Chapter Fourteen

Sara's Secrets

Our ultimate destination turned out to be a small, vague cave in the bluffs. It was more towards the top, but after our cave came the extremely steep and critical part which couldn't be climbed any further. It also wasn't a cave, but just a narrow passage in the mountain's rock that lead to a large, empty space. It was also pretty disappointing, since ever since Iris had said that we were on the run, I hadn't actually expected living in a cave. More like city-hopping and dyed disguises.

Anyways, it was the perfect spot for Iris and she stuck to it. We were both tired with that hectic one hour of quick plans and running this far away from the mansion. Iris roughly laid the blankets she had got, on the floor of the cave, and just lay down there. I napped for some time and probably expected her to wake up later, but she only did when it was nightfall.

"Oh, I had almost forgotten. Loki had told me to once connect you to him. He said he wanted to explain you everything in his own words. I mean, I'm not sure what is that exactly that she wants you to know, maybe just whatever I told you from his point of view. But, well, you can ask him yourself . . . once you're there, of course." She spoke suddenly.

"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Are you sure you wanna do this?"

"Of course. Loki, you know what, seems to know a lot more than he probably told. Or maybe he just knows a lot. Something from a deeper point than we all do." he said.

I nodded. "Right now?"

"Yup."

I clutched her hand, and then with brain power transmitted from both our minds, I got transferred to the ghost world. Loki was right there, which was pretty surprising.

"Duh" he said, as he looked around our cave. "This is where you choose to live?"

"You can see where we are living?" I was somehow pretty surprised at that too.

"Just see, I can't actually change anything about it." he replied.

"Cool, so . . . Iris told me that you wanted to talk to me." I began.

"Um . . ." Loki looked around nervously. "Is she there right now?"

"Of course she is. How else would I be speaking to you right now?"

"No, but can she hear us?"

"Want me out of your conversation, people?" came Iris's voice, sounding as if passing through a layer of electrons and neurons.

"Would you mind, please? Promise, the queen is gonna give you some 'modern clothes' to make up with." Said Loki. Even though it was in the form of a joke, I knew that this wasn't anything that Loki would like to share with anyone but me. He hadn't even called Elora with himself, and wanted Iris out of the conversation.

"How do you expect her to not hear anything?" I asked.

"God, Wendy. I didn't think you would be this illiterate. Death-seeing Trylle can just be a part of making the bond possible, and hearing their talks or seeing them is entirely optional. In fact, more energy conservation if you choose to not listen or see us."

"That doesn't make me illiterate." I defensed.

"Okay, so, listen, this Sara is like double character. You know, by face and by nature she may look pretty shy and sweet and caring, but inside she's like the most greedy and craving bitch ever."

"Loki, she helped you and saved you multiple times from Oren's deathwish." I scolded him incredulously.

"Hmp, Oren's deathwish was to own you, not to disown me." he snorted. "Plus, she didn't help me from Oren the very last time."

That stung a bit too deep, especially hearing it from Loki's mouth. I gulped. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that you didn't actually know Sara all that well. I mean, I grew up with her. I know that in front of Oren, she's this shy and beautiful woman who wouldn't even be capable of hurting an ant. But inside that, she's like a total evil pussy. Well, even I didn't think so, until I realized what her evilness and dark plans would lead to.

"It just started when she was wed to Oren after his divorce with Elora, instead of with me. I mean, I know she loved me like a small brother, even I did, but then she never actually wanted to marry a markis. She always wanted to be closer to the ruling family; she wanted to rule. And her disappointment came over when it turned out that her ruling partner was a pure-blooded, evil Vittra king Oren who never forgave and didn't take things that lightly to an extent. Also someone who was blessed with extended immortality.

"She ever since had believed that she could reunite the Trylle and Vittra successfully, but with Oren on the rule, it would be an impossibility. In early stages I agreed with her, and we both worked secretly in order to somehow find ways to kill pure-blooded Vittra. Afterall we both were the two greatest and most actually rebellious haters of Oren. For years her wishes remained an impossible mission and in a way it was something that she could never accomplish. Afterall it took real abilities of a royal and pure-blooded lineage to make yourself capable of such skillful assassination.

"When Oren however became obsessed with his plan of bringing back his changeling half-Trylle and half-Vittra daughter with Elora back to the Vittra kingdom, Sara got this bizarre idea of proving to you how cruel your own father was and somehow make you kill him. We both knew that because of your parential combination, blood and lineage, you would be the best of everyone's hopes in order to kill Oren. So that is how we – which is everyone – started proving to you and other Trylle people that Oren was a dangerous threat towards us all, and was needed to be killed. Even Tove and Elora gave into this part of our plan.

"Even then this plan between me and Sara sounded appealing to me and I didn't actually think or care about what would ultimately happen to you when Sara reunites everyone. But when I realized that I was actually falling in love with you, I also realized that if Sara would be the one reuniting the Trylle and the Vittra, she would also be the one ruling over the combines regions of Trylle and Vittra.

"Maybe she'd also have a king with her – most likely someone from the Trylle – but other than that, there would be no space for you. You would automatically be either banished from the post you are meant to gain by your blood and actions, or killed by Sara for better purposes. Your lack of actual family or anyone from your blood also made Sara's plans stronger. And with her likeable charm, she could manipulate the entire troll population of the Trylle and Vittra into a harmonious region.

