The Afterlife Academy Saga

Chapter 27

27

Zoned out, I pricked my fork in the piece of tomato and moved it around on my plate.

"Not hungry?" Aellyn asked as she sat down next to me.

"Not really," I admitted. The past weeks had been all kinds of stressful and it wasn't aiding my appetite.

"What's been going on with you?" the Elf asked. "You haven't really been around."

"Oh, I've... I've been busy. Lots of meditating to find my inner wings," I half-lied. While Flavia gathered everything necessary for a guided trip to the Veil, she'd been helping me with the ancient mantras.

"Ahaa, makes sense. But we should do something fun sometime."

I nodded as I stared through the rows of seated students at Ryoko's back. Our last argument had driven a deep wedge in our friendship and reduced her to the same, reserved girl I met at the beginning of the year.

The less time she spent with me, the more she seemed to hang out with a group of Dragons from Shinigami 201. Across the past weeks, I’d barely seen her.

A lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it away. It couldn't be helped. People drifted apart, that was just how things went. I just wished it hadn't happened like this, but if this was her way of dealing with her feelings, I needed to accept it. She wanted distance so that was what I had to give her.

If only it didn't sting so much.

"Ylva?"

"Huh?"

"You're zoned out again," Aellyn noted.

"Sorry. I was meditating again. I've been doing it so much, it's becoming second nature," I lied, chuckling awkwardly. "Accept the void, right?"

"I guess so?" I took a glance at the time, startled by how late it had gotten. "s**t, I have to go. I'll catch you in class, okay?"

My friend stuttered. "Ummm, o—okay?"

"Sorry. I just..." I hadn't told her about my secret lessons with Flavia and I couldn't. "I'm on a tight schedule for my evening mantras. Discipline is the key to success. At least, that's what the ancient legends say!"

I shoved some tomatoes in my mouth, grabbed my bag, and dashed out of the dining hall. I couldn't be late for my session with Flavia. It just wasn't done.

I didn't know why, but being late was just not acceptable. The Academy taught me it wasn't a universal thing.

Panting and huffing, I rushed through the halls of the school. Most students were leisurely strolling around, which seemed to be a thing as most classes were cancelled. Again.

This Academy didn't do much teaching. Was this a regular thing?

No, that couldn't be right. It wouldn't have such a great reputation if it just let students run around doing nothing.

Ignoring the stares of the other Valkyries, I knocked on Flavia's door and let myself in. She specified she didn't like me waiting and hanging around her door. It looked weird or something.

"Flavia? Hello?"

"Just a moment!" she shouted from her kitchen. As far as I knew, only she had a fully equipped room like this. I envied her slightly. I didn't need all this space, but it would be nice to have all the amenities without having to go outside.

Now that Ryoko was no longer cooking and inviting me to join her, I had no choice but to go to the dining hall for my meals. Which meant subjecting myself to the reality of my loneliness. And watch Ryoko befriend and buddy up with other girls and guys. Not exactly my idea of a good time.

Between my classmates who wanted nothing to do with me, and Sim and his Reaper clique that liked to pick on me, being outside the room wasn't exactly fun. At least I had Aellyn who stuck with me. Although I assumed that was because she had nobody else to sit with either. She was just as unpopular.

I sat down on Flavia's couch, excited for what she had in store this time.

The bedroom door cracked open and Flavia dragged out a suitcase. "Hi!"

I chuckled. "Going somewhere?"

"Nope. I've finally gathered enough materials." Flavia rubbed her hands as she unboxed the suitcase. "I couldn't get my hands on silver stallion mane, like we use in class. But we should be able to use something else."

"Cool. What are we working with?" I asked, looking at the bits and bobs of random gear. "What's that? Unicorn hair?"

The blonde nodded. "Yes, it's in the same family and some AAs swear by it. I also asked around and the Reapers use something that's called... Boomstrung vine." She held up a gnarly green length of plant with a questionable smell. "I'm not sure whether they were messing with me or not."

"Right... They might've tricked you there, Flavia. What's in the vials?"

"Different types of poisons. I don't know the exact formula the school's been using, so we'll have to experiment. I have spinyder venom, ground oak horn, and some green stuff that had a skull on the label. I figured that wasn't medicine."

"Proooobably not, no. What are the poisons for exactly?"

"To coat the thread?"

"Okay." I inspected one of the flasks. "Why?"

Flavia shot me another look. "To kill you."

"Right... Does it have to be poison? Can't you just stab me or something?"

Flavia sighed, running a hand through her blonde hair. "I see we have a lot of work to do."

And we did. Despite all the cancelled classes, I finally felt like I was soaking up some knowledge, although that could've been mostly from Flavia's lectures. For someone that never taught in her life, she was killing it. And she showed up, which was more than I could say about my teachers.

We tried countless methods of recreating the effects of the silver stallion mane our Valkyrie teacher used. None of them gave us the desired effect.

The boomstrung vine left me with a rash that didn't clear in days. The ground oak horn had me laughing hysterically for hours while I experienced the most vivid hallucinations. Not exactly the desired effect, but kind of fun. Combining the Unicorn hair with the green stuff had me limping for weeks after the fact.

