La Dispute - Fairmount

I was dreading my next session so much even Levi told me he was sorry I had to go, that Abby had given me such a hard task. I tried to not think of my previous sessions with Cordelia around him, but I knew he knew how terrible they were for me, that they had only gotten worse since my first with her. When we said our goodbyes his bright blue eyes looked a little too shiny to me, but I hoped it was just my imagination. I never wanted to make my little brother cry.

James buried his Shift as we left the little bench in front of the lake, but this time I could see the tension growing in his muscles, his movements. Ailech met my eyes as we reached the door, giving me a little sympathetic smile as he stood, Ember close behind.

"You could fake a headache, I'd back you." Ailech offered helpfully as I stood outside Cordelia's door, gathering my nerve to knock.

James had been looking more and more like he wanted to ask what I was so obviously dreading, what everyone else seemed to already know. But each time he seemed about to open his mouth, he'd glance to his right and stay quiet instead. I'd already decided to not tell him even if he asked, he would see soon enough anyway. I wished he wouldn't, but I knew he'd join me as an observer for my tolerance lesson just like all the others that day.

I knocked and felt my stomach drop a little more with each rap against the wood. The door swung open and Cordelia stood in its wake, looking somber as ever.

"Hello, Miss Kay, Mr. Darke, Mr. Locklear, Miss Rhyner."

She nodded to each of us in turn politely.

"Our group has grown a bit I hear, Abby tells me Mr. Darke will be with us today, correct?"

He nodded, still looking curious as to what this woman was supposed to teach me. A slight line on his brow told me his Shift was trying to figure out what danger she was, just like mine had tried to warn me upon our first meeting.

"And Miss Rhyner, do you still prefer to wait outside?"

Ember nodded so enthusiastically her hair flew into her face as she stepped further back into the hallway. She had only been to one of my lessons with Cordelia, and from what Ailech said, she left before my first trial was even halfway completed. He had said she was crying. That was when I started to soften up to her, though it didn't matter, she was still terrified of me.

Cordelia closed the door behind me as I walked over to the familiar couch, the one I hated and loved at the same time. I hated what it represented, but I loved feeling it under me, either when I would be able to stay semi-conscious of my environment during a trial, or when I would wake up and realize one more was finished. Usually I stayed aware about a third of the time now, able to still feel my surroundings, able to keep myself quiet, at least mostly.

I sat and Ailech took his seat on the chair across from me, scooting it closer. James hung back, standing by the door, his face blank but his eyes darting between the woman and me, as if he could sense what she could do, as if he'd figured it out. Maybe he had.

I expected Cordelia to address me, as usual, to explain what our lesson would consist of, though it never really mattered, it all felt the same to me, but instead she turned to James.

"Abby recommends you partake in this lesson, to see...so I may have a comparison for Miss Kay, a goal to get her to."

She had almost not even finished speaking before I heard my own voice in the room, though I couldn't remember opening my mouth, or even thinking of the words.

"No! I don't want you using your ke'evel on him, Cordelia. I won't let you."

I swallowed hard and stared at the floor after speaking, feeling my cheeks heat, but not from embarrassment. I would hurt her if she tried to use it on him, I knew I would. I would kill her. He had been through enough with this 'ability' in his childhood.

"I won't use my Gif- my ke'evel on someone unwilling, it is always his choice."

Cordelia's voice sounded even more sorrowful than usual, but I didn't care if I had upset her. I looked up to James to see what his answer would be, knowing I didn't have the right to make him leave if he didn't want to. When I looked up his eyes were on mine, but just for a moment, and I couldn't see any emotion in them anyway. He looked to Cordelia then.

"If it will help to have a benchmark for her, you can use your Gift on me. She didn't mean to insult you, she doesn't know ke'evel. She only just heard me say it when I was speaking of Grayson this morning."

