Chapter 77-The dark forest

Chapter 77: 77-The dark forest

Maisa needed to get away from the cemetery after the request Zolani made to her.

She stayed beside Zolani for another few minutes, pretending that the tightness in her chest had nothing to do with the photograph resting beside the grave.

She listened while Zolani spoke softly about Zoe, about the little things her sister used to do, about how she would steal sweets from the kitchen and then blame her when she was caught.

Maisa smiled when she was supposed to, laughed quietly when Zolani laughed, and nodded whenever the conversation called for it. All the while, a terrible secret sat behind her ribs, growing heavier with every word.

Eventually, Maisa rose. "I think I need a little air," she said, not sure if she had agreed to help Zolani kill her later on or not. Her head was buzzing too much for her to make sense of it.

Zolani looked up at her. "Are you all right?"

"I will be." Maisa managed a small smile. "I just need to walk for a bit."

Zolani studied her face for a moment, clearly unconvinced, but she didn’t stop her. "Don’t go too far."

"I won’t."

Maisa turned away before the guilt in her expression became too obvious. She had barely walked two hundred tombs away when three familiar figures appeared between the graves.

Sophia Thornheart stood in the middle, her blue uniform standing out beneath the pale moonlight. Jane Vonderheide was beside her, and Kriza leaned casually against one of the old stone monuments, her blackblood uniform making her look particularly severe beneath the cemetery lamps.

"Maisa!" Sophia called.

Maisa stopped and looked at them. Other than Kriza, she couldn’t remember interacting with either of the two other vampires.

The three approached her. Their steps were matched, almost seeming coordinated.

"Lumi sent us to find you," Jane explained.

Maisa’s eyebrows lifted. "Lumi?" she wondered what Lumi could possibly want with her when they had just parted not too long ago.

Sophia nodded eagerly. "She prepared something for you and wanted us to escort you to her," she sounded excited and harmless.

"Something?" Maisa’s brows knitted together.

"A surprise," Kriza added. "She felt terrible about you not being able to bring you with her to the graveside earlier, so she wanted to make it up to you."

Maisa hesitated, she had a strange reluctance to follow incase Lumi wished to talk about her father whom she knew her mother had killed. She couldn’t handle going down another grieving trip. But since the meeting wasn’t in a graveside, she figured she was overthinking it.

After what had happened with Zoe, the thought of seeing Lumi was strangely comforting. Lumi had always been thoughtful in her own quiet way. Even when she was suspicious of Maisa, there had been an underlying softness in her. Maybe spending time with her would help push the cemetery from her thoughts for a while.

"What did she prepare?"

Sophia smiled. "You’ll have to see it yourself."

Maisa looked back toward the cemetery. For one fleeting second, her eyes found Zolani’s distant figure.

She wanted to go back, to tell her everything but she couldn’t so perhaps a distraction was exactly what she needed.

"All right," Maisa said. "I’ll come with you."

She was so glad to have am excuse to stay away from returning to Zolani’s side a little longer that she failed to notice the wicked snickers and malicious glances the three vampires shared at her acceptance.

"Good." Jane gestured for her to follow. "Stay close."

The three girls suddenly broke into a run. Maisa blinked before following right behind them. They weren’t moving at anything close to their maximum speed, which made the journey surprisingly easy.

Kriza was a blackblood and therefore naturally faster than Maisa, Sophia’s blueblood speed was also considerable, while Jane’s mixedblood abilities placed her somewhere between the stronger and weaker bloodlines. Yet all three deliberately kept their pace slow enough for Maisa to remain beside them.

They crossed the enormous cemetery grounds, weaving between ancient monuments and towering mausoleums. The further they went, the older the surroundings seemed to become.

Some graves were so ancient that their inscriptions had almost disappeared beneath moss. Others belonged to entire families, their names carved together into enormous slabs of stone.

Eventually, the cemetery gave way to an ancient street. The road was narrow and uneven, lined with old buildings whose stone walls had survived centuries of weather.

