Rise Of The Mirror King

Chapter 19: A Friend in Distress

I waited for Vax to fall asleep before retiring to my room. Seeing her cry weighed on my chest in ways I didn't expect. During the exchange with Lucifero, she must have worried about my safety. I had been reckless.

The hall was too quiet. Perhaps everyone dreaded running into Symon Wardreth now. I knew I would take the entire blame, and no one would point a finger at Lucifero; the realization made my blood boil.

I landed in bed like a husk. Sleep didn't come for hours; I kept tossing and turning from side to side until I finally sat up.

"I know exactly what it means. It means you were handed everything the rest of us had to earn. Magic. Title. Her."

Lucifero's words rippled through my mind. I could see his face, the way it looked at me like I was some pile of filth not fit to be in these halls.

"She's a Wardreth. Everything that name touches deserves to burn."

I shut my ears with my palms, as though doing so would keep his words from my head.

Lucifero didn't just hate Symon, didn't just hate me for something I had done. My miserable existence irritated the guy.

He must have watched Symon get everything easy: his powers, his mastery of magic, and even Amelia's love.

I didn't know when I started gritting my teeth. He was wrong. He was dead wrong.

Grey flickered before me.

"Lord Symon, your mana core is destabilized; you will risk a mana overburn."

Hearing Grey speak threw my mind back to the aftermath of the fight. I had used three powerful spells: to rewind time, parry his attack, and heal Vax; now my total lifespan was 4 years short.

"What's my lifespan left?"

"Eighty-three point five years, Lord Symon."

Eighty-three point five years. The words kept knocking in my head.

"Has this always been a Symon thing?"

"Yes, Lord Symon. You used to have a long lifespan, but your powers and abilities defy logic, and your life force is like a battery for them."

"I have a feeling that's not all."

"The sync between Simon and Symon has sped up the deduction, since your mana core has become very strong, making your spells and attacks stronger."

"So you mean a prolonged battle can drain my lifespan."

"It has before."

"When?"

Another screen flickered; I saw an image of me and another being I couldn't recognize. He or it had four arms and wielded four blades at once.

"Symon tagged on to a mission he wasn't supposed to and ended up fighting the Berserker, a species of demons from the depths of Nimbus' realm. He needed thirty years of his lifespan for the attack that killed this creature."

The information turned my blood cold. It was safe to assume Symon had a lifespan of well over a hundred and fifty years, and he spent all that using his powers.

I was dying at a slow pace.

"Who or what is Nimbus?"

"He is the King of Tartarus, the underworld. A primordial entity said to be born from chaos itself."

"Sounds terrifying."

"He is the end of all things."

"Where is he now?"

"Locked away in his own realm, trapped. His vessel was destroyed during the Great War of Odbeara."

"Who was powerful enough to subdue something like that?"

"Your own bloodline. Cregan Wardreth."

"What?"

"I have little information about him. But you're his reincarnation."

"What was the attack that finished the Berserker?"

"You asked me never to let you use it again."

"Of course I did; I just want to know the name."

Symon asking Grey not to let him use it told me one clear thing: the guy must have been anything but mad.

"Black cloak Dimension slash."

"What does it do?"

"It cuts through time and space; there's nothing on Odbeara that can survive that attack."

"Is that the only attack in my arsenal to beat a Berserker?"

"I'm afraid yes."

"So what happens when I meet one in my subsequent missions?"

"Easy, you run."

I found myself laughing.

Symon, or perhaps I, had enemies on all fronts, including my own powers. How was I going to navigate this when Lucifero and the likes of Zeldryl walked these academy halls?

"Lord Symon."

"What is Grey?"

"You were going to investigate the two murders."

"I know that, Grey."

The academy was doing nothing about it. Or maybe they were, but just lost, given the circumstances of the murders.

Both girls had been found lifeless, with no blood on them. Their skin had turned ice-cold, their core depleted of mana, and their eyes had turned to glass.

"Where do I start?"

"Given the nature of their deaths, you need to speak with someone who understands mana depletion."

"Who?"

"You won't like the name.'

"Say it, Grey."

"Mazikeen."

"No. No way I'm talking to her."

"She's your only shot at knowing whatever happened to those girls and why your mana residue was on them "

I stopped to think for a moment; Grey was right. If my mana residue was on them, their deaths were tied to me, or had something to do with me.

And it was better to find out why and how before someone else detected my mana on them.

I rose from the bed and grabbed my robe from the chair.

I unlocked my door and stepped out. The wind was howling through the quiet night, cold and stinging.

I tucked both palms into my trouser pockets and disappeared down the stone stairs.

The moons were bright, casting long shadows across the floor.