Apart from a bit of shadows and some headaches, we didn't come close to dying either. Fall shifted into winter, introducing a blanket of snow onto the school. The cold slowed everything even more, if that was possible. As the semester went on, it became clear we weren't going to figure it out on our own.

After careful consideration, Flavia brought in Oda, her right-hand woman. She wasn't my biggest fan, but she came around quickly enough. With her help and talents, our selection of poisons and strings grew. While we all knew the importance of our success, the experimentation and crazy side-effects were turning out to be great entertainment.

There was just one other thing I was having trouble with...

"Accept the void," Flavia chanted while Oda pushed her hands on my back. "Accept the void."

"I'm trying," I grunted, picturing dark wings like all the other Wind Children had. If I could figure out how to do that, at least my first-year classmates would stop looking at me like I was the dirt on the street.

"Channel the darkness," Oda instructed, digging her nails deep into my skin.

"f**k!"

She pushed my shoulder blades apart. "Unleash the wind."

"Unleash the wind," I muttered, trying to direct the ever-changing, all-consuming ball of magic in my chest. Any movement of the wind magic was making me uneasy.

I'd seen the destructive force. If I unleashed the magic within me and couldn't get it under control, what would happen to the things, the people, the world around me?

The wind sizzled and sighed, whistling and wheezed as it surged through me. It coursed around my heart, tugging on my soul. With every passing moment, it built and built, until it howled and shrieked in my ears.

"Let go," Flavia instructed, her voice barely audible above the storm brewing within me. "Accept the void."

I closed my eyes, concentrating on the vibrations within me. The tremor of the storm, the hitched breath, the rumbling chaos.

Instead of panicking and shoving it all down, I called it. I wanted the wind to rage through me, consume me, destroy me. With everything on the line, I invited the darkness in, begging it to swallow me whole.

The tension build, growing and growing, spiralling further out of control than I ever let it. As the wind rampaged through my body, wreaking havoc in my veins and heart, the terror set in.

If I couldn't direct this tremendous power, it would tear me and everything in the vicinity to pieces. The room, the dormitory, the school and all the people with it. Flavia, Oda... Ryoko.

No.

With all my might, I redrew the boundaries around my soul and caged the wind in my heart. I didn't know how to control it, I couldn’t risk it. Not when I had everything to lose.

"No, don't lock it up," Oda warned, but it was too late.

The howling died out and reluctantly, the wind laid down. The whistling in my ears stopped and the silence returned.

"Sorry, I couldn't give into the darkness."

Flavia exchanged a look with Oda and sighed. "You'll get there. I didn't manage it until my second year."

"Yes. I only figured it out this year and I still have trouble with it," Oda admitted. She sat down next to me and handed me a glass of berry juice. "Drink."

"Thanks." Even if they weren't socialising with me in public, which I didn't blame them for, they were both treating me with respect and kindness. I considered them my friends, although I wasn't sure if they saw me the same way.

It didn't matter.

I saw what friendship could do. It just left me and Ryoko with a big mess that we weren't even talking about.

"You did good today, Ylva." Flavia checked the time and sighed. "Oda and I have to go. We have another out-of-school excursion."

"Another?"

Oda tied her brown hair into a messy braid and nodded. "Yes, we've had loads of those recently. We actually brought a soul to Valhalla last week."

"Really?" My eyes widened in jealousy. "That's so cool."

"I know." Flavia grinned as she grabbed her coat. "We'll see you same time next week!"

The two rushed out, leaving me stranded in the room. They did that all the time, not even bothered by me being there or leaving the door open. As Flavia pointed out, who would be so stupid to rob her?

I took my own vest and headed back down to the first floor. As I passed through the hall, the Valkyrie students glared at me even more than usual.

What was the problem now?

The closer I got to my room, the more people stared.

Why was my door open? Did someone break in? What was going on?

I rushed forward, almost tripping over the threshold and just catching the door handle. A heavy weight fell on my stomach as I stared at four Dragons sitting around Ryoko's rice cooker.

All together, they looked up at me and giggled. What the—

"Ylva." My roommate appeared from the bathroom, her polite smile never faltering. "What are you doing here?"

"Ummm... I live here?" I stammered, staring at Ryoko's guests. "What are they doing here?"

"They're my friends from Shinigami. We're having dinner."

A lump formed in my throat as I recognised the rice and steamed vegetables she used to make for me. A while back, she wouldn't have invited Dragons into our room without asking or at least, she'd have invited me to join in. But now...

My roommate shrugged. "I'm sorry. Did you not get my memo?"

"What memo?"

"I left a note on your bed."

I stormed past the giggling girls and rummaged through my sheets and pillows. "There's nothing here, Ryoko."

"Well, I put it on your pillow. It's not my fault you lost it."

"Lost it?" I scoffed. "I never even saw it. How could I lose it?"

Ryoko shrugged again, the coldness in her eyes a painful contrast with how things used to be. Instead of gold, there was just black. All the warmth of her voice was replaced by an icy tone that sent shivers down my spine. She wasn't even looking properly at me and she certainly wasn’t spending any alone time with me.

How things had changed...