Moonlight spilled between crooked rooftops, creating long strips of silver across the pavement.

Maisa followed the girls until the street ended abruptly at the edge of a fores where a carpet of pale primroses grew along the boundary.

Maisa slowed down after the three vampires stopped. "Primroses?"

Sophia glanced back nervously, she thought that Maisa had already learnt of the forbidden dark forest surrounded by primroses. She met Jane and Kriza’s eyes and looked to them for a way out.

Kriza motioned for her to relax and not give anything away. Sophia swallowed her panic and acted innocent again.

Maisa smiled faintly. "That’s almost too convenient. Primrose flowers outside Professor Primrose’s forest route."

The three stared at her and then Sophia laughed, feeling relieved that Maisa had no idea about rhe forest. Her laughter sounded forced but Maisa who was busy admiring the flowers didn’t notice.

Jane joined in a second later, her laugh was also forced and Kriza gave a short chuckle that sounded even less convincing. ℯℯ𝑙.

Maisa frowned. "Wasn’t that funny?" She asked Kriza and Jane, she noticed the tenseness in their laughter.

"Of course it was," Sophia said quickly.

"Very funny," Jane agreed.

Kriza merely nodded with a forced smile. She couldn’t bring herself to express sincerity to Maisa. The girl annoyed her to many bits.

Something about their reactions felt strange but Maisa’s mind was still clouded by the cemetery, and she didn’t dwell on it.

Sophia pointed toward the forest. "Lumi already spoke with Professor Primrose about your absence. She’s waiting for you beyond the primroses."

Maisa looked toward the trees. "How far out in the forest is she?"

"Not far. Just beyond the trees," Sophia said without pointing in any direction, Maisa didn’t notice that strange behaviour.

"Shouldn’t one of you come with me?" She turned around, looking away from the flowers.

Sophia smiled."She asked us to bring you to the border. She said she’d take it from there."

"Plus, she said she wanted to be alone with you. Not sure why though..." Jane added.

That sounded like Lumi to Maisa and so she nodded. Since the bond couldn’t be revealed, she didn’t press the matter incase one of them puts two and two together and gets back know why she had grown close to Lumi and the other fiery four.

"Okay," she agreed.

She took a deep breath.The air beyond the flowers smelled different. It was cooler, older and there was something earthy beneath the scent of the primroses, something she couldn’t quite identify.

Still, she stepped forward. The moment her foot crossed the line of flowers, everything changed.

Sophia, Jane, and Kriza smirked at the same time. Kriza glanced at Maisa’s back, her eyes finally showing the hatred she had for the girl. ’Dont you like collecting expensive and rare trophies. Have fun in this rare place,’ she thought.

All three of them turned around and run at their true speed and vanished from sight in a blink of an eye.

Maisa stared after them. "Wait... what direction should I go...?"

They disappeared so quickly that she barely had time to process what she had seen or which direction they run towards.

"Guys?" she called, no one answered her. She turned toward the forest. "Lumi?" she called once more.

Silence answered her calls. Maisa’s brows furrowed. She spun around and hurried back toward the flowers. Just then, her dress caught on something.

"Ow!"

She stopped. A thorn had caught the fabric near her ankle and scratched her skin. It was barely more than a tiny cut. Normally, it would have disappeared almost immediately. Maisa ignored it and went to free her dress.

Maisa tugged at the fabric. "Come on..."

The thorn refused to release her, she pulled again and nothing happened. Finally, after nearly a minute of struggling with it, the fabric came free.

Maisa rubbed the spot where she’d been scratched and then she froze. The cut was still there and a small drop of blood was spilling out.

She stared at it and her stomach tightened. "I’m a vampire," she let out and touched the wound again. "I have accelerated healing. So why isn’t my would healing?"

Yet the small injury remained exactly as it was which made a cold sensation crawled up her spine.

"What is this place? What is going on here?" Panic started to set in.