Chapter 20: An Extra Piece to the Puzzle

The room was dark with a hunt of sunset setting in the distance I could see as it seeped through the window as my eyes started to open. In the awakening, I looked round to see that I wasn't in a place which was familiar to me maybe it was once upon a time but not right now. I was led on a king sized bed just like my own one at home however, the covers weren't of the same material and it didn't have the same thickness as my one did at home. The colour was definitely not mine because my covers had always been teal with variations of grey and white followed with it also it had circular patterns trailing all the way along it so the fact that this wasn't mine own covers cleared the air and I knew I wasn't at home. These covers were more of a dark burgundy red and the wooden poles which held the bed together had the same coloured curtains trail itself all the way round the bed. Its pattern was as unique as it had carvings of a neat spiral trail all the way to the top without a pine out of place. The rest of the room contrasted to the bed because the walls were almost a pale cream if it didn't have a crystallised glow to it, the framing of the desk in the room was put together nicely with a obscure colour to it and over across to the window it was a set of doors which led onto a balcony. As I lay on this bed I could tell that I was comfortable and I wasn't afraid of where I was, in a way something inside me told me that in this place I felt a belonging and that was the reason why it seemed increasingly familiar to me.

My hands were clutched onto the covers tightly but my head felt really sore to even think for a few seconds. The better look I got of the place after I pushed myself up from the bed and sat against the back frame I noticed at least a hint to where I was. The place looked oddly familiar to me from the last dream I had, I was spying a conversation with my aunt, father and a woman named Xira. I must have got back into bed after that conversation or something or this was a different moment entirely. When my eyes scanned back through the room they landed directly on the doors which led onto the balcony. Past the glass window I could see a figure standing at the barrister looking out into the distance as the sun was making its final set. From where I was I could see that they looked sad which could be due to something they are thinking about. In a way, my body felt scared because even though this place was familiar to me there was something else here that put me on edge and I didn't know what was going on. I slipped out from the bed carefully and let my feet touch the ground which almost felt ice cold to the touch and at the moment I realised I had nothing on my feet; now with me wishing that I did. As I pushed away from the bed, I felt my weight be lifted and unlike most of my other dreams where I was at a young age as I walked slowly past one of the mirror on the desk I looked to be around the age of 10 meaning now everything was creeping up to be at a quicker rate than I wanted it to or all my memories were just coming back to me in random formations.

I found my way over towards the doors to the balcony and I silently pushed them open out onto another freezing material for my feet to bear through. At this moment however, it didn't show much of an importance to me because I found that my mind was more focused on the figure in front of me who now appeared to be a woman. She had beautiful long auburn hair which fell down her back nicely and flew to the side slightly due to the wind. She still had herself rested against the barrister of the balcony and the temperature of the stone didn't seem to bother her as much as it did me. "Where are we?" my voice disrupted her thoughts as she casually looked round to face me but as she did so I watched as she removed a small tear falling down her face. As her eyes locked onto my figure she just stared for a matter of moments and let a gradual small smile fall onto her face; as she looked at me that was a sense of reassurance between us and also a sense of love within her eyes as if she loved me as if I were her child as well. She had to kneel down in front of me slightly because I seemed too short for her eye level. "How was your sleep Wilhelmina?" that name again, when anything seems serious my full name gets introduced "Willow," my voice spoke softly before finishing with a mutter "It's just Willow." Her smile reappeared brighter on her face "I know, young one," I couldn't help but smile back as I felt extremely comfortable in her presence.

I walked over to stand by her side on the balcony and as I did so it hit me that her voice seemed familiar to me as well, just like everything else did. That's when I realised, the person I was talking to was Xira but right now in this moment I didn't know her, she was a complete stranger to me. Again everything else I've dreamed came back to me but most specifically my last dream. My father wanted to wipe our memories away most importantly my own and Xira was the one who said she could make that happen and that is what must have happened here. It must have already happened because I don't seem to remember this place and Xira seems like a stranger to me at least during this moment in time. As I stood next to her side now with all this in my head the dream girl of me spoke "This place is beautiful. It's nothing like my home." From the corner of my eye I could see Xira's gaze focus back onto the horizon with me before answering "That's because it isn't. This is the kingdom of Los Royaux, my home and my people," her reply was gentle as she gestured to the whole of her kingdom. Now even I and the dream girl of me had no idea what this place was because we were in the same boat: our memories of the place we once knew as a child were gone. After that I just stared out into the open, stared out towards her kingdom and what I saw were children laughing in the fields and fisherman coming home from their day at sea and it made me wonder how the world I live in now turned out to be how it is when it used to look beautiful just like this.

