Buried Truths

Chapter 13

"Then why are you still holding onto me, Zornitsa?"

I threw his arm away from me and something in me flared slightly. Clenching my hands tightly I breathed deeply, diffusing that strange, sudden lick of power inside of me. Without answering, I turned and walked away towards a deceptively blank wall. Stroking a hand down its length, I traced the outline of a small rectangle and then pressed bricks inside the box until a pattern lit up and a rumbling ensued. As I peered upwards, a glow started to spread across the stones and soon the whole wall broke apart with a shudder.

"Okay, what in the world just happened? Don't tell me these are the archives that she mentioned," Cae gazed around in what looked like awe at the surroundings because there were rows upon rows of never-ending bookshelves and bookcases.

"This thing?" My mouth tilted upwards slightly. "Oh no, this is just her personal library, a mixture of both legal and illegal foreign medical books. She enjoys - enjoyed finding out as much as she could" I dropped my smirk at the change I needed to adjust to and the power flicks out again. "I need to find a certain book. It has something I need in it," I ground out, marching into the library. I hear his sigh and I face him again.

"You know Zornitsa, allow me to add another rule to this 'agreement' as you call it," he said, running a hand through his hair, "Trust each other explicitly and implicitly," I opened my mouth to rebuff him but he beats me to it.

"That means any plans, any secrets, any thoughts and opinions will be shared between us with no strings attached. No extra agendas between us, okay?"

"I don't need your help," I glare at him coldly.

"I never said you did, maybe it's me who needs you right now. Deal?" I hold his stare for longer, then turned on my heel and carried on into the room, picking out a book randomly.

"You should just leave me to deal with my problems on my own."

"I'll never give up for you," he smirks at me with a bow and I throw the book I was holding at his head, he catches it with a laugh and seems satisfied with my answer,

"So what sort of book am I looking for?"

"Purple. Old."

"Woman of few words, I like it. But I wonder if you're like that in bed - ah," he didn't manage to catch the book I threw this time and it hit him squarely in the back of the head, but from his laugh again, he probably had let it hit him. We lapsed into silence as we searched the library meticulously, rifling through cabinets and shelves, pulling out any purple coloured books we could find amid the endless columns of books.

"You know, I still haven't figured out what you did at the Confraria with that arrow. I was too busy carrying you and running the hell away from there," he said casually.

"Did you notice any explosions?" I asked him back.

"Not any big ones no, but I remember a lot of ruckus coming from that room we were in. Why?"

"Well, I had rigged the chandeliers in that room to explode."

"How?"

"I coated the chain links with a thick sodium layer so that when any water-based substance comes in contact with it, the sodium would react and explode to break the chandeliers. And those things have a lot of glass in them, so I figured that would be the best barrier and distraction if I was in an urgent situation."

"But all that preparation would mean that you had expected something like this to happen, are you saying you wanted to escape him even before this whole ordeal?" he turned completely to me now, tilting his head at me in wonder and leaning against the shelves.

"Carry on searching!" I growl at him, before answering, "no, I didn't want to escape originally nor did I expect any of this to happen. It was more of something my instinct had urged me to do, it was like a warning, that something bad was going to happen if I didn't do it. A whole load of good that did." I scowled and clenched the book I held tightly.

"Also what was inside that box you pulled out of the crate?" he questioned, effectively changing the topic.

"A flower,"

"A flower?" he repeated glancing at me with his eyebrow raised again,

"Are you familiar with the aconite flower?" I pulled out more books as I spoke,

"I took the same botany lessons as you, you dimwit," he said, and I didn't need to look at him to know he rolled his eyes at me,

"Then I don't need to explain to you what I used them for, do I?"

"That wasn't what I wanted to ask about. If that was really the aconite flower, then how did you hold it with your bare hands..." He had walked next to me without me realising and now lifted my hand to inspect, before I could snatch it back he dropped it and looked at me with those pitless purple eyes.

"...and not be affected at all by its poison." I furrowed my brows and stared at my hand, turning it over in bewilderment. He was right, that shouldn't be possible. It merely takes a touch from any part of the plant to be affected, and I had held so much of the petals that it was enough to fill a body. Literally.

"I don't know," I whisper, staring at my hands in shock,

"What if - " before I could finish he interrupts,

"But, as interesting as that mystery is, right now we have a job to do, and one we possibly need to finish before any more of Amable's goons come back," my anger soars at his comment and I grit my teeth, growling out lowly,

"I don't care." I curl my hands, nails digging into the leather cover of the book, " I don't rutting care. Let them come. They will die anyway." A strange - black as night - curl of energy surges inside me, twisting and turning as I got angrier.

"Zornitsa! Look at me." His voice was so loud I cringed, covered my ears and snapped,

"Stop shouting!"

"Lift your head and look at me Zornitsa. Damn it!" His voice speared through my head as he pulled my hands away, the sound resonating in my ears. I lift my eyes to him, snarling fiercely but before I could say anything his eyes widen and I blink in confusion at his reaction.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" He grasped my hand in his and pulled me after him as he ran down the corridor back out into the room we were in,

"Where are you taking me? Let me rutting go you curd!" I roar at him, my voice a strange ethereal tone. He pulls up short in front of the huge mirror hanging on the wall and drags me to face it. I gasp and stagger forwards towards the mirror, hands reaching out to touch the reflection in shock.

"What am I?" I whisper.

Because in the reflection my eyes were flitting to and fro with every blink from a wholly ominous black eye to a piercing red colour with snake-like slits for pupils. And my red hair now looked as if it had been dipped in snow, the red and white clashing against each other starkly, even my ears were slightly more pointed than before.

"Well, that solves the aconite mystery," Cae mumbles behind me.