Stella
‘Get out!’
I opened my eyes, expecting the woman screaming at me to be right above my face.
‘Get out!’ she yelled again.
My gaze scanned the room as I threw the blanket off and jumped out of bed. Where was she? Why was she so angry? A breeze drifted in through the open window, making the gauzy curtains billow near me.
“Where are you?”
‘Run. Get out. Go, now!’
No woman shouted at me. This language was Celestia, and the voice reverberated inside my head. I pressed my palms to my ears. The visions floating in the sky weren’t real, and neither was this. Yet the words pounded within my mind, insistent in their panicked demand that I leave. Now.
“Stop it,” I gasped.
Muffled footsteps sounded outside the door, and Dario entered, his violet jacket still crumpled from the fight earlier.
He took in my desperate stance and clenched his jaw. “What are you doing?” he asked, his tone low.
I barely heard him over the clamor in my head. “Nothing,” I whispered.
‘Run! Run!’
Dario looked me up and down. “You hear sounds no one else does?”
I gnawed on my lip and didn’t answer. He stepped closer, a scowl distorting his handsome features.
“Do you see or sense things others can’t?”
I took in a shuddering breath, horrified. “What … are you… saying?” I asked.
‘Jump!’
I glanced toward the window. Surely that wasn’t what she meant.
Dario narrowed his eyes. “You understand Astralini. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
My heart beat erratically as my mouth went dry. Bolin was too hurt. Prince Ferdinand wasn’t here. If I had ever learned how to defend myself, I’d lost the skill along with my memories.
“What do you want?” I asked in a quavering voice.
‘Escape!’
He took another step closer. “What other magic do you have? That defensive maneuver against your fake husband - that’s not a healing ability. It’s not any of the wielding magics, and it’s not seer. Not that women are ever seers, anyway. So, why are you different? I smelled your vibrations across the estate. I sense them now.”
My throat constricted. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me-”
‘Jump!’
I obeyed, scrambling to the window and hurling myself out. I crashed into thick, flowering shrubs, crushing their tender branches. But they broke my fall.
“Hey!” Dario peered over the ledge. “Did you hurt yourself?”
I stared up, dazed, not daring to speak.
‘Get up. Run toward the sun.’
“Bolin,” I thought.
The whispering voice replied, and though she knew my thoughts. ‘He’s safe. You aren’t. Go!’
I picked myself up and out of the bushes with a groan. Aside from several nasty scratches, I was uninjured. I got my bearings, realizing I was outside the confines of the extensive villa.
‘Toward the sun,’ the voice urged.
I ran, my bare feet sinking into the knee high foliage, though I hoped I wouldn’t trample a bee or wasp. After a few moments, I reached the guard wall, an eight-foot barrier that surrounded the entire estate. Trapped.
I hesitated, reflecting on my initial decision to flee. Would King Sartorio forgive me if I returned now?
‘To the left. There’s a tunnel through the stones. Go.’
No way. Sentries would have discovered and repaired it if such a hole existed. I stepped left anyway and ten paces later; I found it.
Someone had torn the rocks from the mortar near the ground, leaving an opening that I might be able to wiggle through. The wild grasses and flowers hid it unless you happened directly upon it.
This must be how the assassin that tried to kill Prince Fernando breached the estate security.
I forced myself to stop thinking and lowered to my front, crawling through the passage on my elbows. The rough-hewn stone bit into my arms and back, and then my rear, but I squirmed free.
As I pulled myself up, enraged shouts sounded behind the wall.
“Quick! This way!”
Dario.
“Why did she run from you?” I didn’t recognize that voice, but I wouldn’t stay to find out. If Dario sensed my magic in the villa, he could discover me across the barrier, too.
My stomach rumbled with intense need, but I pushed it aside as I sprinted away from the wall, hoping no one saw me.
A figure in black rose from the ground, making my heart jump into my throat.
“Natalie!”
I froze, the name stirring something deep inside my chest. I gazed at this stranger, his features hidden behind a dark cloak, but his green eyes still glittered.
“Come with me.” He held out his pale hand.
Against all sense, I took it.
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