The Dark

Chapter 51: The Truth Beneath The Ruby

Chapter 51: The Truth Beneath the Ruby

The heavenly light evaporated around me revealing the environment to be very different from the one I was just placed in. The events began taking fold back in my mind and I remember shattering the ruby into pieces causing the light to spread across the area, but here as I let my eyes begin to open wide, I no longer feel the texture of the bow in my hands, the quiver no longer swung around my shoulder with the arrows securely placed inside. I no longer felt the rough carpet of the castle ballroom of Shadowwyn become my bed underneath my weight, in its place was a soft material, almost silk like but at the same time it wasn't. It was smooth and comfortable but I had no idea where I was; opening my eyes properly I gathered in my surroundings filling my nose with the sweet essence of cherry, raspberry making the awakening fruitful. The room was lit by pure candlelight with a walking wardrobe facing opposite me with the glass window to both sides of me one with a neat desk sat in front of it. The whole room seemed to be made out of freshly stained grey pine wood hinting at the fact I was in a cottage. Looking down at what I was placed on it now made sense to be a bed and I wondered what I was doing here. It was a double bed with two puffy pillows the colour of light grey while the covers were of a black with grey pillows and fur placed at the end of the bed. I swung my legs over the bed and took in the surroundings carefully; still placed in my warrior gear I took off my coat placing it on the bed next to me while I stood up tracing my hand over the pine wood of the desk. Along the desk lay small little accessories of red, white, black and grey such as earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pots of perfumes followed by a stack of books along the side. They seemed as if they hadn't be touched in a long while due to the dust covering the tops of the pages and especially once I pulled one of them out the cover was covered what someone could mistake as ash but of course it was dust. Carefully, I replaced the book back in the position it used to be in when I suddenly just stared at the mirror in front of me.

The girl I saw in the reflection was no longer the princess that used to be present. My face was covered with ash from different places; I had a cut above my eyebrow and in between my chin and neck with stained blood covering the area. My eyes no longer shone a bright sapphire blue but a very desolate and lost colour creating a facade nature to my character. The two French plaits holding my hair in place was now falling out so everything looked a wreck, strands of hair was sticking out in all directions so gently I pulled each one out letting my hair curl down my back neatly as if there was never anything wrong with it. Remembering the castle collapsing I looked down at my leg to see it had completely healed which was strange since a whole ceiling collapsed on top of me. However, there led in a small box at the edge of the desk lay shards of red staring at me. I moved closer to the whispering noise calling out to me inside the box, once I stood over the top of it I noticed it be shards of the ruby piled neatly in a small contained black box reaching out to me. I couldn't help but hover my hand over the shards feeling the emitting heat coming off them but when I held one in my hand the heat had no effect on me and I couldn't help but smile when looking at what used to be whole. "It still feels the connection between the two of you," I lifted my head up away from the shard dropping it back into the small box twisting round to see the person I least expected to see, Ash. "They do that, even though they get broken and the power it used to contain leaves they are still alive because they can't fully be destroyed," I sighed heavily with suspicion as to what the man was up to especially as he walked closer to me "How did I get here?" I got straight to the point with him as he stood by my side "I was going to ask you that," I raised my eyebrow at him as he held his hand out to me ready for me to take "We should go and have a chat," strangely enough I gladly took his hand so the pair of us started to walk downstairs. The living room looked familiar to me with the fire still burning bright as if it never stopped from the last I was here, the same goes for everything else it all seemed as if it had been untouched.