?Mavyn puts her hands back with her arms straight and rests her weight on them. She had looked away from me at some point that I didn’t process and blows out a breath. She looks so. . .
?Normal, Callahan supplies.
?Like a regular girl attending college.
?“I don’t know how I managed to lessen my aura. Drawing it out of my eyes somehow correlated to lessening it, and after he started using his knives embedded with blue belladon and biting me I learned I could lessen my aura to just flow with my blood and the poison would mask it.”
?She lightly grins and hums to herself.
?“He always said it felt like I disappeared when I did it. That I felt human, but because I still had magic, still needed blood, and was still cursed I was basically a vampire. And he hated that above all else.” She looks at all of us again and shrugs. “He had a claim on a red-eyed girl who could write fate. A magic and powerin line with something higher than a simple being of moral. So I became the pink-eyed vampire named Mavyn who feels mortal.
?Her eyes meet Aslan and Edmond and she drops her expression to a light glare.
?“Of course the Mage Board did not listen when I said that vampire didn’t turn me.” She shakes her head. “So much could have been avoided if they listened. I could have been home instead of here.”
?A growl rips out of my throat before I can control myself. Her rosy eyes meeting mine as they widen and she tenses, but there’s no fear from her. I look away from her to clear my throat and rub my sternum. Trying to ease the rumbling as my soul tugs forward to her.
?It wants to finish cementing our bond.
?“Anyways,” she drawls. “We’re here now. And before you ask why I never said anything later, well I figured the Mage Board would have twisted my story and made it seem like I wanted to get into the school for free by pretending to be a vampire who didn’t have bloodlust.”
?“So you chose to hide the fact that you’re a blood witch.”
?Her brows furrow so low as she vigorously shakes her head. “I amnota blood witch,” she states with a raw truth I can feel.
?Except that doesn’t make any sense.
?“You said you can write a blood fate. You can create a fated death blow,” I emphasize.
?“So can vampyr,” she snaps.
?“That makes sense.” We all turn towards Darian as he tilts his head to peer at Mavyn. “That’s how you were able to lend Ruleten your strength in aura. You blood bonded with him.”
?She shrugs. “In a sense. There was no tie created through our blood because of it, but I did give him strength through my aura.”
?“That still doesn’t explain why you burn in the sun.”
?She flashes irritated eyes at Thorne before rolling them. “The day I was able to control my blood and aura enough to keep them from my eyes for as long as I wanted was two weeks before my sixth birthday. The sun devil said if I wanted to be a vampire so badly he’d curse me as the vampires after Sanivin were cursed by Ruu. My birthday present, and an honor he would say since we also shared a name.”
?“Runic curses.”
?She tips her head at me. “I told you being turned into a vampire was a curse. But in that moment I was asking about the one he placed on me causing me to burn when I’m exposed to the sun. He said I’d burn for eternity. And I will.”
?Callahan shifts in his seated position next to her and she glances at him. Both of them share a look but Callahan has blocked me from his mind so I don’t know what he’s thinking. His jaw clenches as he looks down at her chest and she shrugs a shoulder and looks back at the rest of us.
?“Any more questions?”
?Yes.
?Hundreds.
?So many I want to ask because she just dropped a million bombs on us when these last two months we’ve had nothing. Not even Thorne could get Esmirra to talk about anything to do with Mavyn, and when the Dean hounded Elaycia they were as silent as stone.
?So many questions that I do not want to ask with an audience.
?“How are you feeling?” Callahan asks. She turns to him and whether she knows it not her body softens.
?“Actually kind of great.” The soft smile that had been slowly appearing on her face drops. “Even though I still can’t remember things from before. I know I had met Jerusil before, but I can’t remember how. I know I faced Kolasi but I can’t remember the whole interaction. Little fractures of memory.”
