Terramancer

Chapter Seventeen

"Dezorath?" Iza was the first one to speak. Ece had fallen into silence. His breathing was surprisingly calm, but his eyes were closed. I could feel the waves of heat radiating off his body. It was like the night we had kissed.

"Yes!" Queen Kailirn clapped her hands together, as if this was the best thing she had ever heard. Her voice was back to normal, but the sound of it made me feel uneasy.

Iza took a step forward. "You...you said you were sick." His voice was low and full of barely-contained anger. "You lied to me."

Finally, Ece looked up. "I did not lie to you," he said. "I simply...omitted some facts. I am sick. I am just more ill than you thought I was."

"Being a demon is not an illness, Ece!" Iza shouted, his voice shaking with rage.

"Being a demon?" I asked. No one replied. I did not know how Iza had jumped to that conclusion. Though, I suppose he had known Ece longer than I had. He would have witnessed most demon-like behaviours Ece exhibited. It certainly explained why Ece always spoke about humans as if he was not one himself.

"Yes it is." Ece laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Not being able to eat human food no matter how much you want to? Having to sneak out into the woods behind the Academy and kill animals so you can eat their still-beating hearts just to sustain yourself? Sounds like an illness to me."

I remembered the time I had run into Ece in the dead of night, him covered in blood. The way he had told me not to tell anyone. I let out a gasp.

"You're disgusting," Iza spat. "How many mortals did you have to kill to take a solid form?"

"None!" Ece sounded distressed. "I...I was not born a demon."

"Weren't you?" Iza took another step forward, so he was face-to-face with Iza.

"No." Ece sighed, all of the fight draining out of him. "My mother was an angel. I was born an angel."

Iza frowned, but once he realised what he was doing, immediately reverted back to being angry. "So why aren't you an angel now, Dezorath?"

"Because I killed my brother." Ece's head drooped even lower than I had thought possible. All the air deflated from my lungs, as if I had been punched.

"Ah yes," Queen Kailirn said, having just decided to join in on the conversation again. "Killing an innocent person. The worst thing an angel can do."

Ece ignored her, and continued. "I did not kill him for sport, or even because I wanted to," he said, "I killed him because it is my family's curse. You see, there was a prophecy thousands of years ago, when the Chosen had just began to rule the land, that the youngest boy in my family was doomed to kill the oldest. My parents thought they had got around this curse, for they only had one child, but then...then my dad went and got another woman pregnant.

"My parents hated me because I was a bastard child, and because I was prophesised to kill my brother, whom they loved. They tried banishing me, locking me away, sending me off to boarding school, but I always ended up back with them, no matter what. When I was..." Ece took a deep breath. "When I was eleven, I killed my brother. I slit his throat. I-I still remember it now. The blood on my hands, how-how everything felt so out of my control. My parents threw me out the next day, I began to transform.

"Angels have wings. Those were the first things that disappeared. They retracted into me, burning the entire time. It felt like fire was inhabiting every inch of my body. Then, I lost my name. It was like it was struck from my heart and replaced with a new one...Dezorath. I can no longer remember what my name is supposed to be. It is not a part of me anymore. Then, the next day there was the heat. My body was constantly burning up. I was sure I was going to die at times."