The Immortal Guardians: Book II

Chapter Thirty-Two

It was strange being without Rima. Everything that we needed, Byron took care of it. Within weeks of Rima's departure, I noticed Byron looked tired. There were darker bags under his eyes and there were deep worry lines on his forehead.

I knew him well enough to know that he wasn't sleeping. He was such a perfectionist that he was making sure everything was set and he was sacrificing sleeping.

I went to his office. He was pouring over some papers. His fingers were grasping the bridge of nose. His forehead was creased deeply.

"You should go get some sleep" I suggested. I walked in without knocking. He would know that I wanted to see him. "Have you eaten?"

"What do you need Iris?" his eyes flickered upward. His green eyes were darker than usual. He leaned heavily into his seat and waited for me.

"You look tired....actually, exhausted" I dropped my bag but didn't sit down. I placed a couple of covered plates on his desk. His eyes flickered to the food.

"Iris I really don't have time for a social visit. I have some grading to do. I have schedules to fix. You start your training with Professor Curt since has some free time now that we know that Rima is in the Counsel. How is your training with Henri going?" he pulled out a folder which I assumed was mine. He scribbled some quick notes.

"Limited since he is going to Counsel meetings." I sighed heavily. I missed Henri, he was gone all the time especially on the weekends. There were times I didn't see him for days.

"Why don't you get an assistant instructor?" I suggested glancing around his office. He was really behind on grading. It was unlike him.

"What do you need Iris?" he sighed with a glare.

"Well, I came to make sure you were alive and you weren't trying to kill yourself with so much work."

His lips twitched but he held his glare.

"Iris, don't you have things you should be doing. I know you have a couple of papers that you should be getting ahead on." Byron lifted his eyebrows.

"Byron, I came to check up on you. You haven't been nagging so much at me for the last week or so. It is just weird to me"

"I have lots to do Iris and I really don't have the time to"

"Get up" I told him. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You need a break. You need to get away from all of this" I motioned my hands all over his desk. "Come on lets go for a walk."

"Iris just"

"If you don't come with me. I am not leaving" I told him with raised eyebrows. He opened his mouth to argue. "You decide, Professor Enden" he snapped his teeth.

"Fine, one hour. I'm only giving you an hour of my time" he slowly smiled at me. It was my favorite smile, the easy going brilliant smile that he gave me every once and awhile.

We walked silently through the field. We were heading into November so it was chilly but it felt good. The next Rank was in about a month.

He took a deep breath.

"Remember what you did to the lake" I pointed at it. It was still except for a couple of geese. Last year, he had frozen the lake so we could go ice-skating. It was the during the time we had dated.

"Yeah, it helped you forget about the Rank. It helped you relax" he chuckled to himself.

"It is something you need" I nudged him. His green eyes met mine. "What are you stressing so much about?"

"I thought we were here to walk around not discuss-"

"Fine, fine but you know that if you need to talk since you really don't have friends" I teased him. He nudged me in return.