse hanging on the wall had seeped past the barrier of my mind and clawed through my head.

Now I sat at a decorated table with over a hundred people while they talked and celebrated a holiday I did not understand.

They said a few prayers to a few gods I didn't recognize and then began to eat.

Silk drapes hung from the ceiling of the grand dining room. They were a mix of onyx and scarlet. Typical Greer colors.

And then I finally spotted him. He walked through the doors and through the chatter nobody bothers to look up. Raiden's eyes locked with mine in an instant as if he could feel my stare burning through him. There was a warning in my gaze, I'm sure of it. And maybe even worry because he looked awful. Darkness shown under his eyes in harsh circles as if he hadn't slept at all. And maybe he didn't.

What had he done after he brought me back to my rooms? Had he burned something down? A city perhaps?

I stared at him. I realized now that I was still angry at him. There was still a tingling rage dancing along my fingertips itching to hit him.
He had me attacked last night. I didn't care if it was a test or for his personal amusement.

Drunk or not. I was going to kill him.

No, you're not, a voice mocked in my head.

Shut up, I hissed back at my inner conscious.

For a moment I thought he was walking toward me but then he veered left and sat down next to a familiar figure.

Lada.

Why had he sat next to her? Why had he broken eye contact with me? Was I right before? Had they been together? Why was he laughing with her? Her hand was touching his as they seemed to have a conversation that was overly hilarious.

A squeezing in my chest and this time I knew, I was in fact, jealous. Why? I wanted to hit myself sometimes. I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest and scream some sense into it.

But then the worst of it all.

Raiden smiled at her and it was that smile.

Why did It suddenly feel like it was hard to breathe? Why did I feel like marching across the table and ripping her hand off him?

"Don't worry," Roz said next to me, "He's only doing it for you."

I turned to her, confusion in my brow. "What?"

"My brother is rather dramatic sometimes. Avaryn, love, he's trying to make you jealous," she explained, and then gave my face a once over, "and I'd say it's working."

"It is not!" I hissed at her. "And besides why would he be trying to make me jealous?"

She gave me a bored look. "I'm not blind. I can see there is something between you two. And don't bother denying it," she said when she saw my mouth open in protest. I snapped it shut and turned back to my food pretending to be enjoying it. Pretending to ignore Raiden.

Making me jealous.

Was he really?

Besides my better judgement I glanced up to look at him and Lada again only to see him staring right at me. He did not look away when we made eye contact but then again he wouldn't. He had no shame.

I narrowed my eyes, shoving as much anger and hate into the stare as I could. Something in my gaze seemed to satisfy him because his lips twitched into that annoying wicked smile of his. And then he turned back to Lada. I felt like screaming at him to turn back to me. And then I realized how pathetic I was being. This was not who I was. I was not the jealous type, especially for Raiden.

After the feast everyone was standing around and chatting about random meaningless things while I stood on the sidelines praying for this to be over.

Suddenly a girl with long silky dark hair was standing before me with some sort of sneer on her manicured face. Oh boy, here we go.

Lada smiled kindly but minus the actual kindness. "I don't know what you think you have with Raiden but you should know that him and I are it for each other. Since we were kids it's pretty much been written in stone that we'll be married someday."

It took everything in me not to roll my eyes. I lifted a shoulder. "Okay."

"Okay?" she snarled, I supposed she was not pleased with my bored reaction.

"Lady, I don't know what you're trying to get at. But if you're assuming I would want to marry Raiden, you're mistaken, I'd rather blow my head off then spend an eternity with him." I shrugged again. "If anything, I feel bad for you."

Lada stared at me shocked, her jaw hanging half open. Of all the words she had not expected those.

"You- You're not supposed to speak about the prince that way!"

This time I did laugh, if only she knew all the things I had said to his face. When I stopped laughing I smiled at Lada and it wasn't out of malice or hatred, it was genuine. After all she was just trying to protect what she thought was hers. "I hope you have a nice night."

With that I walked away from her and out the glass doors and into the gardens. The sky was extra misty tonight, taking upon a neutral gray color. The smell was the same as always. It smelt of pine and mist. Wind hit across my cheek dancing through my hair. I decided to stroll through the gardens. Even though it was nighttime and I was completely alone.

As I walked through the rose field my eyes landed on a willow tree with leaves that dropped all the way to the ground. It created a shield. A circle of secrecy. So of course I had to see what was inside beyond the branches. I lifted the leaves with my hand and peaked through to discover a pure black gazebo.

I strolled towards it in fascination and for once I regretted my curiosity when I found a figure already inside it. A figure I was way too familiar with. Why was it always him?

Raiden sat on the floor, a bottle of alcohol in his hand. Oh, no. This couldn't be a good thing.

"What do you think you're doing?" I hissed at him and crouched beside him, snatching the half empty bottle from his hand. I didn't care that my red dress was getting dirty all over, I was too angry.

Why did I always end up having to take care of drunk Raiden?

His head shot up like he had just realized I was here. That isn't like him at all. A flash of anger and relief shot through his black eyes at the sight of me. I hated seeing him like this. With his guard fully down, his emotions were clear on his face. "You," he slurred in a mutter. "It's always you."

"Stop talking," I warned him, before he said something stupid. "Can you not handle your alcohol or do you just consume loads of it?"

He smiled at the tone in my voice and it was a foolishly beautiful smile. "I definitely can not handle it."

I laughed, because there was something so funny about that fact. Raiden, the cold hearted killer and control freak, was a lightweight. I sunk onto the wooden floor across from him.

"Lion," he said, like he was throwing some kind of accusation at me.

