The Guardians

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I took a wary step towards Ash. I wasn't quite sure that I hard heard him properly. Were the Guardians the bad guys?...

Don't listen to him Leah. He's lying!

Rose's voice warned.

No matter how much I wanted to listen to Rose and not have doubt in everyone, there was something in me that wouldn't let me believe that what Ash was saying was just a baseless lie. It was as if doubt had already been planted somewhere deep in my subconscious.

I broke eye contact with Ash for a while and stared out the horizon. Beyond the castle and the army of monsters directly below me was a barren land. Everything was charred black and dead. No sign of life anywhere. I could just barely see a few charred trees still standing up but just like everything else, they were already dead. Just then, an image of skeleton trees flashed through my mind and the feeling of déjà vu over came me. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the image but instead of the skeleton trees , I saw a big grey oak skeleton tree. And below it was a guy wearing a faded white-grey cloak. When he dropped his hood and I saw his face, my eyes shot wide open. How could I have forgotten about it so easily?! How could I not have realised it the moment I saw him before?! How was it that when I saw him here, I knew who he was immediately but not back then?!

I pointed a finger at Ash Decayn and took several angry steps towards him.

"You!" I shouted," You were there in Erick's castle! You pretended that you helped me but you were the one who put the spell on me in the first place weren't you?! And you went into my subconscious and gave me this same speech before! I can't believe that I actually thought of betraying my friends! You're really sly and cunning aren't you? I will never join you."

Ash remained stoic. I tried to read his expression but his smug smile didn't falter.

"I'm impressed. I was actually very thorough in making you forget about those little incidents by hiding them behind bigger events and making them seem really irrelevant. Then again you do have that little fairy friend of yours poking around in your head and trying to unlock your memories so I guess it was only naturally that whatever was buried deep in your subconscious no matter how deep would eventually surface. Although it doesn't really make any difference now that you're finally here. As for your so-called friends?...What friends exactly? The one that turned his back to you the moment he found out about your true identity and who you really were? Or how about he one keeping a big deep dark secret from you concerning your past? What about the one that just sent you to the fairy kingdom all by yourself without so much as proper training or a proper plan and equipment? Now are those really the people you call your friends? It seems to me like they're just using you."

And image of Erick telling me to disappear, flashed through my mind and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I recalled Aiden's dark vacant eyes at the car park after scaring away the monster and how he had called me Arianna...And lastly I recalled how Blaine just dropped me off near the entrance of the fairy kingdom's portals and that how I wasn't even at the fairy kingdom yet but I was already on my own...

"Stop it! Shut up!" I screamed as I covered my ears and backed away from him, closing my eyes shut so that I wouldn't see his smug expression.

Sure Erick was mad at me but he had every right to be, I mean even I was mad at myself for leaving my people in their darkest hour. His disappointment in me was very understandable. And Aiden might have called me Arianna at the car park but he wasn't himself! For all I know he could've been controlled at that time. He didn't even know about Aestial until recently! He couldn't possibly have dark secrets about my past. Ash Decayn is just spinning a web of lies! Then there was Blaine... I was the one who agreed to help and he was just doing things according to plan...he didn't do anything wrong. No one did...