Chapter 33

**Merianna**


Seeing the snarky feline again made a smile stretch over my entire face. I remembered that I always tended to get along very well with Strider. Not only that, but he never minded it whenever I wanted to hold and smother him. In fact, he was like that only with Nelia and me. Whenever anyone else in the Order tried to hold or snuggle him like we did they would always either get the slip, a cat claw scar, or the occasional broken nose.

Trust me, I would know since many have tried. Especially new trainees that would have seen Nelia or me walking with the fluffy feline in our arms, and couldn’t resist the temptation of holding something as soft as him in their arms too. One strong warning was usually all it took to brand the fear of the cat gods in their souls. Strider definitely wasn’t a small Maine Coon.

His whiskers twitched as he smirked down at me. “Lovely to see you again Merianna.” He greeted, then nimbly jumped down from the bookshelf onto the couch’s backrest next to me.

“Hey, that comment was unfair! I’m always sensible!” Noch huffed as he got up from the floor.

“Only when it suits you.” Strider snipped with a twitch of his tail. He then came closer to me and bumped his head with mine. “Not informing Dorris nor me about Merianna being back is a big lapse in courtesy though and you can’t deny that.”

“I honestly haven’t had the time.” Noch sighed as he flopped into his office chair.

Strider only huffed at Noch’s excuse, then turned back to me, noticing that I had stretched my arms out to him in invitation. “Can I?” I asked.

Strider’s eyes softened, then he jumped straight into my lap from the backrest. With a happy squeal I gently wrapped my arms around his big body and buried my face in his long gray fur. I was officially in Heaven.

“You’re seriously only ever nice when it comes to Merianna or Nelia.” Thyrion said with a raised eyebrow as he looked at the situation.

Strider squinted at him. “Think about it. How would you feel about being an intelligent male feline familiar, and being hugged by something like that,” he said nodding his head to Noch, “compared to being hugged by a young lady?”

Noch pouted in protest while Thyrion chuckled. “I can understand your reasoning.”

While still holding Strider in my arms, I noted that the castle felt a little empty. I didn’t feel Nara Ara, Jasnine, Raska or Fog’s energies anywhere within the stone walls.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked.

“Currently out hunting for information on Orbus. We need to catch that bastard to find out what on earth he’s really up to, and to see if he maybe had a helper in all this.” Noch said with an exasperated huff.

The name didn’t ring a bell to me. “Who’s Orbus?”

Everyone went still and just looked at me for a moment. “Right,” Noch sighed, “you’ve been out of the loop since the beginning. I forgot about that.”
Thyrion heaved a heavy sigh of his own as he settled himself next to me. “Orbus is the bastard that put that spell on your soul and basically used said spell on you to threaten me to do things for him all these years.”

Once that little tidbit of information was dropped in my lap, I didn’t exactly know how to feel about it. The only thing that really registered at that moment was being stunned. Thyrion has been threatened into doing things? The thing that was wrong with me was a spell on my soul? There was a guy called Orbus? I knew something was obviously wonkey, but I didn’t expect it to be *that* bad.

“Looks like I’ve been sleeping a lot lately…” I muttered while absentmindedly massaging Strider’s head.

Noch chuckled. “You have indeed, but it was needed, and still is in fact. I sent a fire message to the Ga’s before Thyrion barged in here earlier with your latest stunt, so hopefully your rate of recovery will get even faster with them around. Poor Nelia also needs some rest.”

That reminded me about how tired Nelia had looked when I saw her last. I hoped that she was at least sleeping now instead of helping to look for this Orbus guy.

“Is Fog also currently looking into clues to find this Orbus person?” I asked as I remembered something important.

“Yes he is. Why?” Thyrion asked.

“I think you all might have forgotten something else important that happened just a few days ago. It might even make your search easier too.” I pointed out with a grimace. It wasn’t something I wanted to remember, but it was clearly something they had overlooked with the news of Orbus.

“What would that be child?” Strider asked from my lap, bumping my chin with his fluffy head.

“Wouldn’t Fog have more luck looking for clues relating to the Fae that attacked me just the other day?”

Everyone was silent again as they processed the piece of information they had clearly forgotten about. I also couldn’t fault them for forgetting about those grotesque fae creatures either with everything that had been happening.

Thyrion let out a huge sigh and plonked his head onto my shoulder. “Noch…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.” Noch muttered as he pulled out a square piece of thick parchment and furiously started scribbling on it. Right after he was done scribbling, he held it between his middle finger and thumb and made a clicking motion. The parchment instantly flared into a ball of flame, completely disappearing in that flash of sudden light. I knew that Fog would be receiving that parchment almost instantly, no matter where he was at that moment. Fire messages sure were amazing.

“Now that we have that settled. You still need more rest.” Noch said as he pointed at me. “Even though it feels like you’ve been doing nothing but sleep since you got here, it’s the best medicine for your body right now. You’re still going through your surges even though your memories have now been stabilized. Your body still needs to catch up to the amount of energy that you have suddenly regained. You are free to roam your memories as you rest up though, that way you wouldn’t be too bored.”

I had an instantaneous urge to ignore what he was suggesting, but knew that he wasn’t wrong. I could feel my body struggling to adjust to the energy that was now constantly coursing around inside me. It almost felt like I had extra organs or muscles implanted into my body that I now had to adjust to. Fighting or moving far in general was not something I would be capable of for a little while.

“Before I go back, I have a question.”

“And what would that be?” Noch asked cautiously.

“Have you guys developed a spell that’ll permanently change hair color yet?” I asked with a smile. I missed my black hair, and I remembered how tedious it had always been to re-dye my hair every time my white blonde roots peeked out from my scalp.

Noch burst out laughing while Thyrion and Hezerial shared equally amused chuckles. Strider on the other hand turned around to put his front paws on my shoulder and rubbed his face affectionately against mine. “Welcome back Merianna.” He chuckled softly for my ears only.