CHAPTER 19: Of Growth and Girls

Dinner was…interesting.

“Can you believe her Markado looks like that?” Someone whispered as Xanile and I walked by. “And his? What kind of monsters are they?”

I rolled my eyes and walked on, then noticed that the Marki children had a rather large crowd around them at the other end of the dining table. There were even some second-year students mixed into it and all of them had eyes for their Markados.

I know you likely won’t respond, but is there anything that you can tell me about the Marki children? Their abilities or families history? There was no response as I had imagined, but that was expected. I lowered my hand under the table and flicked it, summoning the small book from the Hollow Flower.

I pulled it from beneath the table and opened it to the first page.

Saemus,

Sorry that I can’t speak to you directly anymore, but the ambient magic from our meeting faded faster than we thought it might. But that’s fine. Ask your questions mentally, and I’ll respond here.

Frix.

I smiled and took a bite of my dinner, relishing the taste as I flipped the page and read on.

Yeah, you’re right about the skill points. The more you use of them, the more supernatural your growth will be. Don’t worry though, after a slight adjustment period, your mind will catch up to your skills and you’ll be able to fight more naturally. The break down of the skill ranks for you will be as follows.

Basic – The weakest level of skill, still learning and gathering a base for it.

Minor – The basics are all well and good, but you’ve gotten those and are starting to understand the nuances to the skill.

Moderate (Usually just referred to as the skill name alone) – You’ve mastered the basics and the nuances don’t escape you anymore and now you can use the skill with peace of mind.

Advanced – While the basics have been put into practice, there’s an enlightenment on the horizon as you close in on a breakthrough with the skill.

Adept – Your body, mind and soul are beginning to encompass what the skill truly is.

Master – The skill has become as much a part of you as your own hands, and arms. Mastery leads to insights previously unknown to you.

I blinked and stared down at the page and grimaced, That’s a lot of skill ranks.

You also have a lot of levels that you could be tapping into. Also, with the use of stat points, it’s much the same as with skill points, there’s a brief period of time where you’ll need to adjust to the change or you’ll be at a disadvantage.

Thank you. I turned the page and read about the Marki family. Just as I had heard from Xanile, they were a crafting family for the nobility.

Bolinar Marki, head of the family, made certain that his family came up in the ranks quickly by bootlicking and kissing butt to make sure that his crafting was seen as the only reliable option. Though this was more through guile, sabotage and bribery. Now the family enjoys more fame than their weapons are truly worth.

Their children Etran and Sanera, have inherited their familial powers and even though they are the most intenselyblooded members of the family, their magic is among the absolute strongest among them all. Even stronger than their great grandfather Bolinar’s.

I frowned, intensely blooded?

Their parents are…closely related.

I spat out my drink making the students near me, cringe and flee with their food trays in hand.

“Are you okay?” Xanile stated at me with concern and a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.” I coughed softly and closed the book, willing it back to the Hollow Flower. “Uh, some of the noble lines… uh. Do they allow others to help them make kids?”

Xanile snorted, “What?”

“Is it common practice for noble families to breed within the family?”

Her eyes widened and she leaned closer, “We are not supposed to talk about that, but it does happen. That sort of thing is highly frowned upon but some of them allow it, or encourage it, to make stronger lines of magic.”

She looked like she wanted to ask me about why I had brought it up, but she refrained. She turned her head back to her food and cleared her throat. “We should probably get going if we’re going to meet with the instructor still.”

We stepped away from the table, leaving our platters to be cleaned up by the staff, though it still made me feel a little uncomfortable to have someone cleaning up after me. It was hard to hide my disgust and disdain for them, though it wasn’t their fault. The way they clung to each other was more.. I wouldn’t think about that.

We cleared out of the mess hall and I could swear I felt someone staring at the back of my head. I turned and found Lolth staring at me with interest, she waved to me and smiled softly, then patted her hip where her pocket was. I frowned at her and she just chuckled and did it again before pointing at me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment folded several times with a small magenta spider with yellow spots on her back and black legs on the outside of it. I flinched and the spider clung to the paper as I unfolded it, walking so that it could keep it’s eyes on me.

The note read:

This is Aren, she will be your new companion, and she will be how I find your room if you would like to chat later on this evening? All you have to do if you are interested, is keep her on your person and nod at her.

I hope you’ll be alright with it, Saemus.

