Heaven's Darkness (Book 2)

Chapter 10 - Jeriah

 "Quint, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but when that assassin tossed me out of this window, I suddenly felt angry, angrier than I've ever felt before," I explained, hoping the spirit wizard could aid in my confusion.

He seemed distant, lost in his own world of thoughts, but still listening to what I was describing. "That's interesting. Have you been thrown out of windows before?"

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Well, of course I have. For some reason, though, it was like something reacted within me, something unfamiliar. I don't really know how to describe it."

"Perhaps, it wasn't your anger coming through, but Duisternis'."

Suddenly, Ashura shot straight up from what was left of our charred bed, panting and sweating vigorously, nothing but extreme fear in her eyes. Quint and I both rushed over to her, completing forgetting about our previous discussion.

"Q-Quint, I remember," she stammered between pants, clutching his bulky arm desperately. "I-I know what happened. Damn, I wish I didn't!"

Quint's distant expression morphed into one of sympathetic calmness. He rested a gentle hand over Ashura's tense one on his arm, trying his best to be reassuring. "It's okay, Ash. It was only a matter of time before you found out anyway."

She withdrew her hand and clawed at her matted hair in sheer anguish. "It's not okay, Quint! I-I turned into a monster. I disoriented the war-crazed dragons with my transformation. Not only that, but I knocked all of them unconscious with a defense attack! I knocked. Dragons. Unconscious!"

Even I recoiled in surprise. It wasn't possible for us to even scratch a dragon. The fact that Ashura descaled one was just another reason proving her to be Aerion's child. If she could find enough magic to knock out a horde of dragons, that was just unspeakable. My mind couldn't comprehend that kind of power, especially with her human form missing an arm.

"Wait," she panted. "When did you come back? I thought Fireau killed you or something worse."

"Something worse?" I thought aloud. "There's not much worse than that."

"That lady is crazy. You have no idea what she's done," Ashura darkly said, the stress returning to her voice.

Then, Quint did something completely out of the ordinary: he stuck in arm under his white cloak for a moment and emerged with an adorable celestial puppy in his hand. The dog was the same deep blue that Quint was turning as he disappeared in front of Fireau, mini stars scattered sporadically all around its body. The puppy's tongue hung limp from its tiny mouth, wagging its tail excitedly in Quint's palm.

He deposited the creature into Ashura's lap and spoke with an incredibly soft, comforting voice. "Would you mind watching over Sparky for me? He's a little lonely and needs some attention. Think you could do that for me?"

Ashura stared blankly at the puppy in her lap, completely caught off-guard at Quint's random action, but nodded all the same. "S-Sure, I'll watch him for a bit."

The little dog barked a normal-sounding, regular dog bark and rubbed itself along Ashura's hand like a cat, begging for attention. She giggled and mentioned something about it being ridiculously soft, which I had a hard time imagining since it was made completely out of spacial matter. Quint excused himself from the room and dragged me outside of the charred, smoky area and into the dusty hallway, closing the door behind him.

"Did you just produce a puppy from your cloak?" I asked, dumbfounded.

The blue-haired wizard shot me an exhausted glance, helping me realize just how tired he was from our eventful day. He did a very good job of hiding it. He coughed. "Not from my cloak, but from the spirit realm."