?“Even Kolasi the Death Devil can perform them,” I add, and the temperature drops a couple degrees when I say that. “His specialties are his death strikes, but I could feel it. I felt that knowing instinct. If he wanted to he could perform an actual death blow, and with his death strikes not even another death blow could stop it.”
?The devil councilman nods slowly to me. “Is that how you were able to stop the blood witch’s death blow on the field?”
?Did I?
?Those gaps in my memory are like black voids. “I remember. . .” Chips of it come and go. “Pain. Bones burning on a pyre.” I shake my head. “I don’t remember that, but if I had stopped a fated death blow I would have done if by creating my own.”
?Callahan’s father peers at me. “Do you know how that works? How a death blow can stop another death blow?”
?He speaks so curiously but carefully. As if he’s searching for a specific answer thinking I’ll be able to give it to him.
?“Written fates are different thanfate. A written fate can hold power in many ways, but for a death blow it only works if the writer is still writing. Whoever made the death blow needs to be and stay alive for it to be completed. So to prevent it you would need to kill them first before they can finish their own death blow.”
?“So you were faster than the blood witch,” Thorne states in his rich-boy, lazily drawling voice.
?I’d glare at him but an image flickers behind my eyes.
?The field, a web of blood, death. A golden shield created from the power of my aura. A whip going through a neck and a head rolling. Then a death damnation.
?But I did not create a death blow.
?I shrug at Thorne. His red, almond shaped eyes narrow. “You created another death blow before that. In Asier’s classroom.”
?I nod because I do remember creating that. Facing the Kolasi and someone else. Rumbling and ice. But the Kolasi did not die then.
?“Why didn’t it work then?” he asks with a nothingness in his tone. “Kolasi couldn’t have made his own death blow or else you would have been dead.”
?I don’t fully remember all of that either, but I know the answer, nonetheless.
?“Written fates may be fate, but they’re still written by us. Mistakes can happen, typos, and there’s a sort of tell each of us has. Like a writer who needs their favorite pen in order to write – a sort of superstition that is true. My blood is my tell.”
?Nana pats my shoulder and when I look up at her she has a pleased grin on her face. When I look back at the rest of the celestials I move on from talk about death blows because I don’t care enough to get into it.
?“As for the other’s,” I continue, “well I was born with blue flame and the blood arts. Blue flame was my natural magic. My blood art was just un-honed until the sun devil put his claiming mark on me.”
?Twin growls rumble in the room. One from beside me and the other in front of me. My fated whom I have a feeling I will be trying to ignore.
?I do not look at them as I continue.
?“A destined magic for vampyr is known for them, but it’s not really shown until a time of need. Like a hero’s journey in Greek mythology. You must be tested, and then you must learn to hone it. And the lightning is from Lyalthil.”
?Those growls resonate again and I see Jerusil’s eyes widen hearing his brother’s name. I never knew they were twins. I only knew about a brother who was pompous and cruel and malicious. Who had his nose so far into the heavens he couldn’t even see us minorities walking below.
?Looking at his face still makes me internally flinch. Even though I know he is not the sun devil. I canfeelhe is not. However, trauma retained in the body is the bane of any survivors existence.
?It makes sense now though – why Darian looks so much like him. Why I always braced when confronted with him.
?Jerusil softens his features and lowers his shoulders. Doing what Castiel had done before. Making himself smaller to appear less threatening.
?“To make a claiming mark you must blood share,” he whispers. Not that it does anything because Varian and Callahan’s auras suffocate the room. I notice Thorne’s eyes flashing what looks like to black as his body tenses.
?Fucking blood demons and their morals.
?I sit back on my butt and hug my knees. I realize now I’m dressed in my own long sleeve and pants pajama set. All myscars hidden beneath and I’m assuming from all eyes that have not seen them before.
?I shrug to try and play it off. “He never could get me to go into a bloodlust no matter how long he starved or drained me, but I was young. For some reason my marks stay for longer than they should on others. I think it’s because of the blue belladon. I don’t think he meant to actually blood bond with me, but either way it happened while he was making the claiming mark.”
?I scratch over where it’s placed over my heart. I forget how many times he bit me. There’s too many to count now. He had over lapped his marks so many times to form a perfect circle.