Lolth

I blinked at her note, then the spider and looked up at her face. For the small amount of time that I had known her, I had never seen her being anything other than exuberant and confident, but now there was a nervousness to her energy. She said that she had liked me, and had proclaimed it to her friends. Was that so bad?

I had to admit, I didn’t have any experience with girls and though she was older than me, I was interested in her. She was beautiful, strong and seemed kind and we were friends. Friends spent time together, right? I mean, Xanile and I were friends now and she and I spent a lot of time together already.

I offered my hand to the spider who climbed up onto my knuckles. It made my skin crawl, but it was alright. Instead of just following her directions I walked toward her and the other students around her hushed as I stepped close enough to smile and say, “I would like that very much.”

Her dark skin paled at the cheeks and she looked surprised before grinning at me, her mouth nearly splitting her face like it had last time she smiled at me. It was less creepy this time. She mouthed, See you later, then.

I grinned back and she turned back to her table, the other Unseelie ranging from confused to enraged. Some of them going so far as to stand up to start shouting at me in a language that I didn’t feel like I should understand.

“You should go back to your bright-court bullshit, Seelie scum!” I frowned and the same voice bellowed, “We’ll never allow you to blame our court for anything that you do to the Middlings again.”

That was interesting enough that I stopped and turned to look at the speaker, a rather large student with icy gray eyes that burned with rage, I frowned and spoke in a language I wasn’t familiar with but came to me naturally. “What did you just say?”

He looked stricken, as did the other Unseelie at the table, some of them murmuring that I shouldn’t have been able to understand that.

I turned my body fully and stepped closer to the table, “What are the Seelie doing to the Middlings that they blame you for?”

He looked like he wanted to speak but his sneer returned with a hand on my shoulder, Xanile’s voice floating cautiously over my shoulder, “It seems that my friend got lost on his way to his room, please, do not mind him.”

I walked away from the table with Xanile tugging on my arm, the table—the mess hall—silent enough that you could hear everyone breathing. Once we were clear of the mess hall Xanile growled, “What the hells was that?”

“He said something to me that I wasn’t sure about.” I blinked and realized that she was Seelie, born and raised and the Unseelie were the enemy to her.

And her people had just been unknowingly accused of foul doings concerning my people. Did she know anything? If I said something, would she tell me the truth?

This would be a discussion I needed to have with Lolth first then, it seemed. She began to open her mouth and speak but I cut her off, “Let’s just go get this training out of the way.”

She followed me to the lounge our rooms shared and opened the door to find Instructor Lialarn seated with Winfred with a cup of tea to her lips. “Ah, here they are.”

Winfred stood and brushed her hands on her apron as she looked us over, her eyes widening, “You weren’t lying. They’re so powerful already.”

“They are, and they need proper training.” Lialarn smiled and set her tea cup on the table. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for the room with them alone, as this could get dangerous. I won’t allow them to get hurt, but no one can know we’re here. Can I count on you to make it so that no one disturbs us?”

Winfred looked to Xanile who nodded and answered, “I will ensure that you aren’t disturbed. Train well.”

She left the room and left us to Lialarn’s care and instruction.

She had us reaching for our magic constantly, testing it to see where it was weakest and where it was strongest. With plants, there was little I couldn’t do. I wasn’t strong enough to create a whole plant from just a leaf, but when I focused on a leaf, I found that I could make it just as much a weapon for myself as anything else.

“Do that again.” Xanile whispered in awe as she stared at my hand.

One of the large leaves that I had been given weighed down my palm as it glinted and took on a metallic sheen that wasn’t normal. I frowned at it and as it continued to change, it cut my palm where I held it and I dropped it. It slid into the wood frame of the table with ease and stayed there.

“Fascinating.” Lialarn muttered and touched the leaf with the tip of her finger, then yelped. “That is terribly sharp. Are you any good at throwing things?”

I wasn’t sure, but I offered a measly, “I can learn?”

She grinned and erected a wooden wall of sorts in front of the stone across the room, then turned to me, “I will supply you with leaves for now, if you can turn them into thrown weapons like this, you’ll be unstoppable.”

I frowned and plucked the metal leaf from the table, nodded to the table and threw it. It his the table lower to the ground, and stuck in. “It hit!”

“If only it would have been where an enemy would be.” Xanile teased softly, motioning to the slowly growing blotchy ink spot that resembled a humanoid shape.