"Surely, it is unlikely for a by-blood queen to drop down to a marksinna, so either you would be banished or exiled, or assassinated. This thought made me drop down from Sara's plans. Now, that I knew at some point of your life you would go ahead and defeat Oren, I had however quit from any of Sara's plans of reunision. Not that it helped, because either ways Oren needed to be killed, and after that Sara would never remain happy with just the Vittra region. She would simply jump ahead to unite the Trylle and Vittra into one kingdom.

"Somehow I could probably just avoid it all if I tell Oren everything about Sara's plans and he would simply slit her throat off. And then when you finish off Oren too, there wouldn't be any ruler left, but me. but she knew that I had just as many reasons to be slaughtered by Oren as much as she did. All my antics that had got me into trouble with Oren could've been fatal to me, if not for Sara who saved me and protected me. In exchange I was kind of forced to keep her side and not let Oren know about the plan. If I did, we were both going to get killed by that dickhead.

"So, finally I just waited and hoped for the best. Maybe we'll see how things would go after Oren was dead, since till before his death, we all shared this common motive. However, the bad part came when . . . you know what, and then after that Oren was killed and Sara crowned the queen. After this, Sara played into her best efforts to reunite with you people; helping to neutralize the suspicion that Iris had created in the human world, inviting you people to her coronation, calling in Iris several times to Ondarike, coming to Iris's debutante ball, and many others.

"In fact she almost used Iris for her plans of reunision. And now according to what sense I find in the paintings Elora's made, the thing that I suspect the most is that she along with her Vittra trackers are coming to wage an attack in Forening. Not to the common people, but to the rulers, which goes to just you and Tove. Tove is not as strong and blessed ability-vise as you are, also the painting shows that he is captured ultimately, so we three – Elora, me and Iris – decided to send you and Iris into hiding.

"That's the best possible way to keep you from getting captured. Afterall as far as I know, she wants to just assassinate you rulers off, and set to rule instead. Or maybe Tove would be luckier for his sex, and Sara would marry him if not for the awkward age difference. But you were anyways to be gotten rid of. And people needed you more, so it was essential for us to choose you over Tove. So, that's how I came to the conclusion behind Elora's paintings, something that maybe I wouldn't like to share with Iris because it's more the type of thing that you would concern with you, your parents, your existence and your life."

"Okay, that unlocks many door of secrets at the moment." I said, absorbing in all the information I had been fed at the moment and trying to connect all what I had been told today by Iris and Loki. I began to think that when Loki had said Sara's name right before Oren's sword had taken everything away from him, did he mean to warn me about the fact that Sara was exceptionally dangerous for me.

"Hope you don't mind I kept these away from you. Afterall, if I had told you Sara's plans, it wouldn't have been any better for you."

I nodded. "Okay, so . . . I was just wondering how come you and Elora both formed a sort of a team and worked that way. I mean, she's supposed to hate you and all that."

"The hate doesn't come now at this type of a situation. Here we both hate Oren, love you, and want to turn Sara's plans upside down because of you. Even Iris respects you a lot, and hates Sara because she wants to capture you and her brother Tove. Maybe also because she has already captured Tove. And with all those similarities and common motives, hate doesn't stop us from teaming up."

When I returned back to the cave with Iris staring at the ceiling thoughtfully, there was nothing much to do, so I took out something to eat. Iris had almost raided the entire kitchen, so till now there wasn't any lack of food. I had some of the canned peaches and pineapples, the carbohydrate submerging into my body.

"Wendy?" it was Iris. She was still staring at the roof, but was speaking to me. she was currently wearing the bracelet.

"Yeah? You want something to eat?"

"No. well, I just wanted to ask something that I had asked you before but you hadn't trusted me just enough to answer it." she paused. "You know, I know a lot about Elora, with her being the ex-queen, she's your mom, Oren's ex-wife, etc. But I hardly knew who was Loki, except that he was a Vittra. I mean, I still don't get how come you're connected to him. Is he Oren's and Elora's son, your brother? Or, maybe . . . I just don't know what it is. Also contacting him and Elora was always very antidepressing for you. It acted somewhat like a drug or alcohol does. It gave you some kind of a high, that I never managed to discover why exactly. One thing, Loki was important to you, but why, I had no idea for that."

I hesitated. I paused for some time, and then spoke whatever I had once never dreamt I would ever be telling Iris. "Loki, he was the love of my life."

Iris was stunned by my admission. She took off the bracelet. "I had known him for just a few months, but even in that short time, we had quite a lot between us. He was also a half-Trylle and half-Vittra like me, but he had been brought up in Ondarike. Everything was settled between us, but it was just in the great war where I killed Oren, when Loki had been stabbed to death by Oren. I would never forgive Oren for that, even in his afterlife.

"Sara was a healer, but being half-Trylle and half-Vittra, she didn't possess the capability to bring someone back from the dead. For months, I had lead a dreadful, miserable life without Loki. I had psychiatrists, was on drugs, was nutrioned directly, was counseled. However, nothing changed. It was only when you proved your abilities, that I began to see some hope in all this. For you, my reasons of using you to view and talk to Loki might be something romantically silly, but for me, it's just that . . . it means everything to me."

Iris was still and frozen. "So, how does it feel telling me all this? No wonder, I could've bet you would've never dreamed of ever telling me all this."

"It's kind of amazing. Makes me feel floaty and light. As if it's good to release some of the pressure out of myself sometimes." I said, smiling.

Iris nodded. "Good, any more pressure to be released?"

"Nothing much. Just that my baby with Loki is due in five months, so make some plan against Sara's that settles everything down before my labor."