The Emerald Staff (32 page)

“Vivianna, you know what to do.
Unfortunately, it seems I am unable to have that particular
pleasure but I am sure you will enjoy yourself. Consider it my gift
to you. At least it will not be a total loss for me. My brother has
kindly saved me the trouble of going to him.

Vivianna picked up her sword and sauntered
towards Faedra, malice plastered all over her face.

“Savu, you chicken-livered runt. I should
have dealt with you when I had the chance.” Draconis taunted.

“Oh, silence, Brother. I will deal with you
in a few moments when I have the amulet. Vivianna get on with
it.”

Faedra locked gazes with Vivianna, as she
stalked with the grace of a cat towards her.

“You always were a sniveling little brat.”
Draconis spat.

Savu glared at his brother and fury boiled
within him. Faedra could feel it, and she prayed his temper was as
short as Draconis described to her earlier that day.

Keep going, Draconis, you’ve nearly got
him.

Vivianna stalked closer, taunting Faedra with
a slow swing of her sword.

“Mother hated you, she told me how much she
favored me over you, how she wished you’d never been born.”
Draconis taunted.

“Enough!” Savu screamed, causing Vivianna to
stop her stalking and turn to look at her partner-in-crime. “I may
not be able to kill the girl but I will have no trouble with
you.”

At last.

Savu held out his hands and threw a stream of
intense flame at his brother. Faedra sent a sharp jolt of
electricity down either arm causing her captors to let go with
shock and surprise. She jumped in front of Savu and was stunned by
the split second of searing agony that ripped through her body.
Then the familiar door in her mind opened up and her body took
over.

“No!” Savu screamed when he realized what was
happening. But there was nothing he could do. Faedra had locked
onto his energy and was sucking it into her body as fast as it
would let her.

Vivianna stood in stunned disbelief, looking
from Faedra to Savu and back again.

The redcaps murmured to one another and
seemed disoriented now that their master was incapacitated.

“Don’t just stand there, you idiot,” Savu
shrieked at Vivianna, snapping her out of her shock. “Kill the
girl!”

Vivianna held her sword up and moved closer
to Faedra, not seeing that Faen was overpowering his now confused
guard. He moved so fast Faedra couldn’t track his movements and, in
the next second, he had removed Vivianna’s sword from her grip and
had her hands held firmly behind her back. She struggled against
him, to no avail, and could do nothing else but glare at her
half-sister in disgust.

Seeing that Vivianna was no longer a threat,
Faedra concentrated on her part of the plan. She could feel her
body fighting. It was fighting to keep control of the immense power
she was absorbing and hanging onto consciousness by a thread. She
had to beat him. If she could suck all his energy from him, he
would die. She had to hang on; there was no other choice.

She could hear a shrieking somewhere in the
distance. Though her vision was becoming blurry with a red haze,
she could make out a figure at the end of the stream of fire
writhing about in what looked like agony. As her legs started to
give way, a pair of hands reached around to hold her up. There was
only one other person in the room who could withstand the heat of
dragon-fire. Draconis.

“Not long now, little one.” She heard the
whisper in her ear. “You are nearly there, just hold on a few more
seconds.”

“I-I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, you can, Faedra. The safety of the
seven realms rests with you. Don’t give up now.”

Faedra felt her consciousness slipping
through her fingers. Oddly, she couldn’t feel the intense heat that
was being thrown across the room. Her body felt warm but not
unbearably so, but there was a roar so loud inside her head she
could hardly hear herself think. She wondered where all this energy
was being stored, but her body seemed to know what it was doing, so
she concentrated on staying alive.

Everyone else in the hall, including the
redcaps, was now shielding their eyes and faces with lifted arms,
still trying to catch a glimpse of the spectacle unfolding before
them. The intense heat was now pushing them back further and
further away from her, shock visible on most of their faces. Only
Draconis remained, holding her steady. She sought out Faen, she
needed to see her Guardian. He was still restraining her sister,
but he was looking at her with a myriad of emotions visible in his
expression. She gave him a weak smile, which he returned.

