Raised From The Wild-Chapter 438: Amaya’s Nightmare 2

Amaya shut her eyes and strained to remember—fragmented images spun in her mind like shards of broken glass. The Royal Chalet at Mount Latvana. Her room. She’d been lying on her bed, exhausted, lulled into a rare moment of peace.

Then the peace was shattered.

Without warning, the bed lurched violently. A deafening crack split the air as the floor beneath her gave way. She plummeted—weightless—into a darkness so complete it swallowed her scream. Cold air rushed past her skin. A soundless void. Then—nothing.

She felt she was hurled into oblivion.

She had been taken and someone or something was watching her.

Then she remembered her dream before it turned into a nightmare. Her mother’s face. Cirrus’s mournful howl. And that stone—glowing, humming with ancient power—the metal that Ibrahim catalogued as XX99.

Why? Why that dream?

She forced it aside and snapped her eyes open, gasping for air.

She was back in the white room. Blinding white. She pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming. She felt the pain, and she was sure that she was awake.

Sterile walls curved like a ribcage around her. Cold light pulsed from above and from the four walls of the room.

"Where am I?" Her voice rasped out, parched and raw like sandpaper dragged across rock. "Who brought me here?"

She shifted—only to find her wrists shackled. Metal bit into her skin. She was bound to a bed, sleek and unfamiliar, like something from a lab or a prison clinic.

"You’ve finally woken."

The voice slithered out of the walls, smooth and cool as ice water. A male voice, calm, dangerous, and disturbingly beautiful. A voice that didn’t need to shout—it knew it would be heard.

She scanned the room—but there was nothing, no speakers, no shadows. The voice came from everywhere.

"Who are you?" she snapped, her voice hoarse but sharp-edged. "Why have you taken me? Don’t you know who I am?"

A beat of silence. No one answered her.

But she felt the gaze—hot, meticulous, unrelenting. She closed her eyes because the light was too blinding.

Then: "Of course I know who you are, Princess." A low chuckle was heard across the room. "You’re smaller than I expected. And louder."

Smaller?

Amaya was confused. She was much taller than an average Lireyan for she inherited her height from her father.

She lifted her chin, nostrils flaring. "You’ll regret this."

Another chuckle—this one laced with cruelty.

"That’s what your father said before we gutted his guards and burned the edges of Miraga’s border."

Amaya’s brows furrowed. What was he talking about?

She opened her eyes, and it narrowed into a slit. "You’re bluffing. You don’t know what you are talking about. Miraga no longer exists."

Laughter filled the room. Wild and jagged, echoing around her like a thousand mocking ghosts.

"Perhaps," the voice purred. "Or perhaps not. The truth depends on how well your mind perceives it." His voice was smooth like music to the ears.

Then the door unlatched, nearly silent. Amaya heard it. Her hearing was unnaturally sharp now. Her childhood experience heightened her senses.

Three figures entered, ghost-like in head-to-toe white clothing. They were cloaked, their hands gloved, faces hidden behind sterile goggles. If Amaya didn’t have sharp vision and sharp senses, she could have missed them. They were spectral—blended into the room like living phantoms.

The one in the center approached with eerie calm, boots making no sound. He stopped at her bedside and crouched low—face inches from hers. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Behind the goggles, his eyes came into the light—dead gray eyes. Not human gray but too artificial, too pale, too cold. A thin silver earring curled like a serpent’s fang above the bridge of his nose.

Amaya’s stomach twisted. His eyes weren’t natural. Was he wearing contacts or implants? This was her thought when he gazed into those eyes unblinking.

Then she felt it. The pull of those gray orbs was like she was drowning in them. She forced herself to close her eyes, and it stayed that way for a few heartbeats.

The man laughed with mirth, then he stopped.

"You’ve been out for three days," he said quietly, almost tenderly. "We’ve moved locations twice. No one knows where you are. No one is coming."

He leaned in, close enough for her to smell something faint and metallic—like blood and ozone.

"I brought you here because you’re the key," he whispered. "To unlock what your father died trying to bury. You... and that glowing little relic of yours — "XX99," he said, savoring the name. "The precious stones that vanished along with your island."

Her breath caught.

She said nothing, but her silence betrayed her. He saw the flicker in her eyes.

"Oh yes," he breathed. "There’s a piece in the museum... but you and I both know that’s not all there is."

"There is no more. My father only catalogued it and did not think it to be any special." She said, her face flushing with anger. She was saying the truth. She did not know that Ibrahim had hidden some under a chest that she had given to Marx.

He stood and waved a hand, cutting her off. "Do you think I am a fool? We’ll talk more soon. But first... rest. You’ll need it for what’s to come."

He straightened, brushing her face with a gloved hand. The touch was light—almost reverent. A feather’s kiss. A threat disguised as a caress.

"You look prettier up close," he murmured. "Prettier than the last time I saw you."

Her pulse roared in her ears. Last time? Had they met before?

He turned to go.

"Wait!" she shouted. "Where am I. Who are you?"

He paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder.

"You don’t need to know."

And then he was gone.

The door slammed shut.

The bolt slid back into place with a cruel finality.

Amaya collapsed back, breath ragged, chest burning. Tears stung her eyes—not from fear—but fury. Raw, white-hot fury.

She had been taken from under the noses of trained security. Stripped of Excee, her AI watch, her lifeline to Lireya. If it was forcefully removed, Athena—the Skylar intel network—would’ve been triggered. She had to believe that.

And yet... the place she was in... it was unnatural. Time felt distorted. Was the ancient cell she glimpsed earlier a hallucination? A psychic manipulation? Or did this place shift with her mind?

They were playing games with her—psychological warfare. For the first time, Princess Amaya felt terror.

But beneath the terror, something inside her stirred. A spark. A pulse. Like the heartbeat of the glowing stone in her dream.

They had taken her but who took her? How formidable were they? Did she really slept for three days?

But she was Amaya, the First Princess of Lireya. The blood of royalty runs through her veins. How dare they take her? She would not stay taken.

She knew that Marx would come and find her. Her guards, too, and the security team of Lireya.

She would burn through every wall they built. She would escape. And when she did, they would learn what it meant to steal fire from a storm.