Sapphire (30 page)

Do it. Now’s your chance. Do it! Kill her!
But she just stood there, staring, heart pounding, a tremor
beginning to flow from her arms to the sword.
Kill?
said
another voice in her head.
Are you truly capable of such an
act?

The creases around Adhara’s eyes relaxed, she began
to smile, and took a step nearer. She started to raise her hand, a
grin of triumph brightening her eyes.

“No!” screamed Shawna, throwing the sword high over
her head, rushing forward, and swinging it down with all her
might.

The moment before it struck, her sword was ripped
from her grasp and clattered across the stones far behind her.
Adhara spun around to see what had stopped her daughter’s attack,
for she hadn’t moved at all. A man, in simple skins and furs,
partly robed in darkness, stood a ways down the hallway. He lowered
his hand, blue light melting back into his skin. Firelight
flickered across his scarred arms and face. Shawna felt detached
from her body, and she couldn’t breathe. It was her father.

Adhara looked like she was about to collapse as
well. She sobbed and took a stumbling step in his direction as he
strode towards them. Her mother was crying? Shawna looked back at
her father, the man who had saved her all those years ago, and saw
the same concerned loving expression on his face.

“Warwick,” her mother choked, as she fell into his
arms.

He wrapped her in a desperate embrace, burying his
face in her golden hair and closing his eyes. Shawna felt like her
legs had vanished, she couldn’t feel them, she couldn’t feel
anything. She didn’t understand. This woman had tried to
kill
her. Why were they holding each other? Why had he
disarmed her? She looked from the corner of her eye for her sword.
It glittered only a few paces away.

“Ava, daughter.”

His deep voice bound her legs with invisible chains
of her own making. She remembered that voice.

You’ll be safe,
the voice had said.
I will
not let you take her.
She remembered those words so
perfectly.

What had changed? Hadn’t he meant what he said? Why
was he now on that witch’s side? These confused thoughts tied her
into knots; her limbs wouldn’t work, her heart thudded against her
chest like it was trying to escape its ribbed prison. They both
turned to look at her, hands clasped. Adhara smiled. Her father let
go of her mother’s hand and stepped towards her.

A hundred possibilities flashed through her mind in
seconds:
Run! Sword! Fight! Stay! Trust him—
Her mind paused
on those words—
trust him
. She gazed at him, at his soft
brown eyes smiling back at her. She couldn’t help but trust him.
She wanted to trust him. He was her father. When they were standing
only a few feet apart, he stopped, still smiling slightly. She
could hear the throbbing echo of her heart in her ears.

“You found us,” he said.

She glanced past him at her mother, then back at him
as he spoke.

“I knew she was wrong.” His eyes were shining with
tears. “I knew you had the will and the strength.” He knelt down
and opened his arms. Shawna dropped her shoulders and raised her
head defiantly. “My dear little girl, I missed you more than you
can know. We both did. It’s all right now. You broke her
power.”

His smile was so loving and kind that tears sprang
to Shawna’s eyes before she could stop them. Without reservation,
she flung herself into his arms. He wrapped them around her, and
she had never felt so safe in all her life. She didn’t care if he
and her mother were no longer enemies, that Adhara had tried to be
rid of her, or that everything was turned upside down. All she
cared about was knowing her father was here, that he had saved her,
loved her, and it was as if time and worlds had never separated
them.

He released her and held her at arms length. She
quickly wiped a few tears from her cheeks and looked over his
shoulder at Adhara with confused suspicion. Warwick turned around
to follow her gaze.

“I think,” he said, “we need to explain. She doesn’t
understand.”

Her mother and father smiled at each other, and she
glanced at her fallen sword once more.

“Shawna! Shawnaaaa!”

Orin was running blindly around the forest, whacking
tree limbs with his sword, and crashing through the underbrush like
a bull. He was frantic after the light disappeared and had taken
Shawna with it.

“Shawna!”

“Orin!” Lula yelled.

She flew up to his face. He didn’t look at her.

“Orin, yelling is not
working.
”

He rushed away from her further into the dark woods,
calling for Shawna.

“Orin! Stop yelling!”

A faint yelp bounced out of the darkness up ahead.
Lula flew over to see if he had finally run himself into a tree.
Instead he had run into Antares who was practically sitting on him.
Orin was on his back completely pinned by two giant paws.

Antares growled at him. “If you keep howling like a
gargoyle I’ll make sure you end up looking like one.”

Orin lay gasping and glaring up at the crimson
glowing, nine hundred pound beast.

“Fine,” Orin muttered, glowering so much he really
did resemble a gargoyle. “Then what should we do? What’s your great
idea? If you didn’t notice she’s
gone!”

Antares curled his lip as Orin’s spit speckled his
muzzle. He roared and shoved his snarling face into Orin’s, black
claws extending and curving around his shoulders, but Orin didn’t
flinch. They growled and glared at each other. Lula rolled her
eyes.

