NOVEL NEXT Chapter 51: Discoveries [I]
The music coming from below intensified. Cinder's head-feathers appeared beside the edge of the bed rising up like a colorful submarine coming out of ocean waves.
Then her wings unfurled and she landed on the top bunk beside me and Vespera. One of Cinder's black-taloned hands held a backpack. She then dropped it into my lap.
"What?" I blinked.
"I believe this… bag might have something to do with you," she commented.
"Me?"
Instead of an answer, Cinder began to strum her guitar furiously.
"You, you, you,
It was always you!"
She sang, glaring at me.
"Sneaking around, all quiet and sly,
Green eyes shining at me and I don't know why
Thought you could vanish, thought you were free,
But guess what, kobold? You're stuck with me!"
She nodded at the bag in my hands.
"Found a bag, all strange and new,
Packed with trinkets, bewildering view.
Hexamesh-bound feather, lighter, a red jacket to kill
Inexplicable nonsense, giving me a thrill!"
I dug into the bag. Inside of it was a fancy, red jacket with gold trim covered in dry blood and cracks and a black leather jacket with the words North Acadia on it and the flag of Znetc Reservation. My heart stopped.
"I wanted to leave it behind me,
But something inside wouldn't relent.
A spark of magic, a flicker of soul,
Whispering stories, taking control!"
Cinder sang. My hands dug into the red jacket and pulled out a pendant with Cinder's feather and Zee Captain's lighter from its innards.
"Pendant chain, cold crystal bright,
My feather locked in, catching the light!
Like I made it… special and true,
But the why and the when? It's all BLURRED right through!"
Cinder sang, guitar thrumming.
"Searching for you, through faces and crowds,
Whispers and shadows, breaking the shrouds.
A green-eyed phantom, haunting my dreams,
Now you're right here, or so it seems!
YOU, YOU, YOU! It's gotta be you!
YOU, it's YOU, there's no other way!
The fire inside me just won't go away!"
I laughed heartily and hugged Vee fiercely, incredibly happy that the outfit the girls bought me on Arx wasn't lost to the dimensional shift, that Zee Captain's lighter didn't simply vanish. The Thunderbird took my hug as an invitation and hugged me back, kissing me again.
"Who are you, shrouded in such guise?
Why does my heart thrum when I look at your eyes?
This pull in my chest, this fire in my soul,
Stop kissing Vee! I am losing control!"
Cinder thrummed the strings angrily and then threw her guitar onto the bed, batting Vespera off me. I laughed even louder as they wrestled on the bed beside me, swatting at each other.
"Explain!" Cinder barked, shoving Vee down as I pulled the dark leather North Acadia jacket on, enjoying the warmth provided by dragonhide leather.
"This is my stuff," I said. "From before the dimensional shift. How come you had it?"
"Uhhh," Cinder said. "I don't know. I found this backpack in my room and had no idea where it came from or whom it belonged to."
Magdaline approached our bunk, her head on the level of our bed. "Hrmmm."
She sniffed the bag in my hands, then grabbed the red leather jacket and sniffed it.
"Yes?" I asked.
"You died," she said after a few seconds of silence. "Archangel Zadkiel's words melted you into a puddle… Our poor little human."
"Ah," I said. "And then what?"
Magdaline inhaled deeply again, her red eyes unfocused, pupils dilating slightly as she reached out with her Scrutimancer senses.
"Metallic tang of blood… dissolving flesh," she murmured, her voice low and distant, as if speaking from far away. "Sweet, sickly… something organic breaking down. Fear… terrible, sharp fear. Cinder's fear. Vespera's… too, but also rage. Frantic, bubbling rage."
She closed her eyes, her breathing becoming shallow, almost imperceptible. "The air… thick, grey. Like ash. But not ash… more like… un-making. Reality fraying at the edges."
Her nostrils flared. "Ozone… burnt feathers. Quetzi anger. Thunderbird… despair. Raw magic… spiking. Overwhelming. Aetheric density… climbing."
She paused, her brow furrowing as if struggling to decipher complex code.
