“That is dangerous for us, imagine what Ian would do if he had it in his hands,” Eric observed.
“I know but he doesn´t know it exists. We play with vantage.”
Eric continued not to be convinced, but he didn´t say anything.
“We have you and the bottle that I offered to Elizabeth to stop him before he talks the elixir. If he dies, the wanderers will with him. Last night I cast a spell so that they were connected.”
Elizabeth and Eric looked at each other not knowing what to say. It seemed that Phoenix had everything clear. They would let him map out the plan.
Chapter 13
We were entering into the porch of the Kenneth´s house when Francis appeared in front of me.
“Francis? What are you doing here? Why did you leave? You didn´t even help us, Samantha could have been hurt.”
I could tell that Gabriel was angry.
“Everything is fine Gabriel, let him explain.”
“Come on in.”
They opened the door and I could see Kenneth´s lounge was more furnished than the last time I had been there. It was appealing and peaceful. I went to the sofas and sat down, the same as the other time, in front of the chimney. Gabriel remained standing as Francis excused himself to him.
“Samantha, thank you for coming, we have to tell you some things about your mother. You cannot go to see her tonight.”
“How to you know that I would go today?”
“I am a wizard and foresee things, remember?” he smiled in a friendly manner.
“I have come because I have many doubts unresolved. And I believe that you are the best one to answer that.”
“Hey, can I call you Sam?”
“Of course,” she answered surprised, that diminutive hadn´t occurred to me.
“Look Sam, you should be very careful, you shouldn´t go to the palace. If the empress doesn´t want you to leave, you will never leave. She has lots of people under her command. Well, I think that I mentioned to you already, Morgan is her new assistant and I believe that he is an ally of Ian.”
“Who is Ian?”
“The Fallen One who kidnapped your sister.”
“My heart stopped listening to this. I felt I couldn´t breathe. I rested my hands on the coarse cloth of the armchair and close my eyes.”
“They didn´t kidnap us together?” I was able to say even with my eyes closed.
“There is no doubt that he tried. But he didn´t manage to grab you in time; however, your sister wasn´t so lucky.”
I didn´t understand why, but the fact that they had meant to kidnap us together had a special value to me.
“You had just been born. And before I tell you anything else, I want you to forgive me because I let him escape. I feared for my life and I let him go.”
Silence was felt in the room until I looked at him and hugged him.
“It wasn´t your fault, if you had impeded him then he would have possibly killed you. If Ian didn´t kidnap me then who did?” I reflected indecisive.
“Your mother was awake that night. She did the first thing that occurred to her and they tricked her. You disappeared from within her arms and I couldn´t do anything either. That is why your mother exiled me from the palace,” he continued painfully, “And after that she changed. She became cold and dark. She lost all her love and affection for others. However, I know why that happened.”
<
“This Saturday! We have little time,” I heard Gabriel say from afar.
My mind was in another place, until I found what I wanted.
“I want you to teach me to use the rest of my powers now,” I said without thinking, but I was very sure that that was what I really wanted. I would go from training my body to training my mind.
“You are crazy! You cannot absorb so much information in such a short time,” Francis was scandalized.
“I think that I can and I want to do it.”
I got up decided, I left to the forest and I sat where I had been two nights ago, beside a long path of fallen trees.
Everyone followed me and they looked at me without saying anything, until Kenneth sat in front of me.
“Well they are two-fold; I saw how you used fire this morning. Although it was somewhat involuntary it is normal that it showed up, your channels are now open to receive all the strength and energy of the elements.”
I opened my eyes, it had gone dark. I had been in a trance for hours like the other time. Kenneth smiled at me. I looked around, I didn´t see either Gabriel or Francis but I could hear them inside the house speaking. I felt different; a part of me had changed. I looked at my hands, their aspect was the same but they felt different. Kenneth helped me to get up and we went into the house. After a pleasant supper in the small kitchen we returned to the lounge.
“What did you start to tell me before about Morgan?” I said calmly to Kenneth.
“He works for Ian, as does the girl that stole the weapons today from the training hall works for Morgan.”
“Who is that girl?”
“She is called Susan,” responded Francis, “Eric will be able to tell you more about her.”
“Do you know where he is?” I looked at Kenneth in a pleading manner.
“I am sorry, I didn´t see anything.”
I bowed my head and looked at my hands, feeling lost. I didn´t know how to find her. I only needed to concentrate on my training to prepare me and help him in the battle or whatever it was that was about to happen. I missed him greatly. As I thought about him a question sprung to mind that I wanted to answer urgently.
“Kenneth, I need to ask you about something. I am sure that you will know about it.”
“What worries you?”
“Why do Eric and I feel such a strong attraction for one another? Well, not just attraction, it is love.” My cheeks were burning “I know that it is love and that it is mutual.”
