Nebula

Thirteen

[luceo non uro]

Somehow, Tessa's erratic heartbeat managed to stop, if only for a moment. She'd known grief—with her mother, with her best friend, with her old life in general—so the feeling wasn't foreign to her. But in a way, hearing that Reese was severely injured managed to spur up all of the old emotions that she thought she'd mastered after seeing her best friend die before her.

"What do you mean?" She found herself asking, her voice deadly calm.

Kaya's dark eyes were plagued with turmoil, like she'd been asked to run a mile while being chased by monsters and still deliver the news. She kept flicking her gaze around them, like she was keeping an eye out for something.

"We can't discuss this here," The praetor responded, stepping backwards. She issued a command in Latin, causing Luci, Vinny, and the other authoritative figures around them begin to usher the legionnaires back to the barracks. "Come."

"Kaya, you have to tell us!" Kaden demanded, his emerald eyes electric with intensity.

Kaya turned back around, her violet cloak snapping in the wind. Maybe it was Tessa's imagination, but the weather around them was beginning to grow ominous, like a storm was about to break.

"I can't," The daughter of Trivia grit out. "Now come."

Kaden and Dale began to protest, their voices crowding over one another, but Kaya kept brushing off their questions. Tessa narrowed her eyes at the praetor before her, feeling a sort of power dwell in her veins, like a sleeping monster within her was beginning to awaken. The next thing Tessa knew, she'd unsheathed Tempest and stabbed it into the ground to get everyone's attention.

However, the glimmer of her blade wasn't what snagged their focus. The shockwave that erupted from where Tessa had stabbed her sword into the earth did.

Everyone around them fell silent, and while Tessa was utterly confused by what she'd just done, she forced herself to stare Kaya down. "What you'll tell us in there, you can tell us now. You were serving as referee alongside Alex, you must have seen him get injured. Now, I'll ask you again. What happened?"

For a few moments, the two girls stared one another down. Tessa, with her bronze breastplate on and sword before her, hair falling out of her ponytail in fragile wisps; Kaya, with her billowing cloak, golden armor, and intense expression. The tension building between them was enough to match that of the darkening clouds above them, intensifying, growing, until the storm between the leaders of these two camps would burst.

"He was hit by an arrow." Kaya revealed, still scanning around them. Tessa followed her gaze skeptically; what on earth was she looking for? "Now, he wants to see you. He has something...rather pressing to tell you all."

This time, the praetor didn't wait for them to catch up. She stormed off, the crowd of Romans around them parting to let her through.

Tessa glanced beside her at Kaden and Dale, who only watched her tentatively. She turned back around, snatched Tempest out of the ground, and bolted after Kaya. She heard Kaden and Dale's footsteps in her wake, which only alleviated some of her apprehension.

As Tessa walked, she couldn't fight the questions flaring up within her. What had she done back there? Whatever it was, this new...earthquake power, it hadn't been the first time she'd done it. Back in the Battle of New Rome, she'd triggered a tremor that led Mark away from killing Kaden.