The Risen | ✅

Chapter Twenty-Four

I had way too many questions, way more than three. But I had to make due. So I'd only the most important questions.

"Who is Lilith?" I asked.

Dorian rolled his eyes as if he knew that I'd ask that question for sure.

"Lilith was an old flame of mine." He answered simply. "Next question.

"No. Not yet. When I asked who she was, I meant go into detail. You get way too sensitive whenever someone mentions her name for her to be just some old flame. Who was she REALLY?" I pressed.

Dorian sighed, closing his eyes in irritation. "You sure do know how to press someone's buttons you know that?"

I glared at him in response. He was trying to waste time.

Once he realized that I wasn't going to back down his scoffed. "Wow. Okay then, rude." He muttered. "Anyway, Lilith was someone I met during my time on the run. She saved me from a policeman who was going to turn me in and took pity on me. Lilith let me tag along and taught me to be street smart. She and I were close. Close like you and Alex are. But, like I said before, she was killed by some Elementalist hunters. It wasn't a pretty thing. And it's not a memory that I like to resurface." He looked back at me again, "Now, next question."

I wanted more information about her, but I'm sure that that was all I was going to get from him. "How'd you become so rich and famous if you started out on the streets?"

Dorian rolled his eyes again. "Such obvious questions, Circe. I would've thought you'd try harder to formulate these." He clicked his tongue. "But, once again, as I've mentioned earlier, a wealthy Elementalist hunter let me into his home. I formulated a story to get him to let his guard down. I told him my family was killed by a rouge gang of Elementalists and that I'd been on my own ever since. He treated me as if I was his own son. And when he died, I inherited all of his fortune." A small hint of remorse flashed in Dorian's eyes, but it was gone just as quickly as it had come. "I guess I was all he had in the end. But that was just another way fate forged my path for me. It was for us to meet just like it was for him to die. He was just another domino in the chain of my life."

"Like Lilith?" I asked in an attempt to get the topic back on her.

Dorian scoffed. "Nice try Circe, but you've gotten all the information about Lilith that I'm ever going to give you. So you better be satisfied. Now, final question. Make it count. You only have ten minutes left."

I blinked. Time sure had flown. Why hadn't I noticed?

I had to think about this last question. This one had to be big. What did I need answers about? My mind subconsciously floated back to the day that Victor, Alex, Evie and I escaped the house. I thought about how Dorian had used his Glacikenetic powers then doubled back and counteracted Evanora's Gyrokinetic powers like he was one himself. That was something that had been itching in the back of my mind since this whole fiasco started.

"What are you?" I blurted out.

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, Circe. I think you know just as well as I that I'm an Elementalist." Dorian knew what I was talking about. The playful gleam in his eyes confirmed that.

"You know what I mean." I said, glaring up at him. I was tired of his mind games. "What are your powers? You've displayed way too many different kinds to be ordinary. There's something...wrong with you."

Dorian smirked back at me. "Well, that's a new one. I thought you'd ask me another stupid question, like something about my hair." He chuckled. "But this is a very nice change."

He held up a hand and his eyes glowed as snowflakes materialized around it. Then a burst of flames appeared. Then his whole arm shifted into metal. Then a strange ball of energy formed. He kept doing this, demonstrating different powers. Way more powers than one Elementalist should have.

He turned to me, "You see, Circe, long before I was on the run, I had a family. Me, my mother, and my older brother. My father had died long ago, so it was just us. We were discovered one day and, unfortunately, my family was killed." Dorian shook his head as he tried to clear his head of the awful memories. "I'll spare you the details of that. But, they kept me alive. I was originally just a simple Glacikenetic. That's why I subconsciously use my ice themed powers the most. But, they did...experiments on me. They didn't just want to hunt down the Elementalist. They wanted to utterly destroy them. And in order to do that, they had to fight fire with fire. That's where I came in."

Dorian ran his hands through his hair to slick it down. "I was young, which was rare in those days, seeing as most Elementalists didn't think it was wise to settle down. But what they wanted, was the ultimate Elementalist. They wanted someone who was powerful enough to take on every single type of Elementalist out there. So the process consisted of this: finding an Elementalist, transferring their power to me using some type of machine, and then killing them. I was young. I had no clue what was happening. But then I turned sixteen. Everything became clear and I wanted out. I didn't know what had happened to me, or why. But all I knew is that I had to get far away from those people and what they wanted to do to me."

I blinked. So, Dorian is the product of a freak experiment. He endured years of torture at the hands of the Normals and he still hasn't recovered, no matter how hard he wants to try to cover it up.

"But," Dorian began, drawing my attention to him again. "They never got to name my species. That's something I got to do on my own."

He turned back to look at me with a smirk. "So, to answer your question, I'm a Chameokenetic."