16. Ella

Chapter 16

Ella

Kellen offered to walk Laya and Jarion back to the dorms so Ella could clean herself off. Before they left, Laya threw her arms around Ella’s waist, burying her face in Ella’s sweater, and sobbed a river of gratitude into the cashmere.

Kellen tried to guide Laya back to give Ella space. Ella shook her head at him, wrapping Laya in an even tighter embrace. Only when Laya softened against her did she feel comfortable releasing the young Varmin.

“I’ll see you in my office first thing tomorrow,” Ella said to Jarion, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Thank you, Ms. Rose.” His hand slid away from her, opting to lace his fingers through Laya’s before the twins bounded towards the exit of the Canterna Thicket, their limbs intertwined.

Only Kellen and Ella remained in the forest.

So many emotions swirled in the depths of Kellen’s green irises that Ella couldn’t decipher them fast enough to give names to each individual feeling she saw flicker there. She wondered what her own face showed, if he was able to interpret whatever emotions she couldn’t withhold.

“Get those burns looked at,” was all he said, the only suggestion of appreciation he could present to her. Ella was beginning to understand that for Kellen, tendering even that, what would be considered trivial or the bare minimum to others, was a big deal for him. A sign that he was trying amidst his own struggles.

“Look after Jarion tonight,” she extended in return, understanding that beneath his statement, he’d been saying thank you, and beneath her statement, she’d replied you’re welcome. He nodded in acknowledgment of the hidden message before stalking out of the forest, abandoning her to the wreckage of cauterized branches and corroded earth, the stench of smoke littering the ether.

Ella limped back to the academic sector. Even after she’d had Headmistress Dyer heal her burns through the amulet, her leg refused to catch up to the fact that it was no longer injured, clinging to the numbness for safety. She hauled herself first to the school’s infirmary to check on Ariana, the student who’d been incapacitated by Jarion’s fire. The infirmary was located down the hall from her office, which was why so many students confused her office for the nurse’s station. Rows of cots strung together like teeth unfurled across the gargantuan space, this wing of the infirmary empty, apart from the woman behind the front desk.

“Hi there,” Ella greeted the grizzled Primordial, who drummed her crimson-painted claws on the marble countertop in a manner that suggested she was trying to drown out the sound of Ella’s voice. “I’m looking for a student who I believe was admitted here in the past hour. Her name is Ariana.”

“Seek your answers elsewhere, earthborn,” the female spat, starting to rotate her chair to give Ella her back.

Ella’s hand lashed out to grab the back of the woman’s chair before she could complete a full swivel.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” the woman hissed.

“I’ve had it with everyone here refusing to give me answers when I ask for them,” Ella snapped, her adrenaline from the last hour heightening her courage, crashing into the woman’s brashness. “I may be a human, but I’m also an educator at this school and am asking you to tell me if this student is okay or not. If you give me five fucking seconds of your time, I will be out of your hair before you know it, but if you drag this out, I will stand here for the rest of the day until I get an answer.”

The nurse studied Ella’s face for any sign of capitulation, any hint of weakness she could latch onto to fracture the foundation of Ella’s nerve. Ella narrowed her eyes in opposition and pointed at the woman’s computer.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a pain in the ass?” the woman grumbled, but finally began typing the child’s name into the database, her claws clicking against the keys of her computer.

“Not until I arrived in Cavale,” she muttered, “but now it’s a daily occurrence.”

“Here it is. Ariana Sarkis, admitted thirty-two minutes ago.” Ella stretched her abdomen over the counter to review the computer screen with the nurse. “It says here that she was seen by a nurse who attempted to heal the damage in her eyes. They were…” The nurse grimaced, her lips twisting into a frown. “Shit.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“They were unsuccessful.”

“Unsuccessful?” Ella stammered, her heart lunging into her throat. Her blood no longer felt warm in her veins, converting to glacial ice. “Is she dead?”

“Not dead. But she is blind now.”

“Blind?!” Oh, fuck. Oh fucking, fucking hell. Ella gripped the edge of the counter so hard that her knuckles turned white. “She’ll never see again? That couldn’t be healed by a Herculea mender?”

“Dragon fire is quite potent. They might have been able to heal her if she’d gotten to the infirmary faster, but dragon fire having contact with the eyes is substantial. If it’s deeply submerged, not even magic can repair that.”

Ella dropped her face into her hands, groaning between her fingers. How the fuck was she supposed to tell Jarion that he’d inadvertently been responsible for blinding a fellow student? How would this impact his motivation to accept his dragon when he learned that his dragon was capable of causing this kind of impairment?

