HIRAYA: The Call for Blood (Untold Stories 2)

16

My fingers began to draw invisible shapes through a circular motion cycle on the mattress of my bed. Sierra was behind me, she braided my hair just like how my mother does it before I go to bed. 

Yes, I'm already beyond eighteen but I still couldn't do a few things on my own. I was spoiled by my mother's touch. I mean, who wasn't? Sierra chose a white lace with a ribbon to tie my hair. She caressed my back when she felt that my tears have already dried off. 

Her cold hands that had a couple of bandages found my shoulder, allowing me to have the thought of facing her. Such stars filled her eyes when she saw how puffed my face was from all the crying. 

She placed her hand on my right cheek. "There are things that you still can't understand, Hira,"

Every time we got to be ourselves, I always told her not to treat me as her employer's daughter but to think of me as her sister or even her own child. Tears began to roll down my cheeks when I remembered the words that King Aaron himself used as he conveyed to us the letter of my parent's passing.

"Do you know what I like most about you?" her soft touch comforted me throughout the freezing night.

I shook my head as I tried to give her a response instead of letting her speak on her own. She showed me a smile. "Everything," her words, her gaze, describe how sincere she was that night. 

Even though I loved every trial, every move she made to make me feel better, the thought of my mother not coming back still crushed me deep inside. "W-will they come back?"

My voice cracked as I tried to speak. Sierra's hand traveled to the back of my head as she slowly pulled me to herself. I landed on her chest, listened to her heart as it beats for compassion. No words, throat try, eyes swelling from tears.

"All is well, love," she spoke as she caressed my hair while I emptied the tears in m eyes. "All is well,"

After that night of pure heartbeat and sorrow, I read the letter again. Something came to my mind as if a light bulb has lit itself up. If the undead has taken over my parents, then how would King Aaron know?

How certain was he? 

It was the root of my confusion. On the path that my parents took, I drew lines. Connected schemes but nothing was going towards the conclusion where everyone thought it would be. As I wrote things in my room, my ears couldn't escape the noise of the iron from the swords, clashing with each other.

I stood by the window while I watched the remaining soldiers as they trained for battle. Their once training field was a distance away from the palace. Since the undead has already marked their territory outside the Royal Premises, the only safe place in the city was the palace itself.

While I mesmerized my eyes with the sight of them wielding a weapon, something suddenly captured my ears. Without my uncle's knowledge, ever since I knew that my parents are no longer here, I started to keep a small knife inside my left boot.