“How do I find him?” I asked her, my gaze skipping across the other survival squads who were in conversation, most likely trying to figure out the best plan to win. I didn’t care about the challenge. I wanted to make himbleed.
“I suppose you could use the link. As if you were tugging on it,” Anama said. “Follow the feeling. The angrier you get, the closer you are.”
Excellent.
I wasn’t just going to make him bleed. I wanted to make him suffer first.
I muttered a thanks and, ignoring Lana and Moric’s protests that it was a really bad idea, charged for the stairwell. They couldn’t possibly understand how agonizing it had been, going to sleep each night absolutely livid and waking with a desire to incinerate the entire world.
“What’s happening?” Calendula, who it seemed had slept her fill and had chosen that ripe moment to wake up, fluttered out from my pocket, easily keeping pace with me as I stalked upstairs.
“I am going to find Kilian,” I ground out, passing the mess hall floor and continuing upstairs to a part of the house I had never explored.
“You look mad.”
“Do I?”
A look of pure glee crossed the shadow sprite’s face and dark embers sparked along her wings. “You found out about the link.”
I paused my death march to glare at her. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Oh, it’s so much more fun with you finding out this way.”
I didn’t respond, the anger a palpable storm creeping closer with every step I took toward Kilian. Fury swelled in my chest, and I barely felt the burn in my calves from the flights of stairs. I stomped along the landing of the fifth floor, hurtling past several doors until I stood before the one that made my vision darken with splotches of red.
A keypad was fixed to the side of the door, labeled once more in the elven alphabet.
I looked at Calendula expectantly.
She sighed. “He’ll exile me to the other side of the Shadow Soil if he finds out I helped you sneak into his bedroom.”
His bedroom.
“Then I won’t tell him it was you. Give me the code and disappear. He thinks you’re still mad at me.”
“Iamstill mad at you.” Calendula rolled her silver eyes but floated daintily to the keypad. I watched as she palmed each symbol: seven in total. Darkness enveloped the sprite and she whispered, “I hope he doesn’t kill you,” before slipping away, leaving me with just my rage for company.
I toed open the door, grateful that the hinges did not squeak, and crossed the threshold. The first thing I noticed was the sheer size of the room. High ceilings met dark gray walls, accented by mahogany furniture, with panels of glass windows stretching from floor to ceiling across the length of an entire wall. A bookshelf lined another, filled with tomes haphazardly stacked and strewn across its shelves. The opposite wall housed a rack with an assortment of weapons, from swords to bows to onyx-hilted daggers. A large bed bedecked in black sheets claimed the right half of the room, close to the windows that overlooked the jagged peaks and icy summits. Snow drifted outside and a chill skittered across my spine.
A desk stood beside the door. Papers littered its surface, held down with metal paperweights that were tiny replicas ofthe daggers on the wall. I picked one up, gingerly examining it, and weighed it in my hand. I quickly pocketed it for the unofficial challenge and turned to survey the rest of the room. If Kilian wasn’t here, why did the anger seem to be reaching its crescendo?
There was nowhere else to go. No one else to expend this energy on. And so I did the only thing I could think of. I placed my palms on the desk, on top of the pages, and in one sweeping motion, shoved. Papers flew into the air, drifting for a millisecond before floating and skidding along the hardwood floor. The paperweights scattered across the ground. I hoped he stepped barefoot on one of them.
Hands on my hips, I viewed the wreckage. It was a cute attempt at destruction, but not my best work.
For all the irreparable damage he had caused to my life, I could do better than that.
Rolling the sleeves of my tunic, I stomped to the bookshelf. I placed both hands against the side of the shelf, bracing my feet against the floor. Tensing my shoulder muscles for strength, I heaved. The godsdamned thing didn’t so much as budge. I tried again. I managed to move it an inch forward, but it wasn’t enough to tip it over, and the case simply rocked back against the wall.
Frustrated, I let loose a breath as I wedged one boot against the corner of the bookshelf and used my knee as leverage. I grunted at the effort, but with the added purchase of my knee pushing from the back, the bookshelf wobbled. Once. Twice. And then it was falling, tipping to the ground. Books scattered in every direction. But the most pleasing sound was that of the heavy mahogany case clattering with resounding finality.
I did that, I noted proudly.
I moved on to the bed next. I yanked the duvet and sheet off, tossing them toward the window in a plume of black. With every piece of destruction wrought, I felt that anger in my chest ease. This was the happiest I had been in days, trashing the room – the personal belongings – of the elven who had uprooted my life as easily as it was to breathe.
“Fuck. You!” I said to no one as I shoved his mattress to land on the floor. I was crossing over to the weapons rack when the sound of the door snicking open stopped me in my tracks.
“What thefuckare you doing?”