“I have time to learn, right?” I snapped back sullenly and she just laughed. It was annoying, but it was worth it. By the end of the lesson, I was much more comfortable reaching for the magic than I had been before and I was almost certain that Frix would have a few pointers on things for me here and there in his book.

We trained until the bell for curfew rang and though it seemed like Xanile wanted to stay and chat more, I wasn’t sure when Lolth was supposed to be coming, if she hadn’t already been there.

I walked into my room and decided to take a hurried bath and get my clothes into the laundry chute. Eventually I found myself drifting to sleep at my small desk with the small book out and open in front of me. A slight, soft tap drew my attention back to the present and out of my foggy bed brain. Aren was tapping my fingers, and pointing frantically to the door a second before there was a soft tap and call of, “Saemus?”

I hurried over to the door and opened it to find Lolth standing in the drafty hall. I smiled at her and pulled her inside, her eyes widening slightly at my grabbing her wrist. I shut my door softly and said, “Good evening, Lolth.”

Her cheeks paled again and she muttered back, “Good evening to you, Saemus.” She watched me for a moment then looked around my room, austere as it was. “So this is your room?”

I nodded and scratched my head, “I plan to start adding some plants to it soon, because that’s what my magic is good with.” I stood there awkwardly as she looked around, wandering further into my room.

“Where are you, Aren?” She called softly, the spider crawling out from beneath my desk to the top to wave her two front arms. “There you are, I hope you’ve been good? Unassuming?”

“She’s been good.” I frowned, my hand drifting forward, “I just remembered, is there anything I need for her to stay in here?”

Lolth shook her head, “She’ll be fine so long as she can make a web and catch some food for herself. I’d recommend letting a window stay open so her pheromones can attract her food.”

“Pheromones?” She smiled and raised an eyebrow at me. “Is she a special kind of drow spider?”

“No. She’s a Sylph Skull Crusher, she eats insects until she grows large enough to hunt the smaller fair folk, like pixies and whatnot.” I stilled at that. “But that won’t be for a little while longer. At least a few years.”

Will you be okay Frix? I knew he couldn’t respond but that was still disconcerting. “How come you have her?”

“As you may not know, the Drow are all tied to arachnids.” She pulled her shirt up slightly, her cheeks pale again as she showed me her Markado. It was a myriad of webs in a vivid white almost as deep as my vines were, if not mor so. From what I could see, that was only a small portion of the webbing as it went both lower and higher than what I could see. “She and I met while I was exploring near my adopted family’s estate one day and have been inseparable since.”

I blinked, concerned, “Then why did you send her with me?”

“Our bond would allow me to find her again, and I have other spiders with me as well.” She grinned, “Maybe some time you could come to my room and I could introduce you to all of them?”

“I would like that.” I stood there with her awkwardly as she watched me so I rubbed my forearm and asked, “How was your day?”

She stared at me and laughed, I thought I had made a fool of myself but she just wiped a tear from her eye and said, “It was good. Forgive me, I expect a lot more than I should, or I guess I find myself expecting you to act older but you aren’t.” It was hard to hide that I was a little crestfallen. “My day went rather well, as you can see my Markado is strong, and so is your’s.”

She stepped forward as I nodded and lifted my head up by my chin so that she could look into my eyes. It was easier to see that she was taller than me now, and it was also so much easier to see how beautiful she was. “And I received quite the pleasant surprise at evening mess. I was very impressed that you would approach me like that. I like that.”

Her breath smelled sweet and I could smell her hair from where I was as well. Her eyes were on mine as she spoke again, “Why did you never tell me that you spoke Muck?”

I blinked at her a few times trying to catch up and get the words to come out of my mouth right, “I never knew what it was, I just know how to speak it for some reason?” I frowned at her, the scents and sights gone momentarily. “What is it?”

“It’s the designated language that most Unseelie speak around each other so that the Seelie can’t overhear them and their plans.” She frowned at me, but didn’t fight me when I pulled my chin from her fingers, “You weren’t aware of what it was, but you can speak it?”

She said a few words in another language and I just blinked at her, she sighed as if in relief, “So then you don’t know drow. Good. A girl has to have a little mystery.”

“Would you teach me?” I stared at her and found her surprise fascinating. “Is that not something that you would want to do?”

