(Completed)
Two assassins were set to kill a girl. No questions asked. Just kill her and claim their prize. That was their mission. Except one of them was not supposed to visit Volney, the land of the dead and the other fall in love with a girl and...
A fairly short chapter in my standards. About 1k. I know! But you never expected this right? Muahahaha. What can I cay, I was waiting for something yesterday, I got bored and I finished this chapter. Lovely, right?
You know what? I should be getting ready to go to school. Here I am. Lol.
Guardian of Time
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At some nights her back dripped with blood and her hands supported blisters and her mental state was been questioned. She had gone days together without seeing food and her ribs were poking out. Once, she saw herself in the reflection of the murky water. All she saw was a dull, lifeless woman who lost all her reasons to live. Perhaps she was.
But her eyes shone. Like a pair of sapphires, they glared right into her eyes shining so brightly that it knocked her breath out. Her eyes had the will her insane heart carried, but her body showcased weariness her practical brain thought.
"Seriously, Ella?" Daia asked. "I know I am asking this question for the twentieth time, but I need to know! You cannot be serious!"
"How can I not be serious?" she hissed, pricking her hand in the cotton ball she was handling. "I need to know."
"Tantalia is indeed lost beyond hope," Reika chimed in. "It is lost. The father and the son fights."
"But we are not talking about Tantalia!" Ella said. "Not everything in my life revolves there. Yes, I know what condition Tantalia is in, but I need to know about my friend."
"Who?" Reika asked, rubbing her palm. The hot steam sometimes peeled their delicate skin off.
"Duren Ciarar of An'yer," she said. "I fear for him. He... has many problems in his life. I am the worst friend for not being there for him. Now, I don't know what might happen to him."
"He is sent to work for the king," Daia relented finally. "He is in Nerehe. Rumours are that he is assigned to kill the nobles of Valisreila."
She dropped the unopened ball into the steaming hot water. Glowering at her, Reika dipped her hand in it and took it out, wincing.
"No!" she whispered. "He cannot. He will not do that."
"He is also going to be sent to Faolin, so prove his worth."
"No," she croaked. "This cannot be happening. Please say I am dreaming Daia!"
"Have you not heard?" Reika said, speaking softly to her for the first time. "The King is going to raise an army of Immortals and Duren is a potential candidate for that."
She gasped. The blood from her lungs was going everywhere except her heart and her brain.
"Do I hear someone snivelling?" The beast, Luryn asked with a whip in his hand. It was not only his whip that had hurt her.
Ella sat up straight when he spoke. She would rather cry, her tears as a wreath to the night, but in the day she was determined to survive. Each day the sun did appear to fulfil her promise to appear the next day. And she watching such beauty without crossing over the veil of life every day was a gift many would kill to have.
Preserving her tears for another time of the day, she bent her head and concentrated on the white cotton strands that were slowly becoming cerise in her palms.
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Biting the inside of her cheeks, she tore the ends of her rags with shaking fingers. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as she wound the strips over her wounds. Touching the food with bruised hand was so worse; not to mention seeing blood drops on her food.
With this, she could not even hold the water to drink. Her lips were often parched and it contributed to her misery by cracking at night.
"Your skin will get used to it." A voice said in the otherwise empty room. "This work is anything but new to you."
"It was not my fault I was assigned with dyes all these years," Ella said, turning to see a placid Reika.
"Years?" she sniggered. "More or like a year."
"Two summers ago I was abducted from my marriage and was brought here," Ella said. "I know."
"Okay."
A silence stretched and neither spoke nor moved.
"Yerinah won," Reika said. "Thought you should know."
A smile found a way to her face. "I did have hope."
The light in Reika's brown faded to gold. It sparkled like feline eyes in the dark as she clutched her head and fell on the floor without a sound of agony. Ella rushed to her and saw nothing but the empty stretches of the corridors. Seeing that no one was there in the vicinity, she hugged Reika in the hopes of calming her down.
Her eyes were liquid metal. Then one changed to colourless. Perhaps, it was grey and she saw it as colourless.
"When the flame of the forest comes alive," Reika's voice doubled. One was distinct male and the other far away female. "Moon's blush across the land will revive. To the red pearls a life shall be sold, A child of sun will pay the price in gold. First, at West the night will break, By lover's fury, the ties will wake. Embers and Death are the best of friends, To save a secret, both shall end!"
"What?" Ella asked when she was panting. The words were painfully poetic but it did not make any sense to her.
"It is a prophecy," Reika muttered. "Have you not heard of Seer?"
"You are one?" Ella asked, bewildered. What was an immortal rotting in here? She could have escaped at her first chance.
"Yes," Reika said, opening her eyes. The two colours contrast each other. Like the sun and the moon; love and hate. Both which cannot survive without the other.
"Past or future?" she pressed on. Her knowledge of these things was limited.
Even back at home, she was not allowed to read certain scrolls despite being the noble there.
"Both," the woman said, moving out of her embrace. Ella frowned but said nothing else.
"But that is impossible," Ella protested. "No Seer can be both past and future. It defies the very law Sesha gave."
Reika gave a humourless laugh. "Who said it was impossible? I have healed with time. Sesha deemed me worthy in this life. I am Eilian, the Guardian of Time."
What do you think of Reika?
Any confusion? Now that this is done, I have only four more to go (including prologue). Eeep! I am so darn excited.
