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Chapter Twenty-Two
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2022-03-23 05:42:55Meanwhile, back at the campsite, Ellis sat by the fire, clutching his brother's bow in his hands. The quiver of arrows sat by his left side, and on his right, he had moved the comatose Lyda by the fire, hoping the heat might wake her up. He checked her pulse every few minutes and did everything their father had taught him and Eran, but this was a situation neither of them thought they would ever encounter. He continued to check her body after Eran and Jay had gone, but he could find no traces of bites or anything that might cause something like this. It was as if Lyda had simply gone to sleep and refused to wake up.
Ellis looked back toward the girls' tent continuously, wondering if he should just wake Adea and tell her what was going on, even if only for some company. The longer he waited for the others to return, the more the faint sounds of the nighttime woods began to unsettle him.
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Back at the campsite, Adea's eyes flicked open. She rolled over onto her back, groaning softly as she stretched out her arms. As she stared up at the roof of the tent, she noticed it was almost too dark to see anything. It was still the middle of the night. That was when she looked over to see the light of the fire peeking through the tent flap. She looked around the tent and realized that neither Lyda nor Jay was there with her. She was alone.Maybe they're outside, she thought. She was about to unravel the blanket from around her when a sudden disturbance drew her attention back toward the light of the fire. She had to squint to be sure, but she thought she could see the shadowy shroud of a figure standing up by the fire. It was too hard to tell who it was, but Adea could vaguely make out the outlines of the figure's long hair, which could only belong to one of the others.
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None of them could get out of there fast enough. Both Adea and Ellis were shaken up from their encounters. Adea was quiet as they packed up and swiftly headed back toward their cottage, wanting nothing more than to get home and out of the dark, and to forget all about this horrific night. Ellis, on the other hand, could not stop going on and on about what he saw out in the woods. He described it in great detail, his voice quivering as he did so, but it was clear that nobody really believed him. Nobody, it seemed, except for Adea, who was ready to believe anything could be lurking in the trees around them, perhaps watching them right now.Lyda was the worst of them all. Nobody could get a word out of her about what happened while she was out cold. Jay pressed her to the point of tears to tell them what happened, but Lyda was completely clammed up, not saying another word following her plea to go home. Her f
Last Updated : 2022-03-23Whispers of Sikar Chapter Twenty-Five
As Lyda paced the cellar that night, her emotional state slowly transitioned from distraught to anger. She wanted to take Iris' words to heart, but no matter how she tried to look at it, she feared what her parents would think of her.It wasn't fair. From a young age, everybody in her life had been denying her the opportunities she deserved. For the first time, she was truly angry with the Mistresses for refusing to let her train as an oracle. She deserved it! It was what she was born to be! In fact, thanks to everything she taught herself in secret, she felt that she was fully prepared to stand before the Mistresses and claim that she knew more about the Spirits than anyone in the Valley.Perhaps that was why they tried to have her sheltered. That must have been it. They were afraid of her. They were afraid of how much she might learn. Well, she wo
Last Updated : 2022-03-23Whispers of Sikar Chapter Twenty-Six
Lyda found less sleep as the nights passed. Eventually, there was no sleep at all. Lyda was sitting on her bed in the cellar, never even undoing the blanket. She had lost all natural urge to sleep, as if something was forcing her to stay awake. Instead, she sat on the bed and stared blankly into the dark corners of the cellar, her own little alcove lit by a single candle on her bedside table.Mere weeks had gone by since the incident while camping, and many thoughts had gone through her head ever since. She hoped to learn more, anything she could, by inflicting that nightmare upon herself, but she got much more than she had bargained for with the most horrifying experience of her life, and she had gained nothing from it. It had been a complicated road. She had not felt like herself since then, until Iris had inadvertently given her the courage to think about what it was she really wanted.
Last Updated : 2022-03-23Whispers of Sikar Chapter Twenty-Seven
Meanwhile, in the comfort of her own bed, Adea was fast asleep, lost in pleasant dreams of soaring over the vast mountaintops and swimming in the lakes of the valleys throughout. She was at peace while she was asleep, more than ever when she was awake. Her tranquility was interrupted suddenly when a hand grabbed her by the shoulder. Adea let out a cry of astonishment until another hand planted against her mouth. In the midst of her dream, she found herself staring into a pair of familiar yellow eyes. Adea felt the overwhelming urge to scream as she tried to force herself awake."Adea!" Lyda called in a loud whisper. "It's me!"Adea's eyes shot open, wide with shock until they fell upon her sister standing over her. Lyda removed her hand from her mouth when she let out a sigh of relief."What are you doing up here?"
