Chapter 3 #3
“Zara! It is you!” The girl shrieked and practically started to run toward me, a massive grin plastered on her face, tears falling from her eyes.
On instinct, shadows burst from my palms, slamming into her chest. The girl flew backward, colliding with the metal door with a loud crash.
A sharp cry left her lips, and she fell to the floor, scrambling to her feet.
The girl’s uniform was now covered in hay and dirt, and her jaw was set in anger as she glared in my direction.
“Zara, what the fuck?!” she snapped, and my brows pinched together. Why was she acting like she knew me?
“I think you are confused,” I spat, trying to understand why this girl had followed me into the stables and why she had been about to…hug me? The thought was ridiculous. No one in their right mind would do that.
She must be one of the elite soldiers who arrived this morning from Ironfell. I wearily scanned her as she angrily brushed hay from her uniform. My eyes widened as I realized she was glaring at me. I could kill her with barely even a thought and she was glaring at me?
“It’s me, you idiot. Cynthia,” she snapped, her face twisting into a scowl, as if the fact was some sort of revelation.
I scowled back. “I don’t know any Cynthia, soldier. And I suggest you get back in line before I do something you’ll regret.”
She scoffed. Scoffed! I raised my palm threateningly, and her eyebrows shot into her hairline. Shadows coiled around my wrists in agitation, and Cynthia watched them before looking back at my face in disbelief.
“You really don’t recognize me?”
I simply stared, my shadows crawling up my arms. The air grew heavy with tension as she threw her hands up, and I prepared to strike. My shadows began to surge from my fingertips, but I stopped them when I saw she wasn't attacking.
“Well, that's just fucking great. Real humbling Zara. Only your best friend before they took you away. Why did they take you, by the way? I mean, what was up with that? No one else got a personal escort from the king, but you? I mean, I guess you were his kid after all, which can we talk about that for a moment? I heard he never lets any of his children live past selection. That’s the rumor, at least. I cannot believe your mother never told you, and no one has ever been taken like that before. I mean—”
Cynthia kept going on and on and on.
I just stared at her, bewildered. My magic winked out, but what was she even saying? And oh my fates, she needed to stop talking.
“Enough!” I shouted over her rambling, and Cynthia snapped her mouth shut abruptly, her head tilting to the side.
“Zara, it's me,” she said again, and this time it came out more like a plea.
I shook my head at her. “I already told you, I don’t know who you are. You are mistaken.”
Cynthia was shaking her head back and forth. “No, Zara—”
“That's enough, soldier. Go back to the training yard. That’s an order,” I said stiffly, taking a deep breath. My head pounded from this interaction, and I had to resist rubbing my temples.
The girl looked as if I had slapped her, like I killed the friend she kept talking about right in front of her—and what if I had?
I let out a sigh. “I'm sorry about your friend. But it's not me. I was raised here.”
She looked perplexed, her face scrunching even further, twisting with disgust.
“That’s not true. You grew up in Bevermere with your mother, Zara,” she said firmly, confidently, and far too bravely. “Winnifred raised you and—”
“My mother died giving birth to me. I didn’t have a mother,” I snapped, practically growling. I took a threatening step forward, but my vision suddenly shuttered, pain lancing through me as if I had been hit over the head.
Cynthia shook her head violently again, and the pain increased.
“You did have a mother, Zara. I’ve met her; I knew her.”
Knew?
“You were taken on your selection year by the queen, and she…she…” Cynthia looked nervous, and I winced again, the breath leaving my lungs in one giant push as I fell to my knees. Images of a crowd, of a young red-haired girl flared behind my eyes, and I gasped, clutching my head.
Cynthia ran toward me. “Zara! Are you okay?!”
What the fuck was happening?
A woman with long blonde hair flashed, and I screamed. The pain was like crashing waves, except they were blades, and they were on fire, stabbing my eyes, my mind.
“You need help!” Cynthia screeched, and I saw her sprinting for the stable doors.
“No, stop! Wait!”
I fell to my hands and knees, panting through the stabbing pain. Breathing heavily, I shook my head.
“What did she do?” I looked up at her desperately, clenching my teeth.
Cynthia looked as if she were unsure what to do, looking from the barn door to me over and over again nervously.
“Please,” I begged, not knowing why but needing to know what she was going to say.
“She—”
Cynthia's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fell to the stable floor with a hard smack.
“No!” I shouted, but my vision began to darken, and I realized I had collapsed onto the ground. I blinked, and Lana was standing above Cynthia, a shovel clutched in her hand.