Follow Your Heart

Part 3

The oil in the lamps burned to the point that there was a haze in the air as Lyla studied the scroll. It was ancient, weathered- a thing that smelled of magick and ink, that kind of smell that is intoxicating and makes one long for flipping through a new book. It wasn't easy reading the scroll. Something in her mind was constantly making it hard to read the scrawling letters so that they seemed to be endlessly escaping her fingertips like a wisp of smoke. She'd been here for hours trying to reread the first sentence, just trying to make it past whatever it was that was preventing her from the truth.

Finally, she cast tired eyes over at the wolves leaning on their arms trying not to fall asleep and yawned, "I should try this later. I can't seem to make anything out of this."

Wordlessly, Aliya got up and led Lyla back to the bedchambers that she'd claimed were meant for her. Lyla guessed they were because the main room was done exactly how she'd like it to be. Constellations danced all over the walls and the ceiling and the midnight blue bedding looked so light, soft, and fluffy that Lyla was sure she'd fall asleep before she sunk all the way down. Which is precisely why she took a running start and pounced onto the bed with satisfaction.

Aliya, Rogue, and her sister Nedra left to go sleep elsewhere, leaving Lyla to gaze around her in wonder, thankful for the peace. There was just a point when a person needed to be left alone to their thoughts and not feel like they must talk all the time. Lyla did have a twinge of pain in her heart, remembering her family, but also massive relief. She'd spent so much of her life enveloped in the war wrought by her parents and of that within herself that she felt a bit guilty at the relief of being away from them.

Her parents had only gotten together a handful of times, enough to have Lyla and her two siblings, but had given in to their natures long ago and split off to their respective clans. They'd warred in secret, saying such hateful things and making it so that Lyla had to shelter her siblings as best she could so that she took on the pain, not them. She had her issues a plenty, but with freedom came a new direction. Why should she be so afraid to let go of all those years of internal suffering? Of those hateful things said about her by her parents or at each other?

Lyla hadn't realized that she was digging her nails into her palm, until she focused on the blood rolling down her wrists and arms in thin little droplets. It was well past time for her to let go. It was past time for her to stop letting herself be controlled by their whims and wishes, making it so that her life was ruled by fear that could attack her at any time and shatter the illusion that she was a blank space just like the others of her age.

Lyla willed the tiny spots she'd dug into her palm to close and got up to the bathroom to clean away the blood. She had to do this. She'd broken a long-forgotten spell, or part of it, when she'd made her choice. Now, she must work to undo the true hurt done not just done to her, but to her people and all peoples.

As she fell into sleep, now back in her new bed in her new home, Lyla wished for better luck in understanding the scrolls. She should have been careful of what she'd wished for. She found herself walking the library, under a moonless sky, with mist rolling from the shelves onto the floor to the stained glass budding vine window section, but there was another woman there. She wasn't like any of the wolves she'd seen here, and wasn't like any of her people either, so what was she that she exuded such a powerful aura?

The woman was taller than any person she'd ever seen, with dark hair that fell past her mid-back, skin that gleamed with tones of gold in the torch light that came from the only two touches in the room which were obviously hers from how large they were, eyes of deep purple with little spikes of white, a dress in the same colors, and bands of gold around her arms. In the library around her was a strange assortment of animals; a dog, horse, polecat, and a lioness.