The Amulet (19 page)

Faen hung his head. It was all the answer she
needed, and a shiver ran down her spine. She looked around the
room; it, too was in disarray. The chairs were overturned, there
was broken glass on the floor, a wilted flower laying in amongst
the jagged shards from where a vase had been knocked off the table,
and smashed to the ground in an obvious struggle.

“Elvelynn,” Jocelyn spoke with a catch in her
voice, and tears welled in her eyes. “They would have to kill her
to get the book.”

Faedra’s heart sank. Jocelyn had lost someone
she quite obviously loved, and she knew first hand how that felt.
She put a comforting arm around her friend’s shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, Jocelyn.”

“Come, we can do no more here,” Faen said.
“We need to get to the castle. Maybe the king knows something that
will help us.”

They turned to leave, but Faedra stopped
short of the door. She could feel something but didn’t understand
what it was at first.

“No. Wait,” she said and looked all around
her. She could feel the amulet heat up under her scarf and moved
the scarf aside to see the stone in the center of it glowing.

“What is it, Faedra?” Jocelyn asked.

“I’m not sure,” she held the amulet in her
hand. “Mum didn’t say anything in her letter about the amulet
glowing.” She looked at her ring. It was not glowing so there was
no danger near, but she knew something was wrong, she could sense
it. What was it trying to tell her?
Think Faedra, think,
she
told herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard on the
feelings surging through her body, then a window in her mind opened
and she could see a vision as clear as day.

“If whoever stole the book had to have killed
Elvelynn to get it, wouldn’t they have just left her body? Why
would they have taken it with them?”

Faen and Jocelyn looked at her in
confusion.

“She’s still here, I can sense her, and she’s
still alive.”

“Where?” Faen said as he stepped closer to
her.

“Hold on,” she closed her eyes again and
scanned the room in her mind. “There.” She pointed over to the
corner of the room as she opened her eyes.

They all looked over to where Faedra was
pointing, but there was nothing there. Faedra ran over and lowered
herself to the floor, her face just fractionally above it. She was
trying to look through a crack in the floorboards.

“She’s under here,” she cried, her heart
swelling with hope.

Faen looked for something to pry the
floorboard with and grabbed a poker that was resting up against the
fireplace. He ran over to where Faedra was lying on the floor,
asked her to move aside, and shoved the poker hard between the
boards. He pried it open until he could get his hands under and
pulled the board up. They had not been nailed down, so once the
first one was up Jocelyn and Faedra helped lift some more until
they had uncovered what the floorboards were hiding.

“Oh, Elvelynn,” Jocelyn gasped in horror,
putting her hand to her mouth.

The body of an old woman lay crumpled
unnaturally in a small hole in the floor. She had her hands tied
behind her back and had been gagged. Her wings had been broken when
she had been shoved into the tiny space. Her eyes, that were full
of pain and fear, looked up at the three of them in
desperation.

“Stand back,” Faen instructed as he kneeled
down and lowered his arms into the hole. He gently moved them under
Elvelynn’s broken body and eased her up and out of her tiny prison.
He carried her over to a chaise that was positioned next to the
fireplace and, after laying her down, removed the bonds from her
hands and the gag from her mouth, taking care not to cause her
anymore distress. She was barely conscious and mumbling something
that was incoherent.

“Who did this to you?” Faen whispered in
Elvelynn’s ear, but the only reply he got was unintelligible.

“Why isn’t she healing?” Faedra asked. “You
can all heal just like me, can’t you?”

“She has been tortured and poisoned. The
poison disables us from using our ability to heal. It makes the
torture much more effective,” he explained gravely. “This is the
work of redcaps. She would have died fairly soon if you hadn’t
found her. We need to get her to Bedowen, he is the only person who
can help her now. He may be able to find an antidote to the poison.
If he can, she will be able to heal herself in time.” He scooped
Elvelynn up in his arms and carried her through the door. Faedra
took one last look around at the chaos in the room before she
followed them.

