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Wow looky. Two updates in one pandemic!
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Six filled chairs before her, Samanthra had a rope around everyone's neck now, and the look on her face meant loosening it wouldn't come easy.
"The tip Raymond Peterson provided was proven correct, the room recently disturbed, and an ancient ritual and its used ingredients present." She stopped, focused on the chair at the end of the line that contained a shivering Talli. Spared from the weakest link by ignorance. "Ms. Fray, were you aware of this room's existence?"
She pursed her lips, staring up at the headmaster like a deer in headlights. "N-no..."
Vera frowned as Samanthra took one step to stand before her, the same question lingering in the dead air. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"She's lying," a voice boomed, its roof centered echo signalling Tia's presence.
Samanthra took the information silently, taking another step to stand in front of Káel.
He didn't dare to lift his gaze, staring ahead as the world around him gripped his throat. There wasn't a point in lying, Tia could tell, and thinking on his feet was getting harder by the second as his mind drowned. "Yes..."
"He's telling the truth."
Samanthra finished her walk, receiving the same answers Káel expected from who was left. Aside from making some candles, Alestra was adrift in the wind to their entire scheme, and would likely never speak to any of them again.
After a few seconds of thought, Samanthra went back to staring at Talli. "Ms. Fray. Do you know why you're here?"
She silently shook her head, looking along the line of her friends without an answer.
"She's telling the truth."
"Ms. Fray you are excused."
Samanthra watched Talli hurriedly leave, snapping her fingers for the door to slam behind her. Despite the small sense of hope Káel had that she would spare the rest of his friends, Káel knew by Vera's whitening knuckles that this conversation was seconds from going downhill. Fast.
The door shifted behind them, a new guest coming through, arms filled with familiar objects that fueled Káel's anxiety. It was Mr. Lightwood, a scaly blue journal rested atop the textbook Truvius had stuffed all of Káel's one sided conversations in.
Samanthra silently placed the two objects upright and in view of her guests on her desk, waiting for Mr. Lightwood to silently take a spectator's corner.
"About three hours northwards of here there is a stretch of black Lumi the size of a small town. Nothing grows there, and the black ruins were not the work of nomad dragons." Samanthra started, her rhythmic steps starting up again.
"Kanaski," Truvius muttered, his expression not the only one that seemed to know the story Samanthra was telling.
"The ruins were the work of a single man, who, thought himself versed enough in ancient lumience to make the rules himself," Samanthra continued, her gaze flicking to Káel for a split second. "His intentions were to cure the town of bloodspots, a sickness as contagious as it is deadly. His intentions were to help."
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COBALT: The Red Phantom (Book One)
Fantasy[Featured: EDITOR'S CHOICE] Káel didn't think his life could get worse after being abducted by an alien posing as a Russian exchange student. Until that 'one day' turned into three months, and he was forced to get cozy on a post-war planet fresh out...
