Threads of fate, p.19
Threads of Fate, page 19
“Look who we have here!” Jes yelled loudly. “Mr. Governing God who apparently forgot he’s the Governing God today.” Roan shook his head while Jesiel sprinted toward them.
“Sometimes even Governing Gods need a day off, you know.” Roan smiled, shoving Jesiel lightly.
Gasping, Orah stepped back as Jesiel grabbed hold of Roan, putting him in a headlock. They spun around in circles with Jesiel holding Roan and Roan’s arms flared out in a frenzy, trying to hit Jesiel. Their laughter was near contagious and Orah couldn’t help but smile while watching them.
“Alright! Alright!” Roan yelled, hitting Jesiel in the stomach. “I yield!” With a laugh Jesiel released him and grinned triumphantly.
Turning to Orah he smiled. “Wanna spar, Orah?”
Stepping back, she gawked at him. “What?” Jesiel was massive, and if anything, that was an understatement.
He kept his eyes on her for a moment before he laughed. “I’m only joking. I think you might actually break if we tried.”
The arrogant nature of his comment irked her, and she crossed her arms. “You don’t know that.”
“Is that a challenge?” he replied with a wink.
She glanced nervously at Roan, who had a very wide and almost childlike smile on his face as he looked back and forth between her and Jesiel.
“Well?” Jesiel prodded.
“Maybe another day,” she replied as indifferently as she could, moving to step around him. Cool air rushed around them and he blocked her movement.
“No, I think we should try. What do you think, Roan?”
Roan’s smile had somehow gotten wider and he shrugged. “I mean...”
“You mean what?” Orah yelled. She was confident there was no possibility where she could beat Jesiel. She may have known where to hit a man, but she knew he would never let her get close enough to try.
Laughing, Roan approached them. “Alright, Jes, I think we’ve teased Orah enough.”
They both glanced at each other, then at her, grinning wide. Jesiel’s eyes twinkled and he shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t think she’s up for the challenge.” He turned to walk back toward the house and Orah’s anger took over in response to his comment. Pulling back her leg, she kicked him in the back of the knee, and watched his large frame crash to the ground. Roan fell back, holding his stomach howling with laughter as Jesiel bolted upward, glaring at Orah.
“I guess you shouldn’t underestimate me.” She shrugged and rushed through the side door. Smiling, she walked into the kitchen to help Yohan, listening to Roan’s laugh behind her. “She got you, man. Fates, you should have seen your face.”
Chapter 16
Two weeks quickly turned to four. Orah wasn’t sure how the time was passing right before her eyes. She had felt similar before she left Boston. The months after finding the listing for the chateau came and went in a blink of an eye, and before she knew it, she was leaving her old life behind for a new one.
She’d stopped visiting the garden in the morning now that she could have the training room wards create a door. About a week went by where she seemed to no longer be waking Jesiel up when he surprisingly met her at the training room door one morning. He grumpily mumbled something about how she may have eternally messed with his sleep schedule and they’d both shuffled into the room side by side. Together, they set the wards but after they kept to themselves.
To Orah’s dismay, she had yet to get a single door open in the last two weeks. Every day she tried, and every day she ended up giving up out of frustration and resetting the wards for her usual work out. She expected more sass and opinions from Jesiel, but she had gotten neither so far. She’d felt him watching her plenty of times though.
Pulling back her hair, she headed out of her bedroom, ready for her work out. She paused at Lahana’s door as she passed. Lahana had only been home for a few days during those recent weeks. She appeared to be completely enamored by her lover and spent the few days she was home talking about her non-stop. “Fawn this,” and “Fawn that.” Roan, to Orah’s surprise, actually snapped at Lahana at dinner her first night back, asking if there was anything or anyone else in her life that she could talk about. Lahana’s answering grin was enough to shut him up again and they all sat quietly listening to her continue her recount of her visit and time away.
Personally, Orah didn’t find anything wrong with Lahana recounting her tales. She may or may not have been living vicariously through Lahana. She and Roan were still spending at least an hour a day reading next to one another, but nothing had progressed. She hadn’t invited him back to her bedroom again and he hadn’t invited her out again.
A dull pulse of disappointment thrummed through her and she peeked back at his door. She knew he wasn’t avoiding her. Things were progressing with his party planning and he spent hours every day in the city center with his officials. Jesiel had also made sure to remind everyone, on a daily basis, that the challenge was approaching, and Roan had to put as much of his focus there as he could.
She didn’t know what they were doing to prepare and hadn’t dared to ask. Everything surrounding Roan’s magic and this challenge was an obvious secret he preferred to keep locked down.
Orah rushed down the stairs and rolled her eyes when she found Jesiel standing outside the training room door. Approaching him she tried to push the door open when he slid, blocking her.
Scoffing, she put her hand on her hip. “Excuse me.” She was irritated now not knowing what his issue was.
“You’re excused,” he said casually leaning further into the door and completely blocking the handle.
