“I sent someone out to find your things, but they returned empty-handed. Did you conceal your bags?” His eyes narrow just enough that it’s noticeable when he poses the question.
“No, I don’t have any bags.”
His lips move as if he’s about to speak, but he holds his tongue for a long moment. “You came with nothing?” he finally asks, as if he can’t believe the possibility.
I don’t know him or his temper, so instead of telling him I have the clothes on my back and the boots on my feet, I simply say, “I came with what I was permitted.”
He changes topics swiftly. “Why were you walking up the mountain?”
“I received an invitation.” I didn’t think to check if I still had that in my back pocket when I first woke up. In all honesty, I’ve been trying to lose the thing since it was handed to me last week, so I could pretend none of this was happening and I wouldn’t have to come here. It’s not as if I’ve deluded myself into believingI had a good life back home, it’s just the devil you know, right? I’ve been with my father for the past twenty years, and while it sucked most of the time, I’m still alive, and I had a purpose to him. I was his cash cow, his dirty little secret that could take everything thrown at her and keep ticking.
Ivy Institute trains the elite, the most dangerous of our kind in Osier, and uses them. I know how I will be used, and it’s only a matter of time before it either kills me or worse.
“I’m aware you were summoned. I asked why you were walking.” His droll tone suggests I’m an idiot, but I’m used to that, so I ignore the insult.
“My father dropped me off at the bottom of the hill,” I inform him. Was there some other conveyance I missed? I think back to him practically kicking my backside from the carriage and snapping the reins, leaving me at the mouth of the road. I waited for a few minutes to see if someone would arrive for me, but when they didn’t, I decided it was best to walk. Maybe I should have looked harder. Had I known how steep and long the trail was, I might have, but I was trying to make it to the school on time because my father waited until the last possible minute to leave our village, making sure he got the last coin he could before I was forced to leave and make the two-day trek here.
The three days prior to us riding out were a blur of testing my ability. My father never pushed me as far or as often as he had in those final days. I wasn’t even sure there would be anything of me left when it was time to make our way to the institute. My power never failed me in that time, but that didn’t mean I didn’t suffer. While I may not be harmed by magic, there are consequences when it’s used on me. The harder someone tries to use their abilities against me, the more I disappear from this world and become an intangible ghost of myself—an unseen, unheard force that dwells between this plane and the next, until I eventually reappear, hungry in a way that food can never sate.Most of the time, I wasn’t pushed that far, but a few times over the years, there were people who just couldn’t understand how I could resist their talents, so they wouldn’t give up until I disappeared entirely. Either that, or they just wanted to see what it took to break me.
The thought of that final day makes my pitiful excuse for fangs ache. In an act of total desperation, I actually bit my father after becoming corporeal, thinking I could get a reprieve from the agony of hunger, but the blood did nothing to slake my longing for sustenance, and it really pissed him off.
As soon as the shock of what I did wore off, my father backhanded me so hard, I spit the remaining blood in my mouth out in an arc, splattering the room with gore that seemed like a fitting end to our relationship.
Frankly, I think it stunned us both. Hands-on physical abuse wasn’t really his style, nor did he allow others to hit me very often. I’d once heard him tell Philip—one of his older sons—when asked why he protected me from the anger of his customers that, “She’s already a pathetic little thing. How do you think it feels when she can withstand things no one else could dream of? It would only add salt to the wound if they could see her physically break so easily. Besides, they don’t pay to abuse her body, you can go to any brothel on the strip for that. They pay to see if the rumors are true and to test themselves against her.”
I hated the note of pride in his tone when he talked about me and the complete apathy for the others he spoke so poorly of. Most of those trapped in brothels had about as much choice in being there as I did in what happened to me. Just because they had the misfortune to be born with a useless ability or were untrained didn’t mean he was better than them.
“Interesting.” The male in front of me hums, and I snap back to the present, making the mistake of meeting his liquid silvereyes for a brief moment before averting my gaze again. It takes a conscious effort not to examine him again. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes the color and fluidity of mercury, but self-preservation wins out, and I pretend I didn’t notice the shifting silver color. “You’re rather lucky Kage found you.”
