Fractured Soul

Chapter 24: Old and New

Mella's dreams were repeats, but that didn't make them anymore pleasant to experience, or easier to understand in some cases. They went all the way back to Berna, with the reliving of her last night there, the vision and the reality of what happened overlapping. It zoomed forward to Ryn, and her encounter with Roxas, and the events afterwards.

Then Mella was flying, high above the clouds, birds swooping around her, the overwhelming feeling of freedom filling her.

"Mella." One of the birds was talking to her, and suddenly she was back on the ground, standing next to Roxas, staring at Rin and another woman. Mella blinked and they were all fighting each other…

"Mella! Wake up!" Someone was shaking her shoulders. Mella opened her eyes slowly. The ice lights in this area of the library were dead, their glow gone. Two people were standing next to her, their faces hidden in the dark.

"What? What do you want?" Mella mumbled sleepily. The ice flickered and burst into life. Roxas and Rin looked down at Mella.

"Good evening, Fragment. Pleasant dreams?" Rin asked, so sweetly it was poisonous.

They were more pleasant than what I had to wake up to… "Why did you wake me up? And my name is Mella, not fragment."

"I'll call you whatever I want to call you, fragment. The king and queen would like to speak with you." Rin's tone was demanding, but she sounded…detached from her parents. It wasn't "mother and father," or anything like that. She didn't seem to care about them at all.

Mella wasn't awake enough to have a sarcastic comment to shoot back at Rin and just stood up. The book from the night before was still lying on the floor where it had been left. Mella picked it up and set it on a table. The glyphs, spiky and red, felt like they radiated darkness. Wait…can I read? Mella looked up at the shelves of books. They all had glyphs and runes written on the spines, but none of them made sense to her. I don't know how to read… Staying in a library full of things she couldn't understand now felt even more like a prison.

“What, Mella? It’s just a book.” Roxas was looking at her strangely.

Mella turned away from the table and started walking towards the door. “You wouldn’t understand, either of you.”

The three of them left the library and made their way downstairs to a huge dining hall. The ceilings soared high above them, while shining candelabras littered along the length of a table that could easily fit dozens of people. The king and queen sat at the very end, waiting.

“Good evening, Mella. Feeling better?” Ursula may have said it with the tone of good intentions, but her red eyes remained blank, almost lifeless.

Mella said nothing, but took the seat opposite of the queen and Rin. The chair next to Mella made a scraping noise as it was pulled back by Roxas so he could sit. Four sets of eyes fell upon her, waiting for her to say something. Look as much as you want, I’m nothing special, and I have nothing to say to you, except…

“Are you going to tell me why I’m here? Or am I just supposed to be locked away in a tower above a room full of books I can’t read for the rest of my days?” Mella glared at all of them in turn.

The king chose to ignore her.

“You’re probably hungry, after not eating for almost a week. We’ll discuss things later.” Has it really been a week? Mella did the math in her head. It had been almost a week. She just couldn’t tell with the number of times she had passed out, and when the clouds hid the time of day.

Servants appeared out of nowhere, serving up pasta and some sparkly-looking drinks. Mella wouldn’t touch any of it. She didn’t trust the king or queen, or their food. They noticed.