“How cute you two are,” she said, crossing her
arms.

Mira stepped in upon the scene. “What’s going
on?”

Antares let him go, and Orin leapt to his feet with
fists clenched.

“They were cuddling,” said Lula.

Orin shot her an ugly look, and she gave one back.
Mira looked up at the stars and shook her mane like she was trying
to rid herself of gnats. She stomped a front hoof, and everyone
looked at her.

“We need to calm down and think. We cannot afford to
lose ourselves to petty emotion. We don’t know where any one of
them are right now, and that puts us all in danger.”

Everyone knew she meant Gavan as well as Shawna and
Adhara.

Lula glanced around. “What should we do?”

It was several minutes of everyone looking at
everyone else until Mira finally answered.

“There is something…something here. I can feel it. A
magic so strong, yet so intricately woven, that I cannot detect its
purpose. I believe she is here though. Somewhere close.”

Orin stiffened, looking all around. “Where? Where is
she? How can we find her?!”

“I am not sure. Calm
down.
All I know is that
she is here somewhere, concealed by very powerful magic. Even I
cannot dispel it. I’m afraid all we can do is wait.”

“Wait?!” At Orin’s shout Lula shot upward, hitting
her head on a low branch. “We can’t just sit here and
wait
.
We have to do something. What if she needs us?!”

Lula rubbed her head, glaring at Orin, while Mira
spoke.

“I think if she needed us we would know. Somehow, we
would know.”

Orin ran his tongue along his bottom teeth.
“
Somehow?
Is that the best of your powers, unicorn?
Somehow
we would know?”

“Yes.” Her eyes shone like gems in the starlight. “I
believe. I believe more than anything that we will know when she
needs us.”

He scoffed, throwing his hands up. “You
‘
believe.
’ That’s great. Hope that works out for you.
This
”—He waved his arms around at the silent forest robed by
night—“this waiting around for a sign is useless.”

He said it so coldly that Lula thought Mira would do
as she promised and run him through with her horn, but her eyes
swam with pity not anger.

Without another glance, he turned away, and said,
“while you do nothing, I’m going to do
something
.”

But before he took one step, they all heard a noise.
As one, they turned their eyes to the mountain pass.

“Oh, no,” whispered Lula, covering her mouth.

Mira’s horn ignited with flame. The earth trembled
from millions upon millions of feet. The air vibrated with
countless screeches, snarls, and howls. A piercing horrifying howl
echoed down the mountainside, repeated a million times over. It
sounded like the mountain was erupting and crumbling from
within.

“The molochs,” Mira gasped, rolling her eyes in fear
as their hordes crested the mountain pass and began to descend.

Her father led the three of them down the hall and
into a dreary chamber that was equipped with decaying fur seats and
a lit fireplace. Along the way, Shawna picked up her sword and
sheathed it, wondering if anyone would stop her, but neither
Warwick nor Adhara even blinked. Adhara kept looking at her with
such sorrow and love that Shawna made sure to keep her gaze fixated
in the opposite direction. She wasn’t sure what had happened, or
what was really going on. She didn’t know what to feel or think
yet.

“Sit,” Warwick said, indicating to one of the
dilapidated chairs near the roaring fire.

She hesitated for a second, wondering if some magic
spell would bind her prisoner there, but then said to herself,
trust him
, and sat down. At least it was warm near the fire.
Adhara stood next to him. Both stared at their daughter like she
was a mirage of smoke from the fireplace. Shawna fidgeted, touching
the sapphires.

“Ava,” her father began. She opened her mouth to
correct her name, but saw his stern face and closed it again.
“You’ve grown into such a beautiful and powerful young woman, a
true sorceress.”

She felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards.
It’s not every day your long-lost parents tell you what a
beautiful, powerful, sorceress you are.

“There is so much to tell you since—” He paused, and
his eyes fell. “Since that day I had to send you away, to keep you
safe.”

Shawna kept her hand clenched on her sword hilt, but
her eyes never left her father’s.

“Your mother is not who you think she is. The woman
that wanted to kill you—”

“Is
extremely
frustrated.”

Shawna leapt out of her chair while Warwick and
Adhara threw themselves in front of her, light blossoming down
their veins to their fingertips. A tall woman, neither young nor
old, clothed in simple elegant garb stood facing them, glaring like
her eyes were made of flame from under her razor-sharp lashes.
Shawna nearly choked on a scream. She was looking at her mother, or
at least the spitting image of her. Her eyes darted between her
mother and this newcomer. A twin? The only difference she could see
between them was the anger behind the other woman’s eyes. She saw a
little glint beneath the woman’s throat. It was the stone. The same
golden stone that glinted on Orin’s chest. The woman’s voice echoed
in her ears from all those years ago.

By letting her live we’ll all perish!

“You,” Shawna whispered out loud.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” sneered her mother’s
twin.

“It was
you