Chapter 18 Valira-- an echo from the past
Ira’s POV
The sky is darkened with smoke from burning houses, loud cries and screams echoing all around me.
In this chaos, a man's troubled voice hits me.
“Valira,” he calls, sounding strained and breathless, his eyes darting left and right. “Valira!” His voice trembles in a way that hits something deep inside me. The sound cuts straight through the noise of destruction. For a moment I feel as though he is calling me. As though I am the one he is desperately searching for.
“Papa!” A child’s weak cry pierces through the suffocating smoke.
The man breaks into a run. “Valira!” he shouts again.
“Papa, I’m here.” Her voice shakes badly. When he reaches her, she is lying on the ground, sobbing. Her small body trembles, and her left leg is twisted in a way that looks painfully wrong, bent at an angle that makes my own stomach clench.
“I need to... I need to keep you safe,” the man whispers, as if saying it aloud makes it harder to voice. His hands shake as he lifts the child into his arms, holding her like something too fragile to lose.
The girl clings to him with both hands, burying her face in his neck while he hurries toward a bush at the edge of the woods.
He lowers her gently beneath an pile of thick grass. Her fingers lock around his wrist and don’t let go.
“Papa I’m scared,” she whispers.
He kneels quickly, cupping her cheeks. “Valira,” he says in a low urgent tone. “Listen to me. Look at me.”
She nods even though her whole body trembles uncontrollably.
“Stay silent,” he tells her. “Do you understand? Whatever happens, do not come out. Do not make a sound. Please.”
My heart aches as I watch him shove the girl deeper into a patch of tangled bushes. I wince as the branches scratch my arms, and that is when something shifts.
My breath freezes.
My eyes widen.
And suddenly, I am lying in the grass myself, my own teary eyes staring fearfully at him. I can feel the hot dirt beneath my palms. I can smell the smoke. I am the one hiding now, and I do not know how or why.
He steps away, taking several slow steps backward until his figure becomes blurry through the thick smoke and dancing shadows.
“Look what you have done,” someone whispers behind me. The voice chills the back of my neck. Cold breath brushes my ears.
“A... Anna?” I turn quickly. The face looking back at me resembles Anna, yet something inside me rejects it instantly. It cannot be her. It cannot.
No. Anna is not dead. She cannot be.
“Look what you have done.” Her voice rises sharply. Her skin is drained of color appearing ghostly white, stretched tightly over sharp bones. Her eyes turn red and sunken, burning with accusation.
“LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!” she screams, shaking the ground beneath my elbows.
“It is all your fault,” Anna snarls, pointing a trembling finger ahead of me.
When I turn back, the man... the papa... is on the ground as several massive wolves tear him apart. His agonized cries echo through my skull. Blood spreads over the earth in dark streams.
“No... no, no...” I choke as tears pour hot and fast down my cheeks. The man’s screams merge with Anna’s furious shrieks until everything becomes one violent sound vibrating inside my head.
The world tilts.
The screams grow louder.
And louder.
Until….
“NO!”
My own voice rips from my throat. I jolt awake, my back arching as I gasp for air. My heart slams painfully against my ribs like something trapped and desperate to escape.
“Ira? Ira?!” Sia’s voice reaches me as she touches my shoulder gently.
I flinch away, struggling to breathe. My lungs tighten like they are being squeezed. My breath stutters in and out as though I have been running for miles.
“Hey, Ira, you are safe,” Sia says softly. Her voice pulses in the bright hall around us.
I blink rapidly as the room comes into focus. Beds. Blankets. Girls staring. The sharp glare of torchlight reflected on stone.
“S... sorry,” I whisper, seeing the concerned looks from several ladies I must have startled awake.
“It is okay. No one is judging you. We all have traumas so we understand,” Chloe murmurs sleepily before putting her head back down.
“Are you alright?” Sia asks, leaning closer with worried eyes.
I wipe my face with shaking fingers. Salt coats my lips. Anna’s twisted face still haunts the edges of my mind, hovering like smoke that refuses to clear. Her red eyes. Her anger. Her accusation.
Fresh tears fall despite my efforts. I wipe them away quickly, embarrassed.
“I am sorry,” Sia says. “I did not mean to scare you.”
Why will you not just be quiet? I scream internally. But I know she means well, so I swallow the urge and force myself to breathe slowly.
She touches my arm again. This time I do not jerk away. I just focus on my breaths until my heartbeat gradually steadies, settling into something calmer, something bearable.
“What was the noise for?” a guard barks suddenly, his voice snapping across the hall.
“Bad dream,” Chloe answers, sounding more awake now.
The guard scans the room suspiciously before turning around and walking out.
Sia moves closer and whispers, “You were crying in your sleep.”
I know. Hearing it out loud makes it worse.
She reaches out carefully and wipes a tear from my cheek. “It is okay, Ira. Everything will be alright.”
No. It will not. Not when I let Anna and Oren be taken. Not when I do not know if they are still breathing somewhere or lying dead in some forgotten field.
As that thought settles heavily on my chest, the room suddenly shudders.
A blast of cold wind tears through the air.
The candle flames bend sideways almost instantly, struggling to stay alive. Curtains whip and snap violently. A cup somewhere on the floor rolls and clatters.
Girls gasp around the hall.
Chloe stares at the window in fear. “It is never this windy at this time of year,” she whispers.
Another girl backs away from the wall and mutters, “What is happening? Why is the wind suddenly like this?”
The wind only grows stronger, roaring like a beast, like something angry. But it doesn't bother me.
Before anyone can make sense of it, the door bursts open with a loud thud.
Guards rush inside, their hands gripping their swords tightly.
Voices rise in the hallway outside. Heavy boots slam on the floor.
“Commander Ruel!” Someone salutes loudly..
Every guard snaps into attention.
Ruel steps into the doorway. The moment he appears, everywhere goes silent.
Immediately, all the servants in Room B bow their heads.
Sia nudges me, urging me to lower mine. I do it, though reluctantly.
I lift my head a bit, the silence unsettling me. But Ruel is already looking at me.
His stare holds a strange intensity I cannot read. Like a gaze he should not be directing at someone like me.