The Emerald Staff (8 page)

“Faedra?” he asked with a hesitant catch in
his voice.

“Get away from me!” She didn’t even recognize
her own voice it was so full of malice. “I need to get out of
here,” she mumbled to herself as she turned on her heel and headed
back into the pub. There was no exit through the back courtyard so
she had to go through the pub to escape this nightmare. She threw
the door open with such a force that it banged against the outside
wall, and started pacing down the corridor towards the front door
of the pub. Her steps quickened with every stride until she was
running down the hall, trying to escape the demons in her head.

Lights flickered as she passed them and she
could feel her body drawing from the energy there. Anger was
surging through her again. She had to get outside before she hurt
someone; she couldn’t concentrate enough to control her power this
time around. She reached the front door and flung it open, too,
which earned her a disgruntled remark from the landlord standing
behind the bar. She didn’t care, she couldn’t think right now, she
had to go somewhere she could think.

She burst through the door and exited into
the lane outside, looking in both directions for a split second
wondering which way to flee. It was a pedestrian walkway, but there
was not another soul to be seen in either direction. She took off
running up the lane but only got a few feet before her Guardian
burst through the front door after her, followed by his little
sister.

“Faedra, stop!” he implored.

She stopped and spun around to face him, fury
flowing through her veins.

“Stay away from me!”

He took a pensive step forward but was
stopped in his tracks by a bolt of lightning that struck the ground
inches from his feet, shattering the brick-weave and sending chunks
of cement flying in all directions. Thunder rumbled above them.

Faen pinched his brows together and gave
Faedra a questioning look. “But I did not take your father, Faedra.
I did not do this.”

“
Your
kind killed my mother, now
your
kind have taken my father. I never asked for any of
this. If it wasn’t for this stupid amulet, my mother would still be
alive and my father would still be safe. I would gladly give it to
Vivianna, but I can’t even get the blasted thing off!” She tugged
at the amulet trying to pull it from her neck, the chain would not
break and the clasp was sealed tight.

Faen tried to move a little closer to his
charge while she was distracted with the amulet, but she noticed
the movement. She let go of the amulet and held her palms up. The
two bobbing blue energy balls that appeared there illuminated her
face in an eerie glow. Her eyes were cold and unforgiving. Faen
hardly recognized her.

“I warned you. Stay out of my life!” she
yelled as she turned her back to him ready to make her exit up the
lane.

“Please, Faedra. This was not me, I…” Faen’s
voice was heavy with emotion. “Please do not leave.”

She stood still for a moment, emotions
whirling inside her head like a tornado. She didn’t turn to face
him, didn’t want him to see the tears of pain now flooding down her
cheeks. She felt like someone had punched through her chest,
grabbed hold of her heart and was wringing all the life out of it.
When she did speak her voice was barely a whisper.

“Your realm has destroyed my family. I don’t
want to be connected with that anymore. Stay away from me, Faen, I
mean it.” Her voice was calm, and she couldn’t understand how she
managed to sound so controlled when her heart was shattering and
her body trembled with emotion.

A loud thunderclap ripped through the sky
above them as Faedra took off in a dead run up the lane. The bulbs
in the street lamps shattered one by one as she ran past, leaving
Faen standing alone in the dark.

He could hear the revelry inside the pub and
looked towards the noise. He flinched slightly when he saw Jocelyn
standing in the shadows of the doorway. He’d forgotten she followed
him through the door. A worried expression pinched at her usually
serene features.

“She will come around, Brother, she is just
angry. You need to go after her. You are her Guardian no matter how
angry she feels; it is your duty.”

Faen turned his attention to the people who
were laughing and chatting to one another inside. They were
enjoying the evening and looked so happy. He wasn’t sure if he
would ever laugh again. Faedra may as well have aimed the lightning
bolt straight at his heart because it now felt as shattered as the
chunks of cement he stepped over before taking off up the lane and
launching himself into the air.

Faedra walked through the front door of her
house in a stunned trance. She couldn’t quite recall how she
managed to get home.
I must have gotten a taxi.
She clicked
the door shut behind her and leaned back against it, her whole body
still numb with shock. She reached up to her head and dragged her
cloche hat off, letting her hand flop back down to her side. Her
fingers went limp and the hat slipped out of them and dropped to
the floor beside her feet.

Her eyes scanned the small living room.
Everything was in its place and it looked lived in and homey. The
furniture was well used and comfortable but she couldn’t even take
a step forward to go and sit on the welcoming sofa. Her gaze fell
on a mug that stood, still half full of tea, next to her father’s
armchair beside the fireplace. She stared at it for a moment, and
try as she might she could not tear her gaze away from it. A vision
of her father putting it down, half finished, before they left for
the party swam in her head, and she finally gave up the fight and
let her legs give way beneath her as she slid down the door and sat
on the floor.

Tears welled in her eyes until the mug was
nothing but a blur. Her father was in mortal danger and she was at
a complete loss to know what to do. She couldn’t get the amulet
from around her neck and, even if she could, it would be her life
in exchange for her father’s. Not that she wouldn’t give her life
for his in a heartbeat, she would, but it would only delay the
inevitable; he would still die, along with millions of others if
Vivianna was intent on destroying the world’s food source.

She couldn’t think straight. The thoughts
swirling through her head were not making any sense, so she allowed
the tears to flow down her cheeks. She didn’t have the energy to
try and hold them back anymore.

She drew her knees up to her chest and
dropped her forehead on them. A sob escaped, then another and
another until her shoulders shook with the emotion now wracking her
body. She felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life
before. There was no life in the house, all she could hear was the
sound of her own crying.

