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Since when does he pass up a chance to say something snarky? I wonder what’s distracting him.
28
Terra
Elias’s class is my least favorite. Not only because I have to watch him kick everyone’s ass in an effort to teach combat, but also because his movements and attacks are documented so carefully beneath his tight black shirt.
I’m not used to seeing him without his vest and cloak. He’s been so busy these last few weeks that I’ve hardly seen him, spare the night he watched Raine fuck me.
I watch intently as my assassin easily throws another male student over his shoulder, his stomach muscles flexing and recoiling as he straightens. Elias hasn’t even broken a sweat yet. It’s a fearsome thing to think about; even the second-year students can’t land a hit on him.
My eyes linger over the senior class as I think about their time here. There’s only a handful of them left, all ranked Polaris, Ekko, and Cosmos; the lower ones must’ve been all wiped out. All their eyes are gray.
That thought unsettles me and I think of the Blood Crowns exam swiftly approaching.
“Terra.”
My name leaving Elias’s lips startles me and I straighten my back as I meet his gaze.
“It’s your turn,” he says as indifferently as he does with the other students. I hesitantly make my way up to the front of the group. My breaths thicken the air with white plumes. He kicks my ass every single time.
A fresh blanket of snow arrived last night and training in the courtyard has been wearing us all down. It’s freezing out here; Elias’s three-hour class is hell.
I stand awkwardly, trying my hardest not to look at Elias with the longing I feel deep in my core. He raises his hands into the familiar fighting stance and lunges at me with frightening speed.
I fall back on my ass to duck from his assault. He lands on the ground behind me and snaps at me, “Again. Don’t avoid the attack, block it.”
Standing and wiping my pants, I let out a sharp breath. “I can’t. I’ve tried to block you, but you’re too brutish.”
He leans in close and pulls me in by the collar of my cloak until our noses are a breath apart. For gods’ sakes, why is he so provocative when he’s being mean? “You will. Or you’ll die in the second exam. You’ll all fucking die if I don’t start seeing some improvement.” His voice is raspy and cruel as he says the latter, looking at all the students behind me, specifically the Dvars and the Tauri. “You think this is a game or just some silly training, but your survival depends on this. Every decision you make is life or death.”
Elias stalks over and grabs one of the smaller Dvars students, a boy from Lamnah with dark hair and very frightened eyes. My stomach curls as Elias places the student before me.
“I’m going to attack with the intent to kill this boy, and unless you can stop me, he will die.” Elias turns callously and walks twenty feet away to resume his attack stance.
My heart drops. “Wait. No, Elias, stop!” I scream but it falls on deaf ears. His face is stone; it’s obvious he’s made up his mind.
The sound of my teeth gnashing together makes my throat constrict. I fist the boy’s tan cloak and throw him down to the ground behind me as I step over him. My arms lift instinctively and a veil of darkness clouds over him as Elias crashes into me with a frontal attack. Dark strands of my hair whip furiously into the air with the force of his strike.
A sharp grin lights Elias’s face and he lifts his hand to attack with his Shadow this time. My eyes flick down to the boy with horror; I know what happens when Elias uses Velis.
Hot, sticky liquid spatters across my back and soaks my hair. My legs tremble and I turn in time to see the skeleton of the boy still sitting, flesh and skin ripped away from the white bones as if stripped by acid. All the organs and vital components still lie beneath unharmed.
Before his blood can trickle like rain around us, something cracks inside me, desperation or fury, I’m unsure. Seeing the heart inside the boy’s skeleton is still intact, I press my hand to the skull within a fraction of a second.
I’ll need to go deeper in your soul to reverse time on this one, Amser mutters indifferently as if it sits upon a throne inside my spirit and dully watches my life like it’s some disturbing opera.
I close my eyes and open the doors inside myself, feeling as Amser sinks further inside and an enormous surge of power befalls my heart.
Time is my power and I’ll use each second as carefully as I can.
The crimson snow around Elias and me pulses like a living beast and then reanimates into threads of veins and flesh, muscles weaving back into themselves and connecting back onto the bones. The boy’s skin returns like an unwrapped present being glued back together in perfect pieces within the blink of an eye.
Just as swiftly as Elias dismantled him, he’s whole again.
The Dvars boy blinks and falls to his knees, piss yellowing the snow at his pant legs. The class is silent. I’m not sure there are words to say after such terrible atrocities.
Elias tilts his head back and laughs. “Good, not exactly what I was trying to teach you, but I suppose in a way you succeeded at the task,” Elias mutters, tilting his head to the side and giving me a damning grin. He smacks the Dvars student on the back of the head and the man lets out a small gasp before looking at me with wide, brown eyes and dipping his chin.
