Moon of Darkness ~ Eclipse series book 1

13.

It isn't as though traitors aren't heard of, either. There's plenty in their time. Magicals believe that they had to join the Puritans. But none of them had ever assisted in this horror called the Room. Or had the power and the will to destroy them. 

Amisha's suspicious. "How do you know?"

"She tried to use the Death Curse on me," I whisper.

Seamus bursts into laughter. "I doubt it," he says between his gasps. "Magicals have a taboo on it. She can't be one if she used it."

My cheeks grow hot from embarrassment. I know that. How stupid of me to forget.

"Anyways," says Seamus, after his outburst dies down, "how're you feeling?"

I wince. "I'm okay. But I'm hungry."

"As we all are," observes Anton. He stands up. "I'm going to get a fire going for the rabbit. Someone clean them and the others stand guard."

While I guard with Seamus, something slips into my mind. Suddenly, I'm not looking at a bleak landscape anymore. I see a dancing girl, six or seven years old, tended to and watched over by several people in white. The room that she's in looks like a tree-turned-house. She looks. . .like me.

A memory struggles to resurface in my brain. It tries to fight its way through years' worth of greyness. It can't make it, however, and slips slowly back into the shadowy depths. I know this memory's important. Like-changing, even. But no matter what it is, it wouldn't come.

"Hey." I snap back to Seamus's hand waving in front of my face. "Earth to Ersline, Earth to Ersline, Ersline, you there?"

"Huh? Oh, I. . .um, yeah."

"Awesomesauce." His weird slang rattles in my head. "What're you thinking about?"

I rest my chin between my palms. "Would you give up your life for someone who wouldn't benefit from your sacrifice anyways?"

"Nah," he scoffs. "Wouldn't do anything. Why waste the effort?"

"Yeah, why?" I agree, but inwardly a sense of defeat settles into me. Time to face the facts, I tell myself. Whatever I do when I'm alive just makes it harder for others to live, and it would be best if I was gone.

So I consider suicide. No. Against the rules. The repercussion would just land on Hataki and Desna's then shoulders even harder. We're probably being watched in here anyways. 

Sacrifice. It has some merit. And there's plenty of opportunities to do it. I just have to find the right time.

But wait. There's another form of suicide that probably wouldn't involve Hataki and Desna. Defiance. Don't fight back when an attack comes, like they expect you to. Go down with my head high. It probably wouldn't affect them but. . .ugh, when it comes to the Draaconda, who knows?

I eat the rabbit leg that Anton brings later on- which actually doesn't taste so bad. The others can tell that I'm thinking morbid thoughts, judging on their faces, so I create a thunderstorm to mask our whispers. Their expressions range and change from stony to hocked to devoid of any emotion as I unravel the complex tale of my life and of my sisters. 

"Sooo. . ." Amisha says slowly, when I'm finished, "you don't remember anything of your parents?"

"Nope," I confirm.

"Do you have any idea who they could have been?"

Memory upon memory washes over me. "N - no."

Anton's face hardens into an Anton-statue. I almost expect him not to speak, but he does. "We did."

The past tense verb. "Did?" I venture.

"Yes. Did," says Seamus, his voice layered with bitterness.

"You mean - died?" I can't see the fuss. Magifolk are dying out anyways.

Amisha looks at me, her features sharp and indescribably harsh in the fading light. "No," she says, emotion breaking her voice into shards. "Not died. Something worse than that."

I don't want to ask, but I do.  "What?"

The undisguised fury that makes Anton's voice tremble is frightening.

"They abandoned us."

(Sorry for the hiatus ahhhh I just couldn't find the right times to finish this chapter DX XD according to Grammarly, it's a very depressing chapter XD comment if it was correct 0-0 XD Soph -> out)