Then, her body tensed, a tremor running through her. "Me at Skyfall. Sirens. Genesis Well… churning. Liquid fire. Burning… everything. Not just heat… something else… conscious. Ancient."
She swayed in one spot, breathing deep. "Voices… screaming. Not pain… more like… unraveling. Fractal Engines… vibrating… unfolding out? No… re-knitting. Re-weaving. But… wrong. Skewed. Desire of every Omnid made manifest. The world sinking deeper into the Abyss, coming closer to the end of everything."
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Her eyes opened. "Right. I think I got the overall picture. These two knobfolds fought after you died." Mags pointed at Ci and Vee on the bed. "Cinder… Raged because you died. Quetzi fury. She punched Vee. A lot."
"I don't remember doing that," Cinder said from atop of Vespera.
"You're being rather violent with me right now," Vespera pointed out. "It totally sounds like something you'd do."
"Thunderbird… panic and grief mixed with… guilt," Mags spoke, uncovering the past. "Deep guilt. Vee blamed herself for Martin's death. Ah, daddy issues. Something about revenge. Archangel… Zadkiel. You three knobs really freed an Archangel?" Magdaline's red eyes swiveled to me.
I nodded slowly. "Yeah. We sure did. It broke reality."
"Erm. Let's not do that again," Vespera said, blushing with sparks dancing on her cheeks. "I don't like forgetting so many things."
"Hrm," I voiced. "That reminds me. Vee, what's your current situation with Lord Ceter?"
"Dad... died last week," she said with a somewhat sour expression. "The maids found him in the empty vault that contained our family's Archangel, his body ossified. Everyone blamed him for freeing Zadkiel. I inherited his SimmiTech shares."
"Are you still engaged to the..." I closed my eyes, trying to recall the name of her fiancee with Scrutimancy. It didn't come to me. "Frog man?"
"Ye," Vespera nodded. "Even without dad... My family is still pushing for me to marry Zheng. Great grandfather won't freaking let up about it. Ugh. I… saw him during the House Ceremony. Fucker got assigned to Pyroclast along with his Thunderland cronies."
"What?" I blinked, not expecting a twist of this magnitude. "Zheng's here? In Skyfall?!"
"Skyfall accepts Omnid students from all around the world, including Thunderland," Vespera nodded. "It's a potent Wormwood Star shard impact site with many ley lines under it."
I frowned.
Vespera turned her attention to Magdaline. "What happened to us after we freed the angel? Can you Scrut up more deets?"
"Mhmmm," Magdaline inhaled deep, closing her eyes. "Right. Cinder went ballistic. She was screaming, hitting you. Accusing you of murder. Blaming you, the Archangel, everything."
Magdaline opened her eyes and stared at Vespera. "You were… mostly taking it. Letting her hit you. You were repeating 'I didn't know' over and over. Blood-red tears. Feathers turned black. You were panicking, but also… being pragmatic. Compartmentalizing… trying to find a solution."
"Sounds like me, ye," the Thunderbird commented.
The shark-girl's eyes dug into Vespera. "Then you saw Martin's Lazarus bracelet. You grabbed it. You told Cinder to get his clothes. You were both focused on getting it to a Lazarus well. You believed that the bracelet would bring him back. That your soul-bound boyfriend wasn't perma-dead. Cinder stuffed this red jacket into Martin's backpack and then both of you took off."
Magdaline paused, her red eyes fixed on the middle distance as if replaying the scene in her mind. "You ran. Out of the Corpse Seeker. Tried to get to the Simmi compound Lazarus well, but everything was locked down. No power. You argued again. Cinder was still furious, blaming you. You decided on a new path… The Lazarus well at Skyfall Academy."
Vespera and Cinder quietly listened to Magdaline's revelations.
Magdaline continued. "You stole a sky-glider. Then the planet-wide Celestorm started. Reality twisted and warped. Aetheric density spiked. Doomsday alarms sounded. Premier Lecross declared a planet-wide evacuation. Wormwood Leviathan woke up."
