Page 106 of Fallen Heirs

“My love?” Saryan questioned. “I wasn’t expecting you for a while.” His contentment at having his fiancé right here with him quickly gave way to a whole lot of worry as he looked Marlowe over, seeing the distress all over him. Not to mention, the wild way he’d just flown in out of the blue. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s Orpheus,” Marlowe told him, making both of us tense. A chill ran down my spine as he turned to me, “We need your help.”

26

~Orpheus~

Abandoned and ruined.

That was the state that Electi Academy had fallen into.

Just another casualty of this war.

Not even the worst of it either.

There would be more to come before it was over, before we vanquished the threat to us all.

There was no deal that Constantine could offer up that would prevent that from happening. I was only here to keep Elliot alive, to buy time.

Therewassome silver lining to this demented situation he’d forced us into, and that was the very act of him reaching out followingObsidian’sreveal and subsequent defeat of a unit of his acolytes demonstrated how unsettled he was about its existence.

And where there was fear, there was opportunity.

To get under his skin.

To manipulate in him what hadn’t been possible before, because that fear provided an opening, a vulnerability.

But it also posed a danger.

When people were afraid they didn’t always react rationally.

They made rash decisions out of desperation that they normally wouldn’t.

And when you were trying to strategize and predict the actions andreactions of an enemy, something like that posed a challenge.

I had to be wary.

Warier than just the fact of meeting with him alone already warranted.

I couldn’t afford to fall. I was needed.Obsidianneeded me. Our foursome needed me. My father. Even Elliot Sabre andExemplar.The list had become much longer of late with all that had transpired.

There was a lot of responsibility and need bearing down on my shoulders. Fortunately, I wasn’t just handling it well, I was excelling at it. I’d become the leader that I’d always wanted to be.

Best of all, it had been on my terms.

With this new incarnation ofObsidian.

I wouldn’t fail it, I wouldn’t fail anyone, least of all myself.

No matter what Constantine really had up his sleeve with this forced meeting.

As I waited just beyond the gates, I took in the main building.

It had suffered some fire damage, especially on the upper levels. Fortunately, Talon had managed to mitigate it so it hadn’t spread through to the rest of the building. It hadn’t even been dealt with in the aftermath, though. Some windows and walls had been blown out from the battle too. It had all just been left in ruin and disarray when the place had been evacuated.

It had been treated as a lost cause.

It wasn’t.

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