"I really like your home, it reminds me of a place I saw once in a dream," there was the confirmation as my soft whisper spoke. My memory had been wiped and the place was vaguely familiar to me but only in the mind, only in a dream. The chuckle which came from Xira was bearable but you could tell that it was nervous because she knew the truth that I did or that I do just that I don't remember it "Speaking of your home, I think it's time you go see your family downstairs. They've been worried sick about you," I smiled widely at her even though it wasn't my choice to do so it's reality, this is something that already happened so I had no control on changing the past "I'm ten years old, I can handle myself," she sighed heavily and turned her head fully away from me so I couldn't see the emotion in her eyes but I'm sure I could guess it "I'm sure that you can but the case still remains you are only ten. Now come on your family is downstairs waiting for you," she extended her hand down towards me whom I seemed to take willingly and she led me back inside and the picture faded from view.

When the picture started to come back into focus I found that the sun crept in through the window making Yvette's room almost sparkle from it. I blinked a couple of times to regain my sight without anything blurring in my way. I found that I had made my way on the other side of the bed out of Hayden's arm wrapped around me like it was the night before and when I twisted my body round I found that he wasn't there. "So look who decided to finally wake up," I heard a voice come from across the room; when my eyes dashed over towards that area I saw him stood there leaning up against the frame with his arms crossed against his chest with a smile pressed on his face. "What time is it?" I asked wondering how long I had been asleep for because judging by his reaction I'd been asleep for ages. "It's one o'clock," I shot up from the bed in shock and looked at him wide eyed as he laughed at my reaction "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" he waltzed his way over to and took his seat back in the bed next to me and starting speaking sarcastically "Well you just looked too peaceful sleeping there with your hair flapped all over your face, the covers you held onto tightly, how you cuddled the pillow as if it were your best friend and the snoring how could I forget the snoring. How could I ruin such a sweet image, tell me do you usually sleep like that or did you just have a very deep sleep," immediately I lifted the pillow up from behind me and smashed it into his face as he quickly raised his hands up to block the attack "I don't snore," he pushed the pillow down in between us and laughed "I know I made that part up," I lifted the pillow back up and hit him one more time playfully.

"Alright, alright I'm sorry!" he squirmed slightly removing the pillow from my hands "Besides Yvette told me you hadn't been sleeping well at late so I didn't want to ruin that one for you," I smiled slightly at him as my way of saying thanks before jumping out of bed, removing some clothes from the wardrobe and heading to the bathroom to get ready. "Hey Willow can I ask you something?" I heard him call from the room after I shut the door behind me "Yea what is it?" I called back out to him. Just as he was asking the question, I removed my bed wear and replaced it with my skirt with the spiked belt and pleated affect going down above my knees and adding the jeaned material bottoms underneath and finished with my black corset and fur hood. "Um, Wilhelmina?" As I exited the bathroom I looked at him as he raised an eyebrow at the questioning of my full name. "Don't even go there," I raised a hand making a gesture to make it seem that I was putting the explanation away. "Why didn't ever tell me your full name?" I put on my boots while answering him "Because it's horrible and embarrassing," he couldn't help but laugh at me as I told him "It's not that bad Willow," I looked at him and gave him my serious look as he threw his hands up in surrender "Or maybe it is, but I wouldn't have poked fun," I shook my head at him "Yea whatever, now come on if I remember rightly you have some explaining to do." He nodded back at me and we both headed down the spiral staircase to see Yvette putting food down on the table for the three of us.

