Icefall Academy
Icefall City
Arktis Skyland
Northern Space
Solana let out a small grunt as she searched the halls for her brother. She had noticed that Knox hadn’t been himself the last few days. Bothered as she was, she opted to ask, but her older twin only told her that it was nothing. She knew there was something bothering him. Usually, he would tell her, unless it was something he deemed she shouldn’t hear for her own good.
The halls of the arena were quiet, minus the muffled sound of the audience behind the walls and her footsteps.
Movement on a right turn caught her attention. She followed it, only to find another empty hallway leading to a dead end. From the corner of her eye, she caught a dark shadow. Her head flipped toward it, but once again, she saw nothing but air.
The longer she walked, the lights in the hallways seemed to dim. She could swear the temperature had dropped even lower, and she reached up to rub her arms through her jacket.
A whoosh of air came from behind her. She turned, catching a dark shadow before it vanished. The hairs on the back of her hair rose.
“This isn’t funny,” she said under her breath. As she said that, the air turned even colder. She gulped as a feeling of being watched settled over her.
In her haste to get back where she came from, she failed to spot a crack on the floor and fell forward. She landed on her right side, and she groaned as her head hit the stone.
She sat up a little disoriented, rubbing her head and side to ease the pain. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered.
She raised her head to look for the corner she came from. She froze. Eyes widened.
A familiar old woman stood before her. The ragged brown clothes she wore was the same as she remembered it from three years ago. Her face hidden behind a curtain of white hair, except for one large brown eye and thin cracked lips.
She shuddered. “No, no, no, no,” she said. She inched away, as she scrambled to stand. She ran once she stood, only to be stopped by the woman who appeared in front of the hallway. She turned her back and ran for the opposite direction.
“This isn’t real,” she told herself. “This is probably a side effect of Sierra’s power when she touched me before.”
She kept telling herself that over and over, even as she avoided the old woman who kept appearing wherever she turned.
“Leave me alone!” she hissed as tears started welling up in her eyes.
The woman’s face appeared merely inches from hers. She screamed and fell back against the wall. She pressed against it as the woman stared at her with that unnerving eye of her. When she opened her mouth, Solana’s hands went to cover her ears. “No, no, no!”
“The day the sky weeps a river,
“Under the protector’s kind eyes,
“With warmth from the arms of those loved,
Solana’s hands tightened over her ears as she shouted over and over for the woman to stop. “No more. No more. Please don’t say it.”
“Death awaits the last bearer of the star,
“In the hands of the second bearer of the moons.
“A single choice or a selfless love,
“Shall heed the stone or break it.”
Solana shuddered again. After all these years, she had studied those words multiple times. She knew that “the second bearer of the moons” was her. “Bearer,” as translated from the Book of Seers, meant heir. The “moons” was her family crest.
YOU ARE READING
Shcielle (Draeyer Academy 2)
FantasyAs time passes, bonds grow stronger. So does his fear. When Alec is finally accustomed to his life in Draeyer Academy, he returns to Arktis as one of the Sentire Representatives in the annual Sky Games. His wish to lie low during the event sha...
