But perhaps Lachlan’s power, and for that matter, the other students’ powers, was easier to identify since it was emerging and new, giving off more significant indicators.
Jonah, on the other hand… I sense he has been hiding his power for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and?—
Oh.
It hits me. I couldn’t figure out what he was because I was trying to put him in a supernatural category, but he is far more fundamental than that.
“Youarea volcano,” I say. “Or, you were, until your soul formed within the lava, and you emerged from within it.”
The tension leaves his shoulders, and he gives me a smile that I wasn’t expecting, especially so soon after he asked me if I would punish him.
“I was born from the very earth itself.” His smile fades just as suddenly as it appeared. “My family came from the same volcano as I did—stepped out from it before me—but they’re gone now.”
“You miss them.”
“Eternally.”
“And Vanguard?” I ask. “What is he?”
Jonah’s expression closes off. “I will not speak for him.”
I arch an eyebrow. “But you owe me answers.”
“About myself, yes, but not about him.”
I tilt my head. “Well, I suppose that’s fair.” I think for a moment. “Tell me about the first Fury you knew.”
Jonah stiffens again. He takes a moment before he finally replies, “Her name was Rebella. She had broken off from her two sisters and gone rogue.”
I’m startled by this. Once a hive mind is formed, it would be incredibly painful to break it. My sisters’ fright when they thought I was in trouble drove that home to me. “Why would she abandon her sisters?”
“No,” Jonah says, a deep rumbling sound. “Theyabandonedher.”
“How?”
“They refused to fight beside her,” he says with a snarl. “But she used the pain to make herself stronger for the battle she knew was right.”
His voice is deeply hurt, his features drawn. There are shadows in his eyes and in his memories that I suddenly feel I need to back away from. Oh, I could invade his emotions right now, but the anger he feels is too raw.
I’m suddenly assailed by Vanguard’s emotions, too.
Jonah’s words evoked a similar rage in him.
Despite my instinct to leave this knowledge alone, I ask, “What battle?”
It’s Vanguard who snarls the answer. “The battle against Typhon.” He rises to his feet. “A battle that cost Rebella everything.”
He saunters toward me. “I believe you’ve seen the damage a single one of Typhon’s bones can do,” he says. “Now imagine the destruction the deity himself could wreak.”
I don’t have to imagine it.
A wash of memories rushes at me from the minds of both men, their recollections depicting a single moment in time.
The air reeks of blood and clashing steel. A crimson pall hangs over a battlefield strewn with bodies. At its center is a giant beast with leathery wings, the torso of a man, the eyes of a dragon, and seething serpents for legs.
Swarms of supernaturals fight around him, on the ground, and in the air. With a single swipe of his long claws, he cuts through a group of silver-winged women flying toward him, sending their bodies falling to the blood-soaked earth.
Monsters of all kinds, all with vacant eyes, fight beside him, while the attacking army can barely get close.
