The Last Whisperer

22 | Astra Dagdrazil~

200 years ago...

Telunian Sands - Second Realm

The girl sat inside a cell. She was a bird captured and encaged from the freedom of soaring in the sky.

Her hands were useless—shackled and chained, and it felt like it weighed heavier than a mountain, but nothing could ever beat the heavy burden on her shoulders.

Her legs were out in front of her—one propped up and the other lying flat on the ground, bare, bruised, and purpling. Her head hung as if on a noose, believing she did not deserve to look up at the sky—like she knew she deserved all of the treatment she was getting.

The strength in her to move was gone. All of her limbs were shackled anyway, so what else could she do but to sit there and keep breathing? She had officially done it—committed a crime so unforgivable that she was finally tossed out of Mahanzi.

The world's worst warrior, Serenfiya Dagdrazil.

Now she can finally live up to her name, and at the thought of this, she at least thought she was good for something. She was good at being the worst.

A week passed since Maddin Gog, her teacher, escorted her into the Telunian Sands and threw her into this place, away from what she called her home. She was the only prisoner in the entire desert, and the silence almost convinced her that she had died long ago without her realizing it.

She sat still, unmoving. She had not gotten a wink of sleep as dark thoughts haunted her. It forbade her to take a moment's rest. Whenever she closed her eyes, she heard her own voice whispering of how she was a disgraced coward. And it was true. She deserved everything that was happening.

A clinking noise sounded from afar. It was such a small and secluded place, built especially for her. Not a lot of Mahanzinians were disobedient, but there were a total of two soldiers that kept guard around her prison, to make sure she was fed and well-behaved until she eventually dies of the silence. That noise had probably come from one of those guards.

Or that was what she thought until a blonde young man in tattered clothes came stomping in with a sword in hand.

Her head rose up in. "What are you doing here?"

She was clueless on what Astra, her cousin, was doing in her newly confound quarters. She was pretty sure Maddin Gog had mentioned to her that no one was allowed to visit her, as a part of her punishment. But he was here, standing before her. The cousin who she loathed so much was here. Out of all people, it was Astra who came.

Why?

"What are you doing here?" she repeated. She wondered how much she looked pathetic in his eyes. His brows were pinched down, as if he could not even bare to look at the sights of her. She looked away from him and hung her neck down, grinding her molars. She squeezed her eyes shut and shut herself into the darkness.

This is beyond humiliating. I would rather die.

Suddenly, a loud metal clang jolted her from her stupor. She opened one eye to check on what exactly Astra was doing, and only for her face to morph into confusion as to why he was breaking the locks to her cell. "What in the stars...?" He never answered her questions. Come to think of it, he had not even uttered one word since entering. Was she dreaming?

She stared at him then. She watched the way the locks snapped and fell to the stone floor. He pulled the gates to her cell open with a heavy creak. She was shocked. If a sword was all it took it to break the very objects that confined her in isolation then that is no mere sword, because the entire prison was made from a special metal that cannot even be found on earth. That sword Astra was carrying must have been blessed by Maddin Gog, but Seren knew that would never happen in a million years. So what exactly was going on?