Page 6 of The Blackened Blade

I make my way out of the bathroom and toward the window, pushing the curtains to the side. I look out toward the familiar courtyard that sat in front of the girls dormitory, and toward the trio of girls from before.

They’re surrounded by at least seven or eight boys, all talking and laughing as other students pass them, heading to or from different buildings around the dormitory courtyard.

Behind them sits the forest treeline, where I can see squirrels flitting about the trees and birds flocking above.

Was it really possible? A second chance?

Did God pity my miserable life or had he messed up somewhere and wanted to rectify that shit?

A small dark chuckle leaves my lips before I freeze, the air pulled from my body in one quick breath.

My eyes catch on her long sunshine blonde hair, her small petite nose and her delicate pink lips as they curve up in laughter.

My heart races in my chest as I watch her make her way through the courtyard and toward the main building, surrounded by her usual entourage.

Seria.

My half sister.

And the one who betrayed me and left me broken even before the Facility took me.

For years I believed her sweet whispers, her‘encouraging’words. But it was all fake, all orchestrated lies.

She was the reason for my agony and misery in the academy.

The match to the flame that slowly burnt me from the inside out.

She made me believe I was weak, keeping me where she wanted me, so she could reign queen, surrounded by her lackeys and pawns.

Her laughter fades into the distance as a bell rings, pulling me from my thoughts.

Fine.

Illusion, dream, miracle, or hellish curse, I’ll take it.

If this is a chance to relive the life that had been taken from me, then I’ll live it and take both my freedom and revenge.

An image of the last time I saw her flashes in my mind.

She stands over me as I kneel on the ground, tears streaming down my cheeks as she bends down and cups my face in her soft hand.

She brushes a tear away as she leans in closer, calling my name tenderly before slowly whispering gently in my ear words I had never thought would come from her lips.

“Poor Micai, always so pitiful…andpathetic. What did you think was going to happen here?”

My breath freezes in my lungs as she continues, telling me everything I had believed was a lie. She tells me how she always despised me and how she tried, at every chance she could, to make my life a misery. That every one of my most painful moments over the years were orchestrated by some plot of hers for her amusement, and my punishment. That something like me shouldn’t even exist, something so weak, magicless and pathetic. That I was a stain and a blemish to the Bane family name and should have been snuffed out the moment I took my own mothers life at birth.

Something cracks inside me with her final words, a little voice in the back of my head telling me she’s right. That I shouldn’t be here. That if I wasn’t here, then maybe the one person who could’ve loved me would have still been alive. That my father would have been happy and not lost his mate.

I was an abomination.

Born from a powerful magical clan, with not a lick of power. I was worthless. My father knew it, the family knew it, all the students in the academy knew it, and Seria…

She pulls back, lacing her small fingers around my chin before clutching it with a bruising grip. Her blue eyes meet mine, a look so unfamiliar, so dark, I couldn’t recognize her with it.

A slow, twisted grin pulls at her lips as she smiles, a look of genuine glee twinkling in her eyes as she gazes at my face.

“Now it's all mine.” Her grip becomes tighter and more painful, “As it always should have been.”

---