“I’m trying to get in there.”
“I know,” he replied.
“So move.” Orah bit back.
“No.”
“What is your problem today?” The words come out louder than she intended them to and she looked around, hoping Roan wasn’t awake yet.
“I have no problem. I just think it’s time you and I talk about how complacent you’re getting.”
Her eyebrows shot up and she stared at him. “What?”
“You heard what I said. You’ve grown complacent,” he replied with a sneer.
“Jesiel, I have no idea what your problem is today and why you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but please move.” She shoved him, but he didn’t budge.
He shrugged. “I’m not moving until you at least admit I’m right.”
“I have not grown complacent.” Her cheeks warmed in response to the anger boiling inside of her. He had no idea what he was talking about. She was in that room trying every single day. What else did he want from her?
“Yes. You. Have.” His glare burned through her and they stood as if facing off before a fight.
“Move,” she demanded.
“No.”
“Move your big feathery ass out of my way, now.”
A smirk flashed across his face, but he still didn't budge. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She let out a frustrated yell and moved to lean against the wall opposite from him. “Why do you have a problem with me?” She needed to understand what she could have done to make the man act so irritated with her constantly.
“You’re a threat to Roan.”
“A threat?” She had to push down her laugh. “Please explain how I’m a threat.”
“You’re impulsive but also guarded. You have all this power just brewing under the surface and there is no way to tell how it will manifest when you finally let it out. He feels something for you—which in and of itself makes him weaker than he was before you got here.” She stared at him when he finished, unsure whether she should laugh or cry.
Pushing off the wall she approached him. “One—I have every single right to act however the hell I want to act. If I want to be impulsive then I can be impulsive. If I want to keep things about myself private, then I can do that too. Two—I’m not sure who made you think that whatever power I have is your responsibility but it’s not. Whenever or however it manifests is my own business. And three—whatever Roan feels about me is between the two of us. But I’ll have you know that I’m making an active effort not to act on anything. There will be nothing messier than developing feelings for someone in a world I won’t be coming back to once I leave.” With each point she made she walked closer to him. By the time she finished she was in front of him with her finger in his face. His eyes flared and she watched him clench his jaw while he studied her for a moment, like an eagle studying its prey.
Suddenly he moved and she jumped at the sound of the door clicking open behind him. Neither of them said a word while they walked into the room and the lights flickered on.
Gasping at the sight in front of her, she took a step back. The room was an obstacle course—larger than any she had seen him come up with over the last couple weeks. She turned toward him and found him blocking the ward pad.
“I told you that you have to admit you’ve been complacent. While you didn’t do that, you made some valid points out there, so I let you in but I’m not letting you ward another stupid door. At least not today.” He leaned against the wall and watched her, waiting for her reaction.
Her stubbornness gave into her curiosity and she sighed, smacking her hands against her thighs. “How have I been complacent? Please enlighten me.”
“You’re not trying anymore,” he said.
“Yes I am.”
“No, you are not, Orah. You seem to forget I’m watching you every single day. I watch you ward the door into existence, I watch you try the handle, and I’ve watched your determination and strength while pushing against the door loosen with each passing day.” His observations hit her like a wave. He wasn’t wrong when she thought about it, but she didn’t know if she liked how observant he had been. It made her feel seen in a way that only Julian had made her feel.
“Well?” he asked, breaking the silence between them.
“So what if I have?” She folded her arms, shifting to a more defensive position.
“Complacency will not allow you to take control of that power. Complacency also means you stop searching for a way home. Do you not want to go home, Orah?”
She had somehow known what question he was leading up to, but she wasn’t expecting the tears when the question left his lips. His feet moved, as if to come toward her, but she threw up her hands. She didn’t need his comfort. She didn’t need anyone’s comfort. What she needed was to face the hard truth he had blatantly made her see. Breathing deeply, she wiped her tears.
“You’re not wrong.” She surveyed the room. The room that transformed with magic. A literal dream come true for the woman who was used to burying herself in stories of other worlds. “I don’t one-hundred percent know if I want to go home. I think that’s mostly because trying to find a way there feels hopeless, but I also don’t know what I’m going home to.”
Without realizing what she was doing, she sank to the floor and cradled her head in her hands. Movement above her caught her attention and she watched as he sat down across from her.
“Why wouldn’t you know what you’re going home to?” The kindness in his eyes was genuine and her defenses crumbled.
Just like Julian.
“You remind me of my friend.”
“Is he also a handsome, winged man?”
Laughing, she shook her head. “No, but he has this way of knowing things about me before I do. Or even worse, knowing things I kept private and telling me he knew at the most inopportune times.”
“Roan tells me it’s my uncomfortable talent.”
