Bleeding Heart [a Red Queen fanfic]

chapter twelve.

"Okay, so, wait," says Zavier, the laughter fading from his face, his gold-green eyes becoming slightly more serious as he fixes them on me. In the low light, they gleam almost the same colour as the drink in his glass. "Is all that stuff about you people true?"

I raise an eyebrow as I take another sip from my own glass. The bubbly, bright taste on my tongue makes a smile rise to my face, although that might just be because of the countless other glasses I've consumed over the last half hour. Gods, this is so fun. I can't believe I shot down Lyra that time when she suggested we have a few drinks. I should do this more often.

"All that stuff?" I repeat in response to him. "You're going to have to be much more specific."

"You know." Zavier gestures vaguely with his hand, as though that is supposed to explain everything. It makes me giggle, which in turn, makes him smile. Wow. He has a beautiful one - warm and full and almost infectious, in a way. I have to remind myself to pay attention to what he's saying.

"All your...powers. Abilities. Sometimes I feel like you all just make them up to scare us into staying in line."

"Of course they're true," I say, a little surprised by his question. "Haven't you ever seen the Feats?"

"Of course I have. I'd have been arrested otherwise." His smile turns wry, tinged by something dark and bitter, and I feel my bubbly mood fade slightly, replaced by unease. In the back of my head, a voice I'd silenced for the last half hour speaks up. What are you doing, Brenna?

Before I can dwell on it, Zavier continues, and the thought fades with his words. "But I always wondered if they were faked, somehow."

"I assure you, they're very real." I fall silent for a moment, my thoughts running over what he said - a specific part of it that's sparked my interest. "You used the word abilities," I say. "How do you know it? That's more of a Silver term. Reds typically call them powers, or sometimes magic." The last one is the most inaccurate of them all. Magic belongs in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There's nothing magical about our raw, dark, deadly strength.

"I didn't know it was a Silver term. That's just what my mother called them. She would tell us - me and my sisters - stories about the High Houses." Zavier pushes a dark lock of hair from his eyes and takes another sip of his drink. "She worked as a maid in the Hall of the Sun for a few years. I suppose she learned it there."

"Oh, so you know about the High Houses?" Most Reds don't know of any, apart from House Calore, but that's just because they're the ruling house. And usually, they have no idea about abilities. I wonder if his mother ever told him stories of my house.

"I can match a few abilities to their houses, but that's about it. Like, Calore is the house of the burners, obviously." I nod, a silent encouragement. "Osanos is the nymphs, the controllers of water. Lerolan is the oblivions, the ones who can make explosions."

He names off two or three more, impressing me. Clearly, us Silvers are wrong to think that all Reds are ignorant and unintelligent. I'm starting to get the feeling that we're wrong about a lot of things. 

When he finishes, I see him looking over at me, a gleam of curiosity in his eyes as he takes in the dark blue and yellow of my dress, his eyes moving upward as though he'll be able to somehow see the ability lying in my veins. It's clear what he's thinking, and I decide to spare him the need to ask. "My house are storms," I tell him. "We can control the weather." 

"The weather?" He stares at me, like he can't believe a petite young girl like me is capable of such a thing. He wouldn't be the first person to think that. When I was a child, I was tutored by a Blonos teacher alongside Lyra and several other young High House girls my age, and they'd often tease me, saying that I couldn't possibly be powerful enough to control the weather. I was smaller and slighter than most of them, not to mention shy, panicking whenever I was forced out from behind my mother's skirts, hiding and cowering while Lyra or Beckett came to my defense. It's only natural that I became their favourite target, and it didn't help that it seemed impossible for me to summon even a raindrop, let alone create storms. I wouldn't have expected much from me either. Even my parents worried as I struggled with my ability, fearing I'd never master it.