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EIGHTH BLOOD

Chapter 96: Lime and lilac

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Octavia awoke the following day feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. She sat up in the strange new bed and glanced around the room inquisitively. It looked different in the daylight. The blue paint on the walls contained tiny flakes of silver that shimmered faintly, and the lanterns above her head were slightly translucent, enabling her to see through the ones that the sun was hitting.

Shifting her gaze, she saw that the two shoji screens which separated the room from the engawa were open, allowing a cold draught to blow in from outside. Her skin felt hot and clammy, so the chill was a welcome companion. Kicking back the sheets, she swivelled sideways and planted her feet on the tatami mat closest to the bed. They were still clad in the sandals she'd been wearing the day before. The soles were caked in dried mud, so she kicked them off and placed them neatly against the wall. It was funny, she thought, how Sesshoumaru had made such a fuss about her potentially getting blood on his sheets, and yet neglected to remove her filthy shoes.

Her eyes widened once she remembered where she was. She quickly stood and smoothed the wrinkled sheets with her palms, then re-fluffed the pillows before flipping them over to hide the fact that she'd drooled.

She spotted a pile of fresh clothes lying folded on the edge of the colossal bed and wandered over to examine them. There was a simple white kosode, a pair of ankle-length hakama to wear as undergarments, two split-toe tabi socks, a bright purple obi, and a black hankimono covered in golden poppies. Octavia trailed her fingers across the exquisitely woven fabric and marvelled at how soft it felt. She bathed and dressed in record time, then crept towards the door leading out into the corridor cautiously.

Taking a deep breath, she turned the door handle and peered through the gap. The coast was clear. Seizing the opportunity, she flung the door open and made a break for it. Her heart was practically in her throat when she arrived on the ground floor and stopped to catch her breath.

"Would you look at what the tide dragged in?"

Octavia's head tilted sideways towards the owner of the voice, who was standing several feet away with her arms crossed. She fought the urge to smile. "Oh, it's you," she said casually, maintaining the charade for just a little longer. "What was your name again?"

Rin's brown eyes glittered with joy, and her mouth gradually curved into a dazzling smile. Octavia returned it instantly. Grinning wider, Rin uncrossed her arms and sprinted forwards, prompting Octavia to do the same. Her worries dissipated like mist in the presence of sunlight as the girl fell into her arms and embraced her fiercely.

"I missed you," Rin whispered. "I missed you so much."

Octavia's arms tightened around her shoulders. "I know. I missed you, too."

She had forgotten how much comfort Rin's presence brought. The soothing atmosphere that existed around her was almost tangible—so much so that Octavia suddenly realised she no longer cared if her magic had abandoned her. As long as Rin and the others were alive, it didn't matter that she'd lost the ability to summon flames or make things grow. She would trade it all away in a heartbeat in exchange for their safety.

"Whoa. You're glowing!"

Pulling away from the embrace, Octavia saw that Rin was right. Her skin had adopted a vaguely luminous quality, and the outlines of her veins resembled strands of gold tinsel. She traced the blinking lines with her fingers to see if they were hot to the touch, but they felt no different to the rest of her. "Huh," she muttered. "That's new."

She suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of relief. The Radiant One hadn't abandoned her. Her powers weren't gone. They had simply needed time to recharge.

"Erem's Vessel," Rin breathed, reaching out to touch her skin.

Octavia flinched. The light went out even faster than it had appeared. "How do you know that name?"

"Tsunayoshi told me about it. He said that's why the shadows—I mean the ngea want you so badly."

"Well, he was right. But they're all gone now. I made sure of it."

Rin shook her head. "Not all of them. The ones that stayed behind in the stronghold survived. They sensed you coming and ran away before you could find them. I don't know where they went, but I doubt we've seen the last of them."

A shudder rolled down Octavia's spine like a raindrop on the surface of a window. Although unpleasant, the news really wasn't all that surprising. Of course some of them had survived. They always did. The ngea were like cockroaches. Time-travelling cockroaches, sure, but cockroaches all the same. No matter what she did, they always came back.