He spoke respectfully, and I found myself surprised both by his decision to allow Cordelia to hurt him, and his apology for my words. I looked down at the carpet again. I saw Cordelia nod slightly when I looked up, and gesture to one of the open armchairs.

"I'd rather stand."

James' dead voice was back, but it seemed more carefully controlled, like he was trying to force it to sound empty, rather than it happening naturally as I had grown used to. I looked up at him, but his face looked just the same as always.

"You will fall." Cordelia answered.

"I don't think so."

When it became apparent James wasn't going to take my tutor's advice, she walked over to her fire, staring into it as she wrung her hands slowly.

"The trials will be decreased to fifteen minutes to accommodate Mr. Darke's additions. I do not wish to lengthen the allotted time Abby has chosen for me."

She paused in front of the fire, and I saw her swallow hard before she spoke again.

"I'm sorry."

Her words felt like ice, though I knew they weren't for me. I knew they marked the beginning of James' first trial and I was almost too afraid to look at him, but when I did he was still standing, just as before, not a single feature different, not a single indicator of what he was feeling.

Cordelia turned around a few moments later to face him, looking at him with her notebook in hand. He merely gave her a watered down smile, the kind that didn't touch any part of his face but the corners of his lips, didn't look real even when I took into account how emotionless he usually looked.

"Can you feel it?" She asked quietly, her pen poised above the paper.

"Yes," James replied flatly.

"And it is not difficult?"

"It isn't pleasant."

His voice was still dull, but I realized he hadn't actually answered her, hadn't actually denied the pain's difficulty. She seemed to not notice as she wrote something in her book.

"And you are completely aware of your surroundings?"

James eyes roved the room for a moment, carefully skipping me before settling back on Cordelia.

"Yes," He replied just as flat again.

Occasionally I saw James' jaw tense, the muscle stand out against his hollow cheeks, making his face look like a skeleton's, but besides that, even I couldn't tell what he was feeling, if he even was feeling anything. Though one look at Cordelia was proof enough, she looked sad, as solemn as she always was, but with something worse in her eyes with each passing minute. She wrote in her notebook every ninety seconds, as I knew she was changing the levels she gave to my Pair, cutting the time between variations in half to oblige the shortened trials.

Once he closed his eyes, but only for a second or two, before he opened them again, staring into the fire instead of at Cordelia. That was the first real indication I saw that he was in any pain, that he was looking to his Sign to help him, drawing strength from the flames as they leapt over one another. Ninety seconds later his first trial was over. James took a deep breath and stretched his neck slightly, rolling his shoulders as he stood by the door, just as he had since entering, like he didn't want to come further into the room. His eyes found Cordelia's again and she looked more cheerless than ever.

"I am so sorry for the life you have endured, child." Were her only words to him before she turned to me.

"Are you ready?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice. My eyes found Ailech's as they usually did before a trial. He had been with me for every session with Cordelia, and just seeing him, the weak nod he would give me, the small smile of encouragement, it made me remember that I could do this, that I had done it before, many times. That the pain wasn't something to fear because it would be gone in thirty minutes, now in only fifteen minutes. It was something of a tradition between us.

Even though he didn't know it, I often thought of him as my role model during my lessons with Cordelia, likening my trials to each time I hurt him, either back when we used to spar together, or when he would anger me on purpose and let me hurt him. He understood that pain wasn't lasting, he could heal himself and I would come out of each trial just as unscathed as I had gone into it. I often told myself that if he wasn't afraid of pain, then I shouldn't be either, though I knew the pain of him breaking a rib or his nose was nothing close to what Cordelia gave me. I ignored that difference.

"I'm sorry."

The world disappeared. I had hoped I would be able to still see the room, still feel my seat under me, but I couldn't, everything was a wash of direction and stillness, movement and nothingness. The pain was bearable, but I still couldn't see the room, couldn't see Ailech or Cordelia or the fire or James standing by the door looking like a statue. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused, willed myself to be back in the office...then I opened my eyes and I could see.