“Of course it is mutual; one only needs to see you both.”
“So, how has it happened so quickly? I suppose that this is not normal. It is a union so strong that I cannot even explain it.”
“I understand what you are saying Sam, I feel the same way about Francis.”
That comment left me surprised, but I didn´t say anything.
“You see, in our world, in this dimension nothing is normal. Why would it be in love?
“I don´t know,” I replied sincerely.
“An old legend, prior to our existence, says that true love is only found once in a lifetime and that when it does it shines brightly. Every mortal has a love that they share with their other life, to form an unbreakable link. You know, love has its mysteries.”
A smile formed on my lips and happiness flooded my body when I heard these words. But it left quicker than I would have liked.
“If that is so, if Eric and I love each other in this way, why does he not want anyone to know? What does he wish to protect me from? Why does he not want me to go to see my mother?”
“Oh, my dear child,” Francis hugged me with his voice dulled. “He has a strong motive why he does not want you to enter into the palace. Your mother over the years has put in place diverse laws, many of them without reason. One of them is that no man could get close to you before taking you to her, that they could not look at you nor touch you, that they could not love you. If they did without her consent they would be punished, by death.”
My world faded. For a moment, I knew not where nor who I was. I could not contemplate the death of the person I loved most. That is why he had been so distant from the start. He tried to resist, but our love was
so much bigger than that.
I woke up to reality instantly. The three men were discussing, it seemed like Gabriel didn´t know that law wither. He was asking what would happen with Elizabeth. The empress only asked about one of her daughters and nobody knew why. I only wanted to sleep and not wake up until knowing that Eric was beside me. I just wanted to see him.
“Kenneth, can I sleep here?”
I caught him unprepared but he quickly knew how to react.
“Of course, of course you can, come with me.”
I followed him upstairs while the other two men continued to argue in the lounge. We went up two floors. On the top floor, there was one room, it was big and lovely.
“I feel really sorry that you didn´t know anything. Don´t worry, everything will turn out fine.”
He hugged me and left. I lay down on the bed, I was tired. I started to cry as I remembered Francis´s words. I knew that Eric would accompany me, he wasn´t a coward, he wouldn´t flee from his destiny, but I couldn´t bear to think of not seeing him again. I cried until I fell deeply asleep.
I noticed a gentle caress on my face. I opened my eyes but didn´t see anything, I was in complete darkness. Again my cheek was caressed. I didn´t move, I thought that it was Gabriel but didn’t understand why he would be there. If there was a third person I would surprise him. A few seconds later a hand glided through my hair. I caught it in a quick movement; it stayed paralyzed, not moving.
“Gabriel?”
There was no reply, I thought I was dreaming. The hand moved my hand I sat up in bed trying to see something. Without expecting it, the light went on, to begin with I saw nothing, but when my eyes got used to the light I saw a young man in front of me. Eric!
“Eric,” I cried.
“Shh, you will wake up the others.”
“Is it really you?” I said in a whisper.
He leaned over, hugged me and I could feel the heat of his body, his muscles under his clothes, how his chest rose and fell with every breath. I started to cry again.
“Hey, what´s wrong, don´t cry, it is me.”
“I thought I was never going to see you again.”
I held him so tightly that I thought for a moment that he might disappear under my hands like a balloon when it explodes.
“How did you get here? Are you alright? Why didn´t you come earlier?”
“Calm down, ask one question at a time.”
He took my head in his hands and kissed my hair. Then he kissed on the lips.
“I have missed you so much,” he embraced me with strength and started to answer all that I had said. “I have disappeared; I am fine; a wizard needs my help and I couldn´t come earlier because he thinks that it is better that I don´t see you before the battle, but I couldn´t bear it any longer and so I escaped. But,” he continued before I could ask him anything else, “I am going to return to him. I have to help him, so that he will help us. I am only going to stay tonight.”
I didn´t know what to say, I was so happy that he was well, that he was with me.
“Show me that you are really here.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“This morning I woke up and I saw you, well, more like I heard you speaking to me and then Gabriel told me that I was dreaming, that you hadn´t been here. I don´t want the same thing to happen, I don´t want to be disillusioned again.”
He was sitting in front of me, smiling like the first time I saw him, that mischievous smile that had made my heart melt. He leaned over and kissed me smoothly. He placed one hand on my head and another on my waist. He pulled me firmly against him and I let my hands glide through his hair and over his back. I felt alive until he separated his lips from mine.
“I can´t, I can´t do it.”
“Yes you can, we will die together if need be, but I don´t think in anything else that is not loving you.”
“What?” he looked surprised, his eyes were wide open.
“I know about the punishment that my mother put in place for the person who touched me or whatever it was. And I am telling you that if you die I am going with you, because I love you. I was so stupid not telling you the other day. I love you with all my soul and I cannot allow the future to destroy our present.”
