Chapter 49 | PoV: Sanya
Sanya's whole body shook from pain and exhaustion. She barely found it in herself to crawl into the bath set up for her in her dorm room.
Yeah, she was back in her dorm room. The infirmary actually needed to be used to tend to anyone who got injured during the monster flood, so Dima had discharged her . . . with a condition.
Of-Salama stood just outside Sanya's door, standing as a guard and something of a grounding, familiar face. For comfort.
Someone meant to watch over her would not easily provide comfort. In fact, it stressed and irked Sanya quite a bit.
It also pained Sanya to be in this room. Mai and Zahira were both still missing. However, they hadn't been found among the bodies, if the adults weren't lying. There was hope to be had, and Sanya was going to believe they were alive—especially Mai—until she personally saw her corpse.
Sanya tried not to think about what would happen if Mai's corpse was found somewhere. Mai. Was. Alive!
Some staff had gone ahead to clear away the bodies and the blood, before the students reentered. They would bury them and have a ceremony tomorrow morning.
They were originally going to abandon the academy—and they still might. With the portal shrunken and manageable, though, everyone was allowed back inside. It wasn't a matter of moving the academy above ground, but whether to continue on or to dissolve it entirely.
Which raised the important question of—where would everyone go after the academy was gone? None of them had people to return to or even lives of any kind. Their only skill would be a very unknown magic. It just went to show that Nur had been using them as a tool and developed them for that purpose . . . At least they had been given food and shelter with a budget greater than any orphanage.
Sanya sat in the stone tub of soap and warmed water. Of-Salama had made it the perfect temperature. Sanya did not even sigh with contentment. She could not allow any resting until Mai was found. Even if it took days.
Sanya’s whole body felt like giving up. She might not be able to get out of the bath. She definitely would not be able to get away without rest . . . hmph.
Sanya's body ached and throbbed. A headache split her skull. After the portal closed, Sanya found herself locking up whenever she had tried casting a spell. She had overused herself for the day. Her entire body was taxed into oblivion.
The academy staff were cleaning up the place, while others stood vigilant at the portal and stopped the monsters. Students had scavenged all of the crystals and dropped them into crates. Others took glass vials and ceramic jars of the purple goo left behind.
They had lost twenty students.
Sanya’s stomach churned.
On the bright side, she didn't have the highest homicide count now! . . .
Okay, among the students and staff, she still did. No one else had murdered anyone, as far as she knew . . .
Barakat and some other of the big names among the staff were debating the fate of the school. Things were pointing towards “abandon it.”
Great. Both sarcastically and genuinely.
There was also a search party looking for students that had run far. Between everyone, the academy was stretched thin. Far too thin.
Sanya washed up, trying not to get all her bandages wet, which proved difficult. She would need to visit Dima later and help get them changed.
Sanya finished, got out, and donned her second pair of clothes. Then she washed the first set in the soapy bath water. She cleaned off the goop on her staff as well.
Sanya stepped towards the door and opened it. “Can you dry my clothes?”
Of-Salama snorted. “Sure.”
She stepped into Sanya's room and heated her first set of clothes until they dried.
“Thanks,” Sanya said.
To eat! And stop the soggy bandages from clinging to her skin! . . . Was that blood? Oops.
Sanya tapped the strings of llumifruits to dim them and promptly left her room.
☆ ☆ ☆
Sanya stepped back outside after getting help with her bandages from the nurse. Sanya had tried to eat a little amount of food, but she really had not been feeling up to it. Mai was missing. A bunch of monsters had just murdered two dozen people. Just . . . too many bad things were happening or had happened!
There was still too much purple goop on the ground outside. The dark skies opened up, water poured down. Goop and rain mixed together on the ground. The purple juice clung to Sanya's newly cleaned boots just to wash off from the water in an endless cycle.
Sanya headed up the incline and into the dark.
She headed around and to the overhang above the doors. She passed by the mages on duty cutting down the monsters emerging from the portal. They didn't even acknowledge her as she passed. Sanya sat down on an old piece of stone from the cathedral. Of-Salama stood nearby with a tiny fireball in her hand for light for meager light.
Sanya decided to sit outside until Mai came back or was found.
Sanya looked up. To the horizon, beyond the dark clouds, white circles glimmered in the night sky. One great large circle shone a weak light.
Stars! And . . . was that the moon? Sanya had seen the suns for the first time today—and clouds.
Now, she could see stars and the moon.
She never would have thought to see these objects, often talked about in old stories, and mentioned among scholars and scientists. Yet . . . to actually see them.
If only Mai was here, sitting beside Sanya, enjoying the sight with her. Sanya's heart ached more than the rest of her body. There was an empty feeling in her stomach, like a part of her life was missing.
Sanya sighed, rain tapped against the good of her cloak. Rain was so strange—the sky opened up and dropped copious amounts of water. After living in a constant water shortage, it was so weird to have it drop from the sky like this.