“I mean, I could, certainly. I can imagine that there are books on the language here that you could use to learn it in your spare time, but there are two languages that I could teach you.”

“Two?” She nodded and made several complicated motions with her hands, fingers and wrists moving and flitting back and forth quickly.

“It takes a good deal of dexterity for this, but the hand signs of my people allow us to communicate in a place where noise can be used to track you.” She once again looked at me with a nervous energy that seemed so out of sorts.

“So…it’s another way for us to speak to each other?” I perked up and she once more looked surprised. “It sounds great. I would love to learn.”

She smiled her smile that nearly split her face in two and I grinned back. “So, why did you want to come to my room this evening, Lolth?”

She ducked her head and clasped her hands, “I wanted to spend some time with you.” Now it was my turn to blush. “You know how I feel about you, right?”

“I know what you told your friends.” I quirked my head. “You said that you liked me.”

“I do.” She nodded and stared at me for a moment, the pregnant silence coming to birth the question, “How does that make you feel?”

“It should make me feel good, right?” I shrugged, uncertain suddenly. “I mean, I do feel good. I guess I just don’t know what it means for me. Or for you.”

“It can mean anything you like.” She stepped forward once more and this time she was right in front of me, body closer than I had let most people get to me unless they were giving me a hug. She noted me staring at her confused and stepped back. “Let me teach you something about the drow that you may have heard me say to Coventry and Bruth before. The drow pursue men. Women are the ones who typically initiate a relationship.”

I cocked my head to the side, “So is this your way of doing that?” She blushed again and nodded once. “So did my approaching you before to let you know I was interested make you uncomfortable?”

“Quite the opposite, actually.” She smiled her wide smile again and crooned, “I loved it. I thought I was going to melt right there from it.”

Melt? What kind of magic is that? I shook my head at the thought and asked, “What would it mean between us?”

“You would be mine.” She said simply. “You and I would see each other more often, at least if I have my way and you were free. I mean, we are in an academy environment, so I understand there will be times that we can’t be with each other.”

I didn’t mind that. It didn’t sound bad to me at all, though the possessiveness was a little off putting. “I have to admit, I don’t have much of an idea what to do with a girl.” I frowned to myself and blushed, her stare at me so open that it was almost annoying. Like she thought my ignorance was cute or something. “How old are you, by the way?”

“Sixteen, considered nearly an adult among the drow, though I still have a couple years to go.” She frowned, “Yourself?”

“Fourteen.” She made an O with her mouth, frowning. “I’m younger than most of the students here, I know.”

“It doesn’t bother me at all.” She shrugged and brushed it off. “Most drow would prefer a younger male anyway, especially one so powerful as you seem to be.” She grabbed my wrist softly and pulled me until I stood in front of my bed.

She sat down and began to look over my Markado, “These are beautiful.”

My lips twitched slightly and looked away, “Thank you.”

She chuckled to herself, her voice low, “I’m not going to do anything untoward to you, Saemus.” I froze and looked at her, her eyes were slightly closed so that she could look up at me though her long eyelashes. “I might be drow, but I was raised better than that. I will treat you well, and you always have a choice with me. Am I clear?”

I nodded and frowned to myself, looking down at her as she stared up at me, something clicked in my head and though it embarrassed me to no end, I had seen similar things to this before. My mother staring up at my father like this, him reaching out to take her chin like Lolth had mine and giving her an gentle kiss. Staring at Lolth’s lips, I found that my mouth had gone dry, my throat following after.

I wanted to try that, didn’t I? Was I right to? Was it okay?

I found my hand moving on its own until my left hand had her chin in a soft grip, my fingers holding her perfect skin, my head tilting down as I drew hers up. I closed my eyes at the last second and pressed my lips to her forehead. Her skin was so soft and smooth and the scent of her hair tickled my nose until I realized that this wasn’t where I had wanted to press my lips.

Berating myself as I stopped and leaned back, my cheeks molten I found her staring up at me with her eyes wide and her mouth slack. I muttered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so forward.”

I began to step back until she grabbed my wrist and pulled me close so that she could grasp me around the waist, holding me steady. Her voice came out in a soft whine, “That was so cuuuute.”

If my cheeks could have glowed with the heat that they felt, I would have looked like I had two suns resting on my face. Indignantly, I tried to extricate myself from her grasp, the closeness worrisome suddenly.

