A warrior's song

CHAPTER ONE

OPHELIA’S POV

“Mother.” I couldn’t see a thing. The entire room was shrouded in darkness, but I knew. She was here and not too far either.

The wind shifted, and I moved just in time to avoid her staff. It went silent again. I kept my ears peeled for even the slightest sound. “Mother, I do not think this is necessary. We can talk this out.”

More silence. I should have just kept my big mouth shut. As soon as the words left my lips, it felt like the temperature in the room dropped a thousand degrees. Trying to keep my heart in check, I listened harder for anything that might give away her presence, but there was none. She might as well be one with the darkness. Wouldn’t that be fitting?

Then, in an instant, so quick I almost missed it, she was in front of me with her staff sailing through the air. I threw myself out of the way in time, but barely. It grazed my side, and I didn’t even get the chance to flinch before she sent it my way again.

This time, it hit me square in the gut. Crouching, I grabbed my stomach, waiting for the pain to disappear. “You will not tell me what to do. These are my people, and I will protect them, no matter what. Their peace is my responsibility, not yours.” Then she made her way out of the room. Did she really have to be so dramatic about everything?

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I knew I should just have remained crouching and let this pass; hell, every single bone in my body told me to shut the hell up, but I had never really taken well to being shut, now, had I?

“You know it’s not right, mother. You know this more than anyone that wiping out their race is not the way to do things. It could disrupt the balance of all we’ve ever known. There is a reason why more than one race exists, mother.” I waited for a second to see if my words got to her. I knew she had stopped walking, so I knew she had heard me. I waited a few seconds longer with my heart in my mouth, but the only thing I received in return was a low, mocking chuckle.

“The balance of the world? My, my, you really are something, my little Phee. You think you can talk to me about balance?!” She asked, hitting her staff on the ground so hard that I felt the vibrations through the distance. “If I cared even a little about balance, I never would have had you.”

Her words hit me like a knife to the chest. I probably should have shut my big mouth. I also knew I shouldn’t have let her words get to me, I mean, it’s not the first time she’s saying it, but damn! I really wish I didn’t have to hear those words from her every single time, and no matter how much I act like I don’t care, it still hurts every time. It wasn’t until I heard the door shut behind me that I finally let out a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding.

With a frustrated sigh, I ran my hands through my hair and made my way out of the room. The lights hit me like a tide as soon as I opened the doors. I paused to observe every my surroundings as my eyes slowly began to focus. I stood there for a moment, noticing how every other person just went about their daily lives. I wished that could be me. I wished I didn’t always have my mother breathing down my neck the way she always was. I wish….

Then the harsh reality hit me. They weren’t really free… none of us were. It may seem like they didn’t have a care in the world, but I knew better. We all had one thing in common, one desire that had been passed down to us for ages, weighing heavily on our shoulders like a plague. We wanted to be free; there was nothing we wanted more than freedom. We wanted to be free to walk the world in the daytime like any other living being. We wanted to feel the sun against our faces and interact with other races without the fear of being killed on sight.

I didn’t know the details, but I knew that living in the shadows had been our fate for a long time. It wasn’t fair. No race deserved to be treated like this. “Ophelia?” I turned around at the sound of my name.

“Edward? What are you doing here?” I asked, looking into the bright green eyes of my little brother as he made his way to me with hurried steps. “Vicky told me that Mommy was being mean to you again. Where is she? Did she hurt you really bad?”

Just then, his eyes landed on my hand that was still holding on to my stomach, where the staff had hit me. I let go instantly, but it was still enough for the light in his eyes to dim slightly and the corners of his mouth to dip.

“She was mean to you again, wasn’t she?” He asked with his eyes still on my stomach. “It’s fine, Eddie, I'll be all good again by tomorrow.” Believe me when I say, it hurt like hell, and it was definitely going to be worse tomorrow, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You’re lying again, aren’t you? You promised not to do that anymore, Phee!” With a sigh, I draped an arm across his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ed, it's just that there are some things I can’t tell you, but I promise when you're a little older, I'll be a lot more honest with you, okay?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably hating the fact that he had to wait, but there was no way I was telling my little brother everything that was going on. Call me selfish, but I wanted him to remain innocent for as long as possible. “Fine, but do you promise you'll always be my best friend and let me help you all the time?” He asked, looking up at me with hopeful eyes.

“Yes, Ed, I'd love that,” I said with a soft smile. “How was training today? Make any new friends?” I asked, trying to change the subject. An instant squeal of delight drew my attention from the people walking past us back to my little brother.

“It was amazing, Phee! They even said that I'll soon be strong enough to be one of the guards that reinforce the barrier!” Seeing the excitement on his face as he spoke about his training made me feel genuinely happy.

When I was younger, I hated training. I'd do anything I could to get out of it. I didn’t train with the rest of the young witches my age; instead, they trained me separately, and as a result, I don’t have many friends. Even then, I knew they were training me harder than they should have trained any child.

It was always either at night or in the early hours of the morning. I’d be training nonstop till my nose bled or my ears started ringing. It was a time I really don’t like to think about, but thankfully, I met Victoria, and Ed was born, so things got better, and I finally had something to look forward to every day.

Looking back, that was probably one of the darkest times of my life. I was new to the world and had no one to rely on because the one person who should have had my back seemed to hate my very existence.