Chapter 111-Mysterious gifts

Chapter 111: 111-Mysterious gifts

Five nights later, the tour finally ended. The buses returned to the academy under a pale morning sky before the sunrise.

Maisa stepped off carrying far too many souvenirs and Sapphire followed behind her with even more.

"You bought too much, Sapph."

"You bought more than me, Maisa," the girl argued back.

"That’s different."

"How?"

"Mine are educational. And most of the things I bought were influenced by you."

Sapphire stood her ground. "Mine is educational too."

Maisa glanced at the ridiculous carved bat hanging from Sapphire’s bag. She had no idea why Sapphire was obsessed with it, it was cute but lacked any purpose other than decoration.

"That’s educational?" She raised a questioning eyebrow.

Sapphire stared at it. "...It’s historically significant, okay. Don’t judge me."

Maisa laughed. The laugh was normal like the ones she had the last couple of nights. It was peaceful too.

Then she looked toward the academy that was her new home or whatever passed for home now.

She took a breath. It was time to move forward and let go of bad things that happened during the trip.

---

The nights that followed settled into a routine that Maisa memorized by heart. Maisa began waking before dusk, long before her classes started, and making her way toward the blood archives.

The archives were enormous underground chambers filled with rows upon rows of blood storage units. The air always carried that strange metallic scent of preserved blood, mixed with the faint medicinal smell of the alchemy department.

Maisa would donate her required amount. Then she would feed and afterward, she went to class.

She stopped drawing attention to herself. She kept her head down, she no longer argued with anyone, wondered into forbidden places or followed suspicious invitations and she definately stopped being trusting of people and things she stumbled on.

She sat through every lecture with her books open and her notes organized. When the professors spoke, she listened attentively. When they assigned reading, she completed it without giving them a reason to complain about her.

During breaks, she hang out with Sapphire. Sometimes they sat together in the courtyard with other redbloods, or walked through the gardens and talked about completely meaningless things.

Their friendship grew quietly and naturally with time and Sapphire became the person Maisa could sit beside without feeling as though she had to explain herself and Maisa needed that, more than she realized.

Luckily, the redbloods put to rest the idea of her being their voice, atheist at present. So her nights were most peaceful.

Her late evenings belonged to the library. She practically lived there with the number of hours she spent there.

Every book she could get her hands on became another piece of knowledge she refused to leave unexplored.

Vampire laws, bloodline history, elemental magic, academy regulations, blood council, blood trials, the whiteblood royal palace, ancient vampire mythology, hunter tactics, forbidden territories, blood bonds, and sire bonds.

Anything remotely connected to her circumstances went onto her reading list. She didn’t want ignorance to become an excuse to be uses on her ever again. She had learned that lesson painfully.

If a rule existed, she would know it. If a place was forbidden, she would know why. If a power existed, she wanted to understand it.

She was never going to walk blindly into another situation again. Her grades improved dramatically.

Professor Primrose and the other professors eventually announced a series of examinations, and Maisa attacked her studies with the determination of someone who had something to prove.

She passed every redblood level without difficulty. Professor Primrose barely looked surprised when she saw Maisa’s results. She had on record the efforts that Maisa was putting in and it was surprisingly high.

"You’ve been studying hard, Loven. I am impressed and I can certainly say that I could proud to have you in my class."

Maisa smiled. "I have and thank you for the praise, professor Primrose."

"It shows in your results. Keep up the good work."

"I will, professor Primrose."

To be help in high regard by the best professor in Veris academy was enough praise for her but despite the peaceful routine, something was missing.

The academy felt strangely empty and the same went for her heart. The Student Council’s absence was impossible to ignore.

The corridors seemed quieter, the cafeteria less lively and the students still talked about them but Maisa didn’t.

She simply carried the silence inside herself. Sometimes, while sitting in the library, she would look up from a book because she thought she’d heard Zolani’s laugh.

Sometimes she expected Lumi to appear beside her with some sweet treats and fun facts pf knowledge she wasn’t aware of and other times, she imagined seeing Varitreya standing at the end of a corridor, regal and composed as ever. And sometimes, unfortunately, she remembered Addessa looking every inch a blackblood heiress.

Her life was calmer and more peacful but calm wasn’t the same thing as happiness.

It was even stranger that the school held back from electing new council members, even temporary ones. In every bloodline, they couldn’t find students thar could replace the ones that already held those positions.

"Don’t think about them. It won’t change anything," Maisa uttered for what felt like the a hundredth time.

What was even more strange were the mysterious gifts she started receiving back at the hotel in old Scaris the day the Fiery four disappeared from her life.

Maisa had returned to her room after a tour route one night and found a small black box waiting on her bed. There was no name, letter or indication of who had left it there.

Inside was a tiny vial containing something that looked like frozen blood pill. Beside it was a folded piece of parchment.

’One tablet before sleep,’ it read.

Maisa stared at it for several minutes. She didn’t take it, not immediately. She inspected the substance, smelled it, checked the box for hidden markings and then she took it to the library in the hotel and searched through several alchemy books.

She found nothing on the pill. The following night, another package appeared. This time, there were several tablets and another set of instructions.

’When the bond becomes unstable... when the elemental backlash starts affecting you, take one.’

Maisa’s heart skipped. The bond, nobody knew about it or at least, nobody was supposed to know. She hadn’t told anyone about the strange medicines she had been receiving or elemental backlash of earth, fire, air and water she’d been feeling.

She certainly hadn’t told anyone about the way the distance between her mates had once caused earth, fire, water, and air to react violently within her.

Yet whoever was sending these gifts knew and that terrified her. Still, the medicine worked when she took it and that was the most unsettling part.

After taking the tablets according to the instructions, Maisa stopped experiencing the strange physical reactions that had plagued her whenever her mates remained distant.

No sudden sickness, uncontrollable elemental surges or unbearable pressure in her chest. The bond became quieter and manageable.

A few night passed and then she received a manual from the mysterious benefactor. A thick book bound in dark leather, there was no title on its cover or the author’s name.

Inside were detailed instructions about controlling the elements connected to her mates.

That left her baffled and with a million question in her head, the most important one being, "Who was the person behind the gifts and how do they know so much about her?"

The first thought thar came to mind was the strange whiteblood from the dark forest. "Is he the one behind these gifts?" She wondered out loud.