Chapter 56 - A devastating sight.

Chapter 56 - A devastating sight.
Nadia



I didn’t have the time to study her. We needed to sort all of this out before we lost more people. Our people have been through more than enough. We fought hard to bring peace to our country! Our people didn’t deserve to go through another war. Especially when it wasn’t even our fault!

“So, since we’ve had you here, I’ve noticed that the bombs stopped.” I was leaning against a table in the corner of the room. My arms crossed over my chest, and my ankles crossed to try and show I was relaxed. I felt a little more relaxed, but my crossed arms and ankles probably didn’t show that. I untied myself from myself and took a deep breath when the witch didn’t say anything. I closed the gap between us when I saw her smile slightly.

“Is there a question in there somewhere?” She finally spoke sounding amused, but I got this strange feeling that she might be getting tired. Maybe being so far away from her people was affecting her?

“No, there is no question. It was just an observation.” I sighed, walking around to the back of her chair. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of agreement. We have not declared war. This was all just a huge misunderstanding.” I tried to explain, but she laughed so sarcastically that it sent a shiver down the back of my spine.

“You don’t understand! My people are dying because of this magic! It’s draining their life force to keep the barrier sustained!” The witch hissed at me and I started to get the picture. I would probably have fought the same way they did if my people were dying! But I wasn’t entirely sure that she was telling me the truth. I needed to see it for myself.

How? How did I convince the witch to show me that her people were dying without them taking me prisoner? I left her alone, so I could think and ran into Lucca looking furious.

“No! Don’t you even think about it!” He growled, and I could only guess that he had heard what I said, and very quickly figured out what I was thinking.

“Lucca.” I took a deep breath, holding my hands in the air. “I need to do this. You don’t know their customs.”

“Oh, and you do?!” He growled.

“No, not really, but I have read some things about them. I know more than you do!” I was grasping at straws, but we were at war again! I had to do whatever I could to save my people!

“If you insist on going, then I will be going with you!” Lucca sighed, pulling his fingers through his hair. I sighed and nodded. Lucca was the one who walked into the witch’s prison room first.

“We want to see your people. We want to see for ourselves that your people are dying.” Lucca frowned when she burst out laughing. It was clear the witch wasn’t going to budge.

“The witches won’t allow it. You are the enemy!” She hissed when she stopped laughing. It was beginning to look really hopeless. We needed to see for ourselves what was happening. We needed to find a way out of this war without losing more people.

“Then you will die here with us!” Lucca closed the gap between them so fast that even I flinched. We left her alone, so we could talk, and I explained what I was thinking. If we could show them that we cared, we might just be able to convince her people that we didn’t do this on purpose. He thought about it for a moment. It was the longest moment of my entire life.

“Okay.” He looked at me without saying a word for just a moment before shouting orders through the mind link. We were going to see the witches whether they wanted to see us or not. Lucca and I agreed that we had to make sure the witches saw our prisoner. It took about an hour to get everything together, but with the witch in chains, we started marching her to the shore.

The witches lived on a tiny island off our coast. I imagined there couldn’t be that many of them. It looked like there were a lot of them when they were attacking us, but I couldn’t imagine a lot of them living on a small island. We reached the coast at nightfall and Lucca didn’t want to cross the ocean in the darkness. We waited until morning.

The witches were flying above our heads, which was strange. They didn’t attack, and we still didn’t know who our prisoner was. In the early hours of the morning, as the sun rose, we got into a couple of boats that were waiting there. They looked ancient, and I wondered if they would even take us all the way! As soon as we reached the shore of the island, I could feel it.

It was like something was calling me. No, something was calling my spirit. As soon as we left the beach, we walked through a thin veil and the small island turned into a huge city! The witches had used magic to hide their beautiful city! The beauty of it all, however, wasn’t what caught my attention. It was their sheer numbers! I couldn’t believe there were so many of them. Most of them looked deathly pale and very thin. We didn’t have to be told why. The witch told us already. The veil that kept our loved ones close to us after death was killing the witches.

“Lucca.” I whispered. The witches on the brooms landed and quickly started helping their people. We were taken to a large room that was filled with dying witches! It was the worst thing I had ever seen.

“I know.” Lucca’s voice was soft. We had to figure out a way to solve this. Quickly! It was no wonder the witches declared war!