Deception shifted his body with cat-like prowess, so he landed claws first on the black and gold marble floors. We skidded across the smooth surface until we ground to a halt in the middle. We were in a giant room lit dimly by a fire burning in a large fireplace.
It was at this time, I really wished I had something to defend myself. It had been stupid to be alone and weaponless on a battlefield, with a psycho hovering above me in an invisible school. I guess in all the madness, nobody had been really thinking clearly, like giving me a weapon, or at least having some stand guard.
I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the entrance close behind me, the living walls sealing it shut.
"Hello, Miss Silver."
Deception let out a loud growl, and I snapped my head around until my eyes found my least favorite person in the world. Her silver hair was slicked back in her usual neat bun.
She stood beside a large dining table laden with expensive-looking food on
"Greta," I said dryly and climbed off Deception and almost slipped in the puddle of water that had formed on the floor around us. I quickly composed myself and quietly commanded Deception to stay.
He was hurt. I had heard his bones crack when Frog had grabbed us, and the last thing I needed was for him to get even more hurt. I didn't trust Greta to have any compassion for innocent creatures. The last thing I needed was a dragon that couldn't fly in this place.
I began to walk slowly towards the table, all the while slicking back my wet hair with my hands. I had no plan and no idea what I was doing, but I was just going to try and not show that and act calmly.
She smiled at me with probably the fakest smile I had ever seen in my life, and pulled out a chair from around the table closest to her, "Come sit, eat, there are some matters I would like to discuss with you. But before we eat we are going to have to wait for some other guests. It would be rude to start eating without them," she said before she casually walked over to the other side of the opposite side of the table.
When I was almost to her, I took my eyes off her for a second to look down at the table, and my eyes caught sight of a knife, oh yes, a very large knife, sticking out of a large pig in the center of the table. Without even hesitating, I catapulted my body onto the food, but not before uttering a serval spells in my head to protect myself against Greta's power.
Forks and spoons clattered to the black marble, and plates fell and shattered on the floor. Fruits and soups toppled over and joined them there, too.
Greta exhaled loudly, "I should have figured that you couldn't sit down and how a civilized conversation like a normal human being." I shot her a glance. She was putting food on her plate while she watched me shrug across the table, like a cat watching a mouse struggle underneath its paw. I was glad she was enjoying her last meal while she watched me struggle because if I had my way, this was going to be just that.
It really unnerved me how calm she was, though.
I assured myself it was because she didn't know about my 400 years in the gray world. You see, I had listened to the dead's stories, thousands and thousands of them, and learned from each one. Some of the souls I had listened to had lived during a time where 5th and 6th-element users were almost as common as the other four, and everyone could use every kind of magic. I learned each weakness, including the sixth element's weaknesses, spells that reflected their magic. I was confident Greta would have no upper hand over me.
The spells I had uttered in my head before I had launched myself onto a table full of food would assure that. I couldn't resist her. But for some reason, I felt like I was never going to reach that knife, but that was never going to stop me from trying!
I crawled over the countless dishes of food, the whole time not taking my eyes off the knife. I could feel the food sticking to my dress and various liquids soaking it, which made it heavier and harder to move.
The thought that she would be the second person that day, I would stab that day if I succeed. That is a similarity to my father, and she would share. Their deaths were also essential for ending this war, although for different reasons. The similarities ended there, though. I loved my father and loathed her, and she was evil, and my father had been fighting for good. I wanted to kill her; I hadn't wanted to kill my father.
I could feel the ocean of grief and guilt over it building every time I thought of what I had done. I was holding it back within myself. It was hard because it was already threatening to crash over me and drown me. I had to keep it together, though, or else the one I loved was surely doomed. I could feel so many dying below me on the grounds, and I just hoped selfishly that all those deaths were people I didn't know.
I was so close to the knife, but I mistakenly stuck my hand in what I guessed was a bowl of chocolate pudding, and I fell onto my stomach, but I was within reaching distance. I stretched out my hand, and my hand wrapped around the knife's and that's when an invisible force knocked me up into the air.
I hovered there for a split second, just under the bobbing glass balls, before I was thrown against the wall on the side of the wall. All the air left my body, and then I fell to the floor and directly on my back.
Deception let out a loud cry from the spot I had left him in and ran towards me. He began to sniff me frantically. He started his examination at my feet before working his way up. I pushed him away when he reached my face because I was currently wheezing in a desperate attempt to fill my body back up with air. This seemed to agitate Deception and sparked a repeating cycle of him rubbing his snout against my side and jerking his head briefly back towards Greta. He would then charge halfway across the room towards her, before turning tail and coming back to me.
In the meantime, I turned my head to stare at Greta, who was sitting with a plate full of her food and her hands neatly folded on her lap.
