AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Now is not the time to be playing around. We have a serious issue here.’ I tried to point out, but my tone came out lighter than I had intended. It was his turn to shrug, as he leaned against the wall casually, still watching me with that amused look on his face.
“We can try.” Meredith said. “We will need to cross The Veil again and get started ASAP. Raven, you would need to be present for the private audience with the Sorcerer General, if we are granted the meeting. I nodded.
“So, let’s do that.” I said and Meredith nodded.
“We just neva sure if yuh would be up to it.” Conrad said quietly. I had never heard him sound so down before. I went to him and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze.
“Hey,” I said, “We take care of each other.” He met my eyes and gave me a weak smile.
“Yeah. Wi do.” he said, and I threw my arms around his waist giving him a hug. He froze for a moment, before hugging me back. “Thank yuh, gyaal. He said before pulling away. “Mi needed dat.”
I nodded and turned back to the group. “So, do we need to go now? Can we go in the morning? What’s the plan?”
Amon chuckled at my eager flurry of questions. “I think we’re ok to take tonight to rest and go in the morning. I’m assuming we’ve all had a long day.”
“You could say that again, we just finished training an hour ago, this one is an absolute weapon in the ring.” Dossidian joked, jabbing his thumb in my direction. I felt my whole face turn red at the compliment, or maybe it was the heat in Amon’s gaze as he watched me.
“Is that so?” Something about the way he said it made things tighten in my core. “That’s something I would very much like to see.”
I didn’t think my face could get any redder. Meredith took pity on me and interjected.
“If that’s the case you both must be as hungry as we are. Let’s have some dinner and go to bed early. We have our work cut out for us.” We all agreed and filed into the pit to join Dossidian.
“Has anyone seen Kasha and Rycon?” Meredith wondered out loud as we finished up our plates. “Did they make any headway on the flute and the key?
“If we’re lucky Kasha skinned him and now has a new panther shaped rug for her room.” Dossidian muttered. Amon smirked and took a sip of water from his gold rimmed cup. Almost as if on cue, we heard them make their way down the hall.
“You’re a worse research buddy than Dossidian,” Kasha was complaining to Rycon as they entered. He was scowling at her from behind.
“What do you mean? I carried literally every single one of those damn books you asked for. Back and forth all day just moving fucking tomes.”
“The thing about doing research Kitty Cat is you’re not supposed to just carry the books. You’re actually supposed to read them too.”
“Give it a rest, would you? I can’t listen to another second of your incessant -”
“So, I guess you two had fun.” Amon drawled as Kasha slid into the pit next to Meredith. She beamed at us.
“Yeah! It was great. Didn’t have to carry one book, it was nice to be able to just focus on reading, you know?”
“What!? You just said you wanted me to carry less and read more.” Rycon snarled, and I almost laughed. Kasha ignored him, piling her plate high with roast beef. She winked at me.
“He’s super easy to get all riled up, isn’t he?” She asked. I smirked, nodding in agreement. Rycon looked like he was going to spontaneously combust.
“Fuck this, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow you can carry your own damn books.” He snapped.
“Toodle-oo!” She chirped to his back on his way out, before settling in to eat her dinner. “So, what’s the scoop? Did you guys figure out how we’re going to get The Lens? We didn’t have much luck today to be honest. Do you know how many magickal keys there are? They all do different things. It’s wild.”
We filled her in on the plan to go across The Veil the following day and she grinned. “Excellent. I guess that means more library time for me and my new apprentice.”
I bit back a smile. I was interested to hear what kind of new mundane task she would think up to torment Rycon with while we were gone. We sat with Kasha until she was finished eating before saying our goodbyes as we went our separate ways. I yawned and stretched as Amon and I made our way to our rooms in the most eastern part of the spire.
“So, training went well today?” He asked as we made our way down the dim, but warmly lit hall. I nodded.
“Yeah. I forgot how much I liked boxing,” I admitted, “I’m excited to combine the hand to hand with some of the magick work too.” I said, thinking of how impressive Kasha had been that day at the docks. Maybe with enough training, I could be as good as she was.
We stopped at my door and when I turned to say goodnight, my words died in my mouth. The way he was looking at me… no one had ever looked at me like that before. He slid closer and lifted a hand to gently brush a strand of my dark hair away from my face.
“I am… very proud of you, Raven.” His voice was rough, and he was standing so close that I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eyes.
