The hidden whispers

When the assassin woke up, we wanted answers to our questions and decided to take off the assassin's mask, and to my absolute shock it was none other than Julia. I immediately asked Julia “Are you fine Julia, what happened!?”, but before I could continue Errukia grabbed his knife and said “Be careful Matthew she just attacked us remember!” I told him “She must have had a reason”, but he said “We should be careful who we trust, she could also be a puppet!” I didn’t understand what that meant and untangled her from her ropes and in that moment a fairy flew out of her pocket and whispered in her ear and suddenly her behavior changed and she dashed at us with clear intent to kill us, but something stopped her and she ran away instead.

I said to Errukia “Tell me absolutely everything you know and leave nothing out of it”. I was in shock of what just happened and all I could do was ask God “What in the world is happening?”, but this time I didn’t get an answer. I prayed for both Julia and John that they would be fine. I felt fear like that time when we stood before Sol and thought we would die. But I reminded myself that God said that I needed to trust him.

Errukia told me that the whole nation of Izadi was in all out war with the dark knights 20 years in the past, but after the fall of Itxaro the leader of Izadi Eregla started to lose hope and he started to isolate both the people of Izadi and himself from the rest of the world out of fear. And overtime people started to seem like they had no freewill nor any ability to think on their own as if they were puppets. Then suddenly those who still had any will left were arrested and either lost their will or disappeared never to be seen again.

My family was a part of those who still had freewill left and they disappeared when I was really young, Errukia told me. “More than that I don't know, but I do have a suspicion that it has something to do with that fairy we saw just now,” Errukia said.

“I don’t know what to say, other than sorry for your loss. Now it is time for me to tell you who I am and what I know” I said to Errukia. Then I told him about who I am and what we did and know. “So it is a dark knight that is behind this…” Errukia said in a fearful voice. I told him there is no reason to fear when you have God on your side! He stopped shivering and nodded. And then we heard the door open to our headquarters and John entered in and immediately I drew the Sword of the Spirit and apologized to John “Sorry John, but if you are sane I will explain everything later, for now Errukia can you do a pat down on him to see if he has any fairies on him”, and Errukia checked and found nothing but small amounts of rations and a knife “He is safe, most likely” Errukia said. I asked John “Where did we meet?”John answered and said “In a town which was attacked by Amets”. “He is safe,” I said to Errukia.

I then told John everything. “We really are in a bad spot aren’t we” John said. “I asked him, do you know something more?” and he said the “Fairies on their own they are weak, but Esmerelda uses her power to transmit her ability to manipulate others through fairies. She tells them what to whisper in the victims ear and controls their mind without their knowledge of anything being wrong. I know because I saw it happen inside the mansion of the Leader. A fairy being planted next to the ear of a sane person. I also found a clue leading to Esmerelda. It may be that she is hidden in plain sight because the clue said that she is hidden under a large tree which looks obviously different to the other trees around”

I was lost in what we should do so I asked God “Where do you want us to go? Help me Lord, help me. I trust you. And God answered and said “Matthew I need you to treat me not only as Lord, but also as a friend. Trust that I will pave a way for you to go forward and take that step of courage”

I tried talking with God for a moment not only as a follower of his, but as a friend. Not rude, but not just big words that mean nothing. And I thanked him for his presence, grace, and kindness.

Errukia said there is one place that is like that, but not the place we are looking for. It was destroyed by Sol during the war 20 years ago.

I asked Errukia to take us there. It took a while but then we saw it. A humongous tree of coal and everything else was just all burnt around it. Errukia said “This was the last of the great tree species left. It used to be one of the most beautiful things in all of Izadi, but now it is just coal. I think the info we have is a dud. We should move on to some other location”.

But then John saw it just when we were about to leave.A fairy going inside of the tree of coal. And he said to us “I just saw a fairy flying to the middle of the tree and it went inside the gap in the tree of coal. We should follow it inside the tree”. Me and Errukia agreed and we started walking towards the stump of coal. The climbing to the crack in the tree was very difficult due to the coal breaking so easily.

And then after an hour long climb we arrived at the gap. We carefully looked inside and it was completely hollow. We decided to head down and investigate.

But little did we know that we would regret that soon.