Chapter 13.

Kamaria's POV.

"Where are we going?" Shani looked back at me with a warm smile although she did not answer my question.

Swift but heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway behind us. A great urge to hide swept over me. It had my hands trembling in terror.

That was so unlike me.

Shani was not stressed. She didn't see the urgency to find a hiding place.

"If you don't hurry... I'll leave you." Shani pointed at a small house, among others. I followed the direction her fingers were pointing.

"I saved the house for you." She said.

I grabbed her hand and started running towards the house. The clomp of booted feet got closer with time. My heart palpitated, every breath felt like my last. We reached the doorstep, I looked back to ask for her keys but she was not there. She might have fallen behind.

I wanted to go back and get her but the urgency to stay away held me back. I had to find a place to hide. My sweaty hands slipped off the doorknob a couple of times before I successfully twisted it, releasing the door latch. I rushed in and slammed the door close behind me. I rested my back against the door and slowly fell to the ground with my eyes closed.

What was going on?

Why did I feel like I needed to hide?

My eyes were met with splayed bare feet once I opened them. I trace the feet up to see whose they were.

Shani.

My startled eyes met hers. She smiled at me.

"Wait... How-how-" I could not find the right words to express my confusion. She walked away from me and went towards her small kitchen connected to the living room. It was a small tidy place she had for herself.

"Those guards have such a brilliant technique for patrolling at night... Who trained them?" I asked, still sitting down. I needed to catch my breath.

"Nyoka." My eyes widened, everything around me froze. I needed to grasp what she had just said.

"Nyoka?" She nodded. I stood up, my limbs were partially numb from the fright Shani had given me.

"Wait... He survived too?" I asked. I and all my brother had left for the war, including Nyoka. I heard that they were all dead.

How did Nyoka make it out alive?

If he did, it could mean that my other brothers could have made it.

"I need to see Nyoka. I need to warn him. There's a traitor in the palace." I began pacing around the living room.

"I need to see him." I kept telling myself.

"He is getting crowned tomorrow." I batted my eyelashes a few times, trying to understand. So many things had changed but Nyoka getting crowned was the change I had never seen coming.

"He is not entitled to the thrown, at least when I'm alive. I was next in line for the thrown after Kya, who just died." My father only had four kids, Kya and I were the oldest of the two. I considered Nyoka and the others my brothers because we shared a close bond.

Kya was my elder brother. I came after him. Despite being a girl, if I was not married by the time my papa died and my brothers were unfit for the throne. I would be the crowned queen, as long as I stayed single and waited for my brothers' offspring to reach the right age. If my brothers were all dead, the throne would be passed on to the generations of my papa's brothers or cousins.

"This can't be happening! I need to stop this." She shook her head in refusal.

"You don't need to stop anything, kami. You need to take off your bracelet and get out of here before the crowning begins." I placed my hands on my hips and looked down.

"You are crazy." I lifted my head. I was not going to take off my bracelet nor let Nyoka be crowned the king. I loved him as my brothers but they should have looked for us. They could not just declare us dead and proceed to crown someone else.

"You didn't ask why Nyoka trained those guards to patrol like that at night."

"Hmm, to not get caught by invaders if there was any?" I frowned. It was normal for them to patrol like that. At least after the attack on my papa. This technique was next level.

“Kamaria… He knows.” Her face said it all. Yet, I still chose to ignore the obvious. There was no way he would know.

“Those guards don’t stay in the moonlight nor patrol during the sunlight because they know what will happen if they do.” She turned around, facing the kitchen cupboards. She fished through the cupboards and pulled out a small sack of herbs.

“What would happen?’

“You would steal their shadows.” It sounded absurd but there was a voice at the back of my head who agreed with what she was saying.

“Your dad and I made the biggest mistake of our lives.” She pulled out a cup and moved towards the pot of hot water. She poured the water into the cup.

“I shouldn’t have erased your memories.” I ran my hand across my face once more.

“After I stopped your nightmares from reaching you, I erased the memories of the dreams you already had. I erased every trace of darkness, and now you are completely ignorant of who you are.” I knew that she had made the bracelet to stop my nightmares but I never knew anything about erasing my memory. I looked at the herbs she threw into the cup and stirred gently with a spoon.

