The limousine advanced silently through the streets of Eldralid.
Talon sat by the window, his hands wrapped in improvised bandages. In front of him, Roxanne looked at her phone with indifference. His mother observed the landscape. And Cedric...
Cedric stared at him fixedly.
"I can't believe you ran off the stage like that." His voice was cold as ice. "Are you insane?"
Talon clenched his bandaged fists. Pain throbbed beneath the fabric.
"I'm sorry... but my fingers just started hurting too much. I don't understand why, and then the nails just came off..."
"Well, you should have endured it!" Cedric struck the armrest forcefully, making Talon flinch involuntarily. "I don't know, stick your hands in your pockets or something! But don't pull that stupidity! Do you know how embarrassing that was?"
"Father, it was very painful. I didn't know what to do. I felt like my skin was going to burn from the heat—"
"DAMN IT, TALON! IT WAS JUST YOUR DAMN NAILS!" The shout echoed in the closed space of the vehicle. "ARE YOU GOING TO EXAGGERATE THAT MUCH OVER SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! CAN'T YOU ENDURE A SIMPLE PAIN OF THAT MAGNITUDE?!"
"Father, I'm serious. The pain was too much. It was multiplied by three at least—"
"JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"
Silence fell like a slab. Only Cedric's heavy breathing could be heard, loaded with contained fury.
"I forgive you ONE damn stupidity. Just one. And in record time you come out with another?" He leaned forward, bringing his face inches from Talon's. "Don't forget that what I mentioned that time still stands. I can kill you at any moment. And I'll do it without hesitation."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
"I don't need a pathetic useless person like you in this family."
Talon lowered his gaze, unable to hold his father's eyes.
"I really can't imagine the suffering your companions must have gone through having you in the group. Putting up with your fear of monsters and pain when you're already sixteen years old..." Cedric laughed bitterly, as if the very idea seemed absurd to him. "Because yes, don't think I've forgotten. I'm sure what happened with your nails wasn't even that bad and you just exaggerated it as is customary with you."
"Father! I'm being serious! This really was very strange, the pain was inten—"
"SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH! I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO SPEAK!"
Talon squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lower lip to keep from speaking further.
"There's really no point with you..." Cedric leaned back in his seat with a sigh of frustration. "You can't even obey a damn order."
"Dear..." Talon's mother intervened for the first time since they had left the ceremony. "Perhaps it is something we should worry about. It wasn't a simple nail. It was all of them."
Cedric looked at her with evident annoyance. "And what do you expect us to do, huh?"
"Well, we could take him to the hospital to be examined..."
"But he just got out of there!"
"Perhaps it would be a good idea..." Talon murmured, looking at his bandaged hands as if they could give him some answer. "Maybe it was my fault leaving the hospital in such a hurry. I should have stayed longer resting..."
Cedric slowly turned his head toward him. The movement was calculated, threatening.
"Go back to the hospital?" His tone had become dangerously low. "Is that what you want?"
"It could be for the best. I'm just saying..."
"Do you have any idea what they'll do to you if you go back there?"
Talon didn't respond. A knot formed in his throat.
"Ha!" Cedric laughed without the slightest trace of humor. "You have no idea. You're the survivor of an anomaly that occurred in the rifts. Everyone who presents symptoms after exposure to an anomalous rift is hospitalized. They perform experiments on them. To the point where they're never heard from again."
He let the information sink into Talon's mind before continuing.
"Is that what you want, Talon?"
Talon said nothing. He didn't know how to respond. The words stuck in his throat as he imagined what his father had just described.
"That's what I thought."
"Even so..." His mother insisted, turning to look at her husband. "Perhaps we should consider it. In case something similar happens again, it could be dangerous not only for him, but also for those around him."
Cedric sighed in frustration, "Fine!" He said reluctantly, as if each word cost him an effort. "If something similar happens to him, we'll report it." He rubbed his temples with both hands. "My God, what a headache all this is. I'm sure if any of your companions had survived it wouldn't have been as problematic as you."
"Don't worry..." Talon looked at his bandaged hands, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. "It must have just been some bodily weakness from being unconscious for many days..."
