Court of Nightfall (The Nightfall Chronicles #1)(15)

The Chancellor held up his staff. "We are done!" He looked at the other Head, a challenge in his eyes, but Ragathon backed down. "Jax, please show Miss Night to a room and make sure she has all she needs to be comfortable."

His eyes fell on me again, a knowing look in them. "Miss Night, please accept my condolences on the death of your parents. Whatever we can do to help bring their killers to justice, we will do."

I didn't exhale until we left the Council Room. My body went limp, and I felt light headed and drained.

Jax turned to me. "I've never seen anyone talk to them like that and live to tell the tale." He had a look of wonder in his eyes, but also fear. Of me? Of them? I didn't know and honestly didn't care much in that moment.

But I did have one question that nagged me. "That man. The middle one, the Chancellor. Who is he?" I knew he was the Chancellor, but something about him tugged at my mind. The way he looked at me. The way he laughed when I stood up to him.

Jax's face was a study in neutrality. "He's your grandfather."





Chapter 8


Breaking Grief


"My grandfather? But… he's dead. He died before I was born." I had no grandparents left. My dad's parents died a few years apart when I was a child, though I never got to meet them because they lived overseas. My mom's mother died when she was a teenager, and her father… he died while she was pregnant with me.

"When your parents went into hiding, they cut off most of their ties with the Orders. That included your grandfather."

Jax led me back up the stairs we'd come down and through the halls of the castle as we talked. "Have I ever met him?" I asked.

He shook his head, running a hand through his dark hair. "No, your parents went into hiding before you were born."

While Mom was pregnant with me. All she had left was her father, and she cut off their relationship to protect this weapon.

I became keenly aware of my sorry physical state as students from different Orders walked by, staring at us. I must have looked like I'd survived a battlefield. I guess I had. "It's late for them to be up, isn't it?"

"We have different training exercises that run throughout the day and night."

A tall girl with red hair and the mark of the Teutonics on her tunic stared at me as she walked by.

Jax tugged at my hand as he glared at her, dark eyes narrowed. "Mind your own business, soldier."

Her mouth snapped shut, and she hurried off as Jax increased his speed, and I rushed to catch up.

We entered a large hall with couches, chairs and tables scattered throughout and a huge hearth roaring with a fire. Above it hung a tapestry embroidered with the Teutonic Knight symbol. Only one student occupied the room: a long, lanky man reclining on a couch in one corner, a large leather book covering his face as he slept.

Jax crossed the room and slapped his boot. The man jolted awake.

"Get to bed, Saunders. You'll be useless to me tomorrow otherwise."

"Yes, sir," he said and scrambled out one of the doors, not even sparing a glance in my direction, which I appreciated.

"Tomorrow you'll be given a room in the Initiate's wing," Jax told me. "But for tonight, you can have my room. I'll sleep out here."

He led me through the door on the East side of the hall and straight into a suite with a sitting area, a study area and a bed. I saw touches of the Jax I knew in the room—his favorite baseball glove and ball sitting on his desk, a stack of comics I recognized from home, jeans and t-shirts strewn about, familiar pieces of a life that no longer existed for me. Mixed in with this were other items I'd never seen—a sword with the Teutonic Knight symbol engraved on the pommel, a ring bearing the same mark, two sets of armor on dummies in the corner, one light and one heavy… pieces of his life I'd never known existed.

He cleared his throat and went to his closet to get a towel and some clothes. "I know these will be too big, but they're clean and will do the job until I find you something more appropriate."

I accepted them, the smell and feel so familiar to me. These were the sweats he’d always worn when we’d had movie nights at his house. When we'd fall asleep with the television on, a bowl of popcorn between us, not waking until the next morning. The memory made my eyes burn with the heat of unshed tears.

"Thank you," I said.

He looked like he wanted to say more, his face full of unspoken thoughts. I paused, waiting, but he just nodded. "Help yourself to anything. I'll be back with some food."

He turned and left me standing alone in this half strange, half familiar space of memories.

I went to the bathroom and saw my reflection for the first time and trembled. It wasn't as bad as I thought. It was worse. I looked like the scene from Carrie, where she was bathed in blood. Only this blood was human, and some of it was mine. Perhaps even most of it. But a lot of it also belonged to my parents.

I waited, expecting the pain to overtake me, but I'd buried it too deep for it to surface now. I pulled out the Token of Strife from my pocket, and the memory chip from my shoe, peeled off my clothing and dropped the pile in the small wastebasket by the toilet. My hands were steady. Numb. I looked around for a place to hide my two treasures, settling on the box of tissues on the toilet.

Turning to the mirror again, I stared at myself. My pale skin was covered in bruises, cuts, scrapes and gashes. But the bullet wound I'd been most worried about had healed considerably. I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen myself in color. I looked so much more different than I'd imagined. I tugged on a long strand of my silver blond hair, rubbing a bit of blood out of it. My eyes were bloodshot and tired, but the blue silver of my irises had an unearthly quality that was disconcerting.