"It's fine as long as he never touches me again." I shivered, remembering the feel of his thumb on my lip before Jasper and Casper sliced it off. I forced my gaze toward Silas as I took a deep breath. "What if Emperor Lloyd is part of something you don't know about?"
He stiffened, his eyes turning to slits as he stared at me. "Emperor Lloyd is a morally right mage. He wouldneverbe a part of something sinister or immoral. Nothing you can say will convince me of that."
I twisted my lips to the side and contemplated how to explain my thought process. Silas's golden opinion of Emperor Lloyd was fact in his head.
"But Matthieu's definitely up to something, and Emperor Lloyd backs every decision that mage makes."
"Because he trusts him!" Silas shouted, his fork clattering into his bowl as he stood up abruptly. "I know you don't like the Lethium Empire, and you have every reason not to, but Emperor Lloyd is not like the man that you dealt with in the past."
"Silas, if you would just listen to someone else for a change--"
"No." He shook his head and sat the bowl down on the counter in the kitchen before storming out of the cottage, the door slamming shut behind him.
I let out an exasperated sigh and stood up, walking over and placing my half-eaten bowl down.
Aimon's eyes narrowed at where I sat the bowl. "Are you going to come back and eat that?"
I bit down on my bottom lip and flicked my gaze toward him. "I'm not sure I have an appetite right now."
"Are you going after him?" Bastian licked his spoon clean.
I swallowed the thickness in my throat, glancing at the door that he just slammed. "Yes. I'm tired of the way we keep clashing. It's time we talk it out."
"You show him, sunshine." Cas chuckled, and a light wisp carefully caressed my bottom lip.
I smiled briefly at him before turning and bumping into Jasper. He smirked, moving his finger under my chin, and tilted my head up before his lips brushed against mine. "Have fun, goddess."
My cheeks flushed with heat as I stepped away from the guys. "I'll be back with him," I murmured.
I went over and opened the door, stepping outside. The air caught it, slamming it shut behind me as the fierce winds barreled through the grasslands.
A strike of lightning lit up the gray sky as a torrential downpour soaked my dress and hair the moment I stepped outside. The water sliding against my skin felt like silk, and my water magic brimmed with excitement.
I stumbled forward on the wet ground and looked through the sheets of water to find the pouting purple-haired mage pacing back and forth on the side of my cottage.
Sucking in a breath, I started toward him. "You cannot keep acting like only your opinion matters! You are not right all the time!" I shouted over the pounding of rain hitting the ground and my face.
"Wow! If that isn't the most hypocritical thing for you to say!" He smacked his hand against his chest. "You just don't understand, and you're holding grudges against the Lethium Empire!"
"Damn right I'm holding grudges against the Lethium Empire because they have proved to me time and time again that they cannot be trusted. It's you that is not understanding that!"
"Emperor Lloyd has demonstrated that he can be trusted to me," he retorted.
"We have two different experiences, Silas!" Another strike of lightning scattered across the sky, flashing its bright light over us as I caught my breath. "We have different experiences,and that means we are going to have different perspectives, but that does not mean you cannot respect my perspective and look at it from my point of view. I look at this situation from your perspective. I try to understand where you're coming from, but you just get defensive and mad whenever it comes to Emperor Lloyd or the Lethium Empire!"
"You do the same thing, though!" He tossed his hands up, and thunder rumbled above us. "What you're saying feels hypocritical when you don't have the information that you are actually right. You also refuse to see any good in the Empire where I may refuse to see wrong."
I sucked in a breath, and slipped a hand over my soaked hair. "Maybe you're right...and I'm sorry for that. I'll do my best to see things from your perspective better. It's hard to accept how different your experiences with that empire are compared to mine. But Emperor Lloyd ishellbenton Matthieu. You have to see that."
"What does Matthieu have to do with any of us?"
"He has everything to do with us! Emperor Lloyd wants to risk all of us going to the Revivium Empire, an empire that we know is trying to start a world war because they want world power, just to save one mage that I haven't seen do a damn thing for the empire!"
"Matthieu is sent on missions all the time!"
"Do you know what those missions are?"
He shook his head and tried to catch his breath, stalking toward me until my back hit the side of my cottage. His hands slammed down, caging me in between his arms. "No. They're classified. Just like our missions. I assume they're similar."
