Elionese slowly walked along the stone path that led her to the top of the hill, where her house was located.
Rising, she once again looked around the surroundings, as if afraid that she was being pursued.
"If the head had not disappeared two days ago, I guarantee that my house would have been searched at all. I don't know what happened to him in the southern forest, but I'm glad he's gone, I hope he never comes back."
Having approached the house and unlocked the door, the girl entered, and then, having passed through several through rooms, she approached the cellar disguised in the floor, after which, having opened a fancy lock, she opened a hole to the bottom. And looking around once more, she slowly descended into it, giving a signal to the persons hiding there:
"Light Win Lai," Elionez said.
Suddenly, from somewhere around the corner, there was the sound of small stomping feet, rushing with all their might to the girl. And now, a moment later, two twins, who were barely ten years old, ran out into the light falling from the hole, hugged their mother tightly.
One of them, grabbing Elionez by the waist, was crying and muttering something about how much she missed her, and the second at that time, tugging at the hem of her mother's dress, asked to be picked up.
"Forgive me for being so late," the elf hugged her daughters in tears, "you must be hungry, let's go, I brought you something to eat."
Clutching their mother in a death grip, the two girls clearly didn't want to let go of her even for a second.
"Well, what can I do with you, I won't drag you upstairs alone, so let's go up ourselves," she said in a soft voice.
In fact, Elionez simply could not raise her voice to her children, and not because she was a weak character or did not understand the basics of education and the importance that children should obey their parents. No, it was something else.
The girl simply could not muster the strength to raise her voice to the children, who, through her fault, lived most of their lives in the basement, almost not seeing the white light. She perfectly understood what it was like for these girls to spend 8-10 hours in a dark basement, alone with their fears. And how great is their joy when she finally comes to them from work.
Seeing her daughters happily eating the food she prepared made Elionese's heart break. She was ready to do anything to make the life of her children a little more joyful than now, but even as the deputy head of the city, Elionez remained helpless in these circumstances.
The terrible truth was that everyone living on this island cut off from the world were the actual slaves of unknown creatures that appeared to them in temples, and who, having brainwashed most of the population, with the help of propaganda and false miracles, inspired here and there their own chosen as the highest race of rulers.
And everything would be fine, but these creatures secretly conducted multiple experiments on children.
Every year, at a big celebration, they took several hundred children and took them somewhere using a teleportation portal.
Nobody saw these children again.
Naturally, parents were told that now their offspring live in a better world, where there is no disease and death, suffering and sadness, but it was nothing more than a farce.
Elionez, being a smart and inquisitive girl, who over the years of service made her way to the second most important post on the island, learned the terrible truth, into which she was initiated, with a smile on her face, by the head of the city himself.
Without a shadow of a doubt, he told her how they should track down and report to the "top" about any child that is somehow different from their peers in terms of abilities, strength, endurance, and most importantly, the presence of magic.
All children with any magical potential, or even more so with the ability to use magic, were to be immediately taken to the secret temple in the southern forest. Where they will be transferred to the guarantee of the great, to serve their goals.
Elionez was not naive and knew perfectly well that one should not expect something good from creatures that in fact take away their children and keep people imprisoned on the island.
Therefore, when she herself became pregnant, she and her husband arranged everything as if she had contracted a very rare tree disease, from which all the elves on the island shied away like fire. But one lie was not enough, the head was not a fool, just like the children's committee that monitors the birth rate and punishes those single townspeople who understood the situation and tried to hide their children.
Because of this, for greater persuasiveness, Elionez's husband deliberately contracted a tree disease, although she herself was categorically against it.
The plan worked, the quarantine of three years, which was arranged for all those infected, was quite sufficient in order to give birth and more or less "raise children".
The disease itself was not actually transmitted from elf to elf, which is why those infected were not killed, but simply quarantined.
Why ask, was there a quarantine, and even arranged in the most remote part of the island? It's simple, it was a matter of superstition and popular rumor, which said that there were alleged rumors about how someone infected someone. The disease was really terrible, so no one wanted to take risks, and most were very nervous about a possible infection, which is why they demanded a three-year quarantine, during which the elf either died or was cured.
Unfortunately, Elionez's husband died in his third year of illness. But he didn't regret anything. He managed to enjoy the fabulous beauty of his daughters and the joy of communicating with them.
"Mom, mom, something hurts you," tugging at the hem of her dress, the little girl looked at her worriedly.
Elionez, realizing that she had gone into memories too deeply, took the girl in her arms and pressed her to her:
"It's okay, I'm just a little tired.
"Me too, do I want to be handled too?" - running up, said the second twin, hugging her mother by the waist.
Sitting her daughters on her knees, Elionez looked at them carefully:
"The power of magic has increased again… Although I can't assess their power due to the strong contrast between them and us, numb with no abilities at all, I can still compare before and after… What do I to do, the head already suspected something was wrong and literally begged to visit me for several months, and now, I began to notice surveillance of my house. They clearly suspect me."
- Mother! The girl's voice interrupted her thoughts.
- What? she answered softly.
"Are we going to sleep together?" Worried about the possible rejection, Airi asked.
- Of course.
- HURRAH! Airi and Airi's sonorous voices resounded in the room.
After laying the girls on the bed and promising them to return as soon as possible, Elionez went outside to take another look at the surroundings.
Seems clean, she thought to herself, yes, quite cleaned up, suddenly sounded in her head, on its own.
The girl was dumbfounded and literally turned pale with fear.
Suddenly, a pair of tender lips touched her ear, and said in a silky female voice.
"If you try to run away, or at least make an extra sound, consider that you and your girls are dead. Understood?
Elionez nodded her head.