Dark Descent: The Arondight Codex - Book One, R Nicole [best feel good books TXT] 📗

and not puke into the nearest potted plant went straight out the window. My hands started to shake and I curled my fingers into tight fists—anything to look strong. I wanted to be a Natural and I gathered that meant a certain kind of tact when it came to shitting myself.

“Scarlett,” Aldrich said, his voice echoing in the cavernous space, “we didn’t expect to see you back.”

Neither did I at first, especially since I was livid at the fact that they’d dumped me so abruptly, but miracles happen.

“I’ve come to ask…” I glanced at Wilder, who shrank back into the shadows. “I want to fight. I want to be a Natural.”

They glanced between themselves so intently that I wondered if they could communicate telepathically.

“I’ve been through a lot in my life, not just the past two weeks,” I went on. “Finding this place, being tested for Light… All the things I’ve been struggling against my whole life has finally made sense. I can see clearly, you know? But I can’t do anything on my own. Since I left, I’ve been followed, harassed, and baited by demons. I can see them and there’s nothing I can do as I am now, but there is a way. I can learn to be a Natural. I can help you fight them. I can protect myself and others.”

“Being a Natural isn’t all glory,” Greer said. “It’s a gruelling way of life. We constantly battle Dark forces and risk painful death in pursuit of protecting the living from evil.”

“I understand,” I replied. “I don’t expect this to be easy.”

“There are years of training involved,” Brax said. “Not only in combat techniques, but mastering Light, demonology, and studying the Codex.”

“Before you can even touch an arondight blade, you’ll be required to pass rigorous training,” Aldrich added. “It will be a long time before you’ll be ready to face the Dark as a Natural.”

“I get it,” I argued. “I get that I have a lot to learn. I get that I missed out on manifesting the way everyone else does. I get that I’m at a disadvantage. But I’m willing to work at it and put in what’s required.” I glanced at Wilder, who lingered in the shadows, his arms crossed over his chest. “If my parents were still alive, I’m sure I would have chosen this when I was meant to.”

“How do you know?” Brax asked, his skepticism clear.

“Because I know,” I declared, thumping my fist right over my heart. “Ever since I was brought into the Sanctum and I stopped taking those pills, I can feel it. My calling was taken the day I was orphaned. Now I see this place and the demons out there… and I know.”

Brax glanced at Greer, who stared at me unblinking. Whatever she was thinking was a mystery. There might be three people who led the Sanctum, but Greer was the one in charge. She guarded the Codex—the most sacred relic of the Naturals, after all. Aldrich was older and possessed his own brand of wisdom, Brax was a wall of strength and harsh judgment, but Greer was all those things and more. If she chose to overrule the others, I was sure they’d submit.

“Greer,” I said, fixing my gaze on hers, “why bring me in here and tell me all those things if you were just going to let me go? I don’t understand your Codex, but I want to. Isn’t that something?”

She didn’t respond, which caused my anxiety to rise.

“Are you ready to leave everything behind?” Aldrich asked in her stead. “Your friends, your job, your family?”

“I have no family. I…” I trailed off, my thoughts going to Jackson.

After all the disappointments, the multiple schools and foster families, countless friends who’d come and gone when I was too hard to deal with, he was the closest thing I had to a real family. He’d stuck around, no questions asked, and put in the effort to really know me. Could I leave him behind?

“You’re not suitable,” Brax stated. “Hesitation is an immediate fail.”

“What?” I glanced between the Naturals, shocked at Brax’s blunt answer. I wasn’t suitable?

“Hesitation is the mark of death,” Brax replied. “Those who wish to become Naturals must answer without pause.”

“I’m not allowed to think about it for even one second? Just one second to make sure that leaving my life behind is what I really want to do? You can’t allow me that?”

“That was a decision you should have contemplated before turning up here and wasting our time,” he said with narrowed eyes.

I glanced at Greer, who nodded her agreement.

“We are bound by the Codex, Scarlett,” Aldrich reminded me. “Being a Natural is a lifelong commitment. There’s a reason why we select children and don’t train adults.”

“You mean you get them while they’re young and impressionable,” I said, fuming, “before they can grow a mind of their own.”

“Yet more evidence to support your unsuitability,” Brax said, looking bored.

My mouth flapped uselessly as reality sank heavily on my shoulders. They didn’t want me. I was unsuitable. The word left a dirty taste on my tongue and my whole life stretched out before me—dark, empty, and plagued by demons I couldn’t ignore.

“Then give me something I can protect myself with,” I pleaded.

“We cannot,” Greer said.

“But I see them everywhere. They know me, Greer. They follow me, they taunt and harass—”

“That is their way,” she replied. “While they sense your Light, they won’t touch you.”

Somehow, I didn’t believe her.

“Wilder,” Aldrich raised his hand, summoning him into the light, “will you please escort Miss Ravenwood from the Sanctum.”

I wanted to shout at them, but I knew it’d only make me look even more desperate. I’d been rejected and knowing it’d happened in front of Wilder made it even more humiliating. I’d taken out that demon with Wilder’s arondight blade, and before coming back to the Sanctum I’d thought it was amazing I’d been able to do it at all, but now… My greatest victory was a footnote that hardly