Page 50 of Forging Bonds: Part One

“You didn’t tell HID?” Van asks me curiously.

I shake my head, “To be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind to tell them.”

“Huh,” he replies. “There is definitely something else at work here, especially since you haven’t been able to tell anyone else before but can tell us.”

“I haven’t tried to tell anyone else,” I correct him.

“Maybe not, but I still think that there is something else at play,” Van replies.

I nod, “Oh, there absolutely is. I have no doubt about it. I think that we’re probably just going to have to wait and see how it plays out though because there’s not really much else that we can do, and as you said on the phone to the guys, we have bigger things that we need focusing on right now.”

“Exactly,” Van agrees. “Speaking of, why don’t you carry on reading, and we’ll see if we can narrow down what you are.”

I nod and glance back at the list, “After the Hystreea, there’s a supe that’s simply called a Fallen. Apparently, they are a kind of angel that has magic closer to a demon than an angel and different kinds of wings, too. Oh, and the next one is Angel, I thought they never existed?”

“So did I,” River agrees. “Although it doesn’t surprise me that the stories came from somewhere.”

“Me neither, if I’m honest. But angels? Damn,” Evander comments.

“Oh, then there’s Hellhound Shifters, so they’re very extinct then if they’re in here. This is an old book,” I say and then add, “the last is a Gevatrea, it’s a creature that lives in the oceans, of Trieneliea, or it did, and it was responsible for crossing all supernaturals that had a link to water over to the underworld.” I flip to that page out of pure curiosity, “Wow, it kind of looks like a kelpie, but its body is completely shadowed and black, it’s kind of see-through like looking at smoke.”

“It’s eerie looking. What else does it say about it?” River asks.

I carry on reading and then reply, “Oh, it has a human form as well because not all creatures that are connected to the water live only in the water, so it walks on land in a human form, or at least it looks like a human form to me. They’re from Trieneliea so I doubt that they looked completely human, and I’m guessing that was just the word that Winston decided to use so I would understand it. It says that they track down the souls that they needto take over to the spirit realm, and they physically take them, kind of like a reaper does, I guess?”

Van nods, “That could fit, to be honest? You were obviously drawn to it because you looked it up first.”

“It can track things, and it goes to the Spirit Realm,” River adds.

I nod, “I agree that it could fit, but it doesn’t quite feel right and surely I would have some sort of affinity with water if that were the case?”

Evander nods, “Yeah, I imagine you would, actually. But we can’t rule it out. What about a Hellhound?”

I shrug, “Maybe. Let me see what they say about them. Wouldn’t Dimitri have been able to pick up on it? And he wasn’t a late bloomer like me?”

River frowns. “Yeah, he should have been able to, especially since he is a shifter. I don’t think you could rule it out just because you are a late bloomer, we don’t know enough about them. The females of the species could always come into their gifts later or you might just be a late bloomer and not the norm.”

“Yeah. That’s a really good point, okay,” I agree and turn to the page, “it says that they’re excellent trackers, but from what Dimitri said, it doesn’t work like mine. It also says that they take the bad souls to the pit, so the ones that have been so fucking awful and truly evil that their souls are incredibly stained. Hellhounds drag them, literally kicking and screaming to the pit.”

Raiden

This is so fucking cool. I haven’t felt this free ever. Surprisingly, my mind is staying relatively clear. I can feel the memories on the edges of my thoughts, but they aren’t encroaching. I ambeginning to wonder if it’s because I have been allowing myself to think of it more and not immediately shying away. I was five, I was a kid, and not only did I have no idea what I was capable of, but I shouldn’t have been put in that situation.

Who makes their child stand witness to the death of their mother? Not only that but because of what I am capable of, I felt her pain and her distress. I heard her begging as she died. She didn’t want to go. I knew that it wasn’t normal, I shouldn’t have been able to hear her, and I definitely shouldn’t have been able to transport her soul to the spirit realm.

They didn’t know that I did that though, my father claimed that he had taken her soul, but I could see it, it was there, and it followed me around crying and begging just as she did when she was dying. For weeks, her soul followed me, and I still don’t understand why none of the other reapers could hear her. Maybe they did and just decided that I needed some toughening up. Eventually, I broke, my magic ripped from me, and I shifted, something that I shouldn’t have been able to do. I took my mother’s tortured soul to the Spirit Realm. It was so damaged, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was because I took so long to get it across, but the guilt has sat heavily on my shoulders for a long time. The spirits came to take her, she didn’t go to the pit, at least I don’t think that she did.

I never wanted to experience anything like that ever again, so I locked that side of me away, and any promise that my father thought I had suddenly disappeared.

People told him that it was because of the trauma of watching my mother die, but he wouldn’t listen and just called me pathetic and useless, using me as a punching bag both physically and magically. His actions cemented my decision to keep a large portion of my magic hidden. As I grew up, it became increasingly clear to me that he would use whatever magic I had for his own gain and that I was much better off being ignored by him.

Even when I finally got free of him, when I went to the academy, I couldn’t let him know that I was as strong as I was, but more than that, I was terrified to release that part of me. I could tell that it had grown and gotten stronger, and honestly, I still think that my magic might have contributed to my mother’s suffering; it had been playing up, and I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t know.

I have to admit, looking back on what happened, that I don’t actually know how my mother died, reapers don’t die easily, and although she was screaming and begging, her body wasn’t moving. It’s something that has begun to puzzle me and is something that I want to look into if I get called to the Reaper Council. It won’t be a simple meeting, especially when they realize that I’m a tier that is technically above them. They aren’t going to like that, and so they are likely to keep me in the reaper city for a week, maybe longer, while they decide what they’re going to do with me.

Whereas that would have made me panic previously, now I’m kind of hoping for it. I want to poke around and see what I can find out about my mother’s death, and I also want to see what I can find out about the original council. I have to be in the reaper city before I can do any of that. I actually spoke to River about it, and he agreed that there was definitely something fishy about my mother’s death, especially since my father said that he had taken her soul to the spirit realm, and he hadn’t. He also told me that it wasn’t my fault and that I was a kid. I shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place.

I know that.

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