“Has Headmistress Dyer been informed?” Ella asked, not lifting her face out of her hands yet, wanting to hide from the world for a little while longer.

“I’ve told you what I know. Now it’s time to hold up your end of the bargain.” The nurse gestured to the door.

“It was unpleasant speaking to you,” Ella sneered, then marched out of the infirmary and stomped down the hall, busting the door to her office open with an unruly groan. She froze at the threshold when she found her office cluttered by Headmistress Dyer and the Cavalian Gods’ envoy.

“What happened to you that you needed to be healed?” Headmistress Dyer’s statement didn’t communicate as a question, but rather a demand for an answer with an undercurrent of genuine care.

“Jarion’s dragon took over his body,” Ella explained, sinking onto her couch beside Headmistress Dyer. The envoy leaned against the wall across the way. If their arms didn’t shift to fold over their chest, Ella would have thought Headmistress Dyer had dragged a metal statue into her office, the envoy so still that one could be mistaken in believing it to be inanimate. “He wasn’t in control of his dragon fire, but thankfully, in the end, I got him—”

“What did he do to you?” a masculine voice dripping authority questioned from inside the envoy’s titanium helmet.

“He didn’t do anything to me,” she argued, not sure where to look when she couldn’t see the envoy’s eyes through the armor. “He wasn’t in control of himself.” She felt the envoy glare at her through the titanium shielding his face.

“That is not a suitable answer to my question. Headmistress Dyer said she needed to heal you in two places. Tell me where, and the extent of the injuries.” Ella blinked. She stayed silent a moment so she could formulate a response that was compassionate towards Jarion, but the envoy didn’t give her a chance to execute that kindness. “There’s a tear in the material of your sweater over your left shoulder, and the ends of your pant leg on your right side are frayed like the material was burned. Would I be correct in assuming that you underwent injuries in those two locations?”

Ella frowned. “If Headmistress Dyer told you I’d been injured in two spots, she surely told you the extent of the injuries and their nature. Why do you need me to repeat it for you?” The envoy cocked his head, the metal armor squeaking as his helmet and breastplate brushed against each other.

“Because my boss demands to hear the words from your lips before proper sentencing can be administered.”

“Whoa! Who said anything about sentencing?” Ella whirled around to look at Headmistress Dyer. She could only interpret the Headmistress’s expression as one of anguished submission.

“The Gods made a judgment,” Headmistress Dyer said, heavy with sadness. “Anyone who brings harm to you will spend three days in Terminus. Unfortunately, Jarion cannot be omitted from that.”

“So you’re going to send him to Terminus?” She looked back at the envoy. “He’s twelve!”

“The decree states that anyone who lays a hand on Noella Rose that she didn’t want there will be sentenced to three days in Terminus,” the envoy recited. “A distinction was never made between students and faculty.”

“There fucking should have been!” Ella yelled, speaking recklessly without a single care about exhibiting proper etiquette when speaking to the Cavalian Gods’ representative. “What Oliviana did to me deserved to be punished. She wanted to hurt me. Jarion didn’t mean to hurt anyone today , not me or Ariana.”

“What happened to Ariana?” Headmistress Dyer asked. Ella winced.

“Some of Jarion’s dragon fire got into her eyes. They couldn’t fully heal her. She’s blind now.”

“Oh, fuck, ” Headmistress Dyer seethed, removing her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“You still have yet to tell me what he did to you,” the envoy pushed Ella.

“Do you have a name?” she asked rather than answer his inquiry. The envoy fell silent for a long stretch of time before she received a response.

“Eyal,” he answered in an averse tone. “Eyal Drury.”

“Don’t you care about Jarion at all, Eyal Drury? About the young boy who lost control today and hurt his friend?”

She wished she could see what Eyal’s expression was when he said, “I’m only here to care about you, Ms. Rose.”

“Well, the only reason I’m here is to care about these kids, so there’s no universe in which I’m allowing a student, who had no control over his actions, to be punished for an accident by spending any amount of time being tortured.” Eyal only huffed at Ella’s powerful glare.

“I hear you, Ms. Rose, but this is out of my hands.”

“Get me on the phone with Aros Cavalian then.” Headmistress Dyer gasped at Ella’s request. “I’m fucking serious. I’m not afraid of your Gods.”

“You do understand that speaking to a God directly is not as simple as just calling them up on a phone?” Eyal spoke with humor, treating her assertion as if it were a joke. “When a God wants to speak to you, they send an envoy in their place. I belong to Aros Cavalian. By speaking to me, you are speaking to him.”