After what seemed like hours, but was only
mere moments, there was one last shriek of agony. Then silence. The
roar stopped, the fire stopped, her body collapsed, and she felt
herself being scooped up. Unconsciousness was now just a
hairbreadth away. Vision blurred, she looked up at Draconis.

“I’ve got you, little one,” Draconis
whispered in her ear.

“Did our plan work?”

“Yes.”

She offered him a weak smile before blackness
took over and she slumped against his shoulder.

Faen shoved Vivianna into the grasp of one of
the king’s guards. “Hold her and do not let her go!” he
demanded.

The guard nodded his understanding and, even
as Vivianna glared at her new captor and wriggled in disgust, the
guard just clamped down even harder.

“Let me go, you moron,” Vivianna shrieked, in
an attempt to intimidate the guard.

The guard looked over at the king who gave
him a very stern shake of his head.

“I work for your father, not you. Right now
he seems to want you restrained.” The guard told her with obvious
glee in his voice.

The king looked toward his other daughter
being held by Draconis. He could see the worry in the dragon’s eyes
but took a quick detour on his way to her.

“Take her below, I’ll deal with her later,”
he told the guard restraining the princess. He gave Vivianna a
fleeting look that held disappointment, betrayal, and a myriad
other emotions before turning and striding towards the young girl
who just saved all their lives.

By the time the king got there, Faen had
already reached the others who were now surrounding Faedra and
Draconis.

“Don’t!” Draconis said as Faen reached out to
touch his charge.

He pulled his hand back with a jerk of
surprise and a look to match. It was then that he absorbed the
emotion in the dragon’s eyes. Something was wrong, very wrong.

Grave faces looked first down at her then up
at Draconis.

“She’s too hot. If any of you were to touch
her, she could sear the flesh straight from your bones. Her body is
fighting to absorb all that energy.

Faedra’s skin was bright red, as if she’d
been sunbathing all day without applying any sunscreen.

“We need to find somewhere cold enough to
cool her off, but there is no guarantee she will survive this. Only
time will tell.”

“There is nowhere that cold in Azran,” the
king said gravely.

“I have an idea,” Faen said. “It will require
the use of both the ruby and emerald staffs, with your permission,
Draconis.”

“Of course, Guardian. I have grown quite
attached to this young lady. She has the heart of a dragon,
anything I possess you may use if you think you can help her.”

****

“You are in love with her, are you not,
Guardian?”

Faen’s throat constricted as the words fell
from the king’s mouth. He’d been dreading this moment from the
first time he stared up into the tear soaked eyes of the little
girl with red curls that tumbled around her shoulders and down her
back. He longed for a devil-may-care response to the king who was
standing beside him, looking down at the lifeless body of his
daughter, but was betrayed by a strangled croak instead.

“Sire?” He closed his eyes, horrified by the
knowledge that his voice gave him away.

The king brought his gaze up from his
daughter and turned to look at her Guardian. Faen knew he’d been
discovered and the respect he held for the king forced him to meet
his gaze, to suffer the consequences he was about to be dealt.

“I used to look at her mother exactly the
same way,” the king mused. “Does she feel the same way about
you?”

Faen swallowed hard but didn’t look away.
“Yes, Sire, I believe she does.”

“Hmm, like mother like daughter. Only in this
case, she will age at about the same rate you will. Well, young
man, it looks as though I am going to have to bend the rules this
one time.”

Faen’s heart pounded, he hardly dared
breathe. “Sire?”

“I want my daughter to be happy. Kernunnos
only knows where I went wrong with the first one, and I do not want
to make the same mistake twice. I cannot lose another daughter. If
you are the man to make her happy, as well as the one to keep her
safe, then so be it. You have my blessing.”

Faen’s jaw dropped. There wasn’t much in life
that shocked him, but the king had rendered him speechless.

The king gave him a wistful smile. “You are
welcome, young man. Now, I must take my leave and send my
replacement. Azran will not run itself forever. Inform me if there
are any changes in her condition.”