“Jocelyn, take Faedra and wait for me outside
the castle,” he instructed his sister. “I am going to fly Elvelynn
to Bedowen’s house; I’ll meet you there shortly.” He hovered above
the ground for a second, turned, and flew away. Jocelyn took hold
of Faedra’s arm.

“The castle is this way,” she said, pointing
in the opposite direction.

“How was the amulet able to tell you that
Elvelynn was still alive and where to find her?” Jocelyn asked a
few moments later as they wandered down the empty streets.

“I don’t know,” Faedra answered. “Maybe
because the amulet was constructed to be used with the book. And
because Elvelynn had been in possession of the book for so long, it
saw them as one and the same. Other than that, I have no
explanation. All of this is so new to me; I have to keep pinching
myself to make sure I’m still awake.”

They carried on through the deserted streets
in silence. Faedra knew there was nothing she could say to comfort
her friend. People had tried to comfort her with words all the time
after her mother had died, but she had wished they would stay
silent. Nothing they said ever gave her any comfort; their words
just reiterated the fact that she had lost someone she loved, and
that person was never coming back.

She prayed that Bedowen would be able to
help. Elvelynn had looked like a helpless, sweet old lady, but she
knew for the room to have been turned upside down the way it was,
she must have put up a good fight.

They walked down streets and around corners
for what seemed like most of the afternoon. It was a labyrinth of
lanes and alleys, not dissimilar to some she had seen in an old
town in Spain that she had visited on holiday once before her mum
died. Eventually, they turned a corner, and Faedra found herself
once again gaping in awe. The street came to an abrupt end and they
were standing on the edge of a huge spacious courtyard. A lavish
marble fountain stood in the center. Cascading water was flowing
from jugs that were held by statues of fairies, into a basin that
had been carved into a marble garden. Ornate stone pillars held up
an archway that lined both sides of the courtyard, and even though
the once lush vegetation that adorned the courtyard was now brown
and lifeless, it was still impressive, even in its starkness.

Further behind the fountain, there was an
enormous double door. Faedra let her eyes wander above the doorway
to admire what was beyond it. An immense castle towered above it,
and them. Its walls were made of white stone that she could imagine
sparkling in the sunlight like Jocelyn had described, but even
though it had lost its luster for the time being, it was still
majestic in every way. She didn’t even want to hazard a guess as to
how big it was, but it certainly dwarfed the one back home in
Norwich. This one had more beautifully spiraling turrets than she
cared to count, with a flag swaying in the breeze from each one. A
great swath of burgundy material with what she assumed was a royal
crest emblazoned in gold, hung from the main balcony of the castle,
and she imagined that that must be where the king held court.

“Wow,” she mumbled, “you guys don’t do
anything by halves do you?”

Jocelyn replied with a smile and looked up at
the castle, too. “It is pretty impressive, is it not? Come, we
shall wait for Faen by the door.”

They walked past the fountain on a floor of
mosaic artistry that was so big it must have taken eons to create
it. When they reached the door, Faedra sat down on the ground and
leaned up against the wall. She yawned and let her head fall back
to rest against the wall and closed her eyes. The sun was getting
low in the sky, promising the close of another day in a few short
hours, and she was beyond tired. Faen was not long in arriving. He
made his appearance shortly after they did.

“What did Bedowen say?” Jocelyn asked
anxiously as soon as his feet touched the ground.

“He thinks that he can keep her stable until
he can find an antidote for the poison, but it might be a while.
Unfortunately, she cannot help us identify who did this to her and
won’t be able to in time for us to find the book and reverse this
damage.” He looked sourly at the dead vegetation around the
courtyard. “We need to go and see the king and find out if he knows
of anything that can help us.”

Faedra got to her feet as Faen walked up to
the doors and rapped hard on them three times. Slowly the two solid
doors, that must have been at least twenty feet high, opened
allowing the three to walk through before they closed again. They
were now standing in another spacious, beautifully landscaped area
in front of the castle. At one time, it would have been the most
elaborate flower garden. Home possibly to every kind of flower that
existed, but not now, everything had wilted and died.

