The Last Theiro

29

Tessa
•••

"Give me your hand."

I stared with a blank expression at the round man.

"Give me your hand, dear."

When I didn't oblige, he snatched my hand from my side and I did nothing as I stared at him with shock and feebleness of fright. He squinted at my hand, his stubby calloused fingers running up and down my arm, tracing the gentle skin of my palm.

"The mark..." He muttered. "Where's the mark?" He lifted his head and his dull eyes met mine before they traveled across my forehead. When his eyes landed on the scar I encountered days ago while cliff diving, his lips tilted up slowly at the ends.

"Aaah," Nikolas exclaimed. "When did you get scarred, my dear?"

My lips parted slightly, evidently confused. The hairs in my neck stood up and sweat prickled down my forehead. I didn't know Nikolas but something told me that he wasn't the kindness of people.

"Tessa, answer him," Sacha warned from beside me.

"I...uhh," I stuttered, my fingers brushing the scar etched across the right corner of my forehead. "The scar. I got on my nineteenth birthday while cliff diving." I closed my eyes, forbidding my mind from traveling to that memory, the pain would be too unbearable and it would break me down. That was the last time I came close to the feeling of 'normal.' It was before my life burned down to ashes.

It was before the massacre of my sanity.

Nikolas cleared his throat, dragging me away from my thoughts. "Has anything out of the ordinary happened to you when you touched the scar?"

I realized how I didn't remember hitting my head before getting the scar and how it wouldn't stop bleeding. I remembered the visions I would see whenever I touched my scar. I remembered how I traveled to and from the further when I touched my scar. Although nobody told me this before, I knew that the scar bounded me to the realm of the dead, marking me as one of theirs.

"No." I shook my head. Concealing all the information about the scar from Nikolas felt like the safest option at the time. "Nothing strange has happened. The scar is just a scar. I hit my head while diving off a cliff."

Nikolas narrowed his eyes. "Don't lie, Tessa. We are here to help you. I can't do that if you do not confide in me," he hissed.

I crossed my arms and stepped back from Nikolas, my back colliding with Sacha's chest.

The even breaths of Nikolas came to a halt and he sprinted up despite his swollen leg. "We..." He beckoned to everybody seated calmly amid the burning forest. "We are your army, Tessa. We are your servants. The Black Shadows of Death are here to serve you and we will be ready to when you give the signal. The question is, are you ready to give that signal?"

My shoulders slumped and I heaved a breath. I just didn't know if I could keep up with all those complex situations.

"Well, are you ready?" Nikolas asked impatiently.

He said all those people were my army. He said they were ready to serve me and do as I say. They were ready to die for me. I needed to think carefully and weigh my options. I knew why Anthony was in the forest - he was looking for me. At that moment, there was no doubt the whole of Emadulanda was searching for me. I killed one of their Elders and they want to see me behind bars, better yet, dead. Emadulanda has a whole army searching for me and the vampires are looking for me too after what I did to their Primus. I knew Eden wasn't dead and I knew he was coming back for vengeance. I had two options: I could run away from all of this, go back to Insipid and stay in hiding. Or, I could use my army to fight off all the forces searching for me and I could reclaim the power that belonged to me. The power that belonged to a Theiro.