A Court Of Night and Fire

Chapter Sixteen

Articus got back to his room and crashed.

Sleep came to him quickly, but so did the nightmares. He woke up the next morning in a sweat. Images flashed before him of Nina and Cedrick headless, like the boy back in Boria. Blood had been everywhere—like Boria.

Boria.

He wrote a note out to Celia and instructed Mia to deliver it to her. He would wait.

Articus reasoned out that he wouldn't do anything until the Fourth Triangle acted. He knew nothing of their plans, only that Tyrn was involved, and only four names that could very easily be his imagination. No proof.

"I will wait," he reaffirmed his decision aloud to the empty room. I will.

And waited he did...

Two whole moons went by without the sound of someone following him in the halls, a weird look from any of the Reapers, or an underlying threatening comment. Nothing.

Had I imagined it all? Articus asked himself the morning before his seventh free day.

"You seem... at odds, Master," Mia said worriedly as she opened the doors to a wintry landscape. The trees beyond her were topped with snow and a frosty breeze blew down from the mountains, chilling Articus to the bone.

"Maybe I'm just trying to figure out if you are part bear," Articus muttered as his teeth began to chatter.

"I don't think so, Master. You've been acting strange since your first assignment. Is it because you haven't had one since then?"

He threw off his covers and stalked to the bathroom. Upon sliding back the door, steam blissfully met his face. Mia followed closely behind him. It was funny how their ritual had formed.

He would walk slowly into the pool as Mia searched for the right soap. Then he would let himself go under for thirty blistering seconds before coming to surface--just when Mia had a bar of soap ready for him. Sitting at the edge with her feet in the pool, and her robe hiked up, she would wait for him. It was a small comfort.

"The opposite, really," Articus said with half a mind, letting Mia's hands work their magic on him. Since there wasn't much for him to do during the day, besides studying on anything he could get his hands on, he had increased his training to a level he hadn't thought possible. Muscles ached all over him from yesterday's workout--on top of what Nina had done to him the previous night. If Articus was to judge, she had advanced in skill to a level that would have surpassed him when he had first come to Tekal. She had been that obsessed with her training.

Thankfully, he had surpassed his own human limits. Now...Now he wasn't sure what the hell he was. The second week after his first mission, he had felt his body change yet again. Knowing that normal Reapers couldn't sense how powerful others were, and that most Reapers didn't undergo three Awakenings, he smartly kept his bloody mouth shut.

And he still couldn't channel a wisp of energy. Celia had tried everything she could think of and he knew she was on the verge of giving up on him. Accelerating was the biggest puzzle. He could do it when he had to but not when he wanted to. It was as if everything he did with his spirit was a reflex...or maybe a survival instinct.

"What do you mean?" Mia asked curiously.

Blinking, Articus realized he had said too much. He hadn't told Mia for the same reasons he hadn't told Nina, or the others. In some twisted demented way, he liked her--and not in a sisterly way. It had taken him by surprise. Articus didn't recognize the feelings at first, feelings he thought had died when he married himself to the Vanguard.

To his annoyance, he knew he shouldn't act on those feelings. It was wrong. He felt like he would be taking advantage of her. But it didn't stop the damn devil on his shoulder from talking.