“And that would make me remember my dreams?” I started backing away. I did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. All I knew was that I did not want to have those dreams again.

“You need to take off the bracelet,” she kept stirring the mixture. I reached the door. I lifted my hand behind my back and began touching the door to find the doorknob.

“How did you get inside here?” I tried buying myself time. Before she was banished from our lands, Shani was accused of witchcraft. My dad had cleared her of all those accusations but now, she might as well just be a witch.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” She raised her eyes to be looking at me.

“And then what’s the drink for?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Kamaria-“My hand finally reached the doorknob, I twisted it and turned around to pull it. It was locked, I pulled it again, and again until the realization settled in. There was no going out of here. I looked back at Shani.

“You know what happens if I take this off!” I lifted the hand with the bracelet up in the air for her to see.

“Those dreams… I can’t let them come back!”

“The bracelet doesn’t stop your dreams. It stops your powers. It stops you from using them.”

“What powers are you talking about?!”

“I can’t tell you for sure but Kami, those powers are what Nyoka and the others fear. You are more than just capable of bringing hell on earth.”

“You are crazy. You have lost it!”

“Kami, take it off and prove me wrong.” She returned to stirring the mixture.

“You are angry at my dad for banishing you, right? You are trying to get back at me, I know it. You are using my weakness against me. You are the one who told Nyoka about my dreams, now he probably thinks I’m crazy.”

“He killed me before I could say anything.”Shani began chanting with all her lungs. The water mixture began evaporating. It formed a cloud on top of her head. She opened her eyes, revealing the white-colored iris that shone. She spread her hand outwards dispersing the cloud above her head. The cloud broke away, spreading throughout the room like a gas. The air was minty and it choked. I placed my hand on my throat, shocking on my spit. I coughed until I could no longer breathe.

“You are not of this world, dear. Those dreams weren’t nightmares. They were vision… Prophecies. They came true. The dark cloud perching on the hills of our kingdom has released its rainstorm upon our lands.” A thin stream of saliva flowed down the corner of my lips. My eyes began tearing up as cold wind passed by me. I closed my eyes and one by one, those dreams came to me. I remembered the snake that would start hissing behind my curtains, I remembered the sound of waves crashing against the door of my room. I recalled my bed floating in a pool of blood.

A scream escaped my lips, it took all of me to let it out. My biggest mistake. The first time I had killed someone, not in the name of war. I was six before my papa was gone. It was in papa’s cabinet, I was on the floor with Kya’s toys when a guard had walked in to talk to my dad. Papa was not expecting him, yet he let him in to hear him out. Papa had asked me to leave, as I was leaving I caught the guard's shadow against the wall.

There was something strange about his shadow. The man had nothing in his hand, and his arms were behind his back. However, his shadow showed a man holding a machete. The machete was held in the air as if preparing to strike.

To strike my papa.

I shouted with my hand raised in the air. What I had said was in another language. Not my mother tongue. It was something else. It left my mouth with such power that it sent the man flying across the room. His body was slammed against the wall, that was not all. I watched his shadow run behind me, a sensation hit me. It was overwhelming, I was filled with a strange power. I looked at the man who slowly fell on the floor. His body had turned grey, and his eyes were wide opened… Completely white.

I closed my eyes as all the memories came back to me.

“I did not want to take your memories nor your powers away, but when they took your dad away. I knew you were next so I had to do it.” I looked up at her, she was standing next to me. She breathed the same air but she was unaffected by it.

“I’m sorry, I have to take away your bracelet.” She bent down to touch the bracelet. I removed the hand on my throat and put it behind me as I let Shani hold my other hand. I pulled out the sword, before she could react, I drove it through her chest. I pulled the sword out with all my strength. Her body fell before me, I took a few unsteady steps backward. I headed for the door. I pressed all my weight onto it using my foreright arm. The door opened.

It was like my soul was thrown back into my body, knocking me against one of the tree's branches. I hurried to grab the tree's branch for support.

The leaves rustled against each other alarmingly. I stayed still once I regained my balance. I heard footsteps beneath me but I stayed still. I held my breath and released it slowly.

Take off the bracelet... Get out of here.

The voice was still in my head. It was a dream but I could still feel the pain in my right forearm. It was as if the dream was real. Whether it was real or not. I was not going to take off the bracelet.

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