Kendall's POV
Ciara had ordered us to give Kevin some space to sort out the issues he was dealing with regarding Ryan and the Purgers. That meant we weren't to bother with any information we got from Armensia at all. Ciara had a device that Jovenor had handed her that was capable of communicating with Armensia at any time so it allowed us to be easily updated when any situation arose.
We could all clearly see that something was going and Kevin was doing his best to solve it on his own as he always did. For as long as I had known him, he always tried to solve his problems first before he brought them to light or asked for help much as that didn't stop us from knowing when something was troubling him. The boy wore his emotions on his face much like Tomas the football captain. The only difference was that Kevin kept his problems to himself unless they overwhelmed him or if we forced him to spit them out.
Sonia was opposed to the idea though and had gone against Ciara's wishes and followed him out of the cafeteria. One of the perks of not being among the artras was that you could disobey the alpha. Unfortunately, Sonia had been too impulsive when she had watched Ciara calmly issue out her orders. It seemed to rub her the wrong way. And to make it worse no one tried to explain anything to her.
Besides we had other issues to deal with. We had received communication from Armensia and we had to go there immediately we finished our last classes and I was done with football practice. I did my best not to cross paths with my best friend because unlike the other artras, I had trouble keeping things from him. He had managed to catch on that we were hiding something from him, but I guess he let it go since he already had things he was dealing with a t the moment.
The elder of the mages faction, Jovenor something, (I didn't really want to know everyone's full names) had finally completed the investigation on the cave we had found Texan in. Ciara had asked him to keep us informed on everything they found it about the cave. She was hoping it would give us a clue as to why the Dark mages needed this breach so badly and why they had threatened Kevin.
Ciara had got us to the cave after we were done changing into the official artra combat suits. We had come to know that they were quite symbolic and that if they were ever to be an occasion in Armensia we would have to attend it dressed in this attire unless ordered otherwise by the host. We stood at the exit of the cave awaiting Jovenor from the interior to deliver his report on what they had found out about the cave and its purpose perhaps.
I was particularly getting impatient since we didn't exactly have all the time in the world to be here. Normally Kevin would stop time on earth and we wouldn't have to miss anything, but right now that we didn't have him on our side time wasted here was equivalent to time wasted on earth and so if we stayed to long, I could get into trouble with my parents. Whereas Kevin and Ciara had found out their parents were artras who would probably understand, my situation was different. We had all tried sharing the burden of the time spell so that we didn't get affected that much, but our concentration broke the moment we crossed over to Armensia. It appeared holding time form another world wasn't exactly the easiest thing to pull off. Besides most of our magic had already started becoming more suited for skills we chose.
Ciara had taken her time to properly explain why Kevin was the only one who could hold time with ease while the rest of us suffered with it. Her explanation made him seem really overpowered. Apparently for a Siege, they could use a wider range of varieties of magic with ease. And learning new magic did not hinder their abilities to learn other types of magic. Whereas for us, the moment we began to specialise in a certain type of magic, we immediately started losing the ability to do the other kinds of magic that were polar opposites or merely too advanced.
"Took you time Jovenor," Ciara spoke up snapping me out of my thoughts. Jovenor had just wasted twenty minutes of our precious time.
"Our mages are done with the investigation and this is what we have found out. First, I'll explain what we have done to get these results. Using magic, we are able to calculate the mass of our world and that of earth and we know what the numbers should be. So when someone goes through a portal, we can find out that the mass of our world has dropped by one person. So we used that method first try and find out, but what we found out was rather bothersome. The mass difference is equivalent to a stone the size of my fist. We further proceeded to search the surrounding area for foreign objects and luckily we found rocks not of Armensian origin. There is the possibility that someone could go through the portal to your world, but that is known to all in Armensia as a stupid idea."
"Why is it a stupid idea?" I asked reflexively breaking Jovenor's flow of narration.
He turned to me to briefly explain why, "Well it's simply because in your world, magic is not freely flowing and so the systems of our body that depend on magic to function would cease to function," I took some time to consider what he was saying before proceeding to my next question.
"So you mean to tell me that if your heart depended on magic circulation, then you would die simply because your heart couldn't function on its own without magic?" I asked.
"Precisely, very perceptive of you young artra," he said before turning his attention back to Ciara to finish his report, "Taking that all into consideration, it is safe to say that Texan simply projected his presence into your world and didn't actually attack. Furthermore we tried using magic on any of the shiny surfaces in the cave to pull up images that might have told us of what the Kevin could have been used for before it was discovered.
At that moment, a female mage came out of the cave and stood by Jovenor's side. Jovenor then took the chance to introduce the new arrival. "This is Kalifa Myers and she is somewhat like my assistant," he said while she made a short bow and began looking through us like she was looking for someone.
"Where's Kevin?" she asked.
Her question had my mind racing immediately. I looked at Ciara and saw her expression get angry obviously irritated by the question, "He's not here. How do you even know him?" Ciara asked irritation evident in her voice and features.
"Kalifa here was among the mages that were captured by Texan and the ones responsible for closing the breach. Kevin was the one who rescued them from their bounds while they were in the cave," Kevin stepped in to explain.
