The Awakening

Hot Pink Locks

Sophie's POV

"Why don't you enter my mind and find out? Scared I'll break your mind like I broke Alden's? Or, maybe I'll burn you alive like I did Kenric," Fintan ranted, maintaining that evil smile.

"Shut up!" I shouted, tears welling in my eyes at the memory of leaving Kenric in Fintan's unexpected flames. Everyone had thought that Fintan was dead after the incident, but he appeared to us a while later with new plans on taking over the Lost Cities.

He had been recently imprisoned in a Council-verified cell, in the middle of a forgotten part of the world where the climate was subzero all day, every day.

"How did you escape?" I demanded, still on guard as he edged a bit closer.

"You put too much trust in those goblin bodyguards of the Council," he answered, just feet away from me now.

I immediately started to inflicted a red beam of light of pain on him, after recently honing in on the ability with Bronte in more sessions. Fintan doubled over, groaning, and held up his hands in surrender.

"Relax, I didn't bring Umber or anyone so you know I'm just here to talk," he shrugged, but caught the slight flinch as my body reacted to Umber's name. "Oh, that's right. Umber beat you up pretty good, didn't she? How's that shadowflux holding up? Still feeding on your fear in your nightmares?"

As if on cue, I groaned from the pain and intrusion of the monster in my head. Overtime, I had willed the monster away, but occasionally, when mentioned, the darkness came back.

"I don't believe you," I finally gritted our after reigning in the monster. I wished Keefe was there to send those chilling breezes in my head.

"Fine, I brought Ruy, but that's just a precaution," he corrected himself, rolling his eyes at my insistence.

"Sophie Foster," a voice came from the left and I watched as Ruy came up to stand next to Fintan. His Addler was making it impossible for me to discern his features, or even his voice.

"Still hiding behind that Addler?" I teased maliciously, even though I just wanted to know what he looked like.

"At least I'm not hiding behind a bunch of demigods," Ruy said, eyeing the demigods with a brief amount of disgust in his multi-colored eyes.

"Ruy, I didn't bring you along so you could get in another couple's fight with the girl," Fintan chastised, turning towards Ruy.

"She started it!"

I crossed my arm and smiled gleefully when he grunted in exasperation.

"Fine, I'll be nice. Can you hurry up so Brant doesn't eat all of the custard bursts?" Ruy asked.

"You idiot! She wasn't supposed to know Brant's still alive!" Fintan roared, fire licking up his arms. Ruy made a protective force field around himself, watching Fintan with a guilty look in his eyes.

I turned away from them to hide the slight trembling in my body and looked behind me to find the demigods trapped in forcefields. I had been too focused on the conversation to realize their struggles the spheres of pulsating light. All of them looked defeated by now, helplessly standing still and clutching onto their weapons.

"Yes, Brant's still alive, Sophie. I'm sorry it came out this way. I was hoping for a dramatic entrance during one of our battles, but you can't always get what you want," he said before turning to Ruy who was silent in his own force field. "You're going to regret relaying that information."

Ruy seemed genuinely scared a he nodded timidly, reminding me of what Keefe said about Fintan and Ruy's relationship while he was pretending to be on the side of the Neverseen.