“Oh yeah…” I act like I know exactly what he’s talking about when I have no clue who or what Kage is, or when they found me. The moment the thought registers, so does the image of shadows in the forest and the vague idea of a male with beautiful blue skin and hair as dark as pitch looking at me from a doorway. Training to keep my mouth shut and not ask questions is the only thing that keeps me from inquiring if Kage is the male in my thoughts or if I dreamed about him.
The silence in which we sit now feels like a vacuum, sucking air from the room. With every passing second, the pressure to break the quiet tension eats at my resolve, until my skin almost feels like it’s buzzing with the need to do something or get up and run. I bite down on the tip of my tongue just enough to keep my thoughts grounded. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was using some kind of power to compel me to speak, but there’s no evidence he’s using any ability on me at all. An all too familiar panic wells in my chest. I hate these moments, when my lack of control truly sinks in, reminding me how true my father’s statement is—I am weak, no matter how much I wish it weren’t so.
After I finally accepted there was no getting out of coming to the institute—my father wouldn’t dream of defying them or even questioning their edict—I unintentionally gathered hope. Every time I felt anticipation that maybe things could change for me, that maybe I had a future that wasn’t filled with countless people who wanted nothing more than for my ability to fail so they could hurt me or to find a way to use it for themselves, I would hear my father’s words in my head, reminding me he owned me,and I should be grateful because things could always get much worse. I knew he was telling the truth. It could and had gotten worse, but I never spoke about those times and tried as hard as I could not to even think about them, but sometimes, like now, it would creep up on me before I could deflect my thoughts… I slam the door, hiding those memories in my mind, and brave meeting the stranger’s eyes to distract myself.
“Why am I here?” It’s a dumb question, one I should know better than to ask, but I’m desperate to get out of the spiraling thoughts threatening to pull me under. There’s a chance I could provoke this male into using his powers on me. I’m pretty sure he’s a fallen god, with those eyes, which means even the smallest push of his talent could send me into oblivion for hours or even longer. Turning into a ghost, where I can’t feel anything, sounds pretty fucking good right now.
The male’s scarred eyebrow rises, but the rest of his features remain unchanged. I wonder what sort of beast was able to mark up his face and neck, and if it survived the encounter. My shoulders loosen as I force other inane thoughts into my mind. Why is his beard so much darker than his hair? Are his eyes swirling quicker, or did I not get a good enough look earlier?
“That is not a question for me,” he intones, seemingly unbothered by my stare as he meets my eyes.
“Then who is it a question for?” I make a show of looking around the otherwise empty room for no other reason than to have an excuse not to be caught in his gaze any longer. Just because I’m desperate doesn’t mean I’m dumb.
“Syrinx.” He takes a single, fluid step backward and lowers himself onto the cot beside my bed with an uncanny awareness of himself and the things around him. It’s a little eerie. It makes me wonder just how much those godly eyes can really see. “She is the headmistress,” he divulges, while I still feel him examining me.
“I recognized the name from my invitation.” We both know it was more of a demand than an invitation, and I may sound a little bitter about it.
“I’m surprised the summons hadn’t been extended sooner, but I suppose your efforts to hide aided in that.”
I don’t bother to deny his claim. I was warned about this place from the moment my ability manifested and there was the slightest understanding of what my power was. My father told me horror stories about Ivy Institute and its inhabitants, and even the woods it makes its home. He threatened to send me here more than once if I didn’t do as I was told, but I wound up here anyway. I should have run away or tried to escape somehow, but I was too afraid—more evidence of my weakness.
“I’m here now,” I concede dejectedly.
“That you are, Miss Blissa.”
The use of my last name startles me a little, and the prefix even more. I’ve done nothing to deserve the formality, and respect isn’t just freely given. I’m immediately suspicious and must not do a good job at hiding it since he questions, “That is your name, correct?”
“Briar,” I reply, unsure how I should address the fact that he elevated me so.