"The table needs a reset, and a mess needs to be cleaned!" Greta called, and an opening in the wall beside the fireplace appeared. Identical twin boys with shaved heads came into the room. I recognized them from all the time ago when I had first gone to battle within this school, the evil twins.
I watched from the floor while they entered the room and picked up some of the food I had ruined and left. They were followed by more kids who were either younger or around the same age as me, all of whom were dressed in that same blood red uniform. Some of them held in their hands brand new dishes of food, w others held rags and dustpans. They began to clean up the shattered dishes and the forks off the floor, along with some of the food that had floor. They replaced the dishes that had been taken away before finally leaving. Both Greta and I watched them go.
Once they were gone, Greta turned back to me, "That's a neat little spell that you learned, I heard it echo in your thoughts," she called to me from across the room. "But it isn't the holy grail of stopping me; it stops the mind part of my power, not the matter. So I can still toss you around like a little rag doll all I want."
She pointed to me, and I felt a jolt of energy run through me and my body, and I was now standing without my permission and walking back towards the table. Deception, who was in the middle of one of his half charges towards Greta, turned to look at me with his golden eyes when he heard me stand.
He began to walk towards me, and that's when Greta clicked her tongue, "I don't think so, time for you to fly away, little dragon," Greta said and pointed her other hand at Deception.
An invisible wave of energy slammed into him, and with a loud cry and the sound of claws scraping against marble, he went flying across the room. I heard the sound of the wall opening behind me and the wind outside. The hand that Greta had held out to Deception dropped to her side, and the wind at my back disappeared. I knew then I was alone.
If I had no power over any part of my body, I think I would have broken into sobs then, but I didn't, so I remained silent and kept moving towards Greta until I reached the table once again.
The figure trained on me moved to point at a place across the table from her, and I unwillingly pulled the chair out and sat down in it.
"Or I can make you dance like a little puppet and make your dragonfly, too she mused. Now put some food on your plate, you won't have to wait long for our other dinner guests to arrive. One is about to enter, in fact," she said. An entrance to the fireplace opened again, and a girl dressed in a white dress, which was very similar to the one that Greta wore, walked in. She had long blonde straight hair, and I noticed that she was very pretty. I couldn't tell the color of her eyes because she kept them trained on the ground.
I watched while she walked over to the table and sat down in the chair to the right of Greta.
"Miss Silver, the first of the four party guests that I hope will be joining us today," she motioned to the girl and me. "Meet my granddaughter, Savannah," Great said, and the girl raised her eyes and met mine. Her eyes looked tired like someone who had been repeatedly exposed to horrible things. I'm sure my eyes look like that now, too.
"Don't be rude, say your hellos!" Greta's voice boomed, and the girl flinched.
"Hello," the girl said quickly in a timid voice before she lowered her head to stare down at her empty white plate. She reminded me of a beaten dragon. I felt a pang of sympathy for her.
"Isn't she pretty?" Greta asked and, without waiting for an answer and continued, "TOO BAD SHE'S USELESS WITHOUT ANY POWERS!" she shouted, and the girl jumped.
"However," Greta continued, her voice lowering back down to a more normal volume, "My spies in that little rebel camp, well before that little ungrateful witch Amber killed them all, told me your twin sister and other beloved granddaughter are different. Much more powerful. Remind us of her name, Savannah, if you wouldn't find?"
The girl swallowed and said a name, but too quietly for me to hear it, and I could tell it started with an S.
"LOUDER!" Greta shouted.
"Santana!" Savannah cried with tears rolling down her face.
"Savannah!?" I heard a girl shout from the other side of the room, and Savannah stood.
Her brown eyes widened, then a smile spread across her face, "Santana!?" she cried, but this time it was a cry of happiness and the tears were tears of joy and not tears of misery.
Santana went to move, but Greta held her in place, and I heard the sound of running feet behind me.
Santana soon appeared in my line of sight, but she paid no attention to me. Her attention was solely on the girl with the blonde hair. She hugged her before she too burst into tears. She, too, still wore Emily's bridesmaid dress, and her brown hair was plastered to her head from the rain outside.
So the blonde-haired girl was Santana's sister.
"I'm happy to see you!" Santana sobbed, "And I normally hate you!"
"Me too!" Savannah sobbed back.
Greta cleared her throat, "It's nice to meet you, Santana!" Greta said warmly, a voice that did not match her. Both girls looked at her, startled. I think that I had forgotten she had existed. "But introductions will have to wait; our third guest is here."
"Mother," a voice, and not just any voice but a very familiar voice, said angrily from the direction Santana had come from, and there was the sound of footsteps coming towards us.
Despite what was going on, the only thought going through my mind was Why was my mom calling Greta mother?