chapter 5

Romanov was about to speak before the next story landed all of them into her new memories. They looked around and see that they were stranded in a forest.

The memory jumps to Aika, deep in a forest and hiding from her maid. Romanov ran towards Aika and see her hiding from one of the thick bushes while her family looked for her.

All of a sudden, the surrounding around Ariadne and others starts to melt and eveyrthinga round them becomes blurry.

“What’s going on?” Abram voice was fill with concern.

“It’s her next memory. It’s how the magic works.”

Themmeories starts to take place in what seem to be a village with houses made from straw but covered in pur ehwite snows and the people, children, farmer and everyday people with their Zhateirians traits, ivory hair and fair skin, all beautiful and hardworking doing their chores. They were all happy, busy and sounds of laughter can be heard from each side.

Everyone seems to have powers as spatters of magic is seen everywhere with them using them for their chores or the children, playing with their friends. Sounds of horses approaching making everyone turned and cheered seeing the King and Queen walking in the midst of the busy street. Aika herself was walking I front of them and she held a basket fill with fruits and going to each villager. She offers the fruit to them and everyone took it, dripping words of gratitude to the beautiful princess. Some old ladies even hug her and kisses her cheek.

It made the King and Queen smile including the knights around them seeing how sweet Aika was to the villagers and how much she was loved by the people.

What they didn’t notice, throughout the laughter and cheers around them, Aika’s eyes sparkled, gazing at the gates, further away from he village and heading towards the snow covered forest.

Their surrounding melts again then starts to take shape and the image around them becomes clear. Suddenly, the seven bunch finds themselves sin a jungle and when they hear a rustling behind them, they saw Aika heading towards them, jumping and gazing at the floras around her. It was odd the trees around them have so many flowers, pink flowers to be exact and most of it fill the ground to a brim that her feet were bury in it. Ariadne was amazed with its beauty and quit surprised not ever seeing on ever.

Moreover, a small great horned baby owl was resting itself on her shoulder. Its eyes were open and it has golden eye with black circles around it. It has pure white fur with black highlights its chest with thick feathers around its neck just like a fur. It keeps making a small ‘hooo’ sound everytime she jumps. Aika hiss at her owl in a low voice.

“Marion! You have to keep quiet! If anyone hear you, they will catch us and we’ll be punished for sure. Do you know how hard it is to hide from Khalid?”

The owl makes another hooo sound which ended with what sound like a sigh before closing its eyes. Aika smiled at her pet and moves closer into the forest.

“You know Marion,” She whisper to her owl, “I always wonder what is on the other side of this forest. There’s another one up front call the Kyarakhi forest. Apparently, it is connected dto Kyarakhi forest and the only way for anyone to enter Zhatier.”

She moves deeper and notice the trees in front of her and see old trees with barely any leaves or flowers blooming from there. When she reaches a spot in front of her, she stops. She sees how the pathwyas of the forest stops there and two huge barren trees was on each side of the pathway.

“This is it, Marion. If anyone finds us, we’ll be dead.”

Everyone was observing these two. The owl was of course had its eyes closed while Aika, standing there with her blue strapless gown and black curls falls freely down her back stare forward. She gulped in air and closes her eyes. Her hand reach out towards the forest. When her hand went passed the barrier, her hand disappears, becoming invisible and her whole body followed her.

Romanov gasped and ran after her making the other followed her as well. The view that appear before them after that was shockingly breath-taking. Hills around looking so green and lively with small pond in the middle of the nature made garden, surrounded by blooming white daisies that was flooding the ground. A huge apple tree next to the pond and butterflies floating around with no fear or concern just add to the beauty of the land. They were happy and so was she, from the look on her face. She was about to run to the middle of meadow when she heard a sound of water splashing. She turns towards the pond near the apple tree and rushed there.

She saw small hands on the surface of the water trying to reach up and grabbed on something but the hand started to sink before she can reach for them. Aika knows that someone was in trouble and it was important she acts as fast as she can.

She looks round for anything that can help but one seems to be helpful. She then raised her palm and stare into them, knowing it may be the only thing that can help the stranger. She puts her palm on the ground and closes her eyes.

She breath hard and tries to push as much power as she can. Her power seems to be weak and slow. Marian eyes were open and it keeps giving out longer ‘hooo’ like it was cheering for Aika. Aika closes her eyes and with one more push, her gift came in full blast that she can feel the bottom of the pond is starting to freeze and quickly pushing the stranger to the tops.

When a body of a boy came out form the water, Aika quickly gra her hand and pull him to the ground. She looks surprise to see a boy, all wet with jet black hair and in a white shirt and black pants ustarting to cough out water. His eyes snapped wide open and a pair of hazelnut brown orbs was staring deep into her. She blushed and they went to greet each other with the boy showing him his wolf and introducing himself as Romanov.