She was about to ask Rin what else she knew about them, but paused when she saw that the girl's gaze was fixed solely on her right eye. Come to think of it, Toran's had been too, and Kagome's, to a certain extent. And there was Inuyasha's funny little comment when he'd asked about her scars. She hadn't given it much thought at the time, but it seemed immensely important now.

"Is there something wrong with my eye?"

Rin's brow furrowed. "Not wrong, per se. It's just . . . Haven't you looked at yourself in the mirror recently?"

"Not really. I haven't exactly had access to one, being on the run and all. And this morning I was—" She stopped herself before she could finish. She could hardly admit that she'd spent the night in Sesshoumaru's chambers, which were completely devoid of mirrors for some reason. It wasn't that she doubted Rin's ability to keep a secret. She just didn't want her to get the wrong impression.

Rin took her hand and led her outside to a small pond that was situated beneath a row of peach trees. The surface of the water was calm and undisturbed, allowing Octavia to see both of their reflections perfectly. Her breath hitched when she saw what had captured Rin's interest. The dappled light revealed a pair of eyes that she'd seen thousands of times, only with one stark difference. Her right eye had inexplicably changed from lime to lilac, whereas the other had stayed the same. It was also considerably more bloodshot than her left eye, which looked white and healthy, whilst the right sclera reminded her of uncooked chicken.

"Does it hurt?" asked Rin.

Octavia shook her head. "No. It has before, though. There were times when the pain was almost unbearable."

"Do you think it has anything to do with you being Erem's Vessel?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? I wonder if the same thing has happened to Augustus's eye, as well."

"Who's that?"

Octavia met Rin's stare and swallowed thickly. "Do you remember when I told you about my family? Or rather, do you remember what I didn't tell you?"

Rin nodded. "You said you couldn't remember them. And that they were probably dead."

"That's right." Octavia's hand unconsciously curled around the Prophecy-Breaker. "It took me a while, but I finally found what I was looking for."

Rin listened intently as Octavia told her all about her time in the kasbah, including everything she'd learned during her stay there. She told her about the insidious inner workings of the Church, her family's ancestral home on the hill overlooking Athens, and how her parents had botched the ritual to strip her and Augustus of their powers. Rin's eyes widened when Octavia recounted the events leading up to the deaths of her parents, and all that had transpired afterwards.

"And that's why you can't remember any of it? Because those butterflies ate your memories?"

"Yes."

Rin looked strangely pensive. "Why'd they do it?" she asked eventually. "There must have been a reason."

"Apparently, my aunt asked them to. Except she wasn't really my aunt, she was my nanny. Her name was Svetla. At the time, she was only a few years older than I am now. Augustus said she loved us very much. She must have, since she ran into an inferno to rescue me."

A frown marred Rin's lovely face. "What happened to her? If she loved you, why did she leave you on your own like that?

Octavia had been wondering the same thing. "I don't know that, either. Everyone always said that she was ruled as unfit to raise me, but they never told me why. Eventually, I started to think that maybe she just hadn't wanted me, which meant they were all lying to make me feel better. People do that all the time when you're a kid. But I don't need to tell you that, do I?"

Rin frowned harder. "I don't think that's what happened, Octavia-san. She wouldn't have gone through all that trouble if she didn't care about you. What if she was worried the Church would somehow track her down and find you?"

"She could've just changed my name to something less conspicuous," Octavia mumbled sourly. "All they had to do was look in the phone book and they would've found me straight away. There aren't many Petridises living in the UK – as far as I'm aware – and there are even fewer with the same first name as me. Plus, I wouldn't have been the butt of so many octopus-themed jokes if I'd been called Lily or Emma. At school, someone once asked me if I had a beak between my legs instead of the usual bits and bobs. A beak! Can you believe that?"

The corners of Rin's mouth inched upwards ever so slightly.

Octavia's brows shot up to her hairline. "Oh, you think that's funny, do you?"

