“It looks like it’s alive,” I whispered. In spite of the fact that I had been told numerous times that nothing outside the wards could hear me, I still couldn’t bring myself to quite buy into it when I was feeling insecure. It felt oppressive, almost like it kept getting heavier and heavier.
“It’s not natural. It is, in a way, imbued with the life its maker granted it, even if it is only a temporary animation. It is definitely not friendly though. There are only a few beings who have the kind of power required to create this type of presence here on Earth, and then maintain it for more than a few minutes.
“None of them are ones I want to engage with here. I think I should make for the portals and see if I can discover where it is being sent from. It cannot reach you here, and we need the knowledge to decide how to best proceed. If I had any concerns that we weren’t safe, I would just banish it, but I don’t want to do that for a couple of reasons. One, it lets the creator know we are here, and tells them we have something to hide. Two, I may not be able to tell who sent it after it’s gone, and I’d really like to know.”
We decided she should head out as soon as we had eaten, and she gathered her things while I got a meal together. We hadn’t been sitting at the table for more than a minute or two when Xavier cocked his head.
“Do you hear something?” he asked, craning his neck to the front window.
Mom and I both shook our heads until it came again. This time I heard it too.
“Amara…. Amara….” The sound was barely above a whisper.
The three of us ran to the front window, looking out. It had not quite grown dark yet, and the mist still had us surrounded.
“Amara…. I have something that belongs to you…. I know this is yours, because he has traces of your magic….”
We looked at each other, confused. What could they possibly have that my mother would want?
“He must be important, since he won't talk no matter what we do to him...”
As we watched, a humanoid form took shape at the edge of the trees. It hovered there, barely discernible through the mist, but began to solidify before our eyes. I unconsciously leaned forward, trying to see better, when the form was shoved up against the barrier.
“Taryk!” I jumped from my position at the window and rushed to the front door. The only thing that kept me from running out was my mother’s power keeping the door shut. “Let me out!” I screamed at her, as she came to my side and grabbed my arm.
“Everleigh! That is NOT him. Calm down. At the very most, it’s a hologram. He is not out there, I promise you.”
I struggled against her, even though my brain knew what she said was correct.
“Right now, they do not know you exist. If you go running out there and all that could change. We absolutely must be smart about this.”
“But whoever they are, they have him!” I was sobbing at this point. He’d been captured because I drove him away, where he would have been safe after bonding with him and tying our magic to him. I had pretty much painted a huge target on his back. “This is all my fault!”
“No, honey, it isn’t,” my mother hugged me tightly and reassured me. “The only one at fault here is whoever did this. Nobody else. Evil is only responsible for itself. There was no way we could have known. If I’d had any idea, I never would have let him go home. Something must have happened to draw their attention to him.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, it IS my fault!” I quickly told my mother about reaching out through our bond to try to make contact, and how he shut me down. I had been so hurt at the time it hadn’t occurred to me until right this second that he had been trying to protect me.
From seemingly nowhere her cloak had appeared, and she was ready to go. “I am going through the portals and I will bring him back. Stay inside no matter what. While the wards will protect you, they may sense that someone is still here, even after they know I am on the other side.
“We don’t want to call any more attention to the cabin, especially while I am gone and may not be able to head back here straight away if there is a problem.” She grabbed my cheeks and looked me straight in the eyes. “I will bring him back or die trying.”
“No! I cannot lose you both. If you can’t bring him back, you come back to me, and we will all go. Between us, there is enough power to get him free. I will practice all I can while you are gone, just in case. But I know you can do it.”
We hugged fiercely, and she walked out the door, striding to the waterfall while not acknowledging the mist, or the image of Taryk at the opposite side of the clearing. I stared at him for a few minutes, wishing I had some way to let him know help was coming, that he wasn’t alone. I couldn’t bear to watch the figure, even though I knew it didn’t truly exist. Headed for the training room, I beckoned for Xavier to follow me.
As we entered the study, I paused briefly, wondering if there was anything I should be looking to do besides practicing my magic. “Help me, please, Celeste,” I begged. “Is there anything I can do to help him?”
There was a brief shimmer in the center of the room, although her form did not appear. “I am sorry, child. My magic cannot reach the other realms in this form, and I cannot help you.”
We continued down to the training room, where I hoped to occupy my brain with something other than whatever my mother needed to do in the other realms to bring Taryk back to us.
Consumed with worry for both of them, I wasted no time in getting back to practicing my magic. I wanted to focus on offensive tactics straight away, but Xavier remained adamant we perfect defense first.
“If, for some reason, you find yourself trapped, you can shield yourself almost indefinitely if you know how to maintain it. This also means if you find Taryk, and can’t get him out by yourself, you can shield the two of you from any type of attack. This will give us time to get back to your side.”
Of course, as soon as he appealed to my need to protect Taryk he had won, and he knew it. I would do anything to protect him and get him out of there.
