The King's Lost Sword [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3

C H A P T E R3 |
M_

Adira woke the next morning by her mother's screaming two doors down. She pulled a pillow over her head and rolled over, ignoring the noise as she tried to fall back to sleep, still in a sleep-induced haze. Just as Adira drifted off to sleep her bedroom door was thrown open and hit the wall so hard it bounced back off.

Adira was going to send a death glare at whoever interrupted her sleep but froze when she saw her mother, grief etched into her features. "She's gone," she whispered, the words were accompanied by a single tear that fell down her cheek.

Adira's want to crawl back under the covers and fall asleep fled from her body as she threw the raggy blanket off her body and clambered out of her bed. She stumbled to her feet and shoved her worn boots onto her feet before following her frantic mother down the hall and into the living room where the other two members of her family sat.

"Okay, so what happened?" Adira asked as she paced the length of the room.

"I tucked her in last night," Adira's father said. She didn't need super hearing to hear the quiver in his voice.

"And then I went into her room this morning to wake her and get her dressed for school, like I do every day, ya' know?" Alyon, the mother of the Marsh household, waved her hands around in the air as she talked. "And I saw that her bed was empty - the sheets were crinkled so I know she fell asleep last night - but... she was just gone."

Adira ran through the facts in her head, it wasn't much and it didn't give her any hint of what had happened to her sister. There were only two options: either Natasha's power accidentally teleported her somewhere, or The Institute had sent someone to kidnap her. And as much as Adira hoped that her sister was safe and just lost somewhere in the city, she knew that the latter was the more reasonable explanation; and that broke her heart.

| |

Two weeks. That was how long the Marsh family sat and paced around their house, concerned for their little girl. Two weeks. That was how long it took for the Marsh family to find out what happened to Natasha.

Two weeks after Natasha had disappeared, the Marsh family sat at their splintered dining table with bowls of untouched food in front of them. The atmosphere in the house was sullen and dull. Gratefully, Mr. Isaiah had granted Adira time off to look for Natasha and care for her family. He said that their exchange could wait until after Tash came home safely, but Adira knew that he didn't do anything without a cost; somewhere down the road, Mr. Isaiah would call in a favor and Adira would have to pay it.

Throughout the past two weeks, everyone's face had sunk in and they all had dark bags under their eyes. It was Nicolas, Adira's 14-year-old brother, who looked the healthiest. He had dropped a few pounds and his stomach still had a slight bulge, but the loss of his younger sister had obviously affected him.

The sound of knocking broke the pitiful silence and they all rushed out of their chairs. It was the parents that arrived first, leaving Adira and Nicolas to stand behind them - which was why it was easy for Adira to catch her mother when she collapsed back, a sob violently emerged from her body. Duke Marsh stumbled back into the foyer, his face pale. Now that there weren't any bodies blocking Adira's view she saw two Royal Guards dressed in the royal red uniforms trimmed with gold.

Adira didn't know what had happened to Nicolas because, at that moment, all she knew were two things: 1) her mother was sobbing in her arms, and that 2) she had failed her sister. She had failed her sister; the young, bright girl who she'd sworn her life to. She had failed...

Her body was numb as she and her family followed the Guards down the dirt road to the bed of the river - and there, in her tattered pink pajamas, lay Natasha. Her hair was a tangle, clipped in odd places; her button-up shirt kept together by the last three buttons and the sleeves...