It felt nice. It smelled good too, beyond the ethereal smells of monster corpses.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Footsteps moved sand and gravel underneath, somewhere behind Sanya. Not Of-Salama, because she was standing still in the corner of Sanya's vision. Multiple footsteps. Lots of footsteps.
Of-Salama turned and looked.
“Of-Salama?” Sanya said.
A warm light flickered, the source of it, behind Sanya, was out of view.
Sanya turned to look and—
Something jumped on top of Sanya. Cold fingers grasped Sanya's shoulders.
She yelped, and fell to the wet sand in front of her. Her right cheek smushed against the ground, closing her right eye to not get any sand in it. Something came down with her. Great, she would need another bath.
Was she being attacked by a wolf-thing?
A braid of hair tied at the end by a yellow ribbon fell into Sanya's vision, which was mostly dark, wet sand. Sanya saw Of-Salama's boots off in the distance too. She couldn't focus on whatever else she was doing.
The fingers at her shoulders moved into an embrace.
Great. This was where some interdimensional monster squeezed her to death.
No—wait.
“Mai?”
Mai giggled.
The hug constricted Sanya further. Tons of feelings rushed through Sanya. Relief and joy most of all. Then what was that heat? Attraction? Affection? What was underneath all of that, worrying Sanya? Guilt? Disappointment? She felt a giddy warmth that made her want to grin like mad, and something churning and painful deeper within. Also the pain from being suffocated via hug.
“Ow ow ow,” Sanya squeaked. “Okay . . . Can you please get off me?”
“No,” a muffled voice responded, sufficiently burrowed in Sanya's neck. Then, still in a hug, the weight fell off Sanya, and came to her side.
Mai's face took over Sanya's vision.
“I'm glad to see you too,” Sanya smiled. She stretched out her left hand and wrapped it around Mai. “Why'd you run off?”
“Thamina and Esmat . . . They wanted to keep our little group safe. That meant running away,” Mai reasoned.
“May I get in your group next time? To run away with you?”
“You can get in me,” Mai muttered. “Um! Sorry! Yes, of course. Just be there next time.”
Ouch. It wasn't Sanya's fault that she had been pulled away. She understood, though. One reason or another, she couldn't run away with Mai if Sanya wasn't there.
Mai scooched closer, and pressed her face against Sanya's. Her heart beat faster. She took in Mai's extremely red face, seeing it clearly despite the dark night around them.
Someone let out an exasperated sigh from behind . . . Was that Zahira?
“Hey,” another voice said. “Let them have their moment.”
“It's been, like, ten whole minutes,” yep, definitely Zahira. “Also, they're going to get sick.”
Cold rain continued to splash against Sanya and Mai.
Mai laughed. It made Sanya's smile widen.
“Whatever. I'm going back.” Zahira's footsteps continued to crunch forward. She suddenly paused somewhere further west, towards the portal. “What in the world happened here?”
Zahira's footsteps went further, becoming distant. The light from not Of-Salama went there too, as well as the other footsteps. The group continued down towards the portal and the incline to the cave, leaving Sanya, Mai, and Of-Salama the Chaperone behind.
“I'm, um, going back too,” Of-Salama declared. “I'll just be over there. Don't do anything weird.”
Okay, even Of-Salama’s light and footsteps grew distant. Sanya and Mai were left alone in the dark, under the clouds, still dripping water onto them.
“Girlfriends?” Mai asked. Her eyes were closed now.
Sanya paused.
She had not expected that at all. She didn't know what to say.
What if she messed up again?
So soon? Hadn't they broken up just two days ago? Wasn't she, like, turbulent? She had killed someone and hurt Mai and hurt herself. What if Sanya still decided to hurt herself? She couldn't bring Thamina back. That would forever be a stain on Sanya's life. Mai could bring her fingers back eventually, but Sanya had still hurt Mai . . .
“Toss the label. Can we just be us? Whatever that relationship is?” Sanya asked.
“Hmm?” Mai muttered. “Sure . . .”
Her breathing leveled out, becoming long and standardized.
Had she . . . fallen asleep?
Sanya sighed.
She snuggled with Mai outside, in the rain. Sanya smelled the rain, the wet sand . . . and Mai, the most captivating scent of all . . . Sanya counted the freckles on Mai's olive-colored face. She had the most precious facial features . . . Was it creepy to stare at Mai like this?
Sanya closed her eyes, not wanting to get up and disturb Mai's peaceful rest.
Here, with Mai, who loved Sanya unconditionally, she could just be herself despite her biological shortcomings and without pressure from greater society to conform to their image.
Being here with Mai was a tranquil bliss. Sanya did not know what she did to still deserve this, despite her actions two days ago . . . but she would work to make up for them, and be thankful that Mai was here to share moments. She would work to truly deserve Mai.
The minutes ticked by . . .
. . . until Sanya, too, fell asleep.