“Then tell your king that if it’s a choice between Jarion or me, choose him. If I’m telling you right now that I was not harmed, not in the way you’re suggesting, then that should be enough for Aros.” A dangerous idea graced her tongue, escaping before she had a chance to stop herself. “Maybe throw in there that I learned some shit about Aros today, shit he doesn’t want getting out there, so if he tries to take that boy to Terminus, maybe I’ll share what I know with the entire school.”

“Noella,” Headmistress Dyer cautioned, but it was too late to warn her off this path.

“What do you think you know about Aros Cavalian that would frighten him enough to listen to you?” Eyal challenged.

Ella’s lips splayed in a scathing smile. “Does the name Varminia mean anything to you?”

That piqued Eyal’s interest enough that he leapt off the wall, striding closer to hover over Ella.

“How did you learn about Varminia?” he barked. Ella’s spine straightened.

“A certain dragon was very forthcoming today. The Varmin in my company were very surprised to hear the dragon call the young boy his host. I take it Aros doesn’t want the Primordials knowing that their Varmin forms are individual beings separate from them, creatures he cursed to be dependent on the Primordials for survival after destroying their land. I wonder how the kingdom of Cavale would react, knowing their precious God wiped out an entire civilization over a single mistake. If he’s kept that a secret for over a thousand years, maybe he knows that truth won’t be well received. How would that influence the Primordial’s decision to back him in the war against Lantari?”

Stop talking, a male voice—a voice that sounded like Kellen, but throatier, older—admonished in her head. You’re going too far. Ella felt Eyal’s rage radiate off the heated metal of his armor.

“You have no idea who you’re threatening, Noella Rose.”

“I know who I’m threatening. I don’t want to be threatening the King of the Gods, so help me make him understand that punishing Jarion Ates with a sentence in Terminus is not an option. Give him an in-school suspension if you must punish him somehow, but please don’t send a twelve-year-old to be tortured. Please, Eyal.”

If only she had access to Eyal’s face for any indication that she was winning this argument.

Finally, after what had felt like hours elapsing into wasted space, Eyal exhaled a surrendering sigh.

“ Fine,” he relented with a groan. Ella forced her lips not to cave into a smile. “I shall speak to Aros Cavalian and see that the boy not be sentenced to Terminus for his actions today. However, I accept the punishment of an in-school suspension, effective immediately, for the span of three days. I will supervise his suspension. I’ll have his teachers give me his work and will administer the lessons to him so he remains in isolation from the rest of the student body as punishment.” Eyal didn’t sound thrilled about having to supervise Jarion’s suspension. He started heading towards the exit.

“Thank you, Eyal,” Ella gushed, holding back tears.

Eyal paused where his fingers enfolded around the doorknob, turning back to look at Ella through his helmet.

“I sense your aversion for the Cavalian Gods,” he said. “I would withhold your judgments until you hear from Aros himself what truly happened. There is so much in our history that you don’t understand.”

“I’ll never get the chance to ask him.”

“You will,” Eyal proclaimed. “When you’re ready.” Ella jerked her head back.

“That’s the second time I’ve been told to wait to hear a message from the Gods until I’m ready. You tell your king that if Aros has something to say to me, he can say it to my face. Stop with the vague, cryptic messages. When he’s ready, he knows where I’ll be.” She heard the smile in Eyal’s voice.

“You will thrive in Cavale, Noella Rose.” He left that declaration dangling between them as he departed the office.

“I need to go call Ariana’s parents,” Headmistress Dyer spluttered through a wearied sigh, rising from the couch. Ella echoed Headmistress Dyer’s exhaustion in every aching crevice of her body, the impact of the day finally catching up to her. Headmistress Dyer placed her hand on Ella’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I am now that I know Jarion won’t be sent to Terminus.” There was something she needed to do before she could call it a day and go home to Freya. “I’m going to go find Mr. Kilic and let him know about the suspension.”

“Okay.” Headmistress Dyer lingered a moment, then declared, “I made the right choice in hiring you, Noella.”

She squeezed Ella’s shoulder, then glided her hand away and left the room.

Each step Ella took back to the Varmin sector was weighed down by the bulk of exhaustion burdening her muscles, wrapping talons around her bones and requiring her limbs to work twice as hard to propel her forward for her next step. By the time she reached Kellen’s office, she’d spent the journey smothering yawns into her palm and felt another vibrate through her jaw.

She clamped her mouth shut when she heard Oliviana’s voice whine from inside the classroom.

