Welcome. Welcome." Everybody starts embracing my parents and my siblings, but as soon as they get to me, they stop. After a moment of hesitation, they come to hug me too.
I know what's going in their minds as I have always had. They are scared that I will light their house on fire if they don't treat equally.
I will myself to embrace everybody, but notice that the fire incident is never far from his or her minds. The only person whose happy to see me is my favourite cousin, Reyna, who is the only one who didn't judge me from the incident.
I embrace her happily. We go inside the house and I slip away from the crowd, not bothering to make myself hug someone else. My whole family would be coming here any minute and the looks will start.
The looks they have given me since I was nine. Since I found out, I'm not like them.
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I walk hand-in-hand with Paul, still scared out of my life. Paul explained to me before how an honour it is to be trained personally by Sire and how I have to do my best to impress.
I promised him but was still unsure. He also explained to me how I am immortal and I can turn a hundred and sixteen. I still can't understand that if I live for a century, won't my real parents already be dead.
Nobody answered that question and I quickly dropped it. Now, here I am, in front of the castle again. We enter the castle again and this time the stonewalls close in on me. I start hyperventilating.
Paul draws me in closer and starts rubbing my back soothing as I relax against his body. It's amazing how much closer we have gotten in two months. We walk to one of the doors on the far end corner of the entrance.
We walk and end up in a small room, with a mirror against the wall.
"Why are we here?" I ask, confusing. Paul squeezes my hand in warning, but Akatsuki just smiles at me, "Relax, little one. Everything will make sense to you soon."
He faces the mirror, making me more confused. Suddenly a crystal that I didn't notice before starts glowing brightly. The glare of the crystal burns my eyes and I try to keep them pen but eventually close them shut.
Tension starts gathering in the room, as Sire starts speaking in a weird language. Suddenly the light eventually disappears from outside of my eyelids. I open my eyes and gasp.
We weren't in the mirror room anymore but in a ballroom. The whole ballroom is covered with tapestries, each made in different colours. Each tapestry showing different pictures.
The whole ballroom is polished until you could your reflection on it. I look up and see a big chandelier light up the whole room, with smaller candles floating in mid-air. I look around truly amazed with the design of the ballroom.
"Close your mouth, Raylana." I quickly close my mouth that I didn't know was open.
I look over to Paul and Sire to see them walking to a door that I didn't notice before. I run to catch up to them as they exit the ballroom.
We emerge into a corridor. We walk down the corridor that had a surprising amount of doors and stops at a door that had two men guarding it. Looking at their big body structure and the guns at their sides, I immediately knew not to mess with them.
Sire goes into the room and sits on a desk in the middle of the room.
He motions us to sit in front of him on the two chairs. Paul and I sit in front of him and immediately regret it. Sire takes out a folder from one of the draws and settles it in front of him. I see my name printed on the front.
"Ok, so as I said before, you are going to be trained personally by me. Now, you think of this as an honour because the rest of the kids your age will be trained altogether. The difference between your training and the rest it that you will isolate from the rest of the world, so you will only see: two guards, two professional assassins, and me. You will only see Paul and Matilda once in six months, as the rest of the kids will see their parents every weekend unless I say so otherwise." Explains Sire,
"Also you will wear a hood to cover your face wherever you go and you will be escorted everywhere with a minimum of two guards. You will stay like this for about a hundred or more, depending on how seriously you decide to take your training. Any questions?"
"Yes. Um… why will I be isolated from the whole world?"
"Because I plan to make you my greatest assassin yet and I won't present you to the world until you are ready." I look into his eyes and immediately look down.
"Any more questions?"
I immediately shake my head. "Good. Now if both of you will come with me."
We get up from our seats and head out of the door. We reach a stairwell and climb up two stores. As we climb up, I look at Paul and notice how quiet he was.
We then continue down the hallway and stop into the front of the door at the end of the hallway, the door that is covered by a shadow. How many doors are in this place? I think, still amazed by the number of doors I have seen.
Sire smiles at me and says, "You will find out one day."
He opens the door and leads us into a room. "You will be staying here for your training." With that, he turns and goes, leaving me alone with Paul.
I take this time to interrogate him, "Why are you so quiet?" Paul looks at me and shakes his head, "It's nothing you have to worry about." He bends down until he is at my height.
"Now, remember your promise to me. This is a huge opportunity and I need you to work hard. Can you do that for me?" I nod.
He quickly puts me in a hug and whispers, "I'll see you soon." He leaves me alone in the quietness of my room. I quickly collapse on the bed, not bode ring to see my room. I quickly fall asleep.