They walked up the path that led to the
entrance to the castle, up some steps to another set of solid
doors, and stood before them. Faen rapped hard three times on
these, too, and again they slowly opened, allowing them entry.
Faedra looked around to see if she could see any security cameras.
She didn’t expect to see any, of course, but it was bugging her
that they had just gained entry to a castle without there being any
kind of visible security. For goodness’ sake, there weren’t even
any guards around. The place seemed deserted. As they walked
through this set of double doors however, all that changed very
quickly.

As soon as the doors opened, the silence
swiftly changed to an inarticulate din that was coming from further
down the marble corridor they were now standing in. They walked
towards the noise and it grew louder and louder until Faedra could
make out that it was lots of angry, concerned voices. They turned
through another set of solid oak doors, which were already open
this time, and walked straight into a cavernous room that was
crammed with people all talking at once. There were lots of them,
nearly filling the sizeable room, and this time they noticed her.
Some of them eyed her with scrutiny, others looked at her with
confusion, some with concern, and others with a knowing expression.
She noticed that some of them looked out of place, too. A distinct
feeling of unease swept over her, and she subconsciously moved
closer to Faen until she was almost touching him.

The setting sun was streaming in through vast
stained glass windows that lined the walls and depicted scenes from
nature. Floating chandeliers bobbed about overhead, casting
sparkles of light on the inhabitants of the room below them.

Faen pushed his way through the crowd, and as
people caught sight of him, they parted to either side like a wake
made by a speedboat. Some doffed their hats, others acknowledged
him with an incline of their heads, but one thing was for sure,
Faedra could see he was very well known, and very well respected.
Jocelyn subtly guided Faedra into doing the fairy sandwich thing
again as they fell in line behind Faen and followed him in single
file until they got through the crowd. Once through the hoards of
people, they positioned themselves just behind and to either side
of him. Faedra saw the king then for the first time. He was sitting
up rigidly on a throne at the other end of the room and they
carried on walking until they reached the steps that led up to the
throne.

Faen came to a stop and kneeled in front of
the king. Jocelyn did some sort of a curtsy, and Faedra tried and
failed miserably to do the same. She had never been before royalty
and had no idea of the formalities, but tried her hardest to not
insult the king by her lack of etiquette. At least she was giving
it her best effort.

“Your Majesty,” Faen spoke with respect and
looked up at the king who gestured with his hand for Faen to
stand.

Faedra had noticed that the room was now
silent. Even though it was fit to bursting with people, you could
hear a pin drop.

“Guardian, I knew you would come. I fear my
worst nightmare has come to fruition.”

“Your Majesty, we found Elvelynn. She
lives.”

“She lives? But I sent sentinels to her house
to see if she was there and they found nothing. Where was she?”

“Ms. Faedra found her,” he answered and
gestured a hand in Faedra’s direction. “She had been tortured and
poisoned, and they had left her under the floorboards to die. She
is with Bedowen now.”

Faedra thought she may have been mistaken,
but she could swear there was just a hint of pride in Faen’s voice
when he said it.

“Ah, Lillith’s daughter, of course,” the king
said in dulcet tones as he rose and stepped down from his
throne.

He was a commanding figure, moving with grace
and assurance. He had the face of authority; experience seeped from
every fiber of his being. She could tell just by looking at him
that he was much much older than he appeared. He wore sumptuous
robes made of heavy velvet that were forest green in color and
edged with the obligatory gold trim. The same crest she had seen on
the huge banner draped from the balcony outside, was embroidered
onto his robes also. Faedra gulped and gave him a feeble smile as
he came to a standstill in front of her. His presence alone was
compelling enough to fill the entire hall they were standing
in.

The king took Faedra’s chin in his hand and
moved her face gently from side to side, examining her features
with interest. At first Faedra felt incredibly uncomfortable, if
not just a little intimidated, but when she dared herself to look
into the king’s eyes, she saw only sadness there. “You are the
image of your mother, my dear child,” he spoke in a whisper so that
only she could hear. “You cannot even imagine what your being here
means to me.”