• CHAPTER ONE FOUND HERE!

    Chapter 2
    Gone


    I didn’t remember much after the revelation that I had been the one to kill that creature. I was in a daze. It couldn’t have been me! All I had done was get scared out of my wits! I had recklessly run into a situation that I knew I was helpless to do anything about and hoped against hope that things would turn out alright.

    I remembered being praised for what I had supposedly done, but I didn’t ever remember doing it!

    What was going on?

    Just as I had expected, I still couldn’t sleep, even as the hours ticked on into the early morning. I’m not sure many other people could sleep either. I sat in my room, my thoughts sill reeling. So many questions, not enough answers! I stood finally, too restless to do much else but pace.

    My mind went over those last few moments over and over again. The most powerful cleric I knew was my grandmother, and even she seemed surprised, convinced that I had been the one to summon that powerful lightning attack.

    She had trained me to be a cleric as well after my parents had both passed away, both of them archers and both killed during the Wraith Wars. She didn’t want me to follow in my parents’ footsteps, so being a cleric it was. I was taught healing, herbs, potions, but not how to fry a monster! The last thing my grandmother had ever wanted was for me to fight.

    I let out a heavy sigh. The sun would be up soon. I still needed to sleep!

    Water? Perhaps that would help me… yes… water…

    I began out of my room and down the hallways of our home quietly as not to disturb anyone else that may be sleeping. I came to the living area but paused when I realized that the lamps in the room still burned. The low voices of my grandmother and some other person could be heard, carrying on a hushed conversation. I couldn’t hear what was being said at first.

    My grandmother knew something she wasn’t telling me, I was sure of it. I didn’t really need water! I needed answers!

    I snuck up to the door and did my best to stay out of sight.

    “No, not my granddaughter, she’s not one of them!” I could hear my grandmother exclaim though not very loudly.

    “You saw it as plainly as I did. Her wings, they glowed, and then that rain of lightning.” The priest argued.

    They were talking about me, but why was my grandmother so upset?

    “She is staying here! We can protect her.”

    “No, we can’t. You remember what the priest before me foresaw; what people would do out of greed. Now would be a vulnerable time in the aftermath of the Wraith Wars.” The priest said in a cold tone. One that I had never heard him use. His aged features were stony, not kind and gentle like I always remembered. “We‘ve worked all these years to keep our people safe. We can’t make exceptions, not even for your family. I’m sorry, Edyta.”

    Exceptions? My eyebrows furrowed as I watched on. My grandmother looked devastated but what for? Had I done something wrong?

    “She’s all the family I have left… I’m not going to abandon her.”

    The priest put a hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. “I can arrange it so that it won’t even happen close by you, you’ll have no part in it.”

    A part in what!? I just wanted to jump out and shout in frustration but I forced myself to stay put. I still didn’t have the answer I wanted.

    I suddenly found myself pulled roughly from the doorway. My eyes widened and I made to scream but a hand over my mouth kept me from doing so. Instead my intended scream came out as a muffled whimper, one not loud enough to be heard by either my grandmother or the priest.

    I began to struggle, digging my fingernails into the arm of my potential kidnapper, whoever they were. I heard them let out a quiet hiss of pain. Yes! Let me go! My mind screamed. I froze though, my struggling coming to a dead stop as I felt the cold steel of a small blade against my neck.

    “I wouldn’t want your grandmother to find you dead right here, would you?” a voice whispered in my ear, so quietly I could barely hear it myself.

    My eyes stung as tears gathered in the corners of them. My heart felt as though it would just give out, my legs already had. I found myself being hauled toward the nearest window.

    “I’m not just going to let you do this!” I heard my grandmother say sternly.

    “I’m sorry, it’s already too late by now. I was afraid that you’d change your mind.” the priest replied, the last thing I heard before my grand disappearance. As I was flown away from my home, I watched it grow more distant. I knew then that I would never see it again.

    CHAPTER 3 HERE!