Mantle of the Gods

It took nine times.

We’d waited until eight thirty to go down to the second floor then backed through the gate to the first floor. Three hours later a ring finally dropped. I picked it up and checked it out.

“A Speed Ring.” I held out the yellow ring to Oz. “All it does is give you one Speed.”

“I want it.” Oz held out her hand for me to put it on her hand. She smiled broadly as I slipped it on her finger.

“Aw…” Ren grabbed Ether’s hand and held it up. “We kind of match.”

Ether had a Recovery ring with a passive effect,so her ring was light green, Magic rings were blue, which was what Ren had. Once Oz put her hand in, they had yellow, green, and blue.

I looked over at Aelin. She’d been unusually quiet the whole morning.

“Aelin!” I motioned at the three women with their hands together. “You’re seriously not going to comment?”

“Oh.” The blonde looked at us, “Cool.”

“Gimme a sec.” I waved at the women, “Aelin!” I ran over to her as she headed for the exit “What’s going on with you? You’ve been acting weird since the boat.”

“It’s…” She sighed and walked through the exit.

“Hey!” I rushed through the portal after her. Once we were in front of the second floor gate I grabbed her shoulder while we waited for the others to catch up. “What’s going on with you?”

“We need to get back.” The usually bubbly blonde tapped her CB. ”We can talk once we get back.”

“Can’t we talk while we go back?” I touched her shoulder. “I know we need to get back, but we can’t do anything until the others get here.”

“Fine,..” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.. “It’s Savyn. She’s…”

“The only woman on the Black team.” I finished for her. “I take it you know her.”

“After my mom tried to get help from my father and he turned her away, Andes and Savyn found me at the diner and started…” She shook her head as she fought back tears.

“Hey! It’s okay!” I wrapped her in a hug. I noticed that the others had come through the gate, which meant that now we could get back to the surface.

“Oz can you get us back?” I looked at Ren and mouthed ‘HELP?’

The other blonde nodded and took over the embrace. I couldn’t hear what she said, but it made Aelin look not quite as lost.

“Gate’s open!” Oz motioned, “Let’s go.”

We went back up to the surface and no one said anything until we got back to camp and the five of us squeezed in my and Ether’s tent.

“What did they do to you?” I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the answer.

“I really thought I’d gotten over it.” Aelin took a deep breath. “I’d been so happy that I hadn’t been put on a team with them at the selection, and to be honest, I thought that I’d gotten past it.” She closed her head, “After my mom died, they’d come into the diner where I worked and make sure I was their server. They’d make comments about my mother and talk about how she got what she deserved. They even started backing me into corners and one time Savyn even…” She rubbed her left arm. “But they were Nobles, so the owners didn’t do anything about it. I thought about quitting, but those two would have followed me wherever I went.” She swallowed, “I thought I was mostly over it when I got my Mantle and got put on a team here with everyone, but…”

I heard Ether grinding her teeth. I looked over at the White-haired woman. ”What happened?”

Ether looked at Aelin. I could see anger on her face as well as concern. “While you were kidnapped, Savyn approached Aelin about burying their grief and apologized to her for how she’d treated her.” Ether took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, “About a week before you got out, Savyn invited Aelin to eat with them in their courtyard.” The white-haired woman was growling at this point. “But it was just so that they could get her alone. They tormented her and chased her back to our dorm. Fray and I got in trouble because we pulled out our weapons when Aelin came running back screaming. They’d even hit her with a few debuffs! And we were the ones who got in trouble!”

I swallowed as I tried to control my rage. I was tired of Nobility who treated other people like toys.

“Are you okay?” I tried to keep my voice level. They’d hurt one of my team members while I wasn’t there.

“A priest came and healed me.” Aelin wiped her eyes.

“Who was it? Does Celia know?” I wanted names and Rix. Okay, probably not Rix, but someone to help me do non-lethal Rix things.

“Missus Taray wasn’t there. It was just Gileon, Andes, and Savyn.” Her eyes got wide as I got up. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing this.”