“I saw you with her today,” she accused him, her shrill, high-pitched lilt grating against Ella’s ears. “You were sitting with her and her stupid friends, sharing her salad. You used her fork without blinking. You shared her germs, Kellen. ”

“So you’re stalking me now?” Kellen growled. Ella could hear his eyes roll toward the ceiling.

“I need to know if something’s going on between you two. Is she the reason you dumped me?”

“I did not dump you, Oliviana, because dumping you would imply that we were actually together. You knew what you and I were. It was always meant to be casual sex, no strings attached. I am not going to stand here and beat myself up any longer for the fact that your feelings got hurt when you’ve known since the start what I could offer you. As for Noella Rose, lay the fuck off her.”

“Lay the fuck off her?” Oliviana repeated in a snarl. “She’s a human!”

“She may be a human, but today she risked her life saving two students from potential death. She may be a human, but she deserves some fucking respect for how much she gives to protect these students every single day. This school would be better off if we all just took a step back from our egos and let her do her fucking job. These kids and this whole kingdom would be better for it.”

“I cannot believe you’re saying this right now.” Oliviana’s voice became artificially sweet with concern, so sickeningly syrupy that it made Ella want to gag. “Did something happen to you, Kell? Are you unwell?”

“I feel better than I have in a long fucking time,” he announced. “Stop concerning yourself with what I do, Oliviana. Move on. Fucking move on and let me go, because it’s not servicing either of us to keep having this same conversation. And if I hear that either you or Daniel do anything to make Noella Rose’s life more difficult in Cavale, I will offer you up to the Cavalian Gods’ envoy myself.”

Ella was just as shocked as Oliviana. “You’re choosing her,” Oliviana cried. “You’re choosing her?”

“You need me to make a choice?” Kellen exclaimed in a desperate cry. Without even looking at him, she knew he threw his hands up in the air when he roared, “ Fine! I’m choosing her.”

Ella yawned quite loudly, which alerted the two Primordials of a presence in the hallway.

“Who’s there?” Oliviana shouted, her heels scratching against the composition tile as she quickly dove in front of Kellen, blocking him from a potential intruder. Ella smacked her own forehead, then sucked in a preparing breath and stepped into the classroom, revealing herself to them.

Kellen’s cheeks paled at the realization that Ella had been there the whole time they’d been speaking. He recovered quickly, schooling his features into a mask of disinterest, one Ella now knew not to believe.

“You’re not dead yet?” Oliviana spat, then crashed her shoulder into Ella’s clavicle, sending her toppling into the wall.

Ella rubbed her collarbone, loosing a startled, sinister laugh. She chortled, “It’s been a minute since you’ve thrown me into a wall.” She met Oliviana’s glower head-on, then sneered, “I almost missed it.”

“Fuck you,” Oliviana screamed, receiving only a callous smile in return from Ella. She marched out of the classroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Ella straightened up, cinching her eyes with where Kellen was stroking his index finger over his bottom lip, studying her carefully.

“You need something, Rose?” he asked her huskily. Something about the question left Ella wondering if he meant that in more than one way.

“I came to talk to you about something, but if this is a bad time, I can come back later.”

“No, it’s fine. Come.” He gestured to her with his index finger, summoning her forward. Ella leaned her backside on one of the student desks, grappling the edge with her fingers to balance herself.

“That sounded heated,” she muttered under her breath, her way of admitting she’d listened to their conversation.

Kellen tilted his head, then mused, “Is that why you came in here? To discuss me and Oliviana?”

“Gods, no,” Ella denied, the corner of Kellen’s mouth twitching as though he were repressing a smile. She exhaled a deep breath, then mustered the courage to tell him, “I came in here…to give you the respect of hearing from me first.” Kellen took a seat atop his desk similarly to how she was situated. Their knees almost kissed from the close proximity. “I just had a meeting with Headmistress Dyer and the Cavalian Gods’ envoy. They wanted to send Jarion to Terminus for harming me.” Kellen’s eyes grew close to falling from their sockets with how wide they expanded.

“ What?” he gasped, his voice raising above a whisper.

“I convinced them not to,” she rushed, waving her hands in front of her before he tumbled into a panic spiral.

“You convinced them not to? How?” Ella’s lips lifted.

“I told the envoy that if he didn’t stop Jarion from being sentenced, I’d tell the entire school about what Jarion’s dragon told us about Varminia and the Varmin.” Kellen blinked at her.

“You blackmailed the King of the Gods?” he said in disbelief.

“He’s not my king,” she said with a shrug, like that excused her insubordination.