Mazikeen and his brother resided in the castle on the west; they had a whole wing to themselves.

When I reached the courtyard, I had second thoughts; instead of going in, I stood outside gazing up at the tall walls. One of the rooms was lit. Someone was awake.

She must have sensed my mana. She appeared at the window, took one long look at me, and smiled.

I didn't wait long, and she appeared from the shadows behind one of the pillars before me.

She was barely covered.

"Someone must have missed me."

"I didn't."

She laughed gently.

"Trouble sleeping?" She corked her head to one side.

"Sort of."

"I have just the thing that can help." She started to go up the stairs.

Something in my chest told me this was a bad idea, but I followed her. We climbed up to her room.

It looked bright and filled with pink colours, like a normal girl.

"What? You expected to see lava and ash?"

"No," I lied.

"I'm a girl, Symon, like every other girl." She stepped close and traced a finger on my lips. "Just better than some, you know." She winked.

She walked to the fireplace and deliberately swayed her waist. My eyes briefly followed the way the linen clothes made her ass visible. My chest heaved, and I looked away.

She knelt and whispered something to the flames, and they burned brighter.

"So." She turned to me. "To what do I owe this pleasure, dear Symon?"

"I need information." I paused. "And can you cover up, please?"

"What? You don't like what you see?" She let the linen on her chest fall a little and expose her firm cleavage.

"No, I don't."

She stared pointedly at me for a few seconds, then shook her head. "Killjoy."

She lifted a finger, and without even uttering a spell, a new outfit appeared on her body.

She looked lethal in that two-piece outfit of midnight-black leather.

Her plunging crop top was cut with sharp, minimalist angles, revealing a bare midriff wrapped in fine, glinting gold body chains that looped down from her neck and slung low across her hips.

High-waisted leather trousers hugged her frame perfectly, while a dark choker and metallic bracelets at her wrists completed the dangerous, combat-ready look.

"I like how you're staring." She smiled.

I swallowed hard.

"What do you know of mana draining?"

She squinted. "Because I'm a demon, I'm supposed to know that?"

"Yes. Isn't that your thing?"

"That's mean." She dropped into the chair, crossing one leg over the other. "What do I get in return?"

"Didn't you ask for my trust?"

"That was a different arrangement." She tilted her head, studying me the way she had that first day in the hall. "This is a new one."

I didn't like the way she said that. "What do you want?"

She didn't answer right away. Just watched me, unblinking, letting the silence stretch until it started to feel less like a pause and more like a decision being made without me.

"You came here in the middle of the night," she said finally, "alone, without telling anyone. Not your sister. Not Astrid. Not even Zudrik, I'd guess."

"How would you know that?"

"Because you're not stupid, whatever else you are. You knew exactly how this would look if anyone found you here."

She rose, slow, unhurried, and crossed the room to stand closer than I would have liked. "And you came anyway. Which tells me something."

"That I need information."

"That you had nowhere else to go." Her voice had dropped, losing the theatrical edge it usually carried.

"Everyone in that hall today watched you nearly die over your sister, and not one of them came to check on you afterward. Did they?"

I didn't answer, which was an answer.

"Lucifero hates you. Amelia can't look at you without flinching. My brother would murder you if given the chance. Your own guild masters watch you like you're a weapon someone forgot to lock away."

She reached up and fixed the collar of my coat with two fingers. "And here I am. The only person in this entire academy who doesn't need you to be anything other than exactly what you are."

"That's not the same as trust."

"No." Something almost like honesty flickered behind her eyes. "But it's close enough that you're still standing here instead of walking out that door."

She wasn't wrong, and I hated that she wasn't wrong.

"The information," I said. "Mana draining. What do you know?"

She held my gaze a moment longer, like she was deciding whether to tell me. Then finally she stepped back, putting a few feet of space between us again.

"I heard about the murders."

"And?"

"Depleted mana, glassy eyes, no external wounds." She said it clinically now. "That's not a spell any mage on this side of the wall would use. That's a soul being pulled, not drained. Something is siphoning the metaphysical weight out of a body, not the magic inside it."

My stomach turned cold. "Pulled where?"

"I don't know." She studied me for a long moment.

"But I'd start wondering what's powerful enough to pull a soul clean out of a body without leaving a mark. There aren't many things in either world that could manage that."

"But there is?"

"Not many." She was withholding something.

"Why help me with this?"

"I told you." She turned back toward the fire, the warmth painting gold along one side of her face. "I want you listening to me instead of everyone shouting about me. This is me, giving you a reason to keep doing that."

I nodded.

"Now leave before my brother senses you. I've been shielding you with my mana."