Faen sat in an upper limb of one of the trees
that lined the Bennett’s driveway. He had followed her home from
the city, of course. He was her Guardian. He didn’t need his little
sister to tell him that he needed to go after her. Spurned or not,
he would make sure she was safe until such time that he got
reassigned away from her. A thought he didn’t dare contemplate. He
was relieved when he watched his charge hail a taxi, and then he
followed it back here to her home. At least in the grounds she
could not be harmed by any of his kind.

After finding a good vantage point to keep an
eye on the cottage, he settled down on one of the branches. He
could see her inside through the windows of the living room. He had
never known the Bennett’s to close the curtains in that room and
sometimes wondered why they even had them.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he watched
the person he cared so much for slide down the door to sit on the
floor. He could see the pain on her face even from this distance.
His heart ached as he watched her wrap her arms around her knees
and sob. Eventually, she curled up in a ball where she sat, and
cried herself to sleep. He wanted so much to go to her and scoop
her off the cold hard floor, carry her upstairs and tuck her into a
warm bed. He knew that was not an option right now. She hated him,
he had seen it in her eyes outside the pub. Maybe if he could find
her father, she would forgive him, maybe even learn to love him
back.

He leaned his head back against the tree
trunk and closed his eyes for a moment. He was trying to think of a
way to get her father back, but a solution to that problem was
eluding him. How could he possibly find him when Vivianna could
have taken him anywhere in any realm? A moment later he opened his
eyes with a start and sat up straight. Of course, why hadn’t he
thought of that before? His gaze focused back to the cottage and
Faedra, she was still asleep on the living room floor. He should be
able to get back before she awoke, and the wards around her home
would keep her safe until he returned.

He launched himself out of the tree and
headed for the church, and the portal to the Land of Azran. He
needed to talk to his father.

CHAPTER NINE

Faedra felt stiff as her consciousness forced
her to face the world again. With a groan, she pushed herself up to
a sitting position. An obnoxious pounding hammered at her brain and
she brought the heel of her hand to her forehead, keeping her eyes
squeezed shut.

She was still sitting beside the door of her
living room. How long had she been there? Cracking one eye open,
she peeked out to look at the clock on the mantel over the
fireplace. It was 4:00 a.m. With another groan, she scrubbed at her
face with her hands and then raked her fingers through her unruly
hair pushing it back out of her eyes.

For a split second, she couldn’t recall why
she was sitting on the floor of her living room at four in the
morning, still dressed in her Halloween costume. For that split
second, she was blissfully unaware of the turmoil she was about to
feel. Then she looked down and saw the black pebble on the floor
beside her and reality slammed into her like a wrecking ball.

“Dad, oh, my God, Dad,” she whispered to
herself as the memories from the party flooded into her brain. She
picked up the pebble, her eyes widening as she noticed the outer
edge had turned a vibrant red.

She got up off the floor. She had to do
something, though, she admitted to not knowing what. But something
would come to her, it had to. One thing was for sure she couldn’t
do it dressed like a 1920’s flapper girl, not very practical for
hunting down evil fairy princesses and rescuing fathers. As she
moved towards the door that led to the dining room, the blinking
light on the answering machine distracted her. At first, she was
going to ignore it but something compelled her to stop and press
play.

There was a tongue-in-cheek message from her
uncle, sounding as though he’d had one too many drinks, telling her
father off for leaving the party early with a gorgeous woman. He
hoped that his brother was having “fun” and did he realize that
Faedra and Frederick had also left the party early ‘just a heads
up, mate’. Faedra shot a disgusted look at the answer machine as
she deleted it. Well, her father may have left the party early with
a gorgeous woman but she doubted he would be having any
fun
,
and as for her and
Frederick
, she couldn’t deny the empty
feeling where her heart should be and decided it best not to think
about that right now. At least her uncle didn’t suspect anything
was wrong at this point in time and that gave her a little leeway
before she had to think of an explanation as to why her dad was
missing.

The next message started to play. “Err,
hello, this message is for Faedra Bennett. Faedra this is Professor
Malley from the university. I was going to wait until Monday but I
have to admit to being intrigued, and… well, I wanted to talk to
you beforehand. I looked up what those words meant. You told me
someone had called you this and I have to wonder why someone would,
especially in this language. You see s
amtero kruwos,
well,
it means… half blood. Oh, well, I hope you are having a good
weekend. I’ll see you in class on Monday and we can discuss it
then.”

Faedra’s jaw went slack as she gaped at the
answering machine in disbelief. Suddenly, she knew exactly where to
start her search and get some answers.

Faen stood at the end of the topiary-lined
driveway that led to his parent’s house. Although, to call it a
house was an understatement. The home he grew up in was noble and
stately. The gardens were pristine and well kept. He hadn’t been
home for a while and took a moment to soak in the grandeur of it.
Snapping himself out of his reverie, he started striding down the
majestic sweeping driveway. He could have flown, but, for some
reason, he needed to feel the crunch of gravel underfoot and leave
footprints behind.

He reached the front door, turned the large
gleaming brass knob to open it and stepped into the marble entrance
hall. The stairs swept up in front of him and split in two at the
top, leading to both sides of the living quarters. He looked up to
admire the ceiling. The intricate gold leaf pattern was still as
vibrant and beautiful as he remembered it. He stood silent for a
moment to see if he could hear any signs of life. Memories of his
childhood came flooding back; he used to love chasing his sister
down those stairs and around the servant’s quarters. His mother
would scold him whenever she caught him but it was always worth
it.

He blew out a sigh. There was no sound of
life from his vantage point. Knowing his mother she would rather be
outside on a day like this, tending her flowers in the beautiful
garden she loved, than swanning around above stairs and being
waited on hand and foot. She had servants to do everything for her,
but his mother loved to garden, it was her passion. And if his
mother were in her garden, then his father would be out there with
her, reading a book and sipping on a mug of hot buttered rum, no
doubt.