She looked up at me, removing her head from my chest so that she could stare into my eyes, “I shouldn’t like that so much, but I do.” She cleared her throat so that her voice was back to normal. “I’ll teach you drow, both the language and how to sign like us just for that.”

I brightened up quite a bit, excited to learn something, then was just confused. “So, wait, what does this mean?”

“What do you want, Saemus?” She tilted her head to the right and stared up at me. “Do you want to be mine?”

“What would that make us?”

She frowned, “Most drow would just call you my male. I suppose you could call yourself my boyfriend? We won’t be more for a while.” She smiled at my blush when I realized what that meant.

I nodded to myself, “I would like that.” She froze and I added, “You’re beautiful and smart and strong and you’ve helped me more than you could even begin to know. And if things change, I don’t know what will happen, but I hope you’ll be happy with me.”

“I think I will be.” She smiled. She leaned up quickly and pressed her lips against mine, the effect of it dizzying, heat rushing to my face as she inched away. “I think I very much will be.”

She stood and handed me a small sheet of parchment. “This is spelled to send a message to an identical piece that I will keep on my person at all times. Allow Aren to stay here, and this way you can write to me whenever you please, and I will do the same.”

I blinked at it and smiled, “And here I haven’t gotten you anything.” I frowned and went to a drawer in my desk, opening it to reach into and pull out my note book from the Hollow Flower as I asked, Is there a way for me to make a flower bloom physically from my Markado?

I opened the to the page after the answers I had already gotten and saw the replies that he had given me. One of them screeching that I had “that thing” in my room with him inside me as a catalyst. I just glossed over it until I got to his answer.

It will drain you, but you can do it. It will be nothing more than something pretty as it will have none of the benefits of a real plant.

Walk me through it for her?

I could almost feel him roll his eyes through the book and he went through it step by step. I read it a coupe times, closed the book and put it into the “drawer” before I turned back to the girl in my room and waved her closer.

“Watch this bloom right here.” My voice was soft as I pointed to one of the ones on the inside of my forearm.

I closed my eyes and imagined a rose of the deepest darkness I could think of, the black of it so dark that it could draw the light away from the stars in the heavens, and on the tips of the petals, I wanted there to be a bright white, like the bulb had been dipped into paint. The bud that they grew from hung down beneath in what could only be described as spider-like legs and they were the same kind of crimson as her eyes were, I wasn’t familiar with what kind of scent she would like for them, so I chose a combination of roses and Cindry sap that was a light fruity scent on its own.

I heard her gasp and opened my eyes to see that the exercise had worked better than I thought and it had grown with three smaller blooms appearing around it. I narrowed my gaze and put my left hand over them and pinched the skin around them, willing them to grow from within me.

My magic flared and with the same sort of skill as before, the plant grew out of my arm and once the flowers were about a foot long, I mentally growled, Stop. They stopped rising and I plucked them out of my skin, prickles of blood dribbling down my arm as the leaves on the vines that they had come from disappeared. “They’re beautiful.” I smiled and offered them to her, “Like you.”

She blushed, the paleness in her cheeks rising and going down her jaw a bit as she asked, “What are they called?”

“They don’t have a name yet, but I think we can call them Lolth’s Breath?” I raised my eyebrow at her and she took a sniff of them. “Do you like them?”

“I love them.” She groaned softly and held the flowers to her chest.

Now for the finishing touch. I reached out and pressed my thumb against the thorns that grew there, more blood invading them along with yet more magic. “That will ensure that they are tied to my life force. As long as I draw breath, they will never wilt no matter the conditions they are in.”

She gasped again and stared at them. “You’re sure you’ve never dealt with women before?”

“Just have my father to thank for it.” I shook my head at the memory of him bringing my mother flowers that he had sung for her. He had bred them for her specifically. “I wanted to see the look on your face if I could do that for you. I’m glad I did.”

“So am I.” She looked torn. “May I come and visit you again tomorrow night?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice as I realized that I didn’t know what happened on the weekends. I would have to ask Xanile.

She smiled at me and gave me a peck on the cheek, her cheeks flushed still. “I cannot wait until tomorrow evening then.” She touched my cheek and grinned. “Sleep well, Saemus.”

I closed the door after her and went back to Frix’s book, the page reading, Smooth, Saemus. Very smooth. Be careful.