Guardian: Protectors of Light (20 page)

The blue armchairs they
were told to sit on were surprisingly soft and comfortable. As
James leaned against the back of the chair, he felt like he could
drift off to sleep any second. Perhaps a little too comfortable, so
he straightened up a bit to prevent himself from slipping off
halfway through the Queen’s story and information.

All five of them realised
that this was the moment to pay attention.

“
We came here
to retrieve information about this part of Lunaria,” James said.
“We might need it further on in our quest. And we figured that you
were the designated person to go to, Your Majesty.”

“
Oh, please,
James. Call me Eloine,” the Queen said with a smile. “And what
exactly do you want to know?”

“
Well,” James
answered. “I’m curious about what exactly is so dangerous about the
Fairies that roam the forest.”

“
Not all of
them are dangerous, James,” Queen Eloine said.  ”Only the ones
under the Master’s control. Their eye colours are the same as those
of Shadow Creatures, but the difference is that they are the only
ones with normal pupils.
All of his other servants have either a cat’s pupil or none at
all.”

“
But what
happened? How did he even get here? His powers only go through
darkness and shadows,” Antonio said.

“
He waited
for night to fall,” Queen Eloine said. “He’s a predator; nothing
will stand in his way of getting what he wants.”

“
But Violina
said that it only affected the fixies,” Bella said, but Queen
Eloine shook her head.
“We only say that because the pixies were unharmed, Bella. But if
me and my friends and sister hadn’t disappeared in time to protect
them, we all would’ve ended up under the Master’s control.” Queen
Eloine closed her eyes and sighed. “I lost half of my people that
day to the darkness of the Master.”

“
Don’t worry,
Queen,” Samira said. “We’ll go to the Castle of the Spirits and
restore the balance between Light and Darkness!”

Queen Eloine opened her
eyes and looked at Samira. “You don’t know, do you?”

“
What do we
not know?” Samira echoed.

“
I get the
feeling you don’t know anything about the Castle of the Spirits at
all. Not of its location, not-”
“Well, we do know it’s in creepy-spooky-land,” Antonio
said.

Queen Eloine moved her
eyes from Samira to Antonio and smiled. “At least you are aware of
its location, then,” she said. “But it won’t be that easy. The
castle is guarded... unless the Master has recently called it off
because he’s gone overconfident.”

“
That could
be used to our advantage, hopefully,” James mumbled.

“
It would be
indeed, James,” Queen Eloine commented at his statement. “But the
Land of Void is far away from here, across the mountains, toward
the northeast. It will take you at least a two-week
walk. 

And then I’m talking
about walking without resting, sleeping, eating, or being attacked.
Just walking there would take two weeks.”

“
What!?”
 Thomas
exclaimed. “But that means that we’re stuck here for at least
another month!”

He flung both his arms
and his feet into the air, causing his feet to stump loudly when
they came down on the marble floor.

“
I’m sorry,
Thomas, but that’s the way it is,” Queen Eloine said. “The edge of
these woods from here is at least four kilometres far to the north,
and eight to the west. There’s no quick way out of here, although
you could walk it in three hours if necessary. The mountains
however, are the problem.”

Thomas grunted something
in disapproval, but no one could exactly hear what he said, except
James, who was sitting next to him. 

“
Idiotic,” the Brit mumbled... “Just idiotic.”
Suddenly, something caught Samira’s attention. Someone was
whispering her name.

Samira...
At first she thought it was just the wind playing tricks on her
mind, but as the whispering got louder, she was sure of it. Someone
was calling her.

“
Um, Queen
Eloine, do you have a bathroom here?”

“
Of course we
do,” Queen Eloine said, smiling. “Do you need me to show
you?”

“
No, I will
find it myself,” Samira said.

“
Very well.
If you leave this room, the first door to your right will lead you
outside, where you’ll find the stall,” Queen Eloine replied
while

Samira stood up and left
the room. But she didn’t need to go to the bathroom at all. She’d
only been looking for an excuse to be able to go out and search for
the voice whispering her name.

Samira...

Over here....
Samira turned her head into the direction the voice seemed to come
from. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something
move, like a shadow.
She fully turned around, and saw that there indeed had been someone
moving and calling her name.

It was a Fixie, not much smaller than she was.
Samira...

Join
us...

Touch it...
Before Samira could even think what the Fixie wanted her to touch,
she noticed the gem on the Pixie’s silver headband; the gem started
to glow vivid red. Its colour was almost... hypnotizing.

Samira...

Come...

Join us...
Samira wanted to turn around, run away, scream for her friends,
scream for help, but she couldn’t. She knew it was wrong to listen
to the voice, but it was irresistible.

But she 
had
 to.
She 
had
 to obey.
She 
had
 to touch the
stone. Whatever would happen if she did; it didn’t matter. Her legs
seemed to move automatically, as her pupils grew to the size of
almost her whole iris, blocking out the greyish-blue colour they
usually were.
Samira...

Touch it...
Touch the stone...
“Samira, No! 

Go away from there!”
It was James’s voice. He had left the room to check why Samira had
been gone for so long, and saw his hypnotized sister walking toward
the Fixie. Samira slowly reached her arm out toward the gem on the
Fixie’s forehead, and James knew there was something he had to
do.
Ignore
him...
 the Fixie’s voice
whispered. James couldn’t hear it; it was the spell the Fixie used
to hypnotize Samira that caused the whispers.
Go on...
Samira...
Touch the stone...
“Samira-!”
Samira had stopped walking and reached her hand out further toward
the stone; James realised she wasn’t going to snap out of it, and
ran for it.
But it was already too late. Samira’s hand had touched the
stone.

