Chapter 23

Eva Lemuria

I wake up again in an unfamiliar place and I feel upset that this has been happening far too often. I look around at my obvious confinement cell. I feel multiple chains on my right arm and chains around my other limbs as well. There's one chain around my neck that feels like it's coating my whole body in a shield that keeps all my mana in. I can also tell these chains are all engraved with enchantments like the rest of the stone prison. The stone walls are covered heavily in enchantments. They put me on a bed, but it seems kinda pointless. It feels like false sincerity. I look forward at the bars to my prison cell and see that Saras is sitting on a bench out side my cell sleeping. I get up off the mattress and see that they have changed me into some green robes that they wear themselves. I'm a little annoyed because with every one of my little movements my chains rattle. I grab a blanket off my bed and move towards the corner of my cell to sit down wrapped up in a blanket. It seems at some point my movement had awoken Saras.

“Eva! You're awake! How do you feel? We had to knock you out because you were becoming dangerous. We only plan to keep you here till you calm down or we find out more about me giving you my heart so we can just release you.” I don't respond because of there be any point. She's speaking as if it's something so simple, but who knows if I’ll ever leave this cell alive. I guess the only thing I can do is spend my time quietly in here. I have no accesses to my mana, but I can still move so I might work on my body more. I won't be able to do much because of these chains so I'll have to be creative with my exercises. I’ll wait till one day that I can escape from these damn lizards. “Eva please understand that I didn't want this, but you were too unstable. You were already strong enough to defeat a young dragon and now that you have my heart and that arm you are much stronger than before. That arm is more than just scales. It was completely rebuilt from the bones up while I was watching it. Its strength is no joke and if you had used it earlier you could have really hurt us. While you are here I will be taking care of you so just ask if there's anything you need.”

I don't speak to her because there's nothing that she can give me that I would want. I highly doubt she would give me my weapons and I don't think she's dumb enough to believe me if I said the chains are too tight. She's incredibly naive but not necessarily dumb. I think even she realizes I would definitely try to escape. While she keeps looking at me expectantly my stomach starts to growl and I realize I don't even know how long it has been since I ate. I think the last time I ate anything was days ago before I went into the forest to hunt that mana beast. Saras gets up with a small smile before leaving the cell. I take this chance to examine the chains that are wrapped around me. I notice all the chains have more simple engraving so they must only be enchanted for strength while the one on my neck is keeping my magic in check. I walk forward towards the bars to see how long my chains allow me to reach. I am able to reach right before the bars and not even a little bit closer. I look at the bars and see they have the same engravings as the rest of the cell. I look for a bit before going back to the corner and sitting back down.

Saras comes back shortly with a tray of food. I was expecting some kind of gruel considering that I am a prisoner while instead, I received a decent meal that seems to be something that is high class and reminds me of the food they had at the academy for noble students. Eva walks towards the gate with the food and stops to put the tray of food through the slot on the bottom of the gate and slides it forward.

“I would bring it closer to you, but my parents didn't give me access to the gate. I don't think they trust me not to let you go. I probably would have let you go free by now if I could so they're not wrong I guess. I promise we would not withhold and necessities or comforts. I don't think you'll be here long anyway.” Saras

She truly seems like a naive girl. Apparently, she was on a journey through other races nations. I don't think she was able to have a long journey to truly learn how the world works and what people truly are like. I wouldn't be surprised if they learn that I am a mana mutant and kill me in this cell. I have no hope of leaving here. It doesn't mean that I won't try to survive for as long as I can. I get up and take the food off the ground before moving back to my corner. I eat all the food and I must admit it was delicious and at the same time a very healthy balanced meal.

After eating I throw the tray back under the gate and move to the center of my cell. I then drop onto my hands and begin doing pushups. I keep up the exercise until I'm exhausted and then I move onto my next exercise. While working out I can't help but reminisce about the days I first started training with Shadow. I was a little girl then that just wanted to become stronger to make myself feel better and now I don't think anything has changed. I want to become even stronger than I am now, but I want it all to be my own strength. While thinking that, I put my right arm behind my back and notice the difficulty has defiantly increased. The right arm is something caused by Saras so it's not my own strength. I don't even think my mana can be considered my own anymore since I know have another heart. Since I can't use mana or anything else right now I will make my body stronger than even a dragons.

After I exercise for a while I notice that Saras has stayed there the whole time just watching me. I feel angry overtime I look at her and then I realize that I have always been calmer than this. I would not even get angry when my own brother was cruel to me, but all these strangers are enraging me so much is strange. I start to think about how they keep telling me I'm unstable so I start to think about it. If they want me calm I will try to meditate. Shadow had taught me that meditating will calm the mind and stabilize the body when I was younger. At the time I wasn't able to succeed at all because I would rather work on my magic and weapon techniques. Now that I have nothing else to do so I'll try to meditate.

