It's been four weeks, exactly a month, since Scarlett Solaris took to the throne and has been leading her nation, Goldaria. She and her friends still hurt from the traumatic mental wounds inflicted on them during their captivity weeks prior, but the...
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✰✦✰ Chapter Eighteen ✰✦✰ " Scarlett "
"GET BACK HERE!" I screamed down the corridor, feeling my throat burn as I chased past all the shattered windows that allowed the frosty weather to blast through. People were hiding in rooms, some still in the corridors but bleeding and stuck under furniture or debris. They cried out for aid—for anything—but I had my eyes solely fixed on the source of the problem.
My mind was clouded with fury. My judgement fueled by rage. All I could think about was that I'd just seen her running away.
But she wasn't listening to me. She kept vanishing behind corners with that stupid black cloak that shielded her identity from most, meaning it wasn't actually a confirmation that she was the one running away from me but I was certain.
Blood recognises its own, right?
Because she certainly had some kind of psychotic pull on me. Like two magnets forever forced together. The same warriors forever forced to battle against one another in the arena.
She fled down the staircase and I followed like the idiot I was born to be. Whatever she had planned I wanted to know. She wasn't going to get away with it this time—she was going to pay.
I swore under my breath as she turned the corner and sprinted down another set of stairs, making this whole thing a thousand times more suspicious. Who took their time running away from the scene of a crime through dark corridors leading to the cellar?
She did, that's who.
Ultimately, she broke her run and stilled once we reached a dark storage room in the cellars. Her cloak moved as she breathed heavily and instantly, I knew it was her. Yet I couldn't just assume and get it wrong.
"Show your face, you coward." is what I should've said. Instead, my heart plummeted to the very depths of hell and I choked out, "It's you. I know it's you."
Ever so slowly, as if to torture me like the horrible monster she was, the figure turned its body and her face was revealed. Longer hair this time 'round. Same full pink lips. Same straight posture and snakey aura about her. A lump rose in my throat when my darkest fears came true. Though I'd suspected it, I'd never actually thought she'd be the one to spin around.
My sister.
Euphemia.
The Shielder of Darkness, after all this time.
"What?" she said with a curving smile. "No warm welcome?"
I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere by trying to brainwash her back into who she once was so I wasn't going to. Never again.
"Unfortunately," I said, "I keep those for people I don't want dead."
"Pity," Mia said.
"What do you want? Why aren't you dead?"
"Now that hurts," She began pacing under the flickering candle lights. It was as if they were warning me too. Telling me something I already knew—this girl wasn't my sister. She'd been formed and carved into an evil savage by the Olympian of Death. "In what world would a sister wish her other one dead?"
"In a world where one sister doesn't believe she has a sister any longer."
Mia The Shielder smirked. "So you've accepted that I'm not who I was?"
"Clearly," I folded my arms. "How are you not dead?"
She stopped pacing and stepped closer, pulling her hood back. "You truly think that one little attempt on my life could actually kill me? After all I've been through, I'd expect more from you. Especially now you have your powers."
Every single possible bad outcome whizzed through my mind. She could kill me on the spot. "How do you know I have—"
The Shielder rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Scarlett, of course I know. Despite how much I loathe you and dislike admitting this, you have a certain glow about you now that you possess these abilities. Fortunately for you, only magical beings recognise a change in you."
I turned my eyes to slits. "You've got some nerve coming here after all you did to Jacks."
She laughed. "Oh, don't tell me the two of you have made up. Last time I saw you together I remember you being on the verge of a breakdown every time you both made eye contact."
Though what she'd said was mean, relief flooded me. Even if I'd believed that Jacks was now truthful and loyal, it was like an additional blanket of reassurance covering me when she said that was the last time they'd seen one another. That day. Meaning that Jacks couldn't possibly have lied to me about that and that this time, he really was on our side.
"Thankfully we don't let little roaches like you get between us," I hissed at her. "Now tell me at once how you're alive before I kill what's left of you."
My sister The Shielder laughed again, throwing her head back and pointing at me. "Now that's the attitude I know! The old Scarlett Solaris is peeking through, dearest."
I could only glare at her.
She calmed down, "Oh, and it is sweet of you to genuinely believe that you could harm me in any way. You may have the powers now, Scarlett, but you will never have the control. However," The Shielder cocked her head, "you have my pity and therefore I will tell you why I'm here and not a corpse, yes?"
"Get on with it then."
"Like I said," she told me, "it isn't as easy to kill The Shielder of Darkness as you might think. Sure, I was unconscious for a while there but I managed to awake a few days after your little tantrum, allowing me to escape through the dark, nearly entirely destroyed tunnels and out into the world."
I scowled. "Next time I'll get the job done properly."
"Interesting," she said softly. "How are you not to know this isn't a dream? Perhaps it's all in your mind, sister."
"Trust me," I said, "if I ever dreamt of you, I'd never fall asleep again."
She smiled. "Wonderful. You have no idea what's coming."
I didn't say a thing.
The Shielder closed the space between us and whispered, "Good night, sister. Do try not to act so very delusional and dream about me when you fall unconscious."
And suddenly I felt very tired, exhaustion taking control of my body and leaving me feeling utterly weak and powerless. I swallowed, swaying on my feet slightly. She'd done this, I knew it, but I didn't know how to stop it because I didn't even know how she'd rendered me so vulnerable in one second.
