Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “He did it, Jax, I lost the battle against the Dazerarthro, and it nearly killed me.”

  “Yes, but that was then, this is now. You are stronger. We will figure it out, together.” I nodded, returned my wings and we quickly continued to my room.

  When we pushed open the door, a war zone lay before us. My dresser was on its back on the other side of the room, along with its drawers that looked as if they had been victim to a cherry bomb. My bed was in pieces across the floor, its legs ripped from their holdings and broken to bits. The beautiful stained glass of the balcony doors was shattered to pieces that speckled every surface and threw rainbows of color throughout the room. Only one square remained intact.

  “The book!” I wailed as I began sifting through the debris. “Where is it? I have to find it. Jax, I have to find it. Where is it? Do you see it?” Fear overcame my mind as I thought about just how dangerous that book could be in Traflier’s hands. Sure it only opened when I said my name, but I had left it open before, and I could not for the life of me remember closing it the last time I had read it. Not to mention that Traflier was an especially powerful Stalisies and if he wanted it open, he could probably find a way.

  Jax’s hand pressed on my shoulder. He spun me around and scooped me up in his arms. I pushed at him—I needed to find the book—but Jax was not taking my fear seriously. A cheeky grin plastered itself across his face. He grabbed my hands and pulled them around him.

  “It is not the time for this; we have to find the book!” I spat, and at that same moment, I pressed at something hard at his back. I flipped him around in excitement and lifted his shirt. Tucked securely within the back of his stonewashed jeans was the spell book, safe and sound.

  Jax laughed at me. In all this chaos, with a powerful Stalisies after us, with my room destroyed as if it had been witness to some great storm, Jax still found it appropriate to laugh. It was contagious, though, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little with him. I shoved at him again. This time he tripped back against the wall, pulling me along with him. In all this madness, I still had Jax.

  “I don’t want to spoil the moment, but we kind of have to get going,” Jax said, regaining his firm footing and lifting a bag from the floor.

  I nodded and started pushing aside the debris, searching for the floorboard where the ingredients for the many spells within that book lay hidden. Finally, I found it. Its edge sat raised ever so slightly, and for a moment, I thought whoever trashed my room must have found it. But when I lifted the board up, with the help of the blade my mother had given Moyeth, everything I had collected lay just as I had left it.

  I grabbed everything from beneath the floorboard while Jax packed a few clothes. After a quick glance back at the remains of my first home in Sayeesies, we headed for the border. I could have flown, carried Jax too, but not knowing what Traflier had told the Stalisies, we wanted to keep a low profile. We intended to make our way through the many back streets, folding our way in and out of the alleys and narrow paths, until we could reach the cover of the trees that sat just beyond the border.

  It was a good plan, at least in theory, but just as everything else that had happened since I’d arrived in Sayeesies, this too did not go the way we had planned.

  We heard them just as we approached the last of the houses before the clearing that marked the borderline—the hum of several people speaking at once. We could not make out their individual words; their voices, no longer their own, seemed to warp into one. They resembled the ventriloquist I had seen at school once. A man had come with a little wooden doll that looked oddly similar to the Chucky doll from those movies, the ones where the doll comes to life and slaughters the entire cast. The man moved the mouth of the doll and had used his own voice to speak for it. He was not an incredibly skilled performer; everyone could see his mouth twitching and his voice hardly changed at all when switching between his side of the conversation and the dolls.

  This, however was different.

  Jax and I turned to look at the Stalisies, now grouped no more than twenty meters away. Our mouths dropped. It was as if they were in a trance. Their eyes were glazed-over, and they marched in formation, like robots. There were at least thirty of them, ranging from the old to the young. The girl who had once insisted she did not need me to save her stood at the front of the line.

  Beside her, a boy who looked no older than seven raised his hand, giving us a sly grin; he fired from his palm what appeared to be a black lightning bolt.

  The bolt flew towards us, soaring just past Jax’s leg before bursting into the ground, leaving a crater the size of a basketball in its wake. The other Stalisies all raised their arms in unison.

  Jax squeezed my hand. “Des, we should run.”

  “Hello, my dear Desmoree.” They all spoke in unison. Jax gripped my hand tighter. Traflier had taken control of the Stalisies and was speaking through them, all of them. “There is no point in running, my dear. I will soon eradicate every trace of you and the Tanzieth. Surrender and I will make it quick, and possibly painless.” He paused. All of the Stalisies’ eyes glanced up as the Dazerarthro rose behind them. No part of it resembled Moyeth anymore. Its flesh was riddled with necrosis. Then he joined the other voices, all of them puppets, “No. Not painless, just quickly. You will all die screaming.”

  His voice, though masked by the many voices of the Stalisies, still held his twisted tone. I couldn’t move, it was all too surreal. It wasn’t until Jax pulled on my arm that I snapped out of my state and we ran. The bolts came loud and fast through the air; I could hear them burst from their hands and moments later as they exploded on impact with the ground. None hit us.

  I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw what appeared to be a giant yellow bubble trailing behind us. As the Stalisies fired again, the bubble absorbed the bolts, sending faint yellow sparks into the air around it.

