Sky hadn't expected to be placed in a colorful room containing a class of young children.

  At first he had though this was a joke and had gone along with it—but the his name was in role call and he was assigned to seat number thirteen at the green table. The tables were normally sized, but his chair was the only one that lacked a booster seat.

  "You're too old to be in first segment," giggled a tiny girl beside him, who couldn't have been older than five in human years. Her silky black hair was pulled into two precise pigtails.

  "Yeah, I think I am," Sky told her, giving the teacher(?) a pointed look. She simply gave him a smirk, opened a thick book, and loudly announced that they were beginning the lesson so everyone should listen up, please.

   "We will continue yesterday's lesson," the instructor told the class. "Does anyone remember what we were talking about?"

  Please don't let it be powers. Please don't let it be powers.

  "Basic control!" shouted a human boy in the back.

  "Please raise your hand next time, Jordan. Yes, we went over the basics of control over one's emotions and powers."

  "But-" Sky began, but was cut off by a sharp glare from the teacher. He stared in confusion for a moment, wondering what he did wrong, before his cheeks heated up and he slowly raised his hand in the air. The class giggled.

  "Yes, Sky?" The teacher smiled at him. Laughter lit up her eyes.

  He scowled. "I thought humans didn't have powers." The class burst into more childish laughter and the teacher too pressed her lips together as if suppressing a chuckle.

  "Humans do not have powers, but must have control over their emotions just as much as immortals." She suddenly picked up a measuring stick jabbed him in the chest, hard. Sky jerked back and instantly felt angry.

  "What was that for?" he growled, standing straight up and curling his hands into fists. The instructor smiled again, her mismatched eyes sparkling.

  "Exactly my point," she told him. "Your instant response was aggression. When we live in a city where, because of diversity, tensions could run very high, the first thing that we teach our children is control and tolerance." She put the measuring stick down. "I know you're wondering why immortals and humans are not educated separately, and my answer is that the only differences between the two are that immortals have powers or abnormalities and humans don't. Both species are beings with thoughts, emotions, and potential."

  Sky was silenced. Her words had hit him like a blow to the chest. Wordlessly, he lowered himself back into his seat, a newfound respect growing for the woman.

  She turned her gaze back to the rest of the ominously silenced class. "Who would like to do a coloring sheet?"

  "What the heck was that?" Sky shouted, storming into Seto's office. The sorcerer raised his head from his papers and tilted his head almost mockingly.

  "What do you mean?" he asked innocently. Sky seethed.

  "I know it was you. You put me in a class with little kids! I did a coloring sheet!"

  Seto smiled at him, laughter in his eyes. "Because, Sky, you are essentially a child. You may have the physical and mental capabilities of a young adult, but you know almost nothing about your species or your powers."

  "If I'm a child, so are you!" Sky growled. "How old did you say you were? Five?"

  "Fifteen," Seto replied calmly. "And I have seen more of the world and its beauty and horrors than a one-hundred-year-old. I have learned the ways of the world. I am qualified for my position." He knit his fingers together and rested his chin on them, staring at Sky with deep brown eyes. "Are you feeling okay, Sky? You seem agitated by something."

  Sky was silent. There were several things he could admit. He could admit his fear of his powers and of himself. He could share his feelings of uselessness. He could tell him about how he was afraid of screwing up and losing his best friend. His dread of being alone. His fear of his legacy. His paranoia that Jason would find him. His confusion about the villain appearing in his dreams.

  "I'm okay," Sky answered, and slipped out of the office.

-

  He was hurt. He hurt everywhere. It was agony, but almost nothing compared to the weight of the death of a civilization on his shoulders.

  Quentin was hurt, he was guilty, but he was alive.

  His entire body was covered in scars from the debris and the swim to find any place of rest had been long and hard, made simply on the instinct of self-preservation. He had planned to drown, in all honestly. Yes, he could breathe underwater, unlike the hybrids, but if he chose he could allow the water into his lungs—but when the time came, he couldn't do it. Now his existence was based on the fact that he had taken down an empire with only a dagger and the desire for revenge.

  Quentin dragged himself onto the soft sand, every muscle in his body screaming in protest. He suppressed a groan of pain. The sand ground uncomfortably against his smooth skin but he lay still on the beach anyway, listening to the sound of his own breathing and wondering how on earth did I make it this far?

  He hoped that the two prisoners had escaped, but he wished that Dawn hadn't saluted before sacrificing herself. If there were somehow survivors, they might somehow get word to that horrid Jason and he might somehow connect it to the city that rested on this very island. They would lose the element of surprise—and the secrecy that they had guarded for centuries.

