Rejection on the Alpha #1

24. Alliances Worth Dying For

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CHAPTER 24: Alliances Worth Dying For

It was a war planned long ago. Charles may have treated an advanced game as a challenge for the alphas, Luna's and high rankings of clan members across the Northern and perhaps some of the Southern hemisphere. He said on the podium that it was to control the muse and gain one victor in return, the only change is no other candidate has to die, because the illusions won't remove anyone, just show them who has the power to take on monsters that shouldn't exist. Martin's style of dictatorship ran similarly, first he believed he ran a democracy, then he ruled with the armour of a dictator and assumed I'd be beside him like a good falsified mate.

If only life were as idealistic.

I smelt it first in the crisp air of the room's dimmed lighting, Elias moves with his cult of followers, hidden in the shadows of their hoods like reapers lingering in the light, forced to take on the shape and form of the human structure, when in fact, they are something entirely different, "The elemental world is not better than this." Elias looks to the main court room where Martin and every alliance he has made after the annihilation of those loyal to the council gathers in some crooked scheme of gods.

At least that is how Martin sees himself.

He's looked at like a benevolent protector against those who reek of pure destruction, all I wanted to do was make him look in the mirror and see the reflection of someone he's been made into. Someone he made with his thoughts, his mind, and his own bare hands. I want him to ask himself if he's proud of that. If he can look himself in the eye and see something worth painting.

If he's truly that egotistical.

I knew he was.

"There was once a saying of the royals that walk on realms like gods greatest creations. The strongest, bravest, the most reliable ones to hold the crowns and the others to run in the crown's shadows. To be built in numbers, to echo the lone wolf who bears the crown. The same can be directed to the way of the elementals. Predator and prey. Death, and survival. It is of the same face on the same coin, merely two sides. You are one side, Celestine and he is another. Chivalry and kindness died among those who sharpen their crowns. If you look to Martin for compassion, you'll find you yourself to be the prey to his predator. You do not want to be the prey, Celestine." Elias emphasises.

I study him.

"You say only an elemental can move through the portal to your world?" His cryptic words meant nothing if I could not find answers and this was one. This was one I had, one I hoped to overcome.

He furrows his eyebrows, perplexed, "I have already told you, Celestine. You know the answer, you cannot go beyond the barrier." He says again.

I turn away from him, the building felt lonely, quiet and almost ghostly. Haunted but built for training under governmental properties. I feel the warmth in my fingers, "Do you have to be born with the element, or can you be made into one? Like someone drowning at a young age, can they fight the water, learn to control it or will fate run its course and drown the creature? What about soil? Can a creature buried alive breathe under the weight of the earth crushing them? Can a girl in a cell call for warmth with her own bare hands? I have read the tales of elementals only being in a state close to death to birth their abilities, or ask the gods for a power they did not get to wield through blood alone? You have not told me anything, Elias. That is where your loyalty can be so vastly questioned." My words tense the molecules in the air alone.

Its small at first.

I feel it in my hand.

In my palm. its orange and yellow glow flutters like butterflies around me as I slowly turn to him and the elders that still where they stand.