My fingers were digging into the couch's edge and I felt every muscle in my body contracting against the pain, but I could see. My eyes found James first, but I quickly dropped them and looked at the door's handle behind him instead, trying to focus on the woodworking around it, on the dark grain, on anything but the pain running over my body, in my skin, my bones. I focused on relaxing small parts of my body, my fingers, then my jaw, my wrists. I inched my head slightly to look at Cordelia and her eyebrows rose before she made a lengthy note in her book.

I tried to focus on anything I could as I waited for the trial to be finished, but in the end I focused on my breathing, on the air entering and leaving my lungs smoothly, on the freeing feeling of it as it flowed in and out of me. I began counting my breaths, trying to slow them as I ignored the pain and as my first trial ended, it was almost easy.

I let out a big breath as the pain disappeared as quickly as it had come, a rush of relief filling me. But then I remembered it was James' turn again and my small feeling of happiness fled. Cordelia spoke after my trial as usual, relaying my progress, or where I had wavered, but I barely heard her. I felt physically ill knowing James was about to feel another fifteen minutes of hell, worse than his first trial. I knew Cordelia enough to know her first test was to get a feel for her student. If she wanted to find my Pair's limits, it would be in her second and third runs.

I wondered where my limits were in comparison to his, but I decided to save that question for once she knew better, once she knew what he could take. I was sure from how she had acted, and how James had acted, that his tolerance was far beyond my own. I clenched my teeth as I waited for them to begin, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.

"Will you take a seat now, Mr. Darke, please? Even if you do not need to, it would make me more at ease knowing there is no possibility of me injuring you if you...if your will falters."

James nodded and sat in the empty chair she had pointed to earlier, already staring into the fire, apparently guessing that her second trial would be more difficult just as I had. After a few seconds of silence Cordelia apologized as she always did and James closed his eyes, the muscle in his jaw standing out, casting a shadow down his cheek.

Halfway between three and four minutes Cordelia asked if he was aware of his surroundings and he replied with a curt nod. At five minutes she asked if he could see. He opened his eyes slightly, his pupils large black centers, though I knew he wasn't Shifting, before closing them again and nodding once more. She wrote her answers in her book. At seven minutes I saw James' hand twitch before he closed it into a fist by his leg's side in the chair. And at eleven minutes he lowered his head, his chin sinking close to his chest as it rose and fell rhythmically, his head barely turned to one side like he was listening for something, his face slightly turned away from where I sat on the couch.

At fourteen minutes I could hear his breaths occasionally come out a bit heavier than normal. I realized my own were coming in short bursts before I made myself take in slow, even breaths. Thirty seconds later his eyes opened, and I could have sworn I saw a flash of the old him in their depths before he looked dead again, but by the time Cordelia turned to me I convinced myself that I had only thought I'd seen it.

Cordelia looked at me and I could almost see her thoughts, feel her sorrow at what she assumed James had been through in his past to act so detached from pain, from the levels I was sure I would never reach. Part of me wanted to ask to feel it, if only for the sliver of a second, just so I would know, but I knew I wasn't brave enough for that, not merely for curiosity's sake.

James was staring into the fire again. I was silently thankful that his jaw was relaxed, that he was slowly chewing on his cheek instead of sitting stock still with his teeth clenched. I wondered how hard it was for him to not Shift during the trials. That was always difficult for me, like my Shift was trying to break from me, to protect me, even though I was the one allowing the pain. I wondered if it was even harder for him, since I assumed not Shifting was always difficult for him, at least now, after what I had seen from him. I realized I was staring at him and tore my eyes away, looking to Cordelia instead, who seemed to have been waiting for my attention.

She stood just to the side of the fireplace's mantle, watching me with anchored eyes. I didn't dislike her, and I suddenly felt bad for whatever I had said that James had to apologize for. I looked at my feet before speaking, feeling ashamed.

"What does ke'evel mean?"

