Chapter 106-In her eyes

Chapter 106: 106-In her eyes

’I don’t deserve your feelings, Zolani. How can I? Because I am the biggest scar in your heart! I killed Zoe!’

The world stopped when she thought of Zoe. That name struck Maisa harder than any weapon could have. Her breath caught.

The sound of rain suddenly seemed distant. The little girl in the photograph at the grave came back to her. She thought back to the candle she lit for her and how painful that moment had been for her.

Zoe was her first kill. She could still remember the sight of blood covering her hands. Maisa’s stomach twisted and her fingers went cold.

She stared at Zolani. Zolani was still smiling at her, looking at her with affection and a rare devotion that comes with being in love.

The sweet vampire had no idea. She didn’t know that Maisa, the person she had promised to protect was the very person connected to the death she had mourned and still aches for in her heart.

Maisa’s lips parted. "Zolani..."

As Zolani looked into her eyes, anticipating her reply to the love comfession, her world crumbled. She suddenly froze.

Hr smile vanished and her eyes widened. Something had appeared inside Maisa’s eyes that caught her off guard. The blood trial was doing more than judging actions.

It judged the secrets that seeped out when the heart was opened. Every hidden sin, secret and deed buried beneath lies and forgotten memories, they all awakened under the blood rain.

And when the heart remembered, the eyes showed the truth and Zolani saw it.

Not as a vague memory or a suspicion. She saw it as though she were standing inside the moment herself.

She saw her sister, pushed against the wall with nowhere to run and a hunter holding a blessed weapon against her and the hunter’s face was clear as day. It was Maisa.

The same face, same eyes and the same person standing beside her now. Zolani’s fingers slowly loosened around Maisa’s hand as she processed what she had just seen.

Maisa noticed. She instantly thought her silence had led the girl to misunderstand it as rejection of her confession. She couldn’t have Zolani of all people misunderstanding her, "Zolani?" She called, meaning that explain herself.

Zolani didn’t answer her, she couldn’t. Her entire body had gone rigid. Her eyes remained fixed on Maisa, but the warmth that had been there moments ago was gone.

There was only devastation left in their wake. Zolani shook her head, she couldn’t believe what she saw but she also knew that truths revealed under the blood rain were real and true.

Zolani released Maisa’s hand. She couldn’t keep holding the hands that killed the person she loved the most in her life.

Maisa’s fingers fell uselessly at her side. "Zolani, what’s wrong?"

Zolani stumbled backward. Her lips moved but sound came out. The thunder drowned everything around her and the blood rain grew heavier.

"I once promised Zoe that I would kill the hunter who killed her," she remembered whispering to Maisa."When the time comes and we find the hunter who did this... will you help me get revenge?"

She choked. She felt like such a fool, having brought the killer to her sister’s grave and asked such a question of her.

The thunder rumbled and the blood grew even heavier and Maisa screamed. "AAARGHHHH!"

She dropped to her knees. The blood touching her skin had suddenly changed, the warmth it once carried vanished and replacing it was pain that exploded through her.

Maisa clutched herself as another wave of agony tore through her body.

Lumi immediately grabbed her. "Maisa!"

Maisa couldn’t answer her as she screamed again. The sound ripped across the trial grounds.

Lumi held her upright, panic flashing across her face. "Maisa, what’s wrong?"

"I...I don’t know!"

The words barely escaped her as another droplet touched her cheek. "Aaarghhhh!" She cried out.

The blood rain that had once seemed harmless now burned against her skin with unbearable intensity.

Everyone stared at her speechlessly. The spectators fell silent. They couldn’t understand why the tables had turned so suddenly when she had already been proven guilty.

Even Varitreya stood from her throne. Kriza, Sophia, and Jane were still suffering, but now nobody was looking at them anymore, all attention had turned toward Maisa.

"Why is she reacting now?" Someone whispered from the stands.

"She passed the trial."

"Then why is the blood hurting her all of a sudden?"

"Something changed. She isn’t guilty of the crime the others are burning for but something else. The blood is judging her for a different crime entirely."

Lumi looked desperately toward Varitreya. "Princess. Help her!"

Varitreya’s expression hardened. She stared at Maisa as though trying to understand something that shouldn’t have been possible.

The trial had already begun its judgment and Maisa had been proven innocent since she hadn’t initially felt any pain from the blood rain yet it had changed.

The blood was no longer merely testing whether Maisa had entered the Dark Forest unlawfully. It had found something else, something buried much deeper that she was guilty of that was hidden in her heart.

"What could it be that the blood rain found in Maisa?" She wondered.

Zolani stood several steps away. She couldn’t hear the questions around her, she couldn’t hear Lumi screaming Maisa’s name, and she couldn’t hear the thunder.

She could only see that memory replaying behind her eyes again and again.

Maisa standing among the Everheart hunters with a blessed weapon in her hands and Zoe, her little sister and the person Zolani had loved more than anything; the one she had failed to protect and the person she had just promised to protect Maisa for.

Zolani’s breathing became uneven. Her hand rose slowly toward her chest. It felt as though something had been torn out of her. Her eyes filled with disbelief. "No..."

The word barely existed beneath the thunder. She stared at Maisa. "Maisa..." her tone was full of heartbreak and pain.

The blood rain fell between them. Zolani’s lips trembled and then the truth finally escaped her in a broken whisper.

"Maisa is an... Everheart?" The truth burned her throat and mouth as it came out.

A memory flicked in her mind. "Tell me, Maisa. Can I count on you to help me kill the hunter who killed my sister?" She remembered asking Maisa.

"I will support you in all your endeavours," Maisa had given her word.

Zolani felt her heart feeling everything in heightened pace and then feeling nothing at all the next moment. ℯℯ𝑙.

"She is Maisa Loven... she is... Maisa Luriel Everheart!"

No one heard her as the loyd thunder swallowed the words and Maisa’s screams. The red clouds roared overhead and Maisa continued screaming beneath the blood rain, completely unaware that the secret she had feared most was no longer hers to keep.

Zolani looked at her one more time. This time, she didn’t see a weak redblood that needed protection or a friend she’d protected from the start until now and she certainly didn’t see someone she was falling in love with. All she saw was Zoe’s blood and all she heard was her screams.

"You looked me in the eyes, took my hand when i offered and enjoyed my protection when... when you are the monster that... killed my sister..."