Legerdemain

CHAPTER-19

Fuck.

This is how I die.

I stood in the darkness for seconds, then minutes.

Nobody came from the other side.

Nobody came from this side.

There was no voice.

My mind reeled back to when I was eight and happy. I always wanted to use my powers for others, to help them in ways I knew my mother wouldn't.

She loved me, but she didn't like me.

The silence irked me. It left me alone with my thoughts. It made me realize that I had dreams growing up. But they were crushed by my mother. I wanted to study. I wanted to explore. I wanted to travel. I wanted to live.

So, she crushed my magic amulet when I was fourteen.

And that is when I felt weak. For the first time in my life, I felt like dying. Time transformed my grief into anger. Everything I did for her was for show.

I didn't remember the amulet's giver, but I knew my magic surged within it. I could've been more powerful, but she said I didn't need it. Everything I wasn't today was because of her.

If I hadn't come into this room, I wouldn't have relived it again, even if it was just in my mind.

That is when I realized, the scene never happened to me. I was reliving someone else's memories.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...*... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Another scene played.

This time it happened before my eyes. The golden mirror surrounded me, and I felt the anger again, as a life played on in my mind and inside the mirror.

My father was even worse. He loved me, but he loved my mother more. He would always turn a blind eye to my pleas and requests to stop my mother from hurting me every day. She didn't physically torture me, it was mental. Every day we'd train. Every day she told me that I was delicate and too weak to be her child. Every night I cried. Every night I poisoned her.

With a gasp, I was forced back to reality. I sank to the floor. What was happening to me?

I knew my brother was a victim of her too. Though we never spoke, his eyes always said it all. My mother's cruelty towards me was understood. I was, after all, given to her. I wasn't her blood.

But then I met him. He was brave, kind, wise. He was my everything. I never got to confess to my twin flame that I loved him with everything I had. Because she killed him too. She tore open my heart.

My heart pounded against my chest. Whose memories were being played over and over? How much time had passed? How long until I couldn't endure the blast of emotions through me?

But he was alive and well. It was a hoax, one that my mother planted in my head. He asked me to run away. But the night I planned to escape, she caught me and tied my mind with her powers. I was aware of what she doing to me. But I was helpless.

She dragged me from my room to the Tree of Immortals and forced me to give up my life to it.

The Tree took what was never its to take, binding my soul to the afterworld.

Alexedreina, free me.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...*... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

My flame is still alive somewhere, looking for me. Only you, Adreina, can free me.

Free me, I beg you.

I beg you, Reina.

The voice left my mind. I was numb. My body was too cold. But I had to fight. She wasn't my enemy. She needed help.

Then I knew the Tree of Immortals wasn't for the only purpose it was made for.