The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 11 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 11 ✰✦✰
" Umbra Isle "

THE NEXT MORNING, I found myself in the kitchen with the girls, all of us too tired and very irritated. Well, Sarinne and I were at least. We munched on strawberries and watermelons, all provided by the explorers and The Shielder, and yawned every two seconds, it felt like.

"Can't you just learn to control that damn animal?" I asked Sarinne.

I'd hardly slept the night before because of Darius Ambers. I couldn't because I wouldn't stop worrying that he'd do something to me. That he'd wake up and grab a dagger and slit my throat. So every time I dozed off it wasn't for longer than half an hour, ending up with me awaking in panic, staring at him while he slept peacefully. Git.

"He's not a dog, Scar," Sarinne nudged me as she handed us our glasses of water. "He's just very. . .honest."

I blinked at her. "Rinne, the man walked into my room and demanded I sleep on the floor."

She cringed. "It's not proper, I realise that, but he wouldn't actually kill you."

"So kidnapping is okay," I said, "but he draws the line at murder?"

At first, it seemed she was going to agree with me but instead, she stammered and squinted her eyes unsurely. "Well. . ."

I nearly choked on my drink. "What?" Despite having seen him covered in blood at our first meeting, actually hearing the admission that he'd murdered people aloud was unlike merely thinking it.

"He's just. . ." Rinne shifted. "You've heard my stories, Scar. There's some pretty gruesome work you're forced to do if you work for The Crimson Dealer. I know Darius—even after all these years. There's not one part of me that believes he's killed anyone who didn't deserve it."

Luna's eyebrows shifted into the shape of a V. "Well, who's to decide who gets to live or die?"

Silence reigned over us.

Rinne pinched her lips to her cheek. "There isn't. But there are good and bad people in this world and I, for one, think that ridding it of the worse ones isn't such a horrific idea."

Luna went to open her mouth but I was done with the conversation, "You're mental, Rinne."

For the next half an hour or so we spent our time in the kitchen, making breakfast until the ship stopped abruptly, making nearly everything that stood above the floor clatter to the ground. I caught my glass just in time and shared a worried look with my friends.

We made our way outside, only to find the three boys already standing by the edge, staring right ahead. We approached carefully, my footsteps hesitant.

"What's happened?" Sarinne asked quietly, as if the question would wake whatever monsters lingered across the globe.

"We've arrived," Jacks ground his jaw.

I furrowed my eyebrows and squeezed my way in between him and Darius. My stomach clenched as I took in the view. The view of Umbra Isle, one of the deadliest isles in all of Goldaria, after Vacuos Isle. This was one of the places where Shadow Stealers had once resided and where they still sometimes came to wrench a person's soul and squash it like a bug. A humongous, dark cloud was perched above the isle, sparkling with dark magic. Darkness constantly hung over the isle of night, casting a glow about it that felt inherently evil. Grey cliffs dotted the skyline, tipped with snow, along with the squealing of bats and the smell of blood. It was only due to street lanterns that people could even see anything. Only those with no other options lived here. Those whose lives were broken and bruised. Those who'd lost all faith.