"I never properly thanked him for saving us. Though I really hoped I could see him now," she said once more totally oblivious to the impact she was having on Ciara. I didn't know whether to laugh or not so I held my laughter and tried to distract myself with something else. I looked at Isaac and saw that he too was fighting to keep his composure. This girl was still clueless.
"I'll be sure to send him your regards," Ciara said to her once she had managed to make her expression neutral.
"Oh no, it's okay. I would like to thank him personally," she said.
"Is that all Jovenor?" Ciara asked immediately changing the subject and her attention over to Jovenor.
"Oh no, the rest is what Kalifa has come to explain," he said making Ciara close her eyes in defeat. Her plan to ignore the mage had been thwarted by necessity.
"We were finally able to get one image. Texan was careful to cover his tracks and so even the image we got doesn't make sense at all," she said before raising her hand projecting while light from her palm outward until a white sphere is formed while slowly start taking shape of the image. The image was that of black strands that looked much like hair. Silky black hair was all the one image had been able to show.
"What's that supposed to mean to us. Travas could have any manner of servants with black hair," Ciara stated almost losing her steel act. She clearly didn't like the female elf before us. I didn't really blame her, Kalifa was an absolutely gorgeous blonde and to think she might have her sights on Kevin probably threatened her. The one person I was more worried about was Jacob. He didn't even seem a bit fazed by Kalifa. We all knew he would be trying to befriend her. He had a weakness for beautiful girls, but this was the first time he paid a beautiful girl no heed. I wondered if it was particularly because she was more interested in seeing Kevin other than all the artras present.
"Okay Jovenor, if there is nothing else then can we take our leave?" Ciara asked clearly trying to put an end to the uncomfortable confrontation.
"Is it safe to assume that the image we uncovered is nothing to worry about?" Jovenor asked.
Ciara took a moment to think before she answered, "Not just yet. I'll run this across the Siege and if he doesn't see anything to worry about then probably it's nothing. I just cannot shake the feeling that it may be the one thing that solves everything."
To be honest, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the hair we were looking at in the image was sending off so many signals within my head, but I couldn't figure it out no matter how hard I tried. I could see why Ciara was then deciding to consult Kevin on this. He would definitely need to know what we had uncovered in this situation.
"The only problem is that with the diversity in which magic can be used. It is almost impossible to narrow down the reason for the mass difference. The most unthinkable one could be that someone went through the breach and they tried to cover it up, but instead ended up getting their mass wrong by a small portion. So what I am saying here is that you be careful. They may have sent someone through the breach and it would even be worse if they somehow found some way to live in your magically dormant world," Jovenor continued trying to get us to grasp the gravity of the matter.
"Alright Jovenor, we get it. We will be careful and keep on a look out for any suspicious activity in our world," Ciara assured him before opening a portal for all of us to go through. I eyed the female elf Kalifa and watched how she observed Ciara's every move. 'I won't even bother to think much about these two,' I thought as we went through the portal one by one. I dismissed the thought almost immediately.
The portal opened up to the study in the Winters mansion where Ciara lived. We would use the place to hold meetings when we were not going to Armensia and rather wanted to discuss something that didn't need us to be there. Since Kevin was the only one who could effectively stop time and was the one who wasn't always present at these meetings, we didn't hold meeting in Armensia a lot and used Ciara's device to discuss with Jovenor. It was more convenient that way. We could then specifically know how much time we used. We didn't exactly know how time worked in the two worlds so to be safe we didn't bother to travel there unless it was necessary or we were going to do training.
I looked at the wall clock and it was 7:00pm. My parents would be slightly mad at me, but I was going to blame it on extra physical training at school. Ciara stood at the desk with her back turned to us. Normally she would immediately order us to go home, but she only stayed quiet this time. "You okay, Ciara?" Jacob called to her, but she did not reply. Isaac and Jacob then decided to let her to her thoughts and teleported away. I stayed in the study with her still frozen to her spot.
"Umm, Ciara," I called out and she turned to stare at me making eye contact instantly dropping my body temperature. She noticed and averted her eyes. I don't know if I could call it a curse, but our alpha had power within her eyes. If you stared at her eyes through her glasses and she stared back you would turn cold immediately. But if she stared at you and intended it, you would turn cold even if you didn't know she was there. Sometimes it was her way of telling us that she was watching. We all took it for granted till she took of her glasses in front of Texan. The power she showed us day was absolutely terrifying. All the trees in that place had frozen solid and died of the cold. Even Texan wouldn't have escaped his icy prison if she hadn't stopped staring at her. The sky had scared us the most for it had turned cloudy in an instant before she had even opened her eyes. The mere act of her taking off her classes had caused a massive change in the weather.
"What is it?" she asked snapping me out of my thoughts.
"How long do we keep this from him?" I asked.
"Not long at all. I will brief him on the matter today and I will also explain to him that he is not to get involved in his duties as an artra until he has his problems with the Purgers resolved. That is…" she stopped mid-sentence before shaking off her thoughts, "anything else?"
I nodded confirming I was satisfied and with that teleported from the place.