I had been in life-or-death situations more tis than I cared to count. Let’s see, there were the wolves, the paladins, the chira, not the wrathborne,—more recently—shadow-wielding cultists who by all accounts should have killed without Ronan. None of that could have prepared for the intensity of what lay before , as I saw Mara standing in the middle of my room, holding Lucian’s cloak, looking at like I was the biggest goddamn liar in the kingdom. In hindsight, I should have stashed the cloak sowhere–or burned it–and it’s true that I had an excuse, but this whole identity-swapping thing in sentient culture was still kind of new to .
I was too drained to deal with this. Everything about hurt and I felt like I could sleep for a week straight. Ronan also looked worse for wear, though it was a lot harder to tell when it ca to him. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Mara particularly cared.
Her grip on the cloak was tight like she was afraid if she let go, it would vanish. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes locked onto like she was waiting for to say sothing—anything—that would make this all make sense.
I opened my mouth. Nothing ca out. How was I supposed to deal with this, how could I handle this kind of confrontation? I knew it was my fault, I knew I should have addressed this issue earlier, but the task was so insurmountable difficult, I could never figure out where to start.
Ronan, ever the king of perfect timing, chose this mont to move. He took exactly one step forward before I instinctively shot out a hand. "Ronan, step outside."
It was supposed to be a simple command. Ronan was weird, sure, but he was predictable. He listened. He followed orders. He was a great little parasitic murder machine that I occasionally regretted keeping around. But before he could move another inch—
"No," Mara snapped.
I turned back to her, surprised by the sharpness in her voice. She didn’t even look at Ronan, her focus was still locked onto like I was a puzzle that she was either one step from solving or one step from flipping the entire table over.
"He stays," she said, her voice quieter but no less firm. "You don’t get to send him away."
That was... unfortunate. I could control him as far as I knew, but he was still a wild card and could let anything slip, which would be disastrous. Or would it? I guess in a way, it could be freeing to get rid of this ridiculous secret. To be back with Mara again, but would she even accept ? I was different now, I had already hidden so much from her. It might be too late.
I flicked my gaze to Ronan, reaching for the link between us. Do not say anything about our connection.
Ronan’s response was imdiate, crisp, and to the point. Understood.
I let out a slow breath and turned my full attention to Mara, lifting my hands slightly, palms out, as if that would sohow ease the storm brewing in her head. "Okay," I said carefully, my voice edging toward sothing lighter—nervous humor was all I had left in my toolkit at this point. "So I take it this isn’t just a casual social call?"
Mara’s knuckles went white around the fabric.
"Where did you get this?" she asked, her voice tight, as if she was fighting back tears.
I glanced at the cloak in her hands like I’d never seen it before in my life. "Ah, that."
"Yes, that."
She took a step forward. My survival instincts kicked in and I wished this was a problem I could just knock out and leave in the ally, or let another parasite deal with, but this was sothing I had to face. I could lie, I could deflect, I could just co out and tell the tragic story of Lucian the herald of the apocalypse... I didn’t know what to do–I would just have to do whatever seed best. Not a great judge of what’s best, but we would see how things played out.
"Well, see, there’s a very simple explanation," I started. "But before I explain—uh, would you like to sit down? Maybe have a drink? You seem a little—"
"Caidan."
She wasn’t amused. Okay. Plan A had failed spectacularly. Moving on to Plan B, which was lie as convincingly as possible.
I exhaled, running a hand through my hair. "Alright, listen. I got it from Lucian."
Her expression flickered, sothing raw passing through her eyes before she schooled her features again. "You got it from him?"
"Yes. He gave it to ." Technically not a lie, just... not entirely the truth either.
Mara’s gaze narrowed. "Why?"
And there was the tricky part. How would I approach this? An old cloak he replaced? No, there is sentintal value in it. Maybe to hold onto for safekeeping? She doesn’t know about the vault, she doesn’t know of my success on any level, so that might be the best way to go.
I let out a short, humorless laugh and shrugged. "Because he pays , and one of my many jobs is hanging onto so of his stuff."
Mara blinked. "...What?"
"Yeah," I said, forcing an easy, casual air like this wasn’t the most stressful conversation of my entire life. "Lucian’s, uh, kind of a benefactor of mine. He—" I waved a vague hand in the air. "—pays to handle things for him while he’s out of town."
Mara just stared at .
I could practically hear the gears grinding in her head as she tried to fit this into the puzzle of whatever she had been piecing together. She hadn’t imdiately called bullshit, which ant I had at least so breathing room to keep this going.
I risked a glance at Ronan. He was standing unnervingly still, watching, waiting. Probably weaving together so new murderous spell, or maybe counting the number of spiders in the room–it was really hard to tell with him. However, there was sothing a little different about his vacant gaze. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was judging .
Mara’s grip on the cloak tightened again. "Lucian never ntioned you," she said finally.
I shrugged. "I only t him recently. I snuck out of the Academy and got into so trouble, you know, the whole mugging. He was the only reason I got out of that alive."
Mara didn’t so much as blink.
C’mon! That makes sense, right?
Mara still hadn’t moved. She just stood there, cloak clenched in her hands, her jaw tight as if she were physically holding back everything she wanted to say.
I swallowed and pressed on. "It started off small—errands, ssages, a little bit of, uh, information gathering. You know how it is. Guy’s got a lot on his plate, can’t be in two places at once, so he pays to take care of a few things while he’s busy elsewhere." I shrugged. "Listen, if he didn’t pay so well, and if I didn’t owe him my life, I wouldn’t be doing this. All this crazy shit we are doing is already hurting my studies enough as it is."
Mara’s grip on the cloak twitched.
I pretended not to notice.
"Lucian doesn’t work with people," she said slowly like she was testing the words.
"Everyone needs to work with soone at so point." I countered imdiately. "No one can do everything by themselves. I’m just a kid who doesn’t ask him too many questions, and owes him." I started pacing nervously. I didn’t an to, but I needed to keep my body busy, and that’s when I noticed the pain in my stomach, and how I had been stabbed not that long ago.
I stumbled over to my desk and sat in my chair, trying to carefully ease myself down into a comfortable position.
"Why would he trust you, there are a lot of people out there that want to hurt him." Her question was valid, and I knew I would never trust so kid from the Academy, so why would Lucian trust ?
"I dunno, maybe I’m just that charming? He did say I reminded him of himself" I flashed a grin, but it faltered the mont I saw her expression harden. Okay, not the ti for humor. "Look, I didn’t ask for a deep and aningful friendship, alright? He needed things handled, I was available, I don’t ask too many questions—it works."
Mara exhaled sharply like she was barely keeping herself together. "And you never thought to ntion this before?"
"Well, no," I said, gesturing vaguely at the air. "Lucian didn’t exactly tell to go around bragging about it. Pretty sure he’d kill if I did."
Mara was still staring at , and I didn’t like it. Not because she looked angry—if she were just mad, I could handle that. No, it was worse than anger. It was the pain in her eyes that sent daggers into my heart.
She swallowed hard, "If you work for Lucian, and you’re a student in the Academy..." her voice was trembling at this point, "Then, he could have reached out to at any ti since you returned, he could have reached out, but he chose not to." Then the tears ca.
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