Chapter 111: Foreshadowing
AYLA
I am standing in a desert land. I do not know how I had gotten here.
The sand beneath my feet is stained with deep crimson, stretching endlessly beneath a sky that looks as though it had been painted with blood.
I turn slowly.
There are bodies everywhere, thousands of them scattered across the desert and with some piled on top of one another in heaps so high I can barely see over them.
I look down at my hands. They are covered in blood. It drips from my fingertips, falling into the red sand beneath me.
And I know that I killed them.
I turn in a slow circle, staring at the carnage.
"What did I do?"
Almost like they can hear me, the bodies rise and their eyes open, bearing down on me with a grotesque smile on all their faces.
Omega Queen.
It is like a thousand voices speaking at once, growing louder as they chanted those two words.
"Stop."
I press my hands over my ears, and squeeze my eyes shut.
When I open them, they are all gone except one woman.
She has a smile on her face.
"Morgana?"
"This is what you were born to be."
...
My head felt like it had been split open.
I groaned, forcing my eyes open.
Above me and around me, the orange glow of a lantern swayed. I inhale and immediately smell horses.
I tried to sit up but the world tilted so hard that I had to close my eyes again and regulate my breathing.
How had I gotten here?
What is this place?
I forced my mind to search for something that would give me an idea of where I was.
It suddenly came to me.
The masked man who had walked into my room and knocked me unconscious.
My eyes flew open again as the realization of what had happened settled over me.
I had been kidnapped and I was not in the palace anymore. I looked around as I tried to sit up.
This was a tent.
I need to run.
I pushed myself up, rising slowly to my feet. I swayed slightly, catching myself at the edge of a small table and closing my eyes until the nausea passed.
I neared the tent flap just as raised voices reached me from outside.
"You cannot be serious." A woman was saying. "I cannot believe you brought her with us."
My heart lurched in my chest. That sounded like Willow.
Wait! Was I dreaming again?
Was this Morgana’s body? It did not feel like hers but I could not tell and there was no mirror lying around for me to look into.
Nyx, I tried to summon my wolf but I got no response from her.
"What is so special about this one girl," Willow’s voice went on, "that all of you are willing to throw your lives away for her?"
I did not want to wait around to understand what the hell was going on but before I reached for the flap, it snapped open before I could touch it and Willow walked in, in the flesh.
She wore traveling clothes and her hair hung loose around her face.
Her lips curved into a sneer as she regarded me
"Oh look, you are awake. Maybe you can explain to me what is so special about you."
She stepped toward me
"Tell me, Ayla. What makes you worth all of it?"
Before I could ask her what the hell she was talking about a voice cut in from the entrance of the tent.
"Leave us."
Willow stilled.
For a moment I thought she would refuse but she only looked at me one last time, a flash of pure, undiluted hatred, in her eyes before she turned, brushing past the man to leave.
My gaze moved to the man who had spoken.
The same one that had taken me from my room.
"Who are you?" My voice cracked. I hated how small it sounded. "What do you want from me?"
He took a step forward and I shrank back.
Deep in my chest, Nyx stirred. She was as trapped as I was, and we both knew it.
He stopped when he noticed my panic.
"I would have liked for us to meet under better circumstances, Ayla but this had to happen."
"What do you mean?"
"I did not think for a second we would ever get the opportunity." He took another step. "Not after finding out that your father is Kieran."
My blood went cold.
"How do you know that?"
"I overheard him telling you." He said it matter of fact. " I was right outside your door. I was coming to make an introduction."
"Let me go. Whatever it is, I do not want a part of it." I said.
I heard him chuckle.
"You do not understand a thing, do you?. You are the reason all of this is happening. I wasn’t sure of what my cause was before but finding out about you? I now realize what I have been put on this path to do."
I did not like the sound of that.
My eyes darted around for a means of escape but there was none that I could see.
"I know you are scared but you do not need to be, Ayla. I am a friend and I want to help you just as I need you to help me"
"And how do I know that?" I shot at him. "How do I know you are a friend?. What person stays masked up whilst talking to someone they consider a friend?"
"You are right" he said after a moment.
I blinked, shocked at his agreement.
He reached up slowly and slid the mask from his face.
I gasped.
"Alistair?" I blurted "What are you doing?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Not Alistair although I can forgive the mistake." He inclined his head, amusement in his tone. "My twin brother and I are identical, after all."
Twin brother? I gaped at him.
"You may know me as the infamous rogue king." He smiled.