The Book of Arenden

❀ Eighteen ❀

❀ Eighteen ❀

"So," whispered Nea. "What are we going to do now?"

Lereena's planned is to run away from the palace to prevent any destruction and attention inside the palace.

"If everyone saw that the heroes of Arenden," Lereena had said before. "Had turned void... you had no idea how trouble the King and Queen are for trusting you."

They succeeded in bringing Raylene away from the palace and that cause them to run more deeper inside the forest. They had an encounter with both Ella and Caith who happened to be running with each other alongside.

They met and now, together, Frana, Nea, Ella, Caith and Lereena was in hiding. Nea and Frana hid behind a tree and Lereena hid behind a tree besides the two of them. Caith hid behind a huge rock that was huge enough to cover her whole body and Ella hid behind another tree that located besides the huge rock where Caith was hiding.

Luckily, Raylene was now walking on foot instead of riding on top of a huge boulder.

all of them stared at Lereena. Although Frana knew that she's not going to help us any way. But Lereena was not paying any attention at anything. Her eyes were focused on the object that lied in between Nea's clavicle.

Nea quickly took her necklace in her hand, hiding it from Lereena's view.

"What are you thinking?" asked Nea cautiously.

Lereena didn't answer right away. Instead, she took a peek from where she was hiding and Frana does the same. Curious on what she was thinking.

Raylene had her back on their direction. She was very far away and when she was about to turn around, Frana was quick to hide herself back behind the tree.

"Your necklace," whispered Lereena.

"What?" whispered Frana back.

"You all have your necklace, right? The necklace that the King and Queen gave you?" It is more of a question than a statement. She said it loud enough to all of them except for Raylene to hear. They all nodded in respond.

"Can you all show it to me?" she asked.

For a moment of hesitation, Frana, Ella and Caith took the necklace out from underneath their shirt. Nea had already got her necklace on top of her shirt from the beginning so she don't have to do same.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," said Raylene from behind them but they weren't paying any attention at her. Their eyes were all on Lereena as she shifted her gaze from Nea's necklace to Frana's to Ella's then to Caith.

"Is something—"

"There is something about these necklace," said Lereena, cutting off what Frana is about to say. "Did the Queen told you what these necklaces for?"

"The Queen had told us," said Caith. "That we need to wear these because it protected us."

Lereena looked at Caith and nodded. "Yes, that's it," she said. "And I just realised, I didn't see Raylene's necklace. Not because she hid it underneath her shirt. It's because there's no chain connecting on her neck."

"What are you trying to say?" asked Ella.

"Raylene don't just turned void like that all of the sudden," said Lereena. "With the attacks from the Demons being put on hold, I'm guessing the leader had something else on his mind."