"No," Rin said, but her growing smile suggested otherwise.

Realising how ridiculous the joke sounded when it wasn't coming out of the mouth of a thirteen-year-old who reeked of cigarettes and cheap energy drinks, Octavia snorted loudly. The mirth quickly transferred to Rin, who hunched forwards and giggled into her hands. Soon, they were both laughing so hard that their cheeks ached and their chests burned from the effort of it all.

Once the final traces of laughter had left their systems, Octavia took Rin's hands in hers and squeezed them affectionately. "Enough about me," she said. "Things can't have been easy for you this past week. How are you doing?"

Rin's expression faltered. "I'm fine now that you're here."

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

Her eyes shone with moisture, making Octavia's heart pound. "Not really," she answered softly, her voice shaking as she continued. "Not like he hurt the others."

"Are you sure?"

Rin averted her eyes and blinked furiously, as if trying to suck the tears back in. Her fingers trembled within the cradle of Octavia's hands, whilst her breathing grew louder and less even. Octavia knew better than to badger her for an explanation. She let go of Rin's hands and gathered her into her arms. The girl shuddered against her chest, before melting into the embrace.

"It's all right," Octavia murmured against the crown of her head. "I've got you. You're all right."

She wasn't, but she would be. After all, Time healed everything. Except for himself. That was the one and only thing the old deity couldn't fix.

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Sesshoumaru had just completed another circuit around the stronghold. The repairs were coming along faster than he'd anticipated, and the once grandiose walls were close to being returned to their former glory. Soon the volunteers would be moving inwards to begin work on the castle, which was in desperate need of a new roof. The gardens were still a mess, but they were hardly a priority. Not when the castle interior had become a labyrinth of dead-ends and steep drops that tumbled away into nothingness.

"What a miserable sight. I say we tear it all down and rebuild everything from scratch."

Sesshoumaru turned and locked eyes with his mother. She was standing in the shadow of the wall, blissfully smoking a kiseru pipe. He resisted the urge to grimace as the stench of smoke slithered into his nostrils. He had always hated that smell. It made him think of the empty shiro he'd been banished to every year, where he had been forced to spend one-on-one time with his mother.

"You're still here," he said.

Her eyes glinted in the shade. "How perceptive of you. What gave me away?"

"I assumed you had returned to whichever hole you crawled out of."

"Still a rude little brat, I see. Some things never change."

His temper threatened to rear its head. "Where have you been, Mother?"

"A lady always freshens up before hosting an audience with her subjects. Especially after bloodying her fur for the first time in just under a century." She lowered the pipe from her lips and smiled menacingly. "Aren't you going to thank me for coming? That mage of yours virtually begged me to. Where is she, by the way? I have unfinished business with her."

"You will keep your distance from her–" he warned, "–or risk invoking my wrath."

She cackled. "You are funny, my son. So protective. And over a mortal of all things. How many of them do you own now? I can smell at least four from here."

"I do not own any of them. They are my . . . companions."

"Ah, yes. The mage said something similar. She was rather protective of you, as well. More so than I expected. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

"If there were, you are the last person I would confide in."

Her expression turned bitter. "Is that so? Even after I came all this way purely for your benefit? What an ungrateful child you are—"

"Enough, Mother. This is no time for your dramatics."

"I will not stand here and be disrespected by you!"

"Neither will I."

She glared at him. "If that is truly how you feel, why did you send for me?"

"Because you are my mother, and despite everything, I still feel a tremendous amount of affection for you. That's why."

He heard her breath hitch. "You can't be serious—"

"I am."

She didn't reply right away. For the first time in his life, Sesshoumaru had rendered his mother speechless. His father must have been turning in his grave over the thought of missing this.

"Idiot boy," she hissed finally. "You can try to throw me off with honeyed words and empty promises all you want, but it simply will not work. Feel free to play at being the good and gracious hero, but I know you, Sesshoumaru. Better than you know yourself."

"No," he said softly. "You don't . . . Not anymore."

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