Lohikäärme

Chapter Eleven - Too Weak

          The walls turned brighter. My head moved freely as I scanned the whole room. I didn't need to scan the whole room to know where I was. I knew exactly what this place was, but I needed to check if there was something wrong, something that would wake me up and tell me that this was all just a hallucination, something that would never happen.

          I closed my eyes as I inhaled the amazing smell of my mother's cooking. Yes, it smelled just the way my mother's cooking did. I caught a glimpse of what was inside the kitchen when I opened my eyes. For some reason, my stomach churned. No, it wasn't hunger. It was something else. Something I couldn't explain.

          "Mother," I breathed. "Mother!" I ran inside the kitchen, knowing that I would find my mother working in the kitchen, wearing the adorable apron I helped her make when I was younger. But it was not my mother that I saw inside; it was the girl who called death and died, Carina.

          "Safia," she called.

          I heard her weeping behind me. I turned around and met her swollen eyes. "Carina?" I voiced out. "Why am I seeing these things?"

          "Don't let them get what they want, Safia! They'll do anything to save Aethelgard!" she cried. Her arms shook with fear. What she was afraid of, I didn't know. But what she said made me feel something different. It felt like something inside me was telling me what to do.

          I held her shaking arms and looked her straight in the eye. "What do they want, Carina? What's wrong with saving Aethelgard?" I had to know. I had to understand the situation.

          Her eyes became distant; it lost focus. "Save yourself, Safia," she whispered. "Don't let them get what they want."

          Everything started to fade slowly. I was back in the dark hallway, but the difference is, the door wasn't closed anymore. And as I looked at the person standing outside the room, I felt as if I was turned to stone.

          "What are you doing here, you cursed girl?" Elfreda yelled.

          I didn't need to see her flaring nostrils or her shaking legs to know how infuriated she was. "M-Ma-Magister Elfreda, I..." I didn't know what to say. What would I tell her? That I was listening to their conversation? That I wanted to know what they were talking about? "I... I was just--"

          She shushed me by yelling, "Xamira!"

          Xamira appeared outside the room and looked at me. I expected her to look at me with disappointment or worse, disgust, but no, her eyes looked at me with concern. She cared about me.

          "You know what to do," she told Xamira.

          I didn't understand why Xamira was shaking when she took my hand and walked away from the magisters' room. My plan failed, but at least I found out that they were talking about me. Remekiah was right. I wasn't taken here for no reason. I was here because they needed me for something. It was obvious they wanted me here as soon as possible for a reason I didn't know. The problem was, I didn't know why saving Aethelgard was wrong. That was their duty, and we needed them to protect us, too.

          Then I felt Remekiah moving like crazy inside my dress. What was he doing? I had to put my hand over my chest so Xamira wouldn't see Remekiah moving under my dress.

          Xamira glanced at me, then she gazed at my hand but continued walking. "Is there a problem?" she asked.

          "Uh, n-nothing. Nothing at all," was my dumb reply. Argh, I wanted to smack myself for talking like that!