Through Smoke and Ashes

Fourty||Revealed Secrets

Smoke tickled my throat and stung my eyes. The air around me was slowly being snuffed out by the fire surging around the Academy. The fire was the last of my concerns as I stared at the man before me. His aura seeped through the thick smoke and clung to my skin like tar. He looked human, but my instincts were telling me he was anything but that. The shadows had revealed what was before me, but who? If he was indeed a Kellso, then who was he?

"Navi, dear," Danazzo's voice filled my ears, but now I knew there was someone else controlling it. "As I said before, you're an open book." His sneer shot through his voice with an ugly tone.

"Who are you?" My voice felt weak, but the glare on my face remained solid. More Kellso emerged from the shadows, surrounding us two in a circle. They didn't move after completing their process; they stood back and watched the two of us.

As he circled me, I kept my front facing him, never exposing my back. Plumes of ash fell in my line of vision as I watched where he walked. It looked like snow falling when the winter seasons would plague the lands, snuffing out all life from the earth. Fire was the same way, except it burned fast and killed painfully. I couldn't decipher which threat was worse; being burned alive or having a predator circling in for the kill. Nonetheless, I remained as calm as I could be in such a situation.

Even though flames roared around me, I could still hear the ongoing battle in the next room over. My friends and family were in there fighting off the rest of the demons while I was in here with another I did not know, but they knew me.

"You've been a person of interest to me for quite some time, Navi. A female Valariex dragon rider, unheard of." He chuckled lowly as his eyes came up to scan my face. I refrained from flinching away from his inhuman gaze. He made my skin prickle with a chill even though the room temperature was searing hot. "When I first found out about you, I didn't believe a word I heard, but my sources were quite adamant about your existence."

Realizing I was without a weapon, I discretely scanned the ground for my sword. It was lying behind the Kellso as though he purposely positioned himself between myself and a weapon. I needed to get to it.

"So, I had some of my people follow you around and keep tabs on you and your dragon. I was surprised to find out you had incapacitated one of them. You're not as weak as I originally thought." I sidestepped him as he was talking, inching my way closer to my sword laying behind him.

As he spoke, I was placing the puzzle pieces of his words together. To my knowledge and overall experience, a Kellso possessing another body takes a strong mind, but even then, it isn't easy to do so. The Kellso I came into contact with when I first arrived at the Academy could easily be picked out just by looking at the minor details. Its eyes were completely black, its voice sounded forced and gurgled in its throat, and when it moved, it was almost like an invisible force was holding it back. With this Kellso, its movements were fluid, natural-looking. Its eyes, although inhuman, could still pass off as normal. The Kellso before me had to be stronger. It said it wanted me for whatever plan it had up its sleeve. It had people follow me to watch over my capabilities and to monitor me.

"You're the Kellso King," I merely whispered in complete shock. Here before me stood the leader of our greatest enemy, and no one figured it out.

"Twoleg!" Naxan's fear flowed through me. "Get away from him! Get out!"

"Very good, Navi," He spoke with a fluid tongue. Anger bubbled within my gut as my lashing glare attached to his face. I ignored Naxan's calls of distress as I now knew who was standing before me. I felt disgusted to be talking to such a monster. As the fear left my body, so did all rational thoughts. I made a move to step around him, ducking away from his revolting hands and grabbed my sword in a tight grasp. He may be my greatest enemy and a strong one at that, but he was limited to what he could do in a body that was not of his own.