The Moon's Fangs | 1

19 | eye to eye

The flavor of sweet, honeyed bread had me believing it to be the best bread I'd ever tasted. However, after taking the last bite did I realize Reks had only taken a couple of bites out of his own. He stared at me in bewilderment, like one would at someone who inhaled their meal instead of chewing.

"What?" I feigned innocence.

He handed me the pouch. "Here, help yourself." He took a seat in the rolling chair.

"Really? Thank you." I took it and grinned. "Did you nab this in the marketplace you wreaked havoc in?"

"I did."

I propped myself up on the countertop, pulling out a pink fruit the size of a clementine.

He glanced curiously between the infamous interrogation chair and my choice of seat on his countertop. He opened his mouth to say something, then pressed his lips together. A good choice.

For whatever reason, Nox chose that moment to slither out of my body in its projection form and find its place around my shoulders.

I split the fruit, handing Reks the other half. "Okay, so... storytime."

"Storytime?" He frowned, peeling a piece of the fruit off like an orange.

"Yeah. So, when I was sleepwalking this time, a woman appeared in my dream. But she was all ghostly. She never said anything, but I knew she wanted me to follow her. It was like I was being pulled by her. Weird, right?" I ate a piece of the tangy fruit. Definitely not as good as an orange, but it would have to do.

He stared thoughtfully at the floor between his boots. "What did she look like?"

"I don't know." my head and shoulders slumped against the cabinet behind me. "Her... aura felt similar to the cobra. Maybe it took on a different form. You know, like a shapeshifter." I breathed out a doubtful laugh.

"That cobra is Sio." Reks said. The muscles in his jaw tightened.

I watched his reaction to his own words. The way his body tensed up to just the name made my stomach twist in knots. "So, these images it placed in my head, they're like a roadmap to its own location." I thought about what Reks had said about Sio before. How it was supposed to be the key to everything. "You mentioned Sio before. Did you know it?"

Reks looked up at me, then sighed. "Sio is... was Ellison's Guide."

Ellison... suddenly, his tense reaction made more sense to a small degree. I didn't completely understand what happened between him and this girl. It wasn't a Band-Aid I wanted to rip off of him. Well, maybe I did want to a little.

I bit my lip, then changed the direction of the conversation. "What's a Guide's job anyway? What's the purpose?"

One of his brows cocked as he finished his last bite. "Originally, Guides were used to control slaves several millennia ago. But since then, Guides have evolved into the most important piece of advanced tech in history. It's our way into Celestia, our source of communication, unending knowledge and skills... and power granted to us by the Fates.

His expressive answer ended with a hint of friction with that word. Power. I felt his passion veering in both directions on the scope.

"People were once enslaved by Guides?"

"A long time ago, yes. I've read several books written from different narratives across the worlds, which all have their own opinions on where the Guides first originated. It's a long story that has to do with the Fates and other religious beliefs. However, it was an orleizen who turned the tides that set the new advances in motion."