Magdaline inhaled again, shuddering. "A green aurora in the sky. Wormwood Star… became visible overhead. You were both freaking out, but still flew towards Skyfall. Your Glider crashed. You ran to the Lazarus cavern. Io, Katherine, me and my dad were already there... and a kelpie girl, I think. Io's gate failed to open. Aetheric density... Went to... one million mpm."
Vespera gasped.
Another deep pause. Then Mags resumed. "The genesis Well… ignited. Wasn't silver liquid anymore. Vee and Ci threw Martin's Lazarus bracelet in. Then… Fire. Pure magic fire. Engulfing everything. I… made a wish… as my body caught fire, to keep going, to return to Skyfall with all of my new friends, to not to be a… total fuckup who eats people. Then… oblivion."
Magdaline blinked, breaking eye contact, her voice returning to its normal, flat tone. "That's all I can fish out of the Astral. Damn."
"Right," I said. "So the dimensional shift didn't destroy things, it simply rearranged them around, made them fit into the current narrative, sort of like various food chunks in a thick, stirred soup. This means that Possy is still… at the Simmi compound. Vee? Is there a forty two thousand year old Corpse Seeker at your compound, your familiar?"
"Yep," Vespera nodded. "Thought that she was something that dad left me, since she appeared in my stats after he died! She's pretty much out of power and majorly busted up. Needs repairs. I ordered her shipped to the academy. I was going to work on her here as my first year Artificer project."
"Nice," I smiled, digging through the pockets of my red jacket. The electronics inside were busted up, dead and cracked, fried by the Archangel's words.
Then I dug into the dimensional pockets of my North Acadia jacket and my fingers suddenly found an intact phone and an Omnimart laptop.
I plugged in and turned both on, my chest aching.
The phone and laptop took a minute to load. I logged in and then all of the apps loaded and Yulia's avatar came on screen, staring at me with her anime foxgirl eyes.
"Yesssss! Freaking yesss!" I yelled.
"What?" Cinder blinked.
"Yulia! She's here!" I waved my phone, showing the girls the AI's animated avatar. "My greatest weapon, my digital partner, is here! You had her all this time, Ci!"
"Ah," Mags said. "So that's the reason why the Frontenachii Scruts want your head so bad."
"Yep," I nodded, putting Cinder's feather pendant on myself with a wide smile.
"So… Umm… I made that pendant for you, then?" Cinder asked, her entire body flashing with pink and orange and violet tones.
"Yep," I nodded. "Who'd you think it was for?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "Maybe my fiance?"
"Fiance?" I blinked.
"Mhmm," Cinder nodded. "Scion Uxtish of the House of Legon. He got sorted into Gorefield. Grandfather Nova convinced me to go out with him. He's tolerable. Probably going to give me shit for having a kobold. Whatever, like I care. He's not the boss of me."
I squinted at Cinder. If Scrutosmia-awakened memories were to be believed, she was more violent and less social last time around and thus never had a fiance.
"So, um, why?" she asked, glancing at the crystal-encased feather pendant nestled against my chest. "Why did… I… make that for you?"
"Because you're secretly a softie, Ci," I teased, leaning closer to her, my voice low. "Underneath all that dragon bluster and 'kobold' talk, you have a heart of gold… or maybe, a heart of rainbow-fire, since you're a Quetzalcoatl n' all."
Cinder's silver feathers bristled, a faint blush of sunset-red dusting her silver cheeks. "Shut up," she grumbled. "Freakin' 'bold ruining my tough-dragon image."
"Why'd you bring my stuff to Skyfall?" I asked her.
"It looked… valuable. Dragon instinct, you know. Hoarding shinies," she shrugged. "I asked my brother Lance if it was his shit and he told me, no. I asked my little sister about it. Lenny said that it belongs to someone very special, someone who I'm going to 'burr hard at Skyfall'. So, I decided to take it with me to Skyfall along with all of my other school crap in my extradimensional trunk."
"Burr?" I repeated.
"Burrow into," Vespera grinned, making Cinder flash orange-pink. "Make out with. Alpha-gen meme-slang."
"Ah," I smiled. "Well, I really appreciate your hoarding ways, Ci. Thanks to you and Lenny's sharp nose, I now have my things back. I think I owe that little hound another present for this one."