Delight on Frozen Bones (Legend Of The Stars #4)

Chapter Nineteen

Happy New Year!

***

MARA STARLING

Prepare

It was all too sudden.

It was all too familiar. The smoke. The hole. The darkness. The hissing sounds those creatures make while I fought against them.

I have seen it before. All of it... I have seen it before.

Nanghihinang nagpadala ako sa hila Phileis papasok sa loob. He pulled me away from the window and attempted to carry me but my feet already give in. I sat on the flower. Napasandal ako sa pader at tulalang nasapo ang noo.

Phileis was shouting. I don't know if it was for me or for the ravensiels, or for the servants panicking around. I don't care.

Tinakpan ko ang nga tenga ko at mariing napapikit. I hesitated. I hesitated diving into those memories again so that I can recall where I've seen it. But Sora...

Huminga ako ng malalim. I leaned my forehead against Calanthe while bury the tip of its blade on the floor.

Napailing-iling ako sa sarili ko bago mariing pumikit.

No... No, Mara... You will not be afraid. Not of memories. They can haunt you for all they want for the rest of eternity and you would not care... You would not care because you survived.

—

I couldn't see anything. I couldn't breathe.

I am in the cage again.

I began crying when I heard their laughs. The chains tightening on my stomach, my legs, and wrists... The metal twisting around my neck...

A scream came out from my throat when I was lifted on the air by the metal around my neck. I felt the deep cuts all over my body made by Lysandra sprung open by the force.

Home. I want to go home...

I stopped screaming when I felt the heavy smoke entering my mouth and wounds like worms, crawling for my insides.

"Feed on her, boys." Lysandra's boys echoed somewhere.

Then there was a hole. I felt it beneath my feet and more of their laughs came.

Sweet darkness crawled in my mind as they suck the life out of me and wonder why death hasn't taken me yet.

Home... I want to go home...

"There's no going home, little girl..." they laughed. "...because you have no home."

And they took it away from my mind... what Eirian looked like.

—

Naging mabagal ang pagtakbo ng kabayo nang makalapit na kami.

Phileis was the one who lighted the beacon. He found it by breaking the entire wall outside my room while I lie on the floor. When he light it, I took that time to ran, no longer thinking of saying goodbye to him.

I ran, breaking every damn furniture that came into my way. I ran with the twelve outside the empire and found Minerva and Ottis with questioning look on their faces. I didn't spoke to any of them. Not until I used Calanthe to remove all of us from that place and took us to the nearest stable houses for horses.

"They're gone." Minerva said beside me.

Napatingin ako sa kanila sa likuran. The twelve disappeared from the backs of their horses, but I know they still lingered nearby. In the trees, in the branches, anywhere. Tumango ako kay Minerva.