I felt James eyes on me a second later, but I hadn't asked him. Cordelia's voice answered after only a short pause.

"Ke'evel is the name for my Gift, it means pain-giving. It was not wrong of you to call it that."

I nodded, opening my mouth to tell her I was ready for my second trial, but James' voice interrupted.

"Ke'evel may have originated as the proper name for Cordelia's particular talent, but it is now a derogatory term. Meant to mean that the individual themselves is pain and that that is all they can be. That they take pleasure in their ability, in controlling others through pain and having all that are susceptible to their Gift at their mercy. I used the word with Grayson because that's what his Gift is, what he is. Cordelia doesn't use ke'evel. Her Gift would be called dorentia, the mage's word for suffering. She suffers when she uses her Gift, unlike Grayson who enjoys it."

He explained the difference between the terms like a teacher, his voice informative but monotonous, still uninterested and dull. Even when he spoke of Grayson his voice didn't change. I hated how the anger I knew he was feeling was so buried it might as well not exist at all.

"That was a very thoroughly articulated answer. How do you know so much about our words, if I may ask?"

Cordelia had a strange look on her face, and I imagined she was rarely confused, rarely surprised by someone.

"I had the pleasure of learning under Grayson for some time when I was young. He taught me about his Gift at great length, and what it meant to him extensively. It's easy to see that you do not delight in your ability like he does. I've only ever met one other with ke'evel, but she was a Darkling and is now dead, though the term for her Gift in my language is different than in yours."

"Abby did not mention that you knew the Fallen language, and I was not aware that Nephilim could even have my Gift."

Cordelia now seemed as interested as I had ever seen her, though she had looked immensely disheartened at James' explanation of how he had gained such knowledge. I could only image Grayson using his ke'evel on James as a child, as he explained what the word meant, the same sharp look in his eyes that I had seen so many times. I realized I was grinding my teeth and I relaxed my jaw.

"We call the Gift crev'ar kiala, the bloodless death. And the magnitude of our Gift is as vastly different from yours as the physical strength of a human against one of my kind...if that gives you reference. The Gift is rare, but I've heard of others."

"Is that woman the reason you can...how you are able...that..."

Cordelia paused before continuing, not seeming to be able to find the words she was searching for.

"How is your tolerance so experienced?"

She sounded like she didn't really want to know the answer, but the inquisitiveness in her eyes begged to differ.

"I've received many years of training in this area." James said, his eyes back on the fire.

Cordelia turned to me, looking very much like she wished she hadn't asked. It was strange to think of what a soft heart the woman must have, a woman who's strongest Gift was to hurt others, and yet she seemed like, if given the chance, she would be one of the kindest souls I had ever met. I suddenly felt very sorry for her.

"I'm ready."

My second trial did not go as well as my first and when I came out of it Ailech's eyes were wide, though he quickly looked to the floor when my gaze met his. Even before Cordelia relayed her notes to me, I knew I had screamed. James was still staring at the fire, biting at the side of his cheek, looking exactly as he had fifteen minutes earlier. I wished I knew what went on in his head, if it was as blank as his face, or if he was simply masking his thoughts. I couldn't decide which idea I liked less.

"You reached a higher level."

Cordelia's words pulled me from my thoughts, the slight sniffle in her voice as she finished not lost on me. I gave her a reassuring smile before wiping my sweaty hands on my pants as I tried to not think of James' third trial which was about to start. My stomach didn't feel right, which only reminded me of him more, making me feel even worse.

"Your final trial will be meant to reach your highest limit, your furthest boundaries before your body reacts. I may not be as strong as one of your kind...and I have seldom used it to its fullest, but my Gift reaches far greater depths than Grayson's. I'm sorry."

James nodded before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes again. I wished I could tear my eyes away, but my heart was beating painfully in my chest and I almost felt like I was in a trial as well, just watching, just waiting for some sign that James was feeling something. The anticipation hurt me as much as when Prey or Parish got a sold hit in.