Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 157

I pace, restless, trying to go around and free my line of sight again, but Ethan is stubborn and keeps getting in the way, to the point where I only notice something is akin when suddenly the warriors open a path for the tiger griffin to pass and he is already standing right behind Ethan, big blue eye looking at me, full of emotion.

"Seraph, is that, is that really you...? No, is not possible, you should be far away from here and yet... those eyes, how could I not tell? You have your mother’s eyes."

"Do not dare talk about her, you have no right anymore." I’m just so fed up with him, of how he chose to be here instead of with his family, how he wasn’t there when mother needed him the most, on how he easily gave up on us, on how everything would have been different if he had been there for us. "You have no right, you hear me?"

His ears flop, but there is still a light in his eyes as he looks at me, and that behavior, that lack of anger, of self-preservation while saying things as if he cared brings forth something worse than the burning flames of the rage I felt towards him but a cold indifference that burns just as much in me, cooling down to the point that all expression leaves my face.

Like a flame burning too strong in a bonfire the fuel is consumed too fast and all there is left is the cooling touch of the ashes, the empty aftermath, a sensation, a response, even worse than the outburst, a lack of response, of anything.

"It was a mistake coming here." I say as I look deep into my father’s eye and turn around to leave, tail held high and the hair on my back standing a little from the burst of energy from before.

"Wait, hold on, Seraph I-" He starts saying, following me at a safe distance as we pass all the confused people who now had gathered upon the commotion. "Wait, hold on son, you came to me for a reason, and clearly-"

"Don’t you dare call me that!" I say, the ashen flame being flared up so easily, but the strength of the fire had passed, and the small outburst died down quickly.

He seems taken back and hurt by my reactions, however he seems to filter these emotions down and say in a somewhat calm voice: "You... clearly dislike me, and it is fair, but you came to me for a reason, please, let me help, I-..."

A bang is heard from the side then, and we all look at the source of the sound only to find the Major, Benedict, with a stern glance yet a smile on his face holding the cane he used to catch our attention in front of him.

"Well well as my late mother would say, nothing good comes from an empty stomach and a tired mind, so how about you two stay the night and we can talk about this tomorrow uhm?"

I open my beak to answer with a very clear and short no but then Ethan interferes, passing his arm around my furry shoulder and smiling at him while saying: "That sounds like a great idea Major Benedict, we will take your offer if it not too much."

"Not at all, not at all." He says, brushing his hand in the air dismissively.

After that I can’t remember much, someone guides us to some free room to the side of what looked to be an old stable, with plenty of different spaces and doors for different kinds of beasts, nothing too big though for there is not much land inside the barrier, with many crumbled open spaces that created the illusion of paths crisscrossing in the air, perhaps a strange side effect from the long use of the barrier, hard to tell.

We eat, but is only for sustenance at that point, the taste fleeing me as much so that I do not even remember what I had eaten, my mind elsewhere and yet thinking of nothing, distracted and tired, tired of this all.

I have to focus now, he is a way in to save mother, a concrete one that will not lead to nowhere like the others, a solid lead that may put me in the path of finding her, at last.

That thought alone is enough to keep me awake at night, if the drama from before wasn’t good enough, so I end up changing back to human, no point in pretending now, and while Ethan’s breathing deepens beside me as he sleeps soundly, the light of the torch outside reaching us just the right amount as the barrier outside has its light dimmed to simulate the day and night cycle, I get restlessness just thinking about how deep in the earth and closed in we witch sends a sharp shiver up my spine, a sense of unease of someone so used to the open sky.

There is nowhere to run from here if need be.

I take a deep breath, my mind so agitated that there is no point in trying to sleep at the moment, forcing me to stay still is only making me feel even more relentless, so I sit and take the book out, the bracelet shinning for a moment as it forms the ice book up from balls of floating light, and start flipping the pages up.

Most are still empty, but there are new spells now, some coming from the use and evolution of previous ones, not only being upgrades of them, but branching into new Ice spells, a few rare ones appearing out of the blue with no apparent connection with the other spells at all, confusing yet well received nonetheless.

A second hidden book to my collection is quite exciting, all the possibilities and forgotten knowledge it may have, and the ways that I can mix it with my rune understanding, to use such spells in weapons, in my feathers, in so many ways makes me open both books up and start taking notes.

At the last page of the silver book, however, lays a spell that is hard to read, the words fading and appearing with the light, reflecting as glassy ice.

"Glass... Heart?" I read after some effort, intrigued by the name, but have no time to wonder and study any further when I hear someone coming our way, quickly hiding the two books and ending with my notebook at hand only, almost being caught in the act, not that I was doing something wrong but the fewer people that know about my books the better.

And part of me wished I had managed to fall asleep to avoid the next conversation as my father’s head peeks around the corner.