Equinox (Book One of the Firebird Chronicles) WATTY AWARD HIDDEN GEM WINNER 2015

Chapter Forty Two: Ignorance and Bliss

'Mina, trust me.'

Reia, tallest child in the orphanage with the biggest personality. Loud, commanding, but warm like sunshine and loved by all she met from the age of five until she was recorded as "missing", by the orphanage, at the tender age of seventeen. She was only a few days away from her eighteenth birthday. 

Would anyone remember the dark-haired girl that she was so close to? Perhaps not. But she, too, went missing later that week, chasing the dream of a sister that never existed.

Perhaps the dark-haired girl should have known from the start that Reia was leagues above her. Everybody wanted to adopt Reia. Why would she stay in the hopeless prospect of the orphanage, when wealthy patrons offered to adopt her as an heiress?

Did love of a friend extend that far? Perhaps the "logical" girl should have realised that no, Reia's love did not come without a price. The thief became the deceived. 

The dream was not real, but waking from it with tears flooding my eyes didn't detract from the pain lancing through my chest. Darkness hit my eyes, and I knew it would take a few minutes before my eyes could even detect how dark this hellhole was. It was the same every half-hour or so of dozing, a dream narrating my idiocy, and waking up, sobbing and berating myself for being drawn in.

Reia's gloating face was not one I recognised prior to today, but it was the only thing I could see clearly in this cell. Mouth curling, pretty pink lips curling, hair curling-- every bit of her curling in pride and power.  She eyed me with a distaste that I'd never seen her give to a stray, dirty dog on the street. I hadn't even resisted when guards had shoved me to the floor, my head battered against the blackened soot of the king's clothes. Chained and tied and marched to the basements, my body had been separate from my aching heart. 

How had she known it was me? My hair was cut and shaped like Aster's. My face was covered by the mask, my clothes were nothing she'd ever seen me in. The dark magic had even lengthened my wings to resemble Aster's. But as soon as she saw me, Reia had known who I was, and ordered the guards accordingly.

'Take this girl to a cell. She is responsible for the murder of the King and the usurping of a kingdom. Let the city know that the execution of the rebel Lumina Fawcett will take place in the morning.'

'Yes, my lady,' the group had chorused, taking my hands and binding them with a substance I couldn't describe, but it welded my wrists together. Then, my feet were bound loosely, so that I could still shuffle but not run. 

Even now, I could hear my protesting voice. 'Reia? Reia, why?'

And her corresponding gloat. 'This is my throne.'

I threw myself against the stone of the cell, feeling the cold strike my face in a rush of pain. There was water on the floor; several hours must have passed by, and yet no nourishment had been provided. Water left coating the stone slabs was starting to sound appealing to the back of my dry, parched throat. My knees were freezing from kneeling, uncomfortable in any other position, and the spell of the dress having worn off hours ago. I was returned to tatty black rags, befitting a prisoner, my small, useless wings curled up to retain whatever heat my body had left. The Opal still sat hotly in my pocket, but I was too exhausted to even try and use its powers. After seeing it incinerate a man, I was far too acutely away of its danger to wish to use it again.

Execution. Had I really come this far, to be killed in such a way? By my own sister? 

How was I going to die? Would it be quick?

Did they capture anyone else? Hopefully, Fabian's group had made it safely away from the party after the arrest was announced. I prayed that Sakura had joined them, and maybe they could attend my funeral.