Axton had been right, something was wrong, very wrong. The girl she saw in the rafters out of the corner of her eye wasn't Anatia, it was Cinis, a girl made of ash with a mask of solid stone. Anatia looked at her the moment she turned her head to watch her head on.
"Anatia, there's no use hiding, I know you're there." Anatia- Cinis watched her like a deer in headlights. She was frozen.
"My name is Cinis." The words were so silent she almost didn't catch them. The words seemed drilled into her, like Axton had said, she looked like a trained dog.
"There is no use in that either, I know it is you sister." There was a sadness in her voice now, to see what Ana had become, what they had done to her. They were not related, not by any human blood. But their family's lines had come from the three sister Queens, or so legend claimed. But the three queens were sisters, in power, in magic, and in the gods that blessed them. Anatia dropped down like a cat to the floor. When Anatia had straightened, stood and looked her in the eye. Elexis almost broke at the fear that only she could see.
"What do you want with me, the king, he-"
"I want you to come with me, I want you to come home."
"I can't."
"Yes you can you just-"
"No. I can't." her voice was sad but stern. "If I run, if I try to leave, to escape, he will kill and torture everyone I love."
"Everyone you care about is safe, we are here."
"No, not everyone. If I leave he will kill Ben." Steel floods through Elexis' veins.
"You love the Captain of the guard, the one that has captured and killed thousands of my rebels." She was screaming and she knew she should stop but she couldn't help herself. Anatia flinched and a part of Elexis screamed at her to stop and just calm down but, but The captain of the guard. How many rebels had he killed and how many of them were ones she had sent in there to find Ana?
"I have killed just as many, I have killed more, I was sent here to kill you!" Anatia's hysterical at first but her voice seems to quiet, focus and steady until it is lethal enough to match Elexis' own, and she's glad they pick a place where no one would notice the noise.
"Yes, and don't you think it kills me? How many times have I sent my rebels to hunt down the king's blade? How long have I hunted Cinis Sarnifeace?" She feels the tears start to stream down her face but she can't stop them now, she can't stop. "But I let it go because you survived, however you did it you survived. You can't imagine how happy I was the day the king announced he had you, because even if you were there, you were alive, not dead at the bottom of a river." Anatia closed her eyes, lips drawn.
"I can't go with you." Anatia's head is down, eyes still closed. The hood of her cloak shadowing her face.
"Yes, yes you can." she wipes the tears from her face. "We can get the Captain out, we can turn him, please just come with us."
"He doesn't know." She stops at Ana's solemn tone. "And I don't want to tell him, I didn't want to tell anyone, I didn't want to be a part of this again."
"You won't come." the words are bitter in her mouth. "Why? You've always been a part of this Ana, you always will be, but you're too scared to face it, to face that monster you serve, to face the people you've forgotten" Her words are harsh and Anatia flinches away again.
"Yes I'm afraid Elexis, I'm afraid of the king, and I'm afraid of what the people will say… and..." there is something broken in Ana's face, in the way her hands tremble but Elexis plows ahead ignoring the despair on her sister's face
"And you're afraid of yourself." It wasn't a question. Elexis huffs a cruel laugh, "I've been wondering how the king keeps you on such a tight leash," a cruel smile "but it turns out he is not the one holding the chains, you are." She turns and walks away leaving Anatia alone in the warehouse. Before she turns the corner she looks back and says over her shoulder, "If you change your mind and decide to start helping the people you abandoned for so long Ana, let me know." She turns back quickly, flinching at what she saw behind her. At the last pieces of Ana she had just shattered.