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Adea had fallen asleep minutes after Lyda left. She was anxious to forget everything that just happened between her and her sister and could not wait to get lost in her dreams again. That was when everything went wrong. Horribly wrong.The dream started so pleasantly. Adea placed herself by the edge of a tranquil lake with her friends but decided to keep Lyda out of this one. She figured that would only remind her of the stress of their conversation.In the dream, Eran and Ellis were horseplaying around in the water while Jay was asleep on the bank. Adea waded out into the water and turned over on her back. Even in the dream, the water felt so real, but Adea did not need to tread to keep herself afloat. She just lay on the surface of the lake and stared up at the cloudless, blue sky. That was when it started.The fi
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Minutes later, Adea had finally shown up, dressed in her favorite leather-hide jacket and ready to go. Before they mounted Hazel and left, Lyda reminded her of the promise she made the last time, that she would speak nothing of this night to anybody. Adea hastily agreed, anxious to leave and get this mess over with. With that, the two sisters mounted the horse and rode west into the mountains. Just like old times, Lyda mused to herself.A little over two hours later, they came upon an eerily familiar sight. As anticipated, Hazel halted on her own in the exact same spot as last time, and the two were on foot from there. Lyda was relieved when she saw that the rhododendron clusters were towering over them, indicating that the Crossing, in all its mysterious properties, had not disappeared. The atmosphere was just as heavy as before, but to Lyda, it felt more welcoming to her than she remembered. To Adea, it
Last Updated : 2022-03-24Whispers of Sikar Chapter Thirty
1879Adea wished she could say that she was back to where she was the first time the two of them snuck out to perform that revolting ritual. What happened when she was only 8-years-old, as far as she was concerned, paled in comparison to the way it made her feel this time around. Looking back, Adea remembered being just a frightened little girl desperate to put an end to her nightmares, and despite the terrible things she had to witness to achieve that, she had been ironically thankful for the sister who had gone to such dark places to help her.This time was much different. Lyda told her that she was merely doing it to help her cleanse her dreams all over again, but she quickly proved her motives to be entirely selfish. Adea did not even want to think about it. Everything Lyda did that night she knew would haunt her for the rest of her life. She had regained total control over her dre
Last Updated : 2022-03-24
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Everything went numb. Adea felt nothing. No soft touch of the wind. No tranquil sounds of birds singing. No grief nor remorse. The only thing there, lingering in the dark depths of her mind, was the memory of the last moments of her sister’s life. Everything she tried to do to her twelve years ago, Adea now found herself on the other side of it.That was when she felt it. A great surge of warmth and energy coursed through her blood. It spread to every corner of her body, filling her with a sensation greater than any adrenaline or sexual satisfaction she had ever felt in her life. It continued to escalate, rising to the surface of her flesh until it almost burned. The power her sister always wanted, the power promised by the Dark Twin, she had finally taken it for herself. Suddenly, she let out a scream when it felt like some powerful force was tearing at her very soul, but it was over in little more
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Adea groaned as her body was battered by the fall. That was when she registered the pain in her ankle, which shot up her leg when she tried to move. She must have sprained it in the fall. She then remembered the cracking sounds and realized that she was lying on top of a nest of something small, narrow and hard. Adea reached underneath her to grab one of the objects. It was almost too dark to see anything, but there was no mistaking the rock-like texture of a bone. She was lying in the rotting remains of a Human skeleton.Adea shivered and let out a squeal of disgust as she jumped to her feet, limping as she was unable to put the full weight of her body on her sprained ankle. That was when she looked around at her surroundings. It did not take long to realize that she had fallen into some sort of cavern, the only light coming from a small opening in the center of the roof where it flowed in like a spotligh
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Adea’s ears hummed and whirred as she slowly began to regain consciousness. Her eyes struggled to focus; her vision was hazy and disoriented. Her surroundings were pitch dark and quiet, but she could feel the cold breeze against her flesh, telling her that she was outside.As more of her senses returned, she realized that she was lying on a hard but smooth surface of rock and that she had been stripped completely naked. She was still too disoriented to make out her surroundings. She tried to move, but that was when she noticed that her limbs were bound in place. Her arms were spread out on either side and her legs were both pinned straight forward. She began to panic when she turned her head this way and that, only to be met with the frighteningly familiar sight of stone slabs perched upward in a circle, and she was right in the middle of it.Adea w
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Adea let out a scream as she quickly backed into her parents’ bedroom. She slammed the door shut and twisted the lock just as Lyda threw herself at the door. She banged against it ferociously, swearing and demanding her sister open it. Adea fell back onto the floor as Lyda began putting the knife through the door. She continued to scream, her head darting this way and that as if looking for a way out.In a matter of seconds, Lyda had broken the door to pieces. She kicked the splintered door off its hinges as she barged into the bedroom. Before she could look around the room for her prey, Adea leapt out from behind the dresser beside the doorway. In a fit of terror, she unwittingly threw a punch at Lyda’s face. Lyda grunted in shock and swung her hunting knife at Adea’s head. Adea ducked and ran out of the room as fast as she could, screaming at the top of her lungs as she charged down the
Whispers of Sikar Chapter Forty-Two
The return trip was even quicker as Matthias made haste across the mountain paths. His mind swarmed with thoughts wondering what the Mistress was talking about. All that mattered was that he got Lyda to the hall as fast as possible.As he emerged from the tree line along the ridge approaching the cottage, he spotted his wife and youngest daughter out in the garden. What were they doing out there instead of resting, he asked himself. He rode into the backyard, dismounting his horse before he even got to the stables. Alyra and Adea looked up from the garden.“Where is Lyda?” he huffed as he ran over to them.“In the cellar,” Alyra pointed toward the cottage. “You locked her down there, remember?”Matthias shook his head as he charg