“You’re crazy,” Kellen laughed, and once he started, it amplified into a full on, hysterical cackle, so infectious that Ella found herself snickering too, joining his mirth. “You’re fucking crazy!”

“Hey! It worked, didn’t it?”

They both tried to stop laughing, but Ella ended up snorting in her struggle to swallow her giggles, which prompted them both to spiral into gales of laughter once more. Kellen regained control over his chortles before Ella did, so for a time, only the sound of her cackles pervaded the room.

“Your laugh is exquisite,” he sighed in a dreamy voice that insinuated he didn’t mean to speak this aloud. It triggered her laugh to bleed into a gasp, her saliva getting caught in her throat.

“And your laugh,” she said, converting her voice into a deep, menacing monotonic accent to mock him, feeling uncomfortable with the sudden affection and wanting to bring them back to a place she was more used to, “is average in sound.”

“Is that the best you could give me, Rose?” He pressed his hand to his chest, pretending to be wounded.

Ella braced herself to return to the topic of Jarion.

“I was able to keep Jarion from being sentenced to Terminus. However…he did seriously injure another student. His punishment is a three day in-school suspension. The Cavalian Gods’ envoy will supervise him. He’ll still be expected to do all his coursework, just in isolation from the rest of the student body.”

The ghost of a smile that had been toying with Kellen’s lips vanished, along with the appearance of his dimples.

“What do you mean he seriously injured another student?” Ella gulped.

“His dragon fire blinded Ariana Sarkis.” Kellen’s mouth popped open, then sealed shut, unable to form words.

“I don’t…I don’t even…” He framed his cheeks with both hands. “He’s never going to forgive himself for this.”

“We will help him through this,” she assured, then said again, with an emphasis on the word we, “ We will help him through this .” Ella paced her breathing in preparation for whatever reaction she expected to receive from Kellen with her next words. “I know the promise I made you to stay away and not force counseling on him, but I can’t do that anymore. I think you even know that. I came here to ask you if it would be alright if I begin formally counseling Jarion, starting tomorrow.”

Kellen’s brows pulled together. “I thought you didn’t need my consent,” he said, not angrily, much to her surprise.

“I don’t, but I’m asking for it anyway. I know what’s at stake for you if your mother finds out I’m speaking to your siblings.” She didn’t mention that she’d already spoken to Laya. That was hers and Laya’s secret to keep. “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to jeopardize your custody over the twins, but your brother needs help, and he needs it now, before he hurts someone else or himself.”

Ella rose off the desk she’d been occupying and took a step towards Kellen. She dared herself to rest her hand on his shoulder, a simple graze of her fingers against his sweater. Kellen jolted at the contact.

However, he didn’t recoil from her or shove her away.

When he raised his eyes to hers, startled green hurtling into compassionate grey, she whispered, “I know I’m not one of you. I can’t possibly understand, truly, what Jarion is going through. But I know depression. I know how it moves. I know how it operates. I know how it takes hold, and I know how it can destroy. Please, Kellen. Let me try to help him. I can’t promise I know exactly what to do, but I can promise I will try every tool in my arsenal to help him. Just let me try.”

Kellen expelled a gasp that sounded animalistic and throttled, then raised his hand to lay it atop hers. His long fingers hugged her hand, the warmth of his touch seeping past her feeble flesh, staining her bones in a way that left Ella certain that she’d never be able to wash off his touch.

“Why is it,” he mumbled, leaning towards her a fraction of an inch closer, “that when you say my name, I forget how to breathe?” At that same moment, Ella forgot the mechanisms of breathing too.

What were words again? She couldn’t recall.

Kellen’s eyes dropped to her lips before the two of them realized where they were and who they were with, springing apart. Ella found herself stumbling away from him, knocking over the desk she’d been leaning against. She quickly helped fix the table back into an upright position, stammering out a pathetic apology to the desk, as if the table had feelings she’d just wounded.

“I’m going,” she declared, hurrying for the door.

“Noella?” he called out before she made it to the exit.

At the usage of her full name, her feet no longer belonged to her, but to the dragon-shifter who’d made Noella sound like a benediction on his tongue. Ella slowly turned her body to face him.

“Yeah?” she squeaked.

“You can begin counseling with Jarion.” Her heartbeat screeched in her ears.

“What about your mother?” Kellen swallowed, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

“Let me figure that out,” he said, adding, “You focus on helping my brother. That’s far more important.”

A lump pressed against the walls of Ella’s throat.

“Your siblings are lucky to have you,” she said, then ran from the room before Kellen could respond.