Abolisher [Drothiker #2]

14.

"Magic and mejest are two very different things," Eliver instructed as he paced before Syrene like a school teacher.

He'd led her to the heart of a forest—an area vast enough to fit a great museum. The trees encompassed it like a solid tall wall. There was no light between the trees, an easy dark, whilst the zone she stood in was suffused with sunlight. It felt like she was on the stage of a theatre, standing in spotlight.

She sat cross-legged on the twigs like a good student as Eliver frequently pulled at his bangs as if the crammed knowledge were barking in his head.

"Magic is anything you wish it to be, it's beautiful. It's entrancing. It doesn't exist. It's fantasy—right out of fairytales. Mejest, however, is exigent. It's rarely beautiful, rarely anything you wish it to be; it's a beast that feeds on your energy in exchange of power. It's real."

He stopped pacing and looked at her. "What you have is neither magic, nor mejest. It's only a creature holding raw power. It won't feed on your energy, it would tear out your very insides—"

"Okay—you've repeated that a trillion times," Syrene interrupted. "I know what I've risked—you're sung that bleeding curse to me like another trillion times."

"No—you need to understand the extent, Syrene."

Syrene arched a brow. "Are you sure you're not repeating same words only to satisfy some evil part of yourself? Because that part of you does want to see what would exactly happen if I'm too late."

Eliver flushed and looked away.

"That's what I thought." Syrene smirked, eternally delighted in Eliver's uneasiness. "How did you find this place, anyway? You've been in this town for like, what, two weeks?"

He shrugged, turning to her. "This is where I've been living."

"What?" Syrene ran a gaze around, listening to distant animal growls, and noises of countless insects beneath her. More maddening to her hemvae ears—his hemvae ears—"You can't be serious." Although, that did explain the bag hidden behind a tree bordering the zone.

He waved his hand, as if batting away a fly. "It's fine. I have nowhere else to live anyway. I don't have enough money to rent an inn room."

Syrene felt a wave of guilt. She should have at least taken care of his living conditions—could have rented him an inn room, or asked Navy if he could stay in the guest room.

Eliver cleared his throat, snapping her out of her thoughts; his expression went grave in a heartbeat. "Did you bathe in—"

"Warm water." It'd felt so outright relaxing that Syrene had expected herself to melt into the feeling and never return to the cold. She realized the cold must be much worse here at nights.

"Do you feel anything?"

She shook her head.

He angled his own head, as if listening to a distant song. "You said you felt something the other day. What was it?"

Syrene cringed. "It was as if a world universes across was annihilating. I felt every bit the destruction. Only it was phantom—there, but not." She didn't suppose she was making any sense, there was literally no way to paint a word picture of how she'd felt—all she knew was it'd been real enough that it'd hauled her from her sleep. "It wasn't a mere nightmare," she added. "I'm sure of it."

Eliver still looked at her as if she were a puzzle taking whole lot of mental exertion to be deciphered. Then he shook his head like an exasperated teacher. "This is worse. This is so much worse."