Once Xavier agreed that I had done as well with my shielding as I was going to do, we moved on to offensive tactics. We focused on the subtle differences between straight up attacks, and attacks made from behind my shield. Now that he had his magic available, he did not hold back, and threw everything at me he could.
He had long since mastered using his own magic, and it showed. “Focus!” he demanded as a ball of magic tagged me square in the chest, knocking me flat on my ass.
“I am!” I sent my own ball spinning back his way, and the teal colored orb slammed into the wall behind him.
“You are relying too much on your eyes, and too little on your instincts,” he admonished me. “Remember that your body is naturally made for this, and it is more reliable than just using your eyes.”
“Old habits die hard,” I muttered, trying to follow his instructions.
For every one I landed on him, he managed to land at least three on me. By the time we finished, I dripped with sweat, but able to both hold a shield and muster an attack that would be somewhat effective at the same time.
I headed to the main room to check the journal to see if it contained a message from my mom. It did not, but I hadn’t exactly expected one. I’d certainly rather she focus on getting Taryk out of wherever he had been taken than be dashing off notes to us.
The mist had still not returned, so apparently she had gotten the attention of whoever had sent it just by being back in whatever realm she had gone to.
Xavier insisted we take at least a fifteen-minute rest, so we brought a snack out to the living room to eat in front of the fire. We sat side by side on the floor, my back resting against the sofa. I couldn’t help checking out the window as we ate, both to look for the mist and check the falls for signs of my mother’s return.
“Everleigh, I want you to know something.” He seemed very hesitant to begin this conversation, so I was more than a little afraid of what was going to follow. I couldn’t even form wor
ds, I just kind of stared at him. “If you need me to, I will return to my Fae form. I know I am of much more use to you with a humanoid body than I am as an overgrown cat. All you have to do is say the words, and we will change me back. I would do that for you without hesitation.”
I threw my arms around him in a hug, burying my face in his soft fur. “You don’t have to do that for me,” I cried. “I absolutely appreciate the offer, but I’d never ask you to do something like that. If you want to remain as you are, that is your decision, and I will respect that always.”
“Just know that if there comes a time where you need me, I will be there. In any form the situation requires.”
Damn him for making me cry again. I’d never thought of myself as a crier, but, man, lately that seemed to be on the agenda every day. “I love you. Thank you for everything you have already done for me,” I whispered.
“I love you too…. little sister, even if you are technically older than me.”
We both had a good giggle at our personal joke, and then tried to decide what to do with the afternoon. I wanted to train more, and he wanted to relax for an hour.
He kept insisting that keeping the body well rested was part of keeping me healthy overall. The last thing we wanted, as he reminded me, was for there to be a time where I needed to be at the top of my game, but I had worn myself out practicing. I reluctantly admitted he was probably right.
“What’s that you say?” He leaned in closer to my face. “Can you repeat that, the part where you said I am right.”
I laughed, and shoved him off the edge, thrilled to have caught him off guard, because I usually couldn’t budge him an inch. Grabbing my pant leg with his teeth, he attempted to yank me off the couch, and I started laughing so hard I couldn’t even defend myself. “No fair,” I kept insisting, “no fair!”
Our leisurely break lasted the better part of two hours. After our impromptu wrestling match, we spent some time relaxing on the couch, and he told me stories of the realm our father had ruled, about the way things had been before the dark mage had overtaken it. I couldn't wait until we had the time to go through the things in my vault, so I could get a better sense of the realm and my father.
He filled my mind with stories about his brother and sisters, my half-siblings. He even told me about his mother, who he had obviously adored. I told him about growing up on Earth, how hard it had been when I didn’t understand my magic, and how most people here didn’t even believe in it.
“Did you spend much time being sad?” he asked.
“Honestly, no. I spent most of my childhood and teen years very happy, in spite of my strange situation. My adoptive parents loved me, I never doubted that. I was devastated when I lost them, and spent time grieving, but that's normal.”
Just as we were getting ready to return to the training room for another round, the falls gave off their telltale glow, the visibility around them dancing and warping in the midday sun. I rushed to the window to await the site of them coming from the portals, but only a single figure came through, hard to identify at first.
“What the…” When the body slumped to the ground, I became alarmed, and rushed for the door.
Xavier grabbed my shirt with his teeth, holding me back. “Everleigh, no! Let me go. You stay here.”
He bounded out the front door in an instant, headed for the figure crumpled in a heap just outside the water line. Using his powerful jaws, he grabbed the body by the shirt and dragged it. As they got closer, I could easily tell the figure was Taryk, and he had fallen unconscious.
His face appeared bruised and bloodied, and my anger grew fierce. Summoning my power, I used everything I had to bring his body the rest of the way to me, so I could get him to the couch. It took just about everything I had, but he made it indoors.
Gently, we situated him on the couch, and I grabbed what I needed to take care of his medical needs, beginning with cleaning him up so I could see the damage better. What had happened to my mother, and why hadn’t she come back with him? If she had died, I would know it, but that was the only consolation I had.
