Relentless

Chapter 27

That night, when Peter is preparing our dinner, I sit down next to Katrina. I life my wrist out, gesturing to Skylar's gift. "You should take it." I commanded.

"What? No, it was a gift to you."

"Yeah, the gift of her greatest weapon that I can't even wield. Please? It's useless to me anyway."

"That's not true. Her mind was her greatest weapon. Do you know why she chose to use this band as a weapon?"

"Because it l was from her sister?"

"No, It's because her power often became too much for her and having something physical to channel it through helped her concentrate and control it better." Katrina seems to take a double take and think through my answer. "Her sister, you said?"

I nodded.

"How much do you know about her past?"

"Not much. Skylar simply didn't like to talk about it so I never pried."

"Do you know why she was on probation?"

"I know it had something to do with leaving her sister? I don't know."

"Her sister is on the other side of this war. She is one of the Divines attacking us. Skylar comes from a line of very powerful Pure Divines. Their parents were killed by humans when Skylar was eight and her sister was sixteen. It was at that time that she went crazy. She suddenly got these delusional notions... I think it was trauma. The problem was that she gathered a following and Skylar was so young that she simply went along with it. There was a time when Skylar was killing people from the Order of the Silver Phoenix."

"Really? What happened?"

"As Skylar got older, she developed her own opinions and eventually left her sister. She sought us out soon after. We were unsure of her intentions so she was put on probation until her motives were determined."

"Why? She came to you and you still didn't trust her?"

"How could we? She could have been a spy, a mole sent by her sister. We couldn't tell her intentions."

"But isn't one of the elders a powerful psychic?"

"Yes, but not as powerful as her sister. I told you, they came from an elite family. Her sister has the unique ability to cast her consciousness into others. For all we knew, Skylar could have been her sister or we could have been seeing her mind through a mirage. There is one positive thing I will say about her sister, though."

"What is that?"

"As evil as she claims to be, as many of her own people that she kills, I don't believe that she is a monster."

"I don't understand, why?"

"Because she let her sister go. A monster would have either killed her for deserting or threatened her back into line, but she did neither. That's part of the reason we were skeptical of her intentions because she didn't have a scratch on her after defying her twisted sister."

"Huh, I never thought about it that way."

"Well, looks can be deceiving. Most people aren't showing who they really are. Just remember that. You have to look deeper into someone to really know them."

I took what she said to heart. Just as our conversation wrapped up, Peter returned, bringing with him some sort of large roasted rodent for us to eat.

Peter sat down next to me and I felt oddly uncomfortable next to him. I knew I had to apologize. I recall our last conversation before he left a month ago, regret pooling at the pit of my stomach. "I guess I'm such a freak that you just couldn't take it anymore! Well then, I'm just surprised that you lasted this long!" "Celeste, you're being unfair." He had said.