“Yes, Sire.”

Faen bowed his head as the king rapped the
emerald staff on the floor and disappeared.

He sat in the chair next to where Faedra was
sleeping, elated over what the king just said, and took hold of her
hand. He rubbed his thumb idly over the back of her hand, amazed at
the warmth her bare skin was emitting in the frigid cold of the
cavern. His heart was singing until a movement in his hand turned
that singing to pounding instead.

Faedra broke free from the deadest sleep
she’d ever experienced and cracked her eyes open little by little.
Her vision was blurry at first but within in moments she began to
focus. The ceiling above her was craggy rock, she looked to one
side and saw more craggy rock. She shifted her gaze in the other
direction and looked up into the eyes of her Guardian. His face lit
up with the brightest smile she’d ever seen. He was sitting beside
her wearing clothes that one would wear in Antarctica.

“Welcome back,” he whispered.

Her throat felt as dry as the Sahara Desert
but she managed to croak, “How long have I been asleep?”

“Three weeks, two days, sixteen hours, and
twenty four minutes,” Faen replied, then added, “your time.”

She could feel the cold hard rock beneath her
and started to push herself up onto her elbows so she could take a
better look around. Her body protested at the movement and she
winced.

“Where am I?”

Torches burned on the walls of what looked
like a cavern. Her eyes scanned the room to see a couple of beds
with heavyweight bedding and a small fire burning in one corner,
far enough away that she couldn’t feel any warmth from it.

“The Arctic Circle,” Faen replied.

“The Arctic Circle? What on earth am I doing
here? Come to think of it why am I not freezing to death? I’m
wearing next to nothing.” Then she looked down and noticed that the
hand holding hers was ungloved, even in the freezing temperature.
But she felt cozy and warm.

“After you absorbed all of Savu’s energy, we
had to get you to the coldest place we could think of or you
probably would have died. Your body was burning up and we had to
cool you down quickly. For the first couple of weeks you warmed
this whole cavern and we didn’t need all these clothes. Draconis
would take you outside for hours at a time to lay you in the ice.
Last week we noticed it getting colder and colder in here and that
was when we grew to hope you were getting better.”

“Who’s we?”

“Everyone. Your dads, both of them, Jocelyn,
Etyran, my mother and father, and Draconis. We’ve been taking it in
shifts, especially since it started getting cold. Draconis loaned
us the ruby and emerald staffs. We keep the ruby staff here and go
back and forth with the emerald staff.”

Faedra sat up with a start, the memories of
what happened in the great hall slamming back into her brain with
ferocious intent. “My dad, is he okay?”

Faen smiled. “He is fine. Everyone is fine…
thanks to you.”

“What about Vivianna? What happened to
her?”

“She is locked below Azran castle. The king
stripped her of all power and employed the strongest ward caster in
all of the seven realms. The walls and door to her cell are now
covered with the most powerful containment wards ever created. I do
not think she will be getting out any time soon.”

“Are you sure?” Faedra asked,
unconvinced.

“As sure as any of us can be. To all intents
and purposes, she is little more than a mortal now and you killed
her most powerful ally.”

“Well, I’ll not be letting my guard down for
a while. As long as that woman is alive, I can’t trust that we’ve
not seen the last of her.”

“I am sure your father will do everything in
his power to keep her contained.” Faen said, smoothing his hand
over Faedra’s hair. It had started to fly around her head with
static electricity.

“Speaking of your father, the real one that
is, he was just here. He knows about us.”

Faedra’s eyes grew wide with concern. “He
does? How? He can’t take you away from me. I won’t let him.”

Faen brought his hand around to caress her
cheek. “Do not worry. He gave us his blessing.”

“He did?”

“Said he did not want to make another mistake
and lose another daughter.” He leaned in closer to her face. “So, I
guess that means I can do this as often as I like now.” His whisper
fanned over her face, warm and sweet.

“Do what?”

Faen gave her a smug mischievous smile.
“This,” he said before covering her mouth with his own.