  “How are you doing that?” Jax yelled as we continued to run, seeking shelter in the trees ahead.

  “I don’t know, I can sort of feel that it’s coming from me. It’s connected to me somehow, but I don’t know how I’m keeping it there. It would have come in handy when you tried to kill me, though.” We stopped when we reached the shelter of the border trees, their shield of magic which was supposed to keep Baldea separated from Sayeesies magic, now offered us some natural protection, but my bubble wall also dissolved against its invisible shield. We paused, mirroring each other’s pale disbelief at what had just happened.

  “Am I ever going to live that down?” Jax asked peering out at where the Dazearthro and Stalisies were.

  Then the black lightning assault stopped. “I’m not sure, are they still there?” I asked, and we peeked out from behind the tree line.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Jax said, taking my arm and turning me to face him. “Des, I really am sorry.”

  “I know you are. I just don’t get how you could do it, I mean I didn’t even look evil, I just looked like me and you stabbed me.”

  His brow creased in the middle as his eyes fell a little at the sides, “I don’t know, I wasn’t seeing you like how you are, I had a cast that let me see the corrupted energy, the mutilated magic, you didn’t look like you, you looked like a monster, until I saw the sine.”

  “My father’s sine, my necklace,” I said touching at where Parabellum now sat against my skin in its place.

  Jax nodded, “it was his cast.”

  “Who’s?”

  “Trafliers. He told me I could help because I fit in in the human realm. He gave me the Noxuer and cast the spell so that I could see the possessed and kill the Dazearthro.”

  “It was a set up all along, he knew you couldn’t kill the Dazearthro with the Noxuer, he has wanted to kill me from the beginning?”

  “It looks like it. But you are still here. We are still here. If we can figure out that bubble thing, it could help too. How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m glad I did. We would have been toast without it. Let’s j
ust hurry to Baldea before they decide to cut down the trees to break the shield.”

  “You don’t think they would?” Jax said, looking around me and back to check we were still alone.

  “I would, It’s the easiest way to get magic though, the tree line is a barrier, it is supposed to stop magic leaking from there to here.”

  “Why don’t I know this?”

  “It was in the books, the trees protect Baldea so that the lands could heal from the destruction magic caused over here. Something about magic having an opposite, darker effect in Baldea.”

  “I do magic here all the time.”

  “You do?” I asked, confused. “Does anyone else?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s one of the reasons Traflier was teaching me. He said I was the only Tanzieth he knew of that could still create magic.”

  “Well my bubble dissolved, so it looks like I can’t, but then Traflier can’t either—yet. Let’s get a move on.”

  There was a rustle behind a tree to our left. “You can protect it, and you will have to do it quickly.”

  “Marcus,” Jax called, jogging to meet his friend. “How did you get here? Why are you not under Traflier’s cast?”

  “I’m special like you, Jax, a Tanzieth with the ability to cast. It’s why Traflier kept me close. You were right, Desmoree. He had been taking from us all these years.”

  “I can’t create the barrier if the trees are here, they block my magic.”

  “No, they block threats to their existence. The barrier is a bonus, their self-preservation extends outwardly enough to be used in this way, but you can get around it. They are on their way back. Feel the energy shift?”

  “Wait, what shift?”

  “Look for it.”

  I looked past the trees and saw what he meant, the energy of Sayeesies rippled in various colors, the rainbows of light vibrating as they were forced together to make a murky brown color that twisted and jerked rather than danced.

  “The trees will protect us,” I said, and I looked to Jax. “Won’t they?”

  “Not for long,” Marcus replied.

  “Okay,” I said taking a step towards him. “Show me how. How do I keep Baldea safe?”

  “First, you need to want it. You need to want to protect the entire place, all of it. You cannot focus on protecting the people alone, you need to want to protect every flower, every tree, every blade of grass in this land. Draw your mind’s eye outward so that you can see Baldea. Then when you can feel your desire to keep it all safe, you have to ask for it, ask with all your desire, all your heart.”

  I closed my eyes and my mind left me. I looked down on us then outward, across Baldea. I saw all of it, the beauty of its gardens, my father’s house, the protecting trees. When I thought I could see the place as a whole, that I wanted to protect it all, I begged for it to be safe, pleaded for its protection. My fingers prickled, and when I opened my eyes, the yellow bubble swelled around us. It stretched around the trees beside us, and I followed it with my mind as it stretched over a nearby river and towards the town. It encircled all of Baldea. But just as quickly, it sucked back into me, knocking my head backwards with the force of its return.

  “It didn’t work,” I said as a blast of lightning exploded against the treetop beside us. A few leaves fell, but the tree was otherwise okay. This time.

  “You can’t focus on only keeping Traflier from this place,” Marcus said, stepping almost out of the tree line where he would be an easy target. “You need to feel this land, feel its people, you must try again. Focus on the beauty, focus on the love, the families, the wind that lifts the leaves and dances with them on the rays of light.”