  He had to get to the city. His mind focused solely on that now: on warning the legendary civilization of the danger that approached and, hopefully, glimpsing the place as his sister had always wanted to.

  So, with effort and burning muscles, Quentin slowly, slowly pushed himself to his feet and stumbled into the trees to find the fabled city of the dragon—now named for a material that would crumble easily under their deity's flames.

-

  "How were your lessons?" Deadlox yawned, collapsing into the hammock next to Sky's. He was wearing a mud-stained undershirt and equally dirty cargo pants. His wings had a couple of small scratches on them.  Judging by the filth on his clothes and the grin on his face, he had been immediately thrown into conditioning—meaning his early days at the camp were to be filled with intense exercise. And time with people.

  Sky hesitated for a brief moment before answering. "Fine."

  Deadlox stopped untying his boots and looked up into Sky's eyes. He noticed once more that his friend's eyes were a vibrant, intriguing—almost terrifying—purple instead of their normal red, the pupils narrowed to slits. All he could see for a brief moment was the sight of his friend's face smiling down at him in front of a sky full of stars. The sound of waves vanished from his head when Deadlox spoke again.

  "You're acting strangely. What's going on?"

  "Nothing." He looked away, sorting through the trunk sitting under the end of the hammock to find the standard-issue wool blanket.

  He felt the demon's hand on his shoulder but didn't dare look him in the eyes again. "How was your day?"

  Deadlox was silent for a few seconds. Sky was painfully obvious when changing the subject.

  "I began basic conditioning," he finally said, confirming Sky's suspicions. "With Ian and some of the soldiers. We mostly ran—through a lot of briars and mud, I might add."

  Of course he had been allowed to start conditioning with the friend he hadn't even been able to spend much time with after their ordeals. Of course he hadn't been placed in a classroom full of children. It was embarrassing, humiliating, and infuriating. He hadn't even learned anything about his powers, which was becoming an increasingly stressful topic within his own mind. His fear of himself was like the moon slowly eclipsing the sun.

  "That's great," he said halfheartedly and pulled the blanket over himself, laying down in the hammock. He felt Deadlox's eyes on him, but didn't expect to feel hands running gently through his hair. Surprise faded to a calmed feeling as he closed his eyes.

  "I know it's hard being treated like a child," he said quietly. "But he knows what he's doing." Sky wondered how he knew, but decided to go to sleep instead.

  Jason waited for him in the field of swaying grass.

  "You're not happy," the boy guessed instantly. Sky scowled.

  "How do you know?"

  "Your tree."

  Sky didn't even try to guess what that meant. "How am I supposed to know how to use my powers if nobody bothers to teach me? As if being with children helps."

  Jason almost smiled. "I can help you."

  For a moment, Sky thought he was joking. Then it set in. "You can't be serious. You're not even technically...here."

  "This place is almost just like reality, except your physical being is still there. You can do everything your physical self can do here except for feel pain or experience injury. It won't affect you in the real world."

  A light was breaking through the clouds. "Seriously?"

  This time, Jason did smile. "Yep. I can also help you train your mind against the Wither."

  "Thank you," Sky breathed. "Oh, thank you! Can we start now?"

  "Sure," Jason grinned.

  He still exploded with power when taking off his dream-amulet, but Jason, who had abilities of his own, used his powers and his natural teaching skills to help Sky snuff out the flame of destruction. It took a lot of time, and Sky felt like he didn't have a grasp on the emotional side of it, but Jason taught him to focus on a single thing—a memory, a place, a face—and use it as a tether to pull himself back to sanity. He didn't tell him that he chose to focus on Deadlox's face.

  After that ordeal, Jason fed him every piece of information that the boy could think of about the Wither. His eyes grew darker and darker the more he talked about the monster, and Sky could see him tensing him. Finally, he asked him if he was okay.

  "It was...I can't think of a word terrible enough to describe it," Jason whispered after a few heartbeats. "It was like...I didn't exist half of the time, and when I did, it was something beyond agony." He clenched his fists, meeting Sky's empty eyes.

  "Sky, it—I—killed my sister, and there was nothing I could do about it."

  They stopped after that, and Sky thanked him again and left the boy standing in the field of gently swaying grass.

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When you don't update for three weeks but have a second chapter almost halfway done to make up for it ??
also i am about to publish a bunch of info about immortals and stuff relating to that in the TSTL extras book. doesn't really matter whether you read it or not it's basically clarification and extra info to clear stuff up
thanks love you guys and thank you so much for over 20k reads!!!!!!