Celeste's life is far from the enchanting fairy tale one might expect from a princess. Her father, a ruthless and self-absorbed king, leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake. To seal alliances and maintain his power, he arranges for Cele...
In shock, I look at Alisha. Her blue skirt is covered in brown stains, as if she has rolled on the ground. Her hair is tousled, and a bleeding scratch on her left cheek tells me she didn't escape unscathed.
'Run,' she repeats before turning around and sprinting deeper into the forest. I don't know how quickly I should push myself, but I dash out of the cave.
I refrain from asking questions as we run harder and harder among the trees. My feet cut through the thorny plants, and the cold of the emerging morning seeps in. My heart pounds in my chest, and my lungs struggle for air.
It was only a matter of time before something in this forest would work against us. The nymphs don't run; they control.
Slowly, the familiar and frightening white mist begins to rise from the ground out of nowhere.
'It's an illusion, everything is an illusion. The nymphs are spirits, magicians are trapped in the Moonwater as a source of magic, and they want me as the source for the shadow ice of Yin and Yang, connected to night rider magic,' I shout to Alisha as we keep running.
Alisha doesn't react as we continue running toward what I now recognize as a river.
The threatening mist creeps up, enveloping like a ghostly veil. Reality begins to distort as we penetrate deeper into the forest, and my thoughts spin.
'Celeste!' suddenly echoes a voice through the misty forest, a voice I immediately recognize as Elien's. Goosebumps spread across my skin, and aggression builds up.
'Where are they?' I shout to Alisha, who continues to run ahead of me without any signs of exhaustion.
'Not far!' she replies as the unknown river approaches. I finally begin to see where we are heading. However, it is not the sight I hoped to see.
Once the situation becomes clear, I stop five meters before the wide river. Novak stands calmly next to a brown horse, on which Elien sits with the same terrifying calmness. However, it's the two ladies in front of the horse that make me wonder if I'm going mad.
A nymph stands on the other side of the river with a knife pressed against Alisha's throat, or at least one of the Alishas.
In front of me stands the woman I ran with, her appearance completely identical to the Alisha on the other side of the river.
'Celeste, don't fall for it!' shouts the Alisha with the knife against her throat from the other side of the river. Even their voices are identical.
'It's fake, that's a nymph,' says the Alisha in front of me once she turns around and looks at me, out of breath.
'Don't listen, that's a nymph, ah,' says the voice of the Alisha with the knife against her throat, after which the nymph presses the knife harder against her skin.
In total confusion and slight panic, my eyes dart back and forth between the two Alishas. They are impossible to distinguish. Slowly, I take a step forward in the hope of seeing the blue glints in one of them, but those are not present either.
'Don't, we need to get out of here. Elien and Novak are still under influence. They are slowly draining their magic,' pleads the Alisha in front of me.
'She's right, you have to make a choice,' says the nymph on the other side of the river. The next moment, hundreds of small sparkles appear in the dark grass before my dagger materializes out of nowhere.
'Kill the right Alisha, and you're free. kill the wrong one, and you belong to us.'
'Celeste! I'm the real one.'
'No, I'm the real one.'
'Please, listen to me.'
'No, listen to me.'
The shouting echoes through the forest and spins in my head. Slowly, I pick up the dagger from the grass as I attempt to organize my thoughts.
They are identical to each other voices, appearance, way of speaking, clothing. How am I supposed to find a point of recognition?
'Your dragon was named Rave, Christiaan has a daughter named Chanel, Elien's tube contains lumindra, your black veins started after Walmoet's death,' shouts the Alisha from the other side of the river in an attempt to convince me. The knife is pressed against her skin again.
Everything she says is correct, but is it information the nymphs couldn't know?
'Your favorite food is mushroom soup, you and Novak stayed at Nelly's when you were in hiding, Elien doesn't see color, Tristan's Nazu was named Zol,' is the attempt by the Alisha in front of me.
Once again, everything is accurate.
My eyes shift from Alisha to Alisha as my hand clenches around the handle of the dagger. I have no idea which one to choose; nothing gives me a clue.
'You have two minutes, or I make the choice,' says the nymph with a slight grin, after which she presses the dagger so hard against the Alisha's skin that blood runs along her neck.
Think, Celeste, think. What is something only Alisha can know? Something the nymphs couldn't have seen in any way.
My eyes scan the people in front of me, and suddenly I know. After taking a breath, I take a step forward.
'Where is the square mole on Novak's body?' I ask both Alishas.
The real Alisha should know this since the real Alisha shared a bed with Novak years ago. The real nymph would never know this because they would never have seen him naked; that's a sin they cannot commit.
'On his left buttock,' echoes from the river.
'On his right inner thigh,' says the Alisha before me.
The next moment, I raise my arm and throw the dagger as hard and fast as I can into the heart of the Alisha on the other side of the river. The blue eyes stare at me in total shock.
Fortunately, it is not a second later that hundreds of sparkles begin to glitter around her and explode into nothingness.
The magic that then runs through my lifelines bites like acid. I have to grit my teeth to keep from screaming before it begins to fade away after what feels like an endless time.
The nymph behind the fake Alisha glares at me with furious eyes before her angry look turns into a grin. She picks up the knife she just held against the illusion's throat from the ground and walks in two steps to Elien, who still hasn't moved on the horse.
'Well played, but it's not that easy.' She wants to put the knife against Elien's throat, but the rage I feel surpasses anything.
In an ultra-fast movement, I leap over the wide river, pick up my dagger from the grass, and throw the knife into the nymph's forehead. The white eyes stare at me in shock before she, too, bursts into hundreds of blue sparkles.
With a pounding heart, I look at Alisha on the other side of the river. With a relieved expression, she sends me a small smile.
'That mole was one of the first things that caught my eye,' she laughs softly as she walks towards me via the few stones in the river.
'That doesn't surprise me,' I reply, grabbing her hand and safely pulling her onto the land.
'We're getting out of this hellhole, and we're doing it now.' Alisha immediately agrees, takes the horse's reins, and together we quickly make our way out of the forest.
اوووه! هذه الصورة لا تتبع إرشادات المحتوى الخاصة بنا. لمتابعة النشر، يرجى إزالتها أو تحميل صورة أخرى.
