“Thirded,” Gemma said with a grin that lit up her face, “if that’s even a word.”
They all turned to Eva. She scowled but shrugged noncommittally. “Whatever…”
They took that as agreement enough and turned to the table laden with food, digging in ravenously. Happily, the conversation turned to more mundane and trivial topics.
Chapter 5 – Allyra
His fingers tangle into her hair. He pulls her close, and his lips are on hers, urgent and desperate.
She leans into the familiarity of him, traces his lips with hers, and sinks into his warmth. She yearns for him, to give into him, to let his heat consume her.
The kiss ends, as it always does.
“Please,” he whispers, the word filled with infinite longing and desire.
She can’t stay.
She knows what is coming, and yet she can’t help herself. She wrenches herself away and turns abruptly. She opens her eyes and sees mountains jagged with dragons’ teeth.
The world is on fire.
A scream tears its way from her throat.
Allyra jerked back into consciousness, the taste of smoke still lingering on her tongue. Her recurring nightmare had made a thundering comeback—a charming side effect of sharing a room with Jason. The added anxiety meant her mind was filled with visions of a range of mountains, sharp like dragons’ teeth, consumed with fire so real that the smell of smoke seemed to curl up and twist around her. Fainter was the feel of lips moving lightly over hers and the desperate yearning hollow in her chest.
The room was shrouded in darkness, and in the heavy stillness, Allyra listened for sounds of movement—any sign that Jason might be sneaking up to smother her as she slept. Hearing nothing but silence, Allyra reassured herself that Jason wasn’t attempting murder—at least not right now. She sank back into the luxurious softness of her pillow and considered going back to sleep. Her sleep had been troubled; she had tossed and turned while trying to keep one eye on Jason and any nefarious plan he might be concocting. Allyra was exhausted and irritable, and her brain felt thick with marshmallows. She reached over to the nightstand and glanced at the clock. Fluorescent numbers blinked at her—06:52.
Allyra hissed out a curse and tumbled out of bed. Her fingers fumbled for the light on the nightstand while she muttered darkly about ridiculous underground rooms with zero natural light.
Finally finding the switch, she flicked it on, and light flooded through the room. As she reached for fresh clothes, she glanced over at Jason’s side of the room and renewed her string of curses. Jason’s bed was empty and freshly made with such precision it would’ve passed an army sergeant’s inspection. Somehow, Jason had woken up, gotten dressed, and made his bed, all without waking her up. It made her efforts to keep an eye on him seem rather pointless in retrospect.
Having gotten dressed in record time, she stumbled out the room, all the while trying to restyle her hair from something resembling a rat’s nest into something that might be considered to be a ponytail.
Confronted with a long corridor filled with identical doors, Allyra wracked her brain, trying desperately to remember the way to the Training Room. She broke into a jog, and after making a couple of wrong turns, she managed to stagger into the Training Room with one minute left to spare.
As expected, she was the last one to arrive. The eyes of every assembled participant of The Five Finals turned to her, combining into a single laser beam of judgment that threatened to burn a hole right through her.
“Thank you for gracing us with your presence,” Marcus drawled sarcastically from the front of the room.
In the wake of his comment, a few snickers rumbled through the crowd.
Have I somehow stumbled back in time and fallen into a high school drama?
Allyra straightened her back, lifted her head, and gave Marcus a careless smile. “Of course,” she replied.
Briefly, Marcus’s lips tightened with displeasure, and he motioned impatiently for her to take a seat. As Allyra settled into her seat, Jason caught her eye and winked. His smirk was so smug that her fingers clenched unconsciously with the urge to peel it off his face. Now fully convinced that she had indeed fallen into a high school drama straight out of hell, Allyra shot him an ugly scowl in return.
In his role as the Elemental High Master, Marcus stood poised to open proceedings with the other four High Masters assembled around him. Together, the five of them represented the Council—the highest authority ruling over the Gifted. More importantly, they were the most likely holders of the secrets she needed to discover.
Allyra ran her eyes over them. Farthest to the right was High Master Zhuang of the Terra College. He was short and tidy, wearing a serious look on his face, with intelligent eyes, which roamed over the crowd without missing a single thing. He was widely acknowledged as one of the most brilliant living scholars. It was unclear whether High Master Zhuang could be trusted. He had been kind to Jamie during the Elemental Trials, and he’d chosen to keep the secret of her new tattoo from the rest of the Council members. But Allyra knew that he hadn’t quite believed her when she claimed ignorance on the subject of the tiger tattoo. In fact, she suspected that he knew the tattoo to be one of the Living Weapons of legend. Given how smart he was rumored to be, she would have to be at the top of her game to maintain her secrets around him.
Standing next to High Master Zhuang was High Master Radebe of the Atmospheric College. He was the oldest member of the Council.