  “Wow, you should write this down, you are some kind of poet. But I get your point, okay here we go again.” I turned away from Sayeesies and looked out above the trees to the sky of Baldea. I followed its rays to the grass blades that swayed in the breeze, lifting fallen leaves as it swept across, the leaves skipping along as if they were children playing a game. I followed the leaves to a patch of flowers beneath a fruiting tree, its bark the color of new rust. A child’s laugh floated on the wind and I followed it in my mind into the town, the hustle and bustle of people preparing for night, mothers and children holding hands, strolling home to their families. Such love in their eyes, in their faces. I followed past them, past the buildings and back to the forest that marked the border. The trees hummed with energy as if they knew I was watching them.

  I had not noticed before that they stood so proud, that they created an intricate line around Baldea and had only one place that opened up to allow for anything bigger than a cart. Just as I began to sway in time with the branches of the guarding trees, the bubble followed my mind out across Baldea. It intertwined around every branch of every tree, over the edges of the leaves and down the trunk to where the roots met the earth and then it sank beneath the soil and locked into place.

  “I didn’t ask anything,” I breathed, confused as to why the bubble had only now decided to take hold when I had begged so adamantly before.

  “It knew your need, it sensed your desire,” said Marcus. “You didn’t have to actually ask because your intentions were clear in your mind.”

  The bubble held strong around the border, pulsing with life as it protected the place and the people within. Another lightning bolt flew towards the trees. It exploded against my force-field and not a single leaf fell from a single tree.

  The Stalisies stepped closer to my barrier, all of them trying to break through. They pushed at it and shot black lightning bolts. My bubble sucked inward a little at their bursts but absorbed them without much effort. All of the Stalisies eyes remained glazed over, the sign of the puppeteer in action. Traflier had them completely under his spell.

  I turned to Marcus and Jax. “Okay, now what?”

  Marcus surveyed the Stalisies’ continued attempts. “I’m impressed, you are a quick study. That’s good, you will need to be.”

  “You think you’re impressed? It wasn’t that long ago I was thankful for a good coffee and a block of chocolate. I never expected I would be responsible for the safety of an entire species, let alone that I would have the power to form a safety net around an entire land.”

  “You will do more than that, Desmoree. You will save them all, you will defeat this monster. Now off with you both, I will stay here and watch the border.”

  “Thank you, Marcus,” I said, giving him a curt nod. “We will send others to help as soon as we get to my father’s.”

  Jax and I continued our way, the adrenaline keeping us from tiring for a while. But as we came upon the Arthos River that marked our halfway point, I had to stop and rest.

  “Why would Traflier do all this?” I asked Jax, plonking down beside the river’s pink waters and scooping up some to drink. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I have spent more time with him than most. I never would have thought him capable of doing this,” Jax said, coming to stand beside me.

  “We can’t beat him. If he has the Dazerarthro and all the Stalisies under his control, we don’t stand a chance.”

  Jax sat beside me at the river’s edge. “Do you know why the river is pink?”

  “Because the stones on the bottom are pink and the light from Shulun shines down through the clear water and makes it look pink.”

  “No.”

  “Jax, that’s why it is pink. I read it in one of the history books on my first week here.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Okay then, you tell me why.”

  “When the Tanzieth came to Baldea, as you know, it was not full of life. But the river, the Arthos River, remained as it always had.”

  “That tells me nothing. Come on, we should get going. We don’t know how much time we have, they could be here any minute.”

  “Des, relax, this will only take a sec.”

  I leaned back on my elbows. “Okay, go on.”

  “The stones in the river,” he said, leaning tow
ards the water and reaching his arm in until it was elbow deep. He pulled it out slowly, as if the water was pulling back against him, trying to keep his arm submerged. I pushed forwards, grabbing his arm.

  “No, wait,” he pressed.

  I waited as he continued to struggle against the pink water. It swirled around his arm as he inched it further out. Finally, as his wrist escaped, I could see past the whirling water to what he grasped in his hand. The books were wrong: they weren’t stones at the bottom of the river, making it look pink. Jax pulled his hand free from the water’s surface, and hanging through his fingers, trying to squirm their way back into the water, were pink worms.

  “What are they?”

  Jax opened his hand and let the worms slither around his palm, wrapping around his fingers as they tried to decipher how to return to their home. “They don’t have a name,” he said, tilting his fingers towards the water, lowering only the tips. The worms slipped easily from his hand into the water and disappeared. “They are the reason the water is pink. You didn’t know—no one did—and you cannot know what will happen next. You don’t know you can’t beat Traflier, you won’t know until you try. I fell in this river and was rescued by pink slithery things when I was ten. No one believed me that they were in there. Everyone who entered the water pulled out small pink stones, not living creatures. Only I could.”

  “He said you were special, and that he needed your power too.”

  “Traflier?”

  I nodded before standing and brushing the grass from my legs.

  “Special, huh? Well I guess this is special. Come on, let’s go. I want to check on my family, and you need to see Max. Maybe he can help decipher what the hell has happened to Traflier.”

  We jogged most of the way, only stopping when I tripped over something, which was surprisingly a lot. You would have thought becoming a fairy, I would have inherited some grace, but nope, I was as clumsy as always.

  Jax looked like he stepped off a runway, while I had torn my shirt, covered my knees in grazes, and dirtied up my shoes. “My shoes!” I screamed.