Page 132 of Soulmateless
I titter. “That's not exactly what I'm worried about.” I glance away. “I'm more concerned about something else."
"Like what?"
“We need to talk about that night.”
"What is there to talk about? I’m a dreamscreecher. That’s about it." She shrugs.
"Yeah, that's the point. I don't know much about them. I'm kind of sheltered from them and all." I reach for her hand. “You being a dreamscreecher doesn't change my love, but… I feel like it could change me and my life…”
She slowly nods. "Okay…" she mutters. I squeeze her hand. She smiles a little after my gesture. "Ask away then."
It takes a moment for me to think of my first question. “How… how did you end up here? What's your story?”
Her lips twitch slightly as her eyes shift away. “It's… it's a lot.”
I clasp my other hand onto hers. “You don't have to explain everything. Just enough to know how-”
She takes a deep breath and sighs. “You deserve to know everything. You need to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she offers a weak smile. “You're fighting for my kingdom after all. You deserve to know how life is back there.”
She starts to get into detail, talking about her father whom she loved, only to be killed by Vasilisa when she was only ten. She pauses in-between to cry but despite telling her she can stop, she pushes herself to continue. I move closer to her as I listen to her, bringing her shaking hands into my lap.
She details the punishments Vasilisa had given her. She talks about the darkness and rustiness of the cage, where she was alone for a month at a time, almost mentally insane in there, and feeding off scraps for a single meal in the day. Everyone knew when she had her punishment from how skinny she'd get. The punishments were for little mistakes and challenging her mother.
She explains how she was a knight at thirteen, knighted beside Kaius and Clarissa, who had fallen in love with each other, but were both murdered by her mother. “When Kaius died… I grabbed a knife off the table… I wanted to kill her for what happened to Kaius.”
She sniffles and I raise a hand to her cheek, stroking away a tear. “And… it didn't work…” She stays silent for a moment before taking a sharp inhale "Immediately, she ordered everyone to kill me and I ran. Coming here was my only choice.” She scrunches her nose. “Even then, I wasn't sure if I was going to live.”
I recall when I first met her. “That's why you ran when you knew who I was.”
She nods. “I didn't expect you to be so kind.”
“And that's why you packed to leave…” It all makes sense. “I’m so sorry. I wish I was a lot more open-minded earlier.”
“It's not your fault,” she nearly hisses. “Don't blame yourself.”
“I wish things were better, so you wouldn't have hid for so long.”
“Well, now things are better.” She squeezes my hand. “With you.”
It gets silent between us as I tilt my body towards her. She leans on me. I rub my thumb against the back of her hand, as she whispers, “Do you have any more questions?”
I furrow my brows as more questions start to stir. “So… if you aren't just made of evil, then why did Godusa make her followers into dreamscreechers?”
“For survival. Somnia is a dangerous land. There was no other way our people were going to survive without another ability. ”
“Then why didn't your people just leave?” Wouldn't that be the easier solution?
“There was nowhere else to go. After the incident where Godusa had gotten revenge on the Sororo kingdom, our people were banished to Somnia's lands. We were stuck there being surrounded by the Amara kingdom and then the mountains. The mountains were too tall and cold. Then Amara wouldn't accept us back in, so there was no other kingdom we could set off to.”
That made sense. Millenniums back when the Amara kingdom and Somnia were one as the Sororo kingdom, Amara's worshippers were punished by Godusa's nightmares. Many people were too afraid to sleep, some nearly died because of the fear. It was a punishment for being ungrateful for Godusa and her gift. It makes sense that the Amarians then would put her followers in dangerous lands and keep them isolated.
Ignatia continues, “The land was so full of predators, fires and diseases that many of our people. About five hundred people were trapped in Somnia, and only around a hundred survived, only ten of them being women. The Last Women, we call them. So Godusa, along with the Gift of Life and the Gift of Fire, granted us a dreamscreecher form that was supposed to help us defend ourselves. It even helped convince other people fromdifferent kingdoms to sneak in through Amara and join us to grow the population. It’s been a lot harder for other kingdoms and Gifts to come to us through Amara since though.”
I nod. It adds up. “So if that was the case, what happened when Amarians met up with the dreamscreechers the first time? I was told that when Amarians tried to talk to dreamscreechers, they attacked us for no reason.”
