The Secret Plains

7

"Ilkesi, can I talk to you for a moment?" Kay asked, stepping into the room where Ilkesi was arranging a bouquet of flowers.

"Sure, Kay," Ilkesi replied, turning to face her. "What's up?"

"Is it normal for velai, of any type or province, to hear...voices?" Kay asked hesitantly.

"Voices?" Ilkesi frowned. "It's rare, but not impossible. Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to confirm something I read in a book," Kay replied.

Ilkesi looked suspicious but chose not to press further.

In Kay's defense, she wasn't completely lying. She did read about hearing voices, but her research was motivated by her own unsettling experiences.

Kay had been hearing voices—tiny whispers that seemed to ride the wind and reach her ears. She decided not to wait for the whispers to become more prominent and immediately started researching the phenomenon. What she found was anything but comforting.

She thought she might have Justrai, a condition where a velai starts hearing voices around them. Apparently, everyone had little voices that talked to them, but some could hear them more clearly than others. In the past, those who heard these voices were praised and respected. However, something happened, and Justrai became a curse. Over time, the voices would drive the afflicted velai to madness, and they would disappear, never to be heard from again.

And that was one of the better conditions. Worse possibilities haunted her thoughts, such as Kregla (trauma for velai) or Tal'Homan (a curse from witches).

But there was something different about the voices Kay heard. They weren't inside her head, like the conditions described. These whispers seemed to be carried to her ear by the wind. Initially, they were just a mass of indistinct murmurs. But as time passed, the whispers grew clearer and more unsettling:

"They're looking for you."

(Author's Note: This is way shorter  than my previous chapters, but i have significant writer's block rn)