"Willow finally your awake," she spoke with almost a hint of joy in her voice but then it almost had an eager tone to it as if I'd wasted so much time on something. Hayden and I took our seats at the table and the three of us just started eating. Well at least they did, I was just playing with the food not really feeling the appetite to eat. "So Hayden, you said that your mother sent you here because she told you Xira and I would understand, what did she mean by that?" Yvette started the conversation and it was clear to me this was the time I wasted; she wanted to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. "I think it's better if I start from the beginning." Hayden began making eye contact with the both of us. "When you got your memories back, start from there," Yvette recommended for him as a starting place; he nodded as a reply and placed his cutlery down meaning he was really going to get to the point and didn't want to leave anything out. "I got my memories back when I was 16. After I turned 16 I started having dreams of people and the things that they could do. I didn't know what it all meant and it was getting worse each time. I told my mother about it and the fear in her eyes frightened me most of all because it was clear she knew the answer. Over time, the memories which were coming back became to settle in my brain and I knew that I had to accept then, the more that I did I learned the truth and I remembered every detail about my past. So I confronted my mother about it because I wanted clearer answers.

She told me about the four elements and how we had close alliances with kingdoms Ivna who controlled the water element, Oro Encantandor who controlled the air element and Shadowwyn who controlled the fire element which left us the kingdom of Valhurst where we controlled the earth element. The power of the elements had been passed on down through the generation and in this one the people who controlled these elements were myself for earth, Jayden for fire, Ziva for air and Nathan for water the only anonymous result in everything was Willow because the water element didn't pass on to the oldest heir of Ivna. Having this in mind Alesandro used Willow in his plan as he believed she was the key for the prophecy. In doing so, he gave her something which was unexplainable; she could control water, fire, earth and air as well as her own type of magic...chaos magic. My mother explained to me how we all tried preventing it from happening, we tried to stop Alesandro but it was too late and it had already been done. The power created turned out to be dangerous and all our parents, Willow's, mine, Ziva's all except for Jayden's father Alesandro were scared about what it could do. However, Ziva, me and Jayden we believed differently and we were there for Willow just like her siblings were but it didn't matter because our parents wiped our memories about each other and separated each of us so we'd never see each other again. However learning all this, my life changed and I found out that Jayden's memory was never wiped because his father prevented it but Jayden changed in his ways and was manipulated by his father to believe everything that his father does and became the person he is today.

In my dreams though it made me remember the friendship I had with each person from each kingdom and how we seemed inseparable. It made me see the truth through my own eyes but my mother's knowledge helped me understand further." I shook my head at Hayden because this was all information which I already knew. I knew why I have the magic I do, I know vaguely I had friends in the past at least now I know all their names including this Ziva character but where was this going? "Hayden I've told Willow all this, but what is it Elyria sent you to me for?" he took a sigh to grab a mouth of air I presume before carrying on "We all knew that Willow destroyed the water element after what Alesandro did to her so that her brother paid the price and got cursed. It seemed that my mother did some digging of her own during the years and she found something," both mine and Yvette's eyes peered onto Hayden hard real eager to know what she found "She said that the water element is still alive, it's lost somewhere but if found Nathan can control the water element again, the balance will be put back into place and the curse will be broken." I slipped to the back of my seat and dropped my knife and fork to just sit there in a complete daze. When I looked over at Yvette she didn't have a look of surprise on her face but a sense of realisation and a look which represented a new secret was out. "You knew didn't you?" Yvette looked my way as I broke the silence "You knew that it was still out there didn't you?"

"Yes Willow I did. But it's not that simple, after everything that happened Xira and I searched for it but we couldn't find it anywhere. Even Alesandro was looking for it but none of us found a trace of it until a few years ago. Elyria caught sight of something and informed Xira and me but none of us contacted Alesandro because we didn't know what his intention for it was and we still don't." I slammed my eyes towards and plummeted my hand down on the table "You lied to me, I trusted you to tell me everything! Why didn't you tell me that there was a chance it was still out there?!" I screamed towards her because now I wanted more answers more than I have ever done before. "I couldn't tell you Willow because we found out the important key thing we were missing to find the water element," before I could even answer and channel my rage again Hayden stepped in for me "What do you mean you were missing something? What was it that you were missing?" Yvette took a huge sigh; she looked away before making eye contact with the both of us again "The reason the element couldn't be found was because the thing we were missing was what destroyed it to be begin with. Only Willow is able to find the water element because she's the one who destroyed it."