Read The Guardians of the Forest: Book Two Page 18
CHAPTER 41
POWER
Kiethara was at bliss.
She was floating in a river, completely naked. Only her wrists were covered with her bracelets. Her hair swirled profusely around her and, although she did not move a muscle, she did not sink into the slowly churning water.
Around her, snow was falling. It never fell towards the water, though. Instead, it piled up alongside her, forming growing piles along the riverbanks that cut her off from anything that lay beyond. The snow looked quite cold to her, but for some reason she was quite warm as she drifted alongside it. Snug, even, as the water cradled her downstream.
Only you could be snug in a river during the dead of winter, the voice commented, sarcastic as always.
Kiethara half gasped, her closed eyes snapping open.
Tinya.
There was a dead beat of silence inside her head before a wave of anger quite disconnected from her own being washed through Kiethara. It was strange to feel someone else’s emotion. She felt as though she was invading into someone else’s mind, their private place…
Aaron. Told. You. The voice hissed at her. Each word was separate and distinct.
Kiethara frowned. The voice—Tinya—had never been this angry at her before. Was it such a horrible crime that she had found out to whom she had been speaking with all this time?
No, of course I wanted you to know. That’s why I spilled my heart out to you the first time we met! Tinya barked.
Was sarcasm the only way she knew how to speak? Kiethara chewed over the name Tinya. For some reason, it didn’t sounded right. She liked calling it “the voice” much more than she did calling it Tinya. Before, when she had figured herself crazy, Kiethara could at least pretend it was her own doing. But now that it was an actual person who was disrupting her nighttime fantasies, for reasons Aaron refused to explain to her, she felt like she was being forced to be crazy. Forced to be polite to the dead girl in her head.
Is that so? It reassured me when I found out the voices in my head were real.
If you didn’t want me to know about the past, then I’m going to pretend I didn’t, Kiethara said. To each her own.
Wake up, the voice said suddenly.
Kiethara jumped, the river around her fading and the air growing colder. It was almost painful to rip herself out of her dream, but those words sent a shot of undiluted fear throughout her. Only one thought crossed her mind, one image of four men with one jewel.
I love how you give me the proper reaction this time, when there isn’t any danger, the voice sighed.
Tinya’s voice sounded far away, though. The river blurred a little more, and Kiethara found she was unable to focus on anything around her.