Neither his mother nor his father responded. Silence stretched heavily inside the vehicle.
But Roxanne looked up from her phone for the first time in several minutes.
"Before the ceremony, Talon mentioned seeing something strange in front of him." Her voice was casual, almost disinterested. "But there was nothing there."
'Why...?'
Talon's heart skipped a beat.
"What?" His mother turned in alarm, her eyes going from Roxanne to Talon. "Is what she's saying true, Talon?"
"So you're going crazy too?" Cedric narrowed his eyes, studying his son with a look that could cut steel.
"No, none of that is true." Talon glared at Roxanne, who didn't even deign to return his look. "Why are you telling them that? You know that didn't happen."
"Don't lie," she responded without flinching, without lifting her eyes from her screen.
"I think that's enough to report this..." His mother brought a hand to her mouth, visibly disturbed.
"What the fuck happened in that rift, Talon?" Cedric leaned forward again, invading his son's personal space. "Are you sure you don't remember anything? Because I'm sure you're lying..."
"Talon..." His mother looked at him with genuine concern, something that was rare coming from her. "You don't have a sacred mantle. If something happened to you down there, it's of crucial importance that you tell us..."
"That's enough!" Talon exploded, his voice louder than he intended. "Let's just not talk about this anymore! Most likely it's nothing serious."
Everyone looked at him in silence. The atmosphere inside the limousine became so heavy it was almost difficult to breathe.
"Very well..." The butler's voice from the driver's seat finally broke the tension. "We've arrived."
✦ ✦ ✦
Cedric was the first to get out, without giving anyone a single glance. Luego Roxanne, who put away her phone and left with the same indifference with which she had remained the entire trip. Then his mother, who cast him one last worried look before descending.
No one said a word.
Talon remained seated a few more seconds, looking through the window at the imposing Thornveil residence. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. And finally he got out.
The residence rose before him. As always. Cold. Impersonal. More like a mausoleum than a home.
He entered and climbed the stairs to his room with slow steps, each step feeling heavier than the last.
"Young master."
Talon stopped dead.
The butler, Reginald, was approaching from the side hallway with something in his hands.
"Here." He tossed him some clean bandages with a smooth motion.
Talon caught them in the air.
"Make sure to cover your wounds well. That way you'll avoid getting an infection."
"Thank you very much, Reginald..."
The butler smiled warmly, an expression that contrasted sharply with everything Talon had experienced in the last hour. "If you need anything else, don't hesitate to tell me."
Talon nodded, unable to articulate more words, and entered his room.
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
Finally alone.
He took off his shoes with slow, almost mechanical movements. Then his socks.
And there they were. His feet.
The nails had also disappeared. There were only beds of raw flesh where there had once been healthy nails.
'Shit...'
He sat on the bed and began to bandage himself carefully. First his feet, wrapping each toe precisely to prevent the wounds from being exposed. Then he renewed the bandages on his hands, which were already stained with small drops of blood that had filtered through the fabric.
'What really happened?'
The memories of the coliseum came back like a blow.
'That guy... called the monster Mor'khad.'
He lay back on the bed, looking at the white and immaculate ceiling of his room.
'Could it be because of him that this happened to me...?'
But he shook his head forcefully, as if he could physically expel those thoughts.
'Nobody survives being devoured alive... I'm sure that specific part never happened. That man had strange powers, he surely did something to my mind... Most likely Professor Edward killed him and died in the process. Yes... That must have happened.'
'So what happened with my nails must just be psychological stress. It's making my mind and body sick.'
'And the fact that I now have to pretend I know how to use magic at the academy doesn't help much...'
He grabbed the pillow and pressed it against his face forcefully.
"I don't know how I'm going to deal with everything that's coming!" he shouted against the fabric, his voice muffled but loaded with desperation.
He let the pillow drop to one side, letting it fall to the floor.
'I should make a plan... But I have no ideas. And I'm too tired to think.'
'The only thing I want is to sleep...'
He closed his eyes, feeling how exhaustion finally began to overcome him.
"I suppose tomorrow I'll have to think of something..."
And then he fell asleep, without even taking off his ceremony uniform.