Twyll woke up to murmuring voices. She felt disoriented and sluggish.
"What happened?" she asked to no one in particular, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Where am I?"
Cadence came to her bedside and two more figures were behind him.
"You blacked out with the strain of the wielding. I take it that you haven't practised much?" A deep voice questioned.
She looked up at the speaker.
"The bastard brother," she said in a dazed tone, immediately regretting it. Her cheeks burned red. "shit." She cursed.
Trystan laughed.
"You are a feisty one aren't you? I'm Trystan or the brains of the family," he replied in humour.
"You must be under unimaginable pressure then, what with being the Bastard and the brains."
"You could say that." he laughed.
"Enough, you've been hogging her enough brother," Cadence said in a mildly irritated voice.
"now, now Cadence..." she said in a placating manner. "I'm sure there's enough of me to go around. I agree I'm rather good company, but it's no reason for you to fight like little boys now is it?" she continued with a smug smile and condescending tone.
"You think too highly of yourself Twyll. If I had known that, I wouldn't have gotten so attached and needy." Cadence retorted.
"I see you've already met Trystan, Twyll," A husky voice announced.
"You are Bren. The Immortal."
"I see I don't need an introduction. I'm guessing Cadence has informed you of our life histories." She declared with a charming smile.
"I'm sorry for your loss. All of you. Jenny seemed like an important part of your life. I know how empty my words are, but I am truly sorry that you lost her."
"I understand that you also lost your only family?" She asked in a soft voice.
"Yes. She was all I knew."
Bren nodded in empathy.
"Dinner will be served soon. I already apologise for the dull atmosphere. Jenny's parents, Karsyn and Shalom are still in shock and have not been taking her death well. None of us is. Them more so than us for obvious reasons."
"Of course."
"There are clothes in the trunk at the foot of your bed. They should fit." Trystan said in a more serious tone.
Twyll raised her brows at the change in his demeanour. He was very friendly before, but it seemed like coming into this environment made him remember that Jenny was gone and that he should be grieving. This reminded Twyll of her aunt. The aunt who was never there, but the only link to her parents. Her only blood. She was truly alone now.
Cadence may be her friend, but she barely knew the boy. They had kissed and it had meant nothing. An experiment to see if they had chemistry. He was home now. He was with his family who was all grieving the death of someone she had never met. A person who mattered to them.
Jinn mattered to Twyll, but she had no one to share that grief with. No one to share the burden of loneliness with.
"Twyll, are you alright?" A voice asked from afar.
Twyll's breath turned shallow. She could feel the cool tears sliding down her face. She could feel her eyes turning white.
No, no, NO!
Her vision went dark and then she saw it. It was them. Trystan and Bren and Cadence. Lying in pools of blood and gore. Their organs ripped out of their bodies. Dark creatures, Temnota, were feeding on them. She felt sick. Then the vision changed. A huge wall of rock with thousands of Tem crawling down, their heads glowed with iridescent veins. On the top were three cloaked figures. Their faces were smooth, black rock. Their eyes an icy silver that glinted in the dim red. The wall was laced with a red undertone. It felt like a demon dimension. The three figures murmured in a scratchy language. Then a resounding boom sounded over the plain. Three voices synchronised together in her head chanting-
"The end is near, the hope is in despair"
The creatures wailed in controlled chaos. It was a nightmare that felt like it was never going to end. And then she was there. Her gold hair unbound and tousled. She wore a shimmering gossamer dress that was ever-changing. One minute it was an opulent gold and the next a pearlescent white. She shot up into the sky, the winds carrying her up into the air. An aura of gold surrounded her. She reached the top. she landed on the plateau, her dress streaming behind her like a floating cloud.
The figures brought their bony hands to their faces. They pulled at their smooth faces which she realised were actually masks. She gasped in shock. It was her parents and aunt Jinn. But something was wrong. Their faces were grey and filled with agony. their skin a haggard white and cheeks emaciated and hollowed out. Her tears were now rivers. the salty water pooled around her, her sobs were swallowed by her flooding tears. she was drowning in the sea of her own sorrow.
Everything went dark.
"TWYLL, Wake up!" A muffled voice screamed.
She couldn't breathe. Her lungs were filled with water. She was back under the Black Belt. Drowning, going home. To a better place.
She closed her eyes and then there was a pain. It wasn't overwhelming, but still there.
Twyll woke up gasping for air, Her fingernails were torn and bleeding, the sheets were a ragged mess.
"What the hell happened?" Cadence asked in a bewildered tone.
Twyll just blankly looked at the wall straight Trystan was directly in her line of sight looking at her like he knew. Knew that she saw them all die in that hellish dimension and that army of Tem crawling up like insects and then her parents, her aunt Jinn. Her cheeks were crusty with tears and her head ached. She wanted to crawl under the covers and close her eyes and never open them again. Her worst nightmare was coming true.
Twyll had had these visions since she was a child, but she always had someone to chase the demons away. Earthlings called them 'Night terrors'. She called them visions. Things that would happen if she made the wrong choices, or that's what her aunt had told her. She remembered falling in the middle of the street or dropping onto the dining table during, meals and then the visions would plague her mind until her aunt pulled her out of the psychically and then isolated her for not having the strength to come out on her own, for losing control.
She looked up at Trystan with bleak eyes and repeated the words that she had heard-
The end is near, the hope is in despair
Trystan's eyes darkened. The black spreading to the whites.
"You are an Heir." He rasped, "And you know it," he hissed.
Twyll closed her eyes.
"I suspected it when I found out that it wasn't normal to wield all the magics. My crystal energies must have been detected by your father. Its why he wants me. I am a threat to his power, He wants me dead."
Trystan closed his eyes. His mouth forming words in a guttural language.
"Cac kra"
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* Cac kra means 'f*cking sh*t' in stoechían.