He looked at me with his deep green eyes, and he smiled like a small boy with a caramel in his mouth.
“You love me?” he said flabbergasted.
“Of course I love you, did you think I didn´t?”
“Well, I didn´t know with certainty, I thought, I feared…”
“I love you,” I said to him looking him straight in the eyes, “I love you and I will always love you.”
He kissed me with such impetus that I fell onto the bed with his body on top of mine. The bedside lamp made shadows on his face. I looked at him carefully, I didn´t want to forget any detail of his face. I started to kiss his face. Starting with his eyes, then I kissed his forehead and his cheeks; I kissed his nose and after a brief pause kissed his smooth lips. I bit them and I kissed them until his tongue seized control of my mouth.
I had never felt such passion. I felt happy, liberated, knowing that he would not be separated from me, that this night he would stay with me.
He took his shirt off in a hurry, letting me see his sculpted body. He threw his shoes across the room, one hit of a wall and the other the bedside table lamp, which broke when it hit the floor. We laughed and embraced each other again, uniting ourselves as though we were one. There were no longer any secrets; no lies existed, in that moment there was only love.
I don´t remember how his able fingers removed my combat outfit, but I will never forget the way that he kissed my whole body. I felt euphoric. We passed the night loving each other and wanting each other without resting, until sunrise.
I opened my eyes with the mental image of Eric kissing my neck and behind my ear; a smile illuminated my face until I turned over and saw that there was nobody there. I remember having seen him leaving and closing the door behind him. I knew that he had to go and that I would see him soon, but even so I missed him. He was my soul mate, the true love that I had so often dreamt of and I didn´t want to be separated from him.
I got up with feeling different, I was content. I opened the window letting the daylight fill the room and I started to search for my clothes. Once I had dressed I decided to stick to thinking in the good and marvelous things that had happened during the night. I would not think that I wouldn´t see him until later, rather that every second that passed meant less time before seeing him again.
I went to the kitchen, almost floating with the lightness I felt. I sat down and observed how Kenneth made breakfast. There were cookies, juice, infusions, milk, cereal, toast… and now he was making some French omelets. He was in a good mood too. Shortly, Francis arrived followed by a sleepy Gabriel. Nobody spoke, we were all submersed in our own thoughts as we ate.
“Hey Sam, do you want to keep practicing with your powers?”
“Of course,” I responded to a gleaming Kenneth. I imagined that he had sorted out the problems with Francis.
We will go to the forest. The morning was fresh and the sun shone brightly high in the sky. We started to walk through the path of the fallen trees that I had made a few days ago. The path was wide and very long; the end could not be seen. We walked for more than an hour until I started to see something very bright. I walked quicker until I got to the edge of the pathway. The trees had finished. I stood there surprised, seeing that the shine came from a lake. An immense still and peaceful lake that reflected the light of the sun, the blue color of the sky was captured on the surface as were the few clouds that moved slowly until disappearing at the lakeside. It was very beautiful. I thought that it was taken from a story; to make sure it was real I went to the edge, the water didn´t move. I touched the surface carefully and noticed the freshness on my fingers. I got up and looked at Kenneth who had a big smile on his face.
“This is Lake Mao Long. Here you will learn to co
ntrol water. This is the purest water that exists; it will be easy for you.”
We walked round the edge of the lake until we arrive to a great valley surrounded by trees in the distance and covered by the lake in is limits. Francis moved away from us with Gabriel. Kenneth turned round and looked at me.
“Now you should connect with your power, you are strong and able to do things you cannot even imagine. We need you, we need your strength. It is time that you learn for yourself what you can do.”
I nodded convinced, I was ready.
“Close your eyes and feel how the water flows through your veins. Feel the force and its energy, feel how it accompanies you and complements you, how it forms part of you.”
I was very concentrated feeling how the power of the water flowed in me.
“Open your eyes.”
I opened them and discovered that my vision was different, I saw everything the same, the same colors and the same shapes, but at the same time a fine veil of transparent water in my eyes that got in the way of everything I saw.
“Don´t lose concentration, the power can cause different effects in your body, it is normal. Now speak to the water, make it flow with you.”
I looked at the great lake and started to speak with the water. I wanted it to help me to protect my loved ones. I told it through my mind everything that had happened and I asked it to please help me.
I was concentrated in the center of the lake. I stretched out an arm towards it with the palm of my hand upwards. In a few seconds a pillar of water started to rise, firm and transparent. It was turning round as it continued growing. I took control and closed my fist. The water stayed still, the column didn´t move. I moved the water and the water moved with it. I opened my hand and the water fell crashing like thunder. It surprised me to see how the water imitated my movements. It was startling; at that moment I assured myself that I would train a lot to be able to control the elements on the day of the battle.
Darkness The Diary of Samantha Owen Page 14