I sit at the back of my cell and cross my legs while folding my hands in my lap. I close my eyes and focus on myself. I keep looking into myself to learn every part of my body. I look at myself and try to understand it as well. I don't know how much time has passed, but I feel like I've finally found something. Inside my body, I can do more than feeling my mana now. It's like I can see it and my mana is all a pure white, but once it goes through my mana heart it always becomes black mana. I begin to look at my mana heart and realize that my heart isn't really anything that special. My heart is actually more of a container for what seems to be my real mana heart. I keep looking at it and it becomes more clear as time passes. It’s an ethereal black flame that floating right where my heart is. I realize that what ever this is, it's the reason all my mana is black and it must affect everything else too. I start to think of what this is and as it becomes more clear I notice there's something on it. There is some kind of red marking on it. It's like it's imprinted on the flames themselves.

As I keep focusing on what these marking on I feel myself leave my body. I feel myself being pulled into a different space and I when I open my eyes I am no longer in my cell. Instead, im standing in a circular room with doors in each direction. Almost all the doors are blank but a few of them have strange symbols on them. I look up and see that all there is above is darkness. There's no roof or anything just darkness with no light at all. The ground has the same symbol I saw on that black flame embedded in a weird red glowing marble. The rest of the ground and the room is a mixture of a black and white marble.

I walk towards a door that has an eye on it and I open the door. Inside I see a very plain room, but there is a giant crystal in the room. I look at the crystal, but all I see is blackness. I look for anything else and I even tried touching the crystal, but nothing changed. I leave the room and go towards the door that has a six point star marking it. Inside I find a giant library that seems to go on for ever. Almost all the shelves are empty though. I walk to one of the few books there are and when I try to open it, it doesn't open. I look around and see a pillar sticking out of the ground with an indent in it. I put the book on the indent and watch for a reaction. I look up at the strange images that are appearing above the pillar and feel shocked because these are showing parts of my life. This is one of the days that I was training when I was a young child. It was just the typical training regimen that I would always do with shadow, but I don't know why I am seeing it now. I forgot about this insignificant day, but watching it now I know it's real as I can remember it. I keep watching and I can guess every single thing that happens before it happens so I know this is a real memory.

I take the book off the pillar and run to grab another one to see which memory it is. I keep going through the books and wonder why this is all here. Why are my memories in these books and what is this place? I keep thinking of what this place is and then I wonder how I got in and how I will get out. I leave this library and stand where I came in. None of these doors seem like an exit so I don't know how to get out. While I'm thinking this the symbol I am standing on glows and I feel myself being lifted before I suddenly feel delirious as I close my eyes and when I open them again I am back in my cell chained up again. I look around and see that I am in the exact same spot as before and that Saras is gone. I also feel incredibly hungry even though I had just eaten a little while ago. While I was pondering what I just did I hear footsteps and Saras walks in. She looks into the cell and sees me standing in the middle of the room.

“Eva! You're finally awake. You've been ignoring me for a whole week now. I kept trying to call you, but you just sat there.” I go wide eye and realize that my meditation session took longer than I thought. I'm just not sure how much time it took meditating and how much time I spent in that weird space. “You must be hungry. Hold on I'll run and get you some food.” It seems she has begun to understand me even though I won't speak to her if she can tell that I'm hungry just like that. I sit back down and keep thinking of that space. I think I may have been inside my own mana heart which is completely unheard of. I know the people that would have the most knowledge on these things are the dragons, but I absolutely can't trust them so, for now, I will spend my time training my body and meditating. I will wait in this cell till I'm released or I am given the chance to escape.

“Eva I brought you food so here you go. I always have to bring you a lot because you always starve yourself like this. Eva, I know you won't forgive me but I will stay here to make sure you are all right until I can persuade my parents to let you out. You don't have to speak to me if you don't want to. I will still make up for what I have done so please let me do that.” She looks at me pleadingly. I stare at her and feel some rage, but when I think of her true form I also feel fear. I just nod my head towards her and continue eating.

While I eat Saras keeps talking about the dragon tribe and how their hierarchy works. Apparently, there are multiple families in this valley that all make up the dragon tribe. Each family has a family head that can be either the oldest wife or husband. It seems like a dragon will marry a different type of dragon and the offspring would usually be one or the other. They don't have to marry only their own type. Saras's parents are both just coincidently wind dragons and she somehow ended up as a variant. While Saras is explaining her family life I had finished my meal and began working out again. Saras proceeds to talk about how all the other families want the children to marry her because she's a variant. Because of all the other boys around her with ulterior motives she's only ever trusted her brothers who simply enjoy treating her like a princess. She asked me if her experience is really how a princess is treated and I only scoff as I remember only my parents, sister, Julie, and Cathy ever acknowledged me as a princess. My mind started to wander towards them so I shook my head and focused back on training my body.

Saras kept talking and talking for hours without end till I got up and laid on my bed. At this point, she said goodnight and left herself. The following days these patterns continued with my training and meditating while Saras brings me food and talks to me about various things. Slowly the days started to merge together and I lost track of time. How ever long it was the only person I talked to in this time is Saras so I wondered how they were doing their research on me without seeing me. The regular pattern did change one day when Saras didn't show up, but three other dragons.