71

Chapter 106

"Now, tell me," Purr says once she's lead me and Glass down to a more secure and less crowded location. Literally, down. We wove inside a half-fallen building and down serval series of cement steps, to an underground system of tunnels that is the base of the soldiers. "Who is Coal?"
I would like to know that too, I think.
"It's- complicated..." Glass saves me. Not for long.
"How is that complicated!?" Purr exclaims, leaping up from her chair in the small, musty, bare cement room, lit by a single bare lightbulb flickering on the ceiling. "It's the simplest question I could ask! Now tell me: Who is he? Is he dangerous? Is he on our side? Do you trust him? Can I trust him? How did-"
"One question at a time!" I interrupt, pressing my fingers to my temples. She looks astounded at being stopped, but takes her seat on a wooden crate like mine and Glass's. "Thank you!"
Now, how to put this simply?
"Coal," I struggle for words, and decide to skip the first question for now. "Is on our side..." Lame, yes. Effective? No.
"Is he dangerous?" Purr stresses her voice so heavily it's hard to ignore the importance of the question.
"I'd trust him with my life- I have trusted him with my life, actually," I say thoughtfully, and Purr's eyeballs must be bulging in their sockets.
"I can't explain everything." I say flat out, for loss of a better excuse. "We would be here for weeks. It would take an entire novel to tell everything."
"Then just tell me what I need to know."
"He's the son of Queen Ruby and King Sp-" Glass begins, and I cut in.
"Just the son of the Queen." I say shortly, and Glass raises an eyebrow at me. "Again, long story."
"His father...?" Purr begins to ask. I shake my head. "Not important."
"He's Impure. Even more so than I am," I add, tugging at my shirt collar to reveal the 71 on my neck. "He's a 69."
"So how is he alive? How are you alive-!" Purr's eyebrows rise up into her wild mane again, and again I shake my head.
"Another story," What to say next? "Anyways, Coal rescued me when I was wounded, and told me he was going to join a group of rebels, a grouping of both Man and Beast working together to fight the Order."
"I've never heard of these rebels!" Purr exclaims indignantly. I shake my head and press a finger to my lips before continuing on.
"They don't exist." It seems like so long ago that I believed something like that was actually possible. It was maybe, like, three days ago? "Coal created the rumors that spread throughout the Wold, until we were caught up in a tide traveling to the mountains, all of them going to their own doom."
And so I tell about our voyage up the mountain. I tell about all our encounters with all the fierce Beasts we ever faced together, the challenges we overcame. I try not to, but before I know it, I'm talking about Clay and Bow, and how they both succumbed to the cold, and it was me and Coal that aroused the remaining survivors, who were now out partying with her soldiers. I tell about the first ambush by the Servants, the arrows, Coal's skill with the blade, how he could shield himself from bullets and arrows alike with only a sword. I'm spilling everything at once, without even meaning to- Even the stuff I shouldn't.
It pours out of me, and I can't stop. I need to let it all out, to get it off my chest. I'm reliving the past two weeks of my life, when my life really begun.
Up the mountain all over again, slipping and sliding and scrabbling along with Coal beside me. I somehow jump the gap in the trail, and Coal follows. It's raining and I can feel his hands gentle around my waist, his lips just brushing mine. The scarf comes off, accusations are made, he explains everything.
Purr's eyes dull again when I explain that Coal had created the idea of the rebel army simply to actually make it a possibility, and it hadn't worked.
The battle at the summit. Coal's laughter, wild and free. His hair blowing in the wind, the fierceness in his eyes when he battled the Alpha Beast with his bare hands. How I thought he died, and we flew, practically dead, with our last ounce of energy down to the surviving rebels.
Glass pays special attention to this part, which he hadn't heard. Even his eyes water just a bit when I explain me and Coal's journey to the summit.
Finally, the most recent assault by the Servants, how the dwindling number of 'rebels' was narrowed down to exactly ten. Right up to Coal's kidnapping.
When I finish, I realize I've punctured my crate with my claws, and I spend the next couple of silent seconds ripping my fingers away from the wood.
"Well," Purr says, awkwardly rubbing her nose. "That was- er, uh, that was... Interesting..."
I accidentally-on purpose forgot to mention the larger part of me and Coal's relationship, only adding the kiss in the rain when I discovered his biggest secret.
"I still don't trust him completely," Glass says, and I glare at him. Not helping! "But if Ash does, that's good enough for me. The boy seems honorable enough- For a Royal, at least." His nose wrinkles at the word like it's something nasty and foreign, but he continues. "And he is definitely a precious ally, a warrior trained by the City's finest."
"But back to one of my first questions," Purr says, and I tense, not quite sure what she's going to say. "Is he a threat? That is to say, is Coal dangerous?"
I grin impishly. "Very."
"And he'll do anything this girl wants," Glass adds, and I raise an eyebrow at him.
"Glass!"
"Just saying, as long as you trust the soldiers of the Old City, Coal will without a second thought." He looks innocently away.
"Oh," Purr smiles at me. "Oh, I think you might have left out part of the story!"
"N-I-GLASS!" I shout at him, and storm angrily out of the room, while they make obnoxious kiss-kiss noises and call "Ash and Coal, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
So immature.