A white force spread
through the room, knocking James off his feet, as if he’d just
witnessed an explosion.

When he got back to his feet, both Samira and the Fixie seemed to
have disappeared. But when James took a closer look, he noticed
something lying on the ground. It was a pixie.

He walked toward the
pixie, knelt down, and carefully shoved his hands underneath the
unconscious pixie’s back.

When he stood up and
examined the pixie a little closer, James came to a shocking
conclusion.

The pixie he was holding
had long blonde hair with one single pink streak trough it, and was
braided down her back.

She wore a long, dark
pink dress that looked awfully familiar. It was his
sister.

The pixie
couldn’t possibly have been anyone but Samira.

Sunset
Village

James rushed back to the
room where the Queen and Violina and his friends were waiting as
fast as he could. 

He opened the door of the
room quickly yet cautious, careful not to drop and hurt his sister,
who he held in his right hand, his fingers slightly bent to protect
her.

“
James? What
happened?” Thomas asked, whose blue armchair was facing the
doorway. He had looked up as the door opened, but threw James a
worried look when he saw the teenager’s pale face showing a
slightly shocked expression.

“
Where’s
Samira?” the Brit continued.

“
That’s the
problem,” James replied between a short gasp. “She’s right
here.”

He carefully walked
forward across the white marble floor, and slightly stuck out his
arm toward Thomas. His hand hadn’t moved at all, afraid to hurt the
little creature who was his best friend.

“
Oh dear,”
the British teenager whispered at the sight of the unconscious
Pixie that laid in James’s hand.

“
Hey, Jamey!
What have you got there that’s such bad news?” Antonio called from
behind James, where he was sitting next to Bella, who happened to
be sitting at the Queen’s left-hand side. Violina and James had
been sitting to her right-hand side, with Thomas and Samira next to
James and the Queen next to Violina.

James turned toward
Antonio and Bella to show them Samira. Their reactions were the
same as Thomas’s, just a little more, well...

“
Holy hell!”
Antonio shouted. He threw himself against the backrest of the blue
armchair he had been sitting on, pulling his feet onto the armchair
as well. The chair couldn’t take the impact of the sudden
extra weight and the power Antonio had thrown himself against the
backrest of the chair, causing it to tip over on its hind legs and
fall backward on the floor. A loud thud sounded as Antonio and the
chair hit the ground, along with one of Antonio’s most beloved
curses. 

“
James – Is that 
really
 Samira?”
Bella asked in unbelief, while her eyes flashed between the Pixie
and Antonio, who was struggling to get off the chair.

“
Sadly,
Bella, yes, yes she is,” James said and slowly moved his hand
toward his chest.
He carefully stroke Samira’s hair with one of his fingers, when her
eyelids started to flutter, causing James to quickly move his hand
away.

Samira breathed deeply
before finally opening her eyes. She pushed herself up with her
underarms and stared up at James while she was doing a succeeding
attempt into sitting up.

“
James? What
happened?” James was glad to hear that the voice the Pixie sitting
in the palm of his hand spoke in was still his sister’s, and not
some kind of strange high-pitched pixie voice.

“
You-you were
hypnotized y a Fixie that had snuck into the Queen’s Palace
somehow,” James replied silently, careful not to hurt Samira’s
ears. All he could was look into her eyes while apologizing. “I- I
tried to reach you, but I failed to do so. I was too late. I’m
really sorry that this had to happen to you, Samira.”

Samira remembered a
slight shard of the whole happening which had been going on just
three minutes ago, and looked up at James. She managed to get on
her feet and attempted to use her wings, which seemed to work out
pretty well.

“
Of course it wasn’t your fault, James. If it’s anyone’s
fault, it’s mine, for leaving this room and listening to her,” she
answered to James with a serious voice.

“
But I couldn’t keep you away from her, I wasn’t there to
save you,” James exclaimed. “So that makes it
partially 
my
fault
 as well! And don’t
you try to tell me otherwise!”
Samira sighed. “Whether it’s your fault or not, I don’t care. I’m
not mad at you. I mean – always look at the bright side of
life.”

She offered him a warm
and comforting smile, which eventually gave James the power to
smile back at her.

“
You’re
right, Samira,” James said. ”But now we must find away to get
you back to normal... Little sister.” He couldn’t help but
smirk.

Behind him, he heard
Queen Eloine clear her throat, announcing that she wanted James’s
attention.

“
Oh, sorry,
Your Majesty.”

James turned around, with
Samira on his hand, who had decided to standing was more her thing
than of floating around all the time.

The Queen didn’t look at
James, but nodded. She examined Samira’s situation, and then
sighed.

“
I see,” she
said. “I see. It is very tragic that the Fairy’s Curse must find
you, Samira.”

“
Is there a
cure, Eloine?” Samira asked hopefully. “Can you undo the
spell?”

Queen Eloine nodded in
response. “There is a cure, Samira, but I can’t undo the spell on
my own. I can only cure you if you and Violina are willing to help.
And it won’t be easy...”

“
What do you
mean?” Samira asked uncomprehending. “What’s not going to be easy?
Why can’t you heal me? You’re the Fairy Queen! You possess all
Fairy Magic in existence!”

The Queen shook her head.
“Unfortunately, I can’t heal you, Samira. And that’s the hard part.
You are going to have to do it yourself, along with a little bit of
my help. And Violina’s, of course.”

“
What?”
Samira’s exclaimed. “But- I don’t have any healing powers! I can’t
do it! Why can’t you just do it? Because I bet you do.” Samira
realised that she had been shouting at a Queen, blushed and
apologized quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”