The One after my Heart

Kyra was stunned as she looked at the two of her fellow inmates grinning at her now.

Nisa couldn't stop chuckling at Kyra's reaction.

"W-wait, how can you speak and understand what I'm saying now?" questioned Kyra.

'Don't tell me they were fooling around with me all this time! Were they pranking me or something?'

After giving her two cellmates a scrutinising look, she found it unlikely. They didn't seem the type to pull off a prank like that on her. Not to mention, she had heard the two of them converse with little Maya in another language.

She had several questions, but before she could come up with one, Bree interrupted her with one of her own. "Now that we've cleared the problem of a language barrier, tell me this first, how did you survive?"

"I don't know", shrugged Kyra as she continued, "Well, at one moment, my head felt like it was hit by a truck from behind, and then at the next instant, I blacked out. As you can see when I woke up, I found myself here now in this situation". She raised her shackled hands and legs with a sigh.

"Could you once again please tell me where exactly are we right now?" She recalled Nisa saying about some Ethra. Was this in Africa or some remote island on the globe? She wondered as she fiercely racked her brains and her geographical knowledge to find out where she was.

She had to find a way to get out from here. Maybe if she could find her way to the nearest law authorities, they could help her get back home.

Nisa and Bree looked at Kyra with a confused expression on their faces. They looked at each other in silence, and then after a while whispered to each other in hushed voices nodding and shaking their heads once more. It made complete sense to them now. And then they looked towards Kyra with a pitiful look in their eyes.

'Why are they looking at me like I'm some lost puppy?' thought Kyra to herself weirdly. 'Then again, I am similar to a lost puppy right now.'

"Hmm- we must be somewhere along the borders of Dartwood city near Kethran mountain in the land of Spratia.", replied Nisa despondently.

'Dartwood mountain? Kethran mountain? Spratia?'

"Oh, you mean - Asia", spoke Kyra as she realised maybe it was just Nisa's accent.

"No-no, it's Spratia and not Asia", corrected Nisa as she looked at Kyra with an interesting expression on her face.

She turned towards Bree and nodded in affirmation, "You were right. I think she's lost her memories. She seems all jumbled up."

"It is going to be difficult to get out of here then", grumbled Bree, silently whispering to herself as she clenched her bruised fists. "I hope my message earlier has gone through in time. It seems to be our only ray of hope for escape now."

Kyra took in a small sharp intake of breath with a wince as she felt her left thumb ache.

Since Nisa had her attention on Kyra, she noticed it and said as she nodded to the latter apologetically," Yes, we're sorry about that. I think Maya overdid it on the pricking part, but it was necessary. We had to find a way to make you bleed to activate the magic. Your pin item did help." She smiled as though it were completely normal.

Kyra was horrified. 'What the hell. Make me bleed? Don't tell me this is some kind of mental asylum I'm in right now?!'

Nisa noticed Kyra's change in expression and knew she had misunderstood their intentions.

'It's understandable since she's lost her memories, she sighed as she thought to herself. At first, Bree and herself were glad that they might've some additional help to plan their break-out from here. But now it felt like she was an older version of Maya next to them who had suffered from amnesia.

Whether Kyra would understand or not, Nisa slowly gathered her thoughts and patiently tried to explain, "We're all witches, including you, of course. One of the few people in the world who can harness and conduit nature's elements and perform certain feats which you can call as magic. We can develop the abilities to channel nature's powers for good or bad."

Nisa paused to gather her thoughts before she continued again,"Stragglers have captured Maya and me as life-sacrifices for some crazy ritual by some crazy dark witches. You see, we from the bloodline of the Greenwood family especially are known for possessing spiritual powers, which is a little rare to come across. I suspect you must be a witch too which is why maybe you were brought here."

"Initially, we were glad that there was another witch among us here that could help us escape from here. But you even seemed to have trouble communicating with us. At first, we thought you were from the savage outlands and hence didn't understand the common language. But now, it seems like it's clear to me as I suspect that you may have lost your memories." Nisa shook her head in resignation.

Kyra's eyes went wide in shock as she fell utterly silent.

"Hence for us to be able to interact, I performed an ancient blood magic ritual that only a few of handful spirit witches like me know. Bree's older and more experienced, so it was easy for her to assist me. For this, one has to be ready to shed blood by his/her own hands and be in a semi-conscious state so that it's easier to establish a magical connection, which is why we were forced to knock you out with a simple mind-numbing spell and then had Maya make it seem like you pricked your thumb all by yourself. Ingenious right?"

Maya's still young, so the principles and rules of magic wouldn't take it under consideration seriously. There are loopholes to everything after all, including magic", she continued as she gave Kyra a wink and chuckled at her achievement.

"Prick my thumb? To shed blood? Knock me out?", mumbled Kyra with her eyes going wide slowly.

"Oh yes, it was quite handy and lucky of you to have that interesting piece of metal on you. We had Maya look around for something like a sharp rock around here. But that would have made a bigger wound and mess on your wrist or neck by now haha. ",laughed out Nisa as though she were relieved.

"Also we had to knock you out", she continued in an obvious tone, "If we'd asked you to prick yourself and bleed, you wouldn't do it after all, would you? Besides this just proves that you're a witch as well."

"Otherwise, the blood magic wouldn't have so easily worked especially with these raithen shackles on us and it would have even backfired injuring everyone conducting the spell. Not to mention also having your mind wiped out accidentally in the worst-case scenario. " Nisa shrugged as she raised her arms making a clanking sound trying to prove her point.

By now, Kyra's felt like the hair on her skin stood up on its end as she felt goosebumps all over her. She could feel a cold shiver run down her spine as she digested everything.

'Maniacs, definitely maniacs...none of them are right in the head!! ', she thought to herself horrified as she nodded inwardly. 'Someone get me away from here!'