Chapter 24: Love, And Other Things

Cleo laughed. She could not do anything else, other than immediately hugged Law before he had a chance to react. Staring at his bewildered reaction she pressed her chin against the top of his chest and bit her lip nervously. “So you’re in love with me? What does that mean?”

“I guess it means that you don’t have to worry about everyone ever stopping supporting you, or deserting you. I’m here for you because I feel like my life is not complete without you”. Law frowned, it seemed like he was unsure of what he was saying, but the more he spoke the calmer Cleo felt. There was an urge to just hold the young man before her until the sun stopped, but she was good at resisting her feelings. Just for today, however, she decided to ignore her crippling denial of anything enjoyable and firmly grabbed hold of the young man in her arms. In response, Law awkwardly wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her head to his chest.

Cleo dragged her hands around to Law’s chest and tightly grabbed hold of his shirt. “You're mine now, Law,” she said while looking at him like a scared deer. It was hard for her to believe that she actually had someone she could truly rely on, someone who would hold her hand and walk her through the fires they would face. “And I am never letting go of you”. As she buried her head in his warm shirt she felt one of his hands touch her hair and run through it. Stroke after stroke she relaxed more and more, until finally she let go. She felt slightly dizzy and sat down in a rather unladylike fashion by the pool of water, face flushed and eyes wild with apprehension still.

“What now?” Law said, looking at her with that slight grin that always seemed to be plastered on his face. He was always laughing, it was one of the things she found most annoying about him, but at the same time one of the things she loved most about him. He could turn any situation from tragedy to farce with a few words and a silly grin, simply ignoring the gravity of the situation at hand and lightening the load for everyone else.

“Well I know you're on a schedule, so why don't you go back to what you're up to and I'll tag along. You can tell me about it if you like?”

“About what I'm doing? Sure”.

They set off and began finishing off Law's pylons for the day. Each one after Cleo joined was quick, with Law exclaiming the process to Cleo as he walked. “The entire point of these pylons is to mark off a region of space that Yun will rend and place within its own region of space and time. In accordance with the Manifestation, we only need to do a few more things once the circle is complete and Yun will be able to begin with his ascension”.

“Why are you so driven for Yun?” Cleo asked. She had wondered it the first time they had met, as the two boys did not seem like brothers to her.

“Yun was my first real friend within the tower. I saved him from being eaten and he stuck by me, looking out for me and teaching me things I did not know I needed to know. You would not believe it by the way he acts, but he's the best cook I have ever met. He just doesn't enjoy it”. Law ignited the pylon stuck in the rock and began sealing the hole tight. “As a Tigerwolf, Yun has inherited memories. When we were little he shared them with me and it allowed us to get through the tower safely. I tell you if I did not have Yun then I would have probably starved on the second floor. The chaos storms behind that wall were horrifying”.

“Wait, Yun is a Tigerwolf? But how? What?”

“When godbeasts reach Sainthood they gain the ability to transform. It's natural to them and is something that they gain more control over as they become more powerful. By the time they are of the strength of an Ascendant Immortal, Yun claims that a godbeast can actually completely change the matter they are made out of, becoming indistinguishable from the air or light itself”.

Cleo had lost track of the amount of times that Law had shocked her. She was becoming numb to it, but every so often he would still say something that completely blew her away. Yun, a godbeast? A tigerwolf no less? How did the Lupe clan not go crazy? The more she thought about it the more she worried. There was already one powerful group looking for a member of their party, if they were being chased by someone other than just the Ignis clan it would become too difficult for them to continue. “Does anyone else know?” she said, her brow creasing with worry.

“If you’re worried about the Lupe clan chasing after me, Yun has been my partner, and friend, for years. If they were looking for him then they would have come back when we were still children in Spirit. They would not have let either of us outpace them at all”.

Cleo shivered. The thought of being chased by the Lupe clan for something that they had deified was not a pleasant one. Sure, there was a faction within her clan that did not want her to succeed, but they were small and had to work firmly behind the back of her grandmother and the majority of the elders. That meant they were shackled. The Lupe clan definitely were not. They were mercenaries of the highest order, who sent their clansmen through the Tower in droves with the desperate hope that they would be able to find a loose copy of a Book and be able to take it back without the Book clans finding out and hunting for blood. The only reason they even had a fighting chance was because it did happen sometimes. Other than that the only way for them to break the barrier on mortality was to become an immortal of the tower, which had its own set of checks and balances. In the words of Cleo’s brother, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. All this made the Lupe wildly unpredictable and they loved hunting for golden children, as they were more malleable and more likely to give away their books if pressured.

“There’s only two pylons left. You can go back up to the main hall if you want, it will only take me half an hour to finish the rest of this,” Law said, shocking Cleo out of her panicked thoughts. “You seem kind of cold, so it might be better for you to get back to somewhere bright with heating arrays. Who would have thought, huh? Heating arrays. I don’t know why I never thought of them, but they are magnificently simple”.

“It’s fine. I wasn’t shaking because of the cold,” Cleo replied.

“Are you sure? You seem like you’re reacting pretty bad”.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “I... I’m sorry Law. I am not cold, I was thinking about how dangerous your journey up the tower was. It scared me because I know how territorial the Lupe normally get with their holy creatures. The other animal clans aren’t as dangerous, but the Lupe were always a bit... crazy”.

“The guy I met on the first testing floor seemed nice enough”.

“The adjudicator? They have to be. When a Bookless Immortal reaches the stage where they could become an Ascendant Immortal they usually have to take a few centuries to work within the tower itself as Adjudicators. They have to forsake their allegiances to everyone within the tower except the tower itself otherwise they can never take that final step. I assume that was why the Lupe was not as militant as normal”.

Law looked at Cleo for a moment before nodding in agreement with her. “Yun hasn’t told me much about the Lupe. All I know is the reason why he was born out of the clan was that the Tigerwolves had discovered something untoward that the clan was preparing to do and they wanted to separate from the clan. I wonder if it has something to do with them gaining more Ascendant Immortals and becoming the tenth great clan...” He stopped for a moment before shaking his head, “I’m sorry either way, Cleo. I should have taken what you said at face value”.

Cleo laughed. “No, never do that with a woman, you’ll never get anywhere if you do. Let’s finish the pylons and then get back to the mess hall before dinner”. She wrapped her arms around Law’s right arm and pulled him along. “Come on, let’s go!”

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