When you grow up with certain traumas, time learns to create armor around your heart. Like thorns that protect roses. They cling to the inside so tightly that every time another event happens that marks you for life, they sink a few centimeters deeper inside. Affirming their place, reminding you that they will always be there not to forget. And at this moment, I could feel them, in the center of my chest, sinking with every passing second in this new reality where secrets kissed the light, and lies didn't sound so harmful.
The wood of my father's office door was thicker under my knuckles, even firmer than any other door in the castle. Or maybe that's what it seemed like as I felt the electricity crossing each of my ligaments due to the nerves it caused me to face it. Breaking down another thick wall of lies, which I once thought would be made of light bricks, but time had proven me wrong. I distrusted my father, and he distrusted me. Otherwise, the protection we wanted to offer each other would have been easier if we told the truth from the beginning. There wouldn't have been those deep secrets we both used to hurt each other as if they were our daggers in battle.
I heard his calm voice calling me, like the sound of waves crashing on the shore, rough like sand. The light in the room was dim; the blue walls showed that color that resides in the water during sunset, the windows were open, letting in a refreshing breeze, but the sunlight was hidden behind the thick black linen curtains. Giving the place a somber vibe and filling the cracks in the stones with melancholy.
My father had his hands intertwined over his chest, his back rested on the backrest of his chair, and his gray eyes seemed to have taken a beating from the passage of time. A straight line marked his lips; I knew his mind must be ablaze with thousands of questions, but I also recognized in his posture how exhausting it was to protect me. After all, that had always been his purpose, and lately, I had found a way to twist it to my advantage.
I stood still by the door, not knowing with what excuse or question to begin. I fixed my gaze on the banner pinned to the wall just above the fireplace. The golden threads of its triskelion seemed to have a light of their own even in such opacity, as if the magic of what we were extended over the air, bathing us like pollen.
"Do you know the story of the triskelion?" my father asked, his face serene, masking his wrinkles with the calmness that precedes a storm. "Why did our ancestors choose it to represent us?"
I cleared my throat; the tears from minutes ago still lingered on my cheeks like a layer of dust, and my vocal cords felt as if cleanly cut by a knife. My words struggled to find an exit.
"Gemma told me it represented the three unions of the onpices forming a single piece. God, man, and his gift."
My father nodded, and he paced silently around the room for a few minutes, haunted by his own thoughts. His hands behind his back, standing tall like a soldier ready to enter battle.
"From a young age, we are taught to wear the triskelion with pride on our chests," he said, placing his hand over his heart, right where the triskelion of golden threads was embroidered. "As a symbol of what makes us pure. We are taught the difference between our kind and others, placing us at the top of the hierarchy after God."
My father closed his eyes, and the lines on his forehead hardened.
"When I met Alice, I started to see life differently, even began to doubt my beliefs. Beliefs that Drahceb has ingrained to the core of his being and wears like tattoos on his skin. And with which he justifies his actions" A brief groan of anguish camouflaged in an uneasy laugh escaped his throat. "He considers hunting witches a sport, to silence them, out of fear that they are as powerful as we are."
A shiver ran down my spine, adding to all the evil Drahceb was capable of causing, which I couldn't even imagine. A blurred vision of Alice came to me like a slap from the spell itself. She stood at the door of her house in London, a burgundy shawl protecting her from the cold, her eyes tired and defeated. She waved her hand in my direction, saying goodbye for the last time. That had been the day I became human. Had Drahceb murdered her to silence what she knew? To corrupt someone of our kind?
YOU ARE READING
THE UNBREAKABLE PIECE (FIRST BOOK OF THE HIDDEN WORLD) English version
FantasyAmity's life is approaching the tenth anniversary of her brother's death and her mother's disappearance. However, her pain intensifies when she begins to experience strange losses of reality and time that drive her crazy. Just when she thinks she ca...