Shadow Of The Flame (UNFINISHED)

Chapter IX

This is something I just wanted to make clear and talk about with you guys, and I'm sorry if it offends anyone in anyway.

This is not a Mareven fanfic. I know they are a lot of Mareven shippers out there who are hoping Maven is somehow redeemed, but even if that did happen, I don't think Mare would take him back (sorry!) He abuses her, not only physically, but mentally as well and that isn't love.

But he is possessive of her, and uses the advantage to torture Cal as well. It is a very toxic relationship. This is just my opinion, and how I see the series, but I'm interested to know what you guys think. Don't get me wrong. I love Maven as the monstrous villian/confusing boy king he is.

Whose side am I on? Honestly, I ship Mare with mental stability and a nice long nap....

And Tiberias (Cal) Calore..

Hehehe

Sorry about my long rant, enjoy the story you all came for because we are dying for Kings Cage!

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Cameron Cole
The Choke, Norta

The walk to the tent was a long one, but somehow even though I felt like collapsing right then and there, I managed to keep one foot in front of the other until I was standing in front of the green flap. I pulled it aside to reveal Allie and the Colonel sitting at the table with Mira standing between them, in a deep conversation.

They all looked up at me when I entered. "What is it?" I ask, curious. The Colonel clears his throat, fiddling with his pen. "I have sent out an evacuation for those at Tuck. We cannot assume that Silver whispers haven't already picked out the location from Ms Barrow's mind from before, and are heading there right now."

Everyone winced a bit at the mention of the now dead lightning girl, her death hanging over us like a dark cloud with a promise of a storm.

She was a storm.

I nodded after a long moment, and shook my head to clear any thoughts of Mare. I needed to stay focused. Grieving was for later.

"Where have they gone too?"

"There is another base close enough to Lake Eris, at the very border between Norta and the Lakelands. But not too close to the Choke, of course."

I moved towards a seat, and sank down into it. "But aren't there already people who live there?"

He bites his lip. "Yes, but mostly soldiers live there. And ever since a mission in..." He trails off. I suppose he wasn't allowed to tell me the contents of the mission. I wasn't trustable.

I was a Newblood, and to him I was the equivalent to dirt, just another weapon to be used and discarded if necessary. Dangerous. And I hated that. When would people see that we were more than oddities, things to be used. We were human, no matter how strange we seemed.

I supposed that was how Mare felt. The one thing that we could relate on.

Well, I grudgingly thought, there are some other things as well, I suppose.

"Ever since that disastrous mission, only a handful of occupants are there."

So we would be living in a place where men and women had once roamed the halls. But there was nothing left of them, except their ghosts.

"But still, there's not enough space" Allie says, and I have to agree with her.

The Colonel rubs his forehead, and the harsh lines on his face become much more visible. Stress had certainly taken its toll on him, as it had on all of us. "Most of us will have to be sent to a different base. We cannot send the children back to their homes."