Her blood dried on my arms, smeared so violently, it covered my own. I felt empty inside. The stone floor had held me and taken my tears. I had no idea how many hours it had been, but I had mustered the energy to fight my way to the wall. There was nothing I thought about while leaning against it, looking at her paintings in all vivid colours.
My tears were all used up and my face was swollen and red. Everything hurt, but not the physical kind. I had been in and out of sleep and each time I woke, for just a second, I could pretend it had been a cruel dream. Until my pain came back and I had to realize it all over.
Selene was dead.
The breathtakingly beautiful golden-haired girl that had shown me nothing but kindness, was gone.
She smiled every time she looked at me just to make me feel comfortable. She had picked the most beautiful dresses and looked full of glee at me wearing them. Those pale eyes had shown me how full of hope she was when she talked about the future. A gruelling future she would now never see.
I stuttered a breath, waiting for my body to react, but I was empty. I felt the pain and the sorrow but I was all too exhausted to show it. No more.
The sun glimmered into her room caressing the many paintings surrounding me, illuminating the dust in the air.
The door squeezed open, but I didn't react or break away from looking at anything else.
Mayra sat next to me so carefully and slowly, like a cat, before she matched my gaze.
I heard her breath go a few times as if she wanted to speak but was unsure what to say or when to even start breaking the dread.
"Where will she rest?" I uttered, breaking the silence first, my voice so raspy it was barely words.
"Here," she only said, her voice barring marks of grief.
"She begged," I choked up, "Before he..." I trailed off, my mind refusing to finish the sentence.
Mayra sighed deeply, burying her head onto her knees, curled up to her chest.
"She has no one," I whispered, remembering the story she had told me about her childhood. The dead parents of a now murdered orphan.
"We will honour her with the family crest, she won't lie alone," Mayra responded and I wondered where the bodies of Selene's parents had been buried. Were they resting in unmarked graves, forever separated from their daughter?
"That's not good enough," I said, feeling my anger grow.
"I know," she replied and I knew she understood what I meant.
The assassin had to be caught. Punished. I didn't care how. "He should've killed me. I was the one he wanted." Guilt came. It had buried me the night through. The thought was that he meant to murder me but got her instead. It was my fault.
"If that was true, you'd be dead," Mayra responded. "He meant to injure you. Killing her was a warning."
I looked down at my arm.
"He should just have waited," I said, lifting my arm covered in my blood, dark as the night sky. "It won't be long now."
Her eyes went wide, even if she looked like she hadn't slept all night her attention was now wide awake.
"Elora," she almost whispered, again the grief was present.
I let my arm fall back to my side.
"A warning?" I repeated, completely ignoring her pitying and panicked eyes. "For me?"
YOU ARE READING
My Darkening Ember
Adventure"This bounty is mine, Xander," He said. It was the first time I ever heard his name. Xander smirked, "Kill me first, then take her." He proposed arrogantly, a silver knife resting confidently in his hand. The man only nodded once as his hand slithe...