I put an ice pack on his horrific black eye and wiped the blood from his split lip. He also had a gash running from his eyebrow to his temple, which I also cleaned up. He gave a slight groan as I gently used the washcloth to get the blood off, but he did not regain consciousness. This was not good, not good at all.
I gently lifted his shirt to be sure no serious injuries were hiding on his torso, and found some pretty nasty bruising, but nothing that looked to be life threatening. Knowing he needed to stay hydrated, and unsure of whether he had been given any food or water during his captivity, I tried to spoon tiny bits of water into his mouth. Much of it seemed to dribble out, and I didn’t notice him swallowing at all, but we would just have to keep at it.
Xavier alternated between checking on the two of us on the couch and watching the falls. We were both eager to see my mother return and remained hopeful she would be following behind him shortly. Unsure how he would have gotten through the portal without her, I asked Xavier what he thought might have happened.
As far as I knew, she was the only being who could command the portals to open and transport. He agreed that was, indeed, the case, so my mother had to have been present to open it and shove him through, then close it while she remained on the other side.
The million dollar question was why? Any scenario I came up with was very unpleasant, and I tried not to dwell on the fact that whatever might be going on over there, it did not look good. The best I could do was wait for Taryk to wake and hopefully give us answers.
He remained unconscious for the better part of the afternoon and evening, and still we saw no sign of my mother, nor any communication from her. Worry began giving way to full blown panic, and Xavier did his best to keep me calm, in spite of his own concerns about the situation. Alternating between sitting at the edge of the couch, staring at Taryk, and waiting for him to wake, pacing a path in the carpet wasn’t getting me anywhere.
While tempted to go to the study to see if there was anything I could be doing for him, I didn’t actually want to let him out of my sight in case he did wake up. Not to mention, I wanted to see the falls when my mother made it back through and needed our help.
Darkness had fallen by the time Taryk began to shift restlessly in his sleep and make soft groaning noises. His eyebrows were drawn together, creating furrows in his forehead, and his lips were pressed together in a grimace. I knew he must be uncomfortable, even though he wasn’t conscious.
“I’m going to the study to see what we have back there that will help with his pain.” Threatening Xavier with a slow, painful, death if he did not call for me the very second Taryk opened his eyes, I headed down the hallway.
Entering the study, I took a deep breath, centering myself, calming my tumultuous thoughts as best I could. Taryk needed my help, and a very high chance existed that my mother would need me soon also. As Xavier mentioned earlier, we were nearing the time that I would need to be at the top of my game, and hysterics were not going to get me there.
Making my request of Celeste, I waited patiently. Within seconds a small green vial on the workbench began to glow. I picked it up, giving it a quick glance.
“Is this something I need him to drink, or...”
“Yes, have him swallow as much of it as you can.” Her voice seemed to come from all corners of the room, almost echoing off the walls.
“Thank you.” I rushed out the door and back down the hallway. Realizing that I hadn’t even verified what, exactly, this potion was supposed to do for him, I paused. She had not steered me in the wrong direction yet, so I just needed to give it to him and wait to see what happened.
I had, after all, originally asked for pain relief, so I cautioned myself not to be anxious if it didn’t wake him right away. Sometimes it was best to sleep through the worst of it when you had a fresh injury.
Gently tilting his head to the side to avoid choking, I hoped, I pou
red about half the vial of clear, thin, liquid into his cheek pocket, and massaged it gently, then repeated the motions with the last half of the bottle. Thankfully, he swallowed without choking, but remained in a deep sleep.
After attempting to get more water into him, Xavier suggested I try to get a nap, promising he would keep watch, and wake me at the first sign of any changes.
Unable to bear leaving his side, I compromised, and dragged one of the arm chairs as close to the couch as I could get it. Add a pillow and blanket from my bed, and this would do for now. Making sure that I could see directly out the window to the falls as long as my eyes remained open, I allowed myself to try to drift off to sleep.
A piercing scream caused me to jerk upright in the chair where I had apparently slumped over and managed to fall asleep, even if only for an hour or so. Taryk's eyes were wide open, but unseeing, and whatever scene he had playing in his mind must have been absolutely terrifying.
His entire body lay stiff as a board, his muscles tight and unyielding, almost vibrating with tension. He skin burning as if he had a terrible fever. I tried desperately to wake him, but he didn’t even acknowledge my presence.
“Xavier, what do we do?” I asked as he screamed again. Before Xavier had even been able to come up with any suggestions, the scream died off into a low groan, and his eyes closed. The stiffness left his body, and his limbs went limp. The screaming had reopened the split in his lip, and, for some reason, that small trickle of blood unnerved me more than the original injuries had.
“Taryk, please wake up. Come back to me. You are safe now. Please, wake up!”
My begging fell on deaf ears, and I was near tears when Xavier reminded me that I may be able to use our bond to reach him. Unsure if the shield he had put between us would still be there, even without his conscious effort to keep it up, I agreed I needed to try. Even if it remained in place, it must be weaker when he was not focusing on its maintenance.
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