“He’s not wrong,” she chuckled, glancing back down at the floor. “Before I bought my chateau, I had a life. I had a job I loved and friends. Two, or actually, now three-ish months ago, I bought the chateau on a whim and decided to leave it all. You would think me randomly picking up and leaving would have shocked the people I loved, but unfortunately it didn’t. The months leading up to my move, I spent isolating myself. Declining dinner invites, faking sicknesses to cancel plans, not answering calls, even going as far as pretending I wasn’t home when they showed up unexpectedly.” She thought back on how far she had gone to break the ties she’d formed. The relationships she had just let slip through her fingers.
She glanced at him and found Jesiel staring at her, but he wasn’t looking at her with pity—no, he was looking at her as if he understood and that somehow felt worse.
“I’m not sure if there’s anyone to go home to because I made sure there was almost no one left for me,” she admitted.
He sighed and she watched as he leaned back against his hands. “I don’t talk to my family.” He laid down against the floor, resting his hands on his chest while he stared at the ceiling. “They’re hard and old fashioned in some ways. I didn’t even attend my own father’s wake when he passed away several decades ago. Going back there, to a place I’ve removed myself from, scares me more than diving into the depths of Shadus.” He sat up again. “What I’m trying to say, Orah, is that I understand.” He stood. “But, while I haven’t tried and time has strained the relationships past repair, you still have time. Several months of isolation may feel long to you, but in the grand scheme of things it’s just a sliver of time.”
The constant heavy weight on her chest lightened slightly. “Thank you, Jes.”
A twinkle flashed across his eyes. ‘Oh, don’t thank me yet. Stand up.”
“What?”
“I didn’t ward this room with this obstacle course for nothing. You and I are going to start training together now,” Jes stated.
Orah blinked, unable to come up with a response. The obstacle course was almost military and like nothing she was used to. “Jes, I don’t need to train like you. I came down here to work out and move my body, not train for something big.”
“What you don’t seem to understand, Orah, is that just you being here is something big. Something neither Roan nor I have heard about in our lifetimes. Right now, you may be tucked away safe in his home but what happens after the challenge? What happens if you’re still here after the challenge?”
They stared at each other as she stood. He had a point. A month had already come and gone, and she was still nowhere closer to getting home. While Roan spent every day buried in books trying to find answers—they still had none. This challenge was nothing insignificant and she needed to know how to take care of herself on the off-chance things got out of control.
Jes smiled when she stood, his wings flared out behind him and he settled them in a pose that reminded her of a soldier. His eyes twinkled and he glanced back at the course. “Let’s begin."
Orah thought she might hate Jes—no—she knew she hated Jes.
The cold training room floor bit against her hot body, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. He had been barking his orders at her for a few hours now. No matter how much effort she put into trying to get through the course it didn’t feel like enough.
“Get up,” he demanded.
She stared up at him hovering over her. She was covered in a thick layer of sweat and he was barely winded. “I’m not moving.” Folding her arms, she looked past his head up at the ceiling.
“You either get up or I’ll make you get up.” There was amusement in his tone that she didn’t like.
Her eyes locked onto his and she glared. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Leaning down, he hovered above her face. “Is that a challenge?”
Fear rushed over her, realizing he would likely swing her over his shoulder. Keeping her eyes on him she stood. “Fine. Are you happy?”
“Not really, but at least you’re not laying on the ground anymore,” he replied as he walked back over to the wall she had been trying to climb and pointed up. “You still need to scale this wall and ring that bell on the other side. Then we’re done.”
“Jes, I’m tired. Can’t we pick this back up tomorrow?”
“No, we can’t. Tomorrow will be something different. I’m trying to push you past your comforts. You won’t break this complacency if you don’t push yourself.”
She glanced up at the wall and then back to him. She hated that he had a point. She never moved forward in her life by staying where she was comfortable. Sighing, she walked over to the wall and took it in. She didn’t understand how it fit in the room. It was several feet high with a large platform at the top. There were no ropes or anything to provide assistance to someone trying to get up to the top. The only slight advantage appeared to be that the wall itself was inclined, as though a running start was supposed to help.
Jes tapped his foot impatiently while she observed the wall. Turning back to him she crossed her arms. “If I do this then you have to answer a question.”
He glanced at the wall then back at her. She didn’t know if he was going to agree but he nodded his head. “Alright. I can make that deal.” Smiling, she turned back to the wall and breathed in.
Her muscles protested while she considered how she would get up the wall. She didn’t think she had ever pushed them this far and while she wanted to climb back into bed and have a long nap, she wanted to prove him wrong even more. Letting out her breath she backed up a few steps. A running start really appeared to be the best way to get up there.
“3. 2. 1,” she muttered to herself and she sprang forward toward the wall. Her feet hit the wood and she made it about a quarter of the way up before she slammed against the smooth surface. Smacking her chin on the way down. Jes’s responding grunt echoed in the room and rage filled her. She would beat this wall. She would prove him wrong.
She ran. She slipped. She hit her face. Over and over again. She could feel his eyes on her back with each attempt she made. He didn’t poke fun though or say a word. As though he were waiting in anticipation to see if she could accomplish the obstacle.