My eyes narrowed. He truly made no sense when he was drunk. "Did you just call me a lion? I can assure you I am not a lion."

"A lion is a lion," he assured, foolishly, "In a cage," he looked down at my attire. "In a pretty red dress."

I sighed at his foolishness. "Look, are you going to burn down the city?"

"No," he replied simply, not taking offense to my words. He extended his hand and stared down at it, flickering his fingers. "The fire is still hiding away, suffocating."

"For my sake?"

"Yes. I think you're more dangerous with it than I am."

I stared at him and he stared at me, I didn't dare speak. What was he getting at? Why was he drunk? What was hurting him? I moved to get up before I felt his hand grip my wrist and stop me. "Stay," he whispered.

I looked down at him. My gaze clashing through his fragile one. Something intense passed through the air threatening to suffocate me. "Give me a reason to."

"I have no reason, other than the fact that I want you to."

I stared at the vines growing behind him and the way they swirled through the chipped wood of the gazebo. I watched as they grew more right before my eyes. They stretched up and up twisting through the walls. Like Jack's beanstalk.

I stared in amazement. Was everything here magical?

I turned my gaze back to Raiden and then sat back down. Some sort of relief flickered through his eyes before he rested his chin on his knee.

"I'm leaving in a few days," he said without any context, waiting for my reaction.

I didn't give him one. "To go where?"

"To retrieve the second half of the Vad."

My heart sunk. I knew sooner or later they would find it but the knowledge that it was happening now sent panic straight to my core. They couldn't. They just couldn't. "I want to go with you."

Raiden's lips turned up in a smile as if he were waiting for those words. "I knew you would say that," he whispered then said with humor, "Let me guess. You want to get to the Vad before we do, so you can use it against us?"

I froze at his words. I kept my face impassive, showing no reaction, but I was sure he could see right through me. It was like he could see my exact thoughts.

Raiden only chuckled, pleased with himself. "I suppose that means I'm correct." his smile remained, it was both satisfied and amused. "Avaryn, Darling, for someone so incredibly smart you have the worst plans."

I shot him a glare.

"You're not going to tell him are you?" I whispered, I didn't need to name who I was talking about, he knew.

Hurt flashed across his face and then he laughed but there was no humor in it. He growled, "No, I'm not going to tell him."

"Can I go with you?" what I was truly asking was something different entirely. If he agreed that meant he was going to let me get the Vad before his father. If he didnt ... that would mean he truly never cared about me or what I wanted.

Raiden could see through it of course, his jaw clenched. "Don't put your trust in me, love. It won't end well."

"Answer the question."

"Yes," he said in frustration. "You can go with me anywhere."

Well that settles it, I was going to travel across the shadow realm with Raiden to retrieve a deadly weapon that only I could control. There's a sentence I thought I'd never hear.

I tried not to smile in victory then asked flatly, "Why are you drunk?"

Raiden smiled. "I am not drunk, deshima."

I frowned and searched through every human language in my mind but couldn't find a translation to that word. "What language is that?"

"It is my mothers. The language of Trevikan. It is a small village south-east of here."

I had settled down next to him on the hard ground, my shoulders slouched, relaxing and my mind was a blank canvas. I was comfortable, I realized with horror. My guard was down at least half way. Raiden's warmth wrapped around me like wildfire and I found myself unconsciously leaning toward him.

"What was she like?" I asked.

The pain was quick in his eyes before he pushed it away. He hesitated, as if afraid to tell the truth. Afraid to let someone see a part of him that was raw and true. "She was ... she was kind." It was spoken as a soft whisper and I thought that was all he was going to give me until he spoke again, "Today is her birthday."

"Oh," I said, my voice thick. I suddenly felt really guilty asking about her. "I'm sorry."

His gaze softened as he looked into mine. "Do not be sorry, deshima."

I stared at him for a long time. He was being so unalike himself. He was being soft and gentle and ... kind. He was being open. He was not blocking me out. I wondered if this is what he was truly like underneath the mask he usually wore. "What does that word mean?"

He ignored my question as if it was never said, "My mother was always different, much like I was. She had a light in her eyes that could never be put out and a heart that matched it. She believed in gods and had strong faith. She looked much like me but without white hair. Brown skin that glowed in the sunlight and black eyes."

"She sounds amazing."

"She was the one person who did not treat me as if I was a problem. My father did not want me after he discovered I had no power, and the people in the Trevikan village thought I was crazy for saying I was the son of the king," he whispered, his eyes had drifted closed minutes before and I wondered if he even remembered I was here and that he was not talking to himself. "Of course once my mother died and I discovered that I did have powers, my father wanted me to live at the castle and train there so he could use me as a weapon. He didn't even care that I burned down my whole village at the age of thirteen."

Why was he telling me this? It felt wrong hearing this. Hearing his story. I felt as if I was taking advantage of the situation. He would never tell me this sober. Never. But still, I did not silence him.

"My mother never wanted me to live with him. She spent my whole life protecting me from him and I knew she would not want me to be anything like him, so I stopped using my ability. And I learned to be a warrior without power. I trained myself to be the best. And to spite my father I trained myself to block out other people's power too, so he could not control me."

"How did she die?" I found myself asking.

Raiden smiled gently. "You do not want the answer to that deshima."

I frowned. "I-"

"I think it is time we head in for the night," he interrupted me, standing up smoothly, not even stumbling from the alcohol. "We'll need it for the next few days."

***

That is all for now. I hoped you enjoyed. I might start posting weekly but I'm not sure. Bye loves have a good day! 😙

-L