UNLEASH | D.M (UNRAVEL BOOK 6)

[ 22 ]

In the coming weeks, Aine spends her free time locked in her room. She would browse through the findings she acquired back at the Estoileon Cottage, and study them during days when she had no mission. She would use every second of spare time to get her head into it while keeping it discreet, making sure that it wouldn't raise any suspicions from her father and his army.

The good thing about her little secret studying was that lately, the Dark Lord has been out of the manor, searching for Godric-knows-what so he wasn't around to question why she was stuck in her room on days she was in there practically all day. Although she had to deal with his sidekicks in exchange for his absence. 

It was tedious to evade the Deatheaters' eyes but she made it work anyway. It wasn't her first time having another agenda to do behind other people's backs after all. She had done it before last year, mending the Vanishing Cabinet and plotting Albus Dumbledore's murder behind her friends' knowledge, so doing it again this time with a different task was nothing new. If anything, she was even more meticulous and prudent in the way she spoke, looked and behaved.

Thankfully, the ones she was most nervous about finding out about her deeds weren't around much too. Both Cal and Bellatrix had their respective missions to deal with and due to that, Aine saw them as lesser compared to usual. Which was great since she absolutely detested the two of them.

While she was busy looking for additional clues and shreds of evidence, Aion, too, had been doing his share of tracking the Iris petals she had found back home. As he had experience tracking objects and artefacts in the past, Aine had gone to him for help. Just as much as she needed to find their mother, Aion desperately wanted to as well.  

However, little did she find out that tracking an object to find out about its memories and history was no easy feat. It required not just stamina but an incredible amount of concentration. This was why it was taking so long for Aion to pinpoint the exact location of where it came from and who it belonged to before he could give a definite answer to Aine. He wanted to be completely sure before he told her so that she wouldn't get her hopes high and then be disappointed if it turned out to be false.

Nevertheless, his sister did not rush him. Everyone had their part to do and they were doing their best to uncover as much as they could without gaining unnecessary attention from the other Deatheaters.

Aine looks through the scraps of photographs and list of written names over and over again, glancing to and fro between the two pieces of hints. At this point, she had already lost track of how many times she had skimmed through them. She wasn't sure if there was even a connection between the two articles or if they were just unrelated things that Aris had stashed in the magical chest.

That was until she was about to give up did she spotted something different with the pile of photographs of random people, and wondered why hadn't she noticed it before. Was it because the lighting back at home was different and warmer compared to the dark room she was in at present? 

She leafed through them over again, making sure she was seeing right, her brows knitting lower the more she went through it. A gasp of realization left her lips and she dropped the photographs onto the desk. Disbelief spreads across her facials. 

Every single one of the individuals in the pictures shared one common physical attribute that Aine had as well. All of them had vibrant golden eyes that shone like topaz jewels, one that seemed to pierce through souls, seeing what other ordinary people couldn't. 

'Those were the eyes of Death...' The words Voldemort uttered to her came to mind as soon as she saw the link.

Golden eyes were considered a rare characteristic to have in the Wizarding World, though there are different shades of brown that many inherit that appear to be golden. Aine's eyes were golden like the Sun, sparkling like a jewel that even monsters like Voldemort longed to have. They were also seldom regarded as a bad omen due to folk tales, which was why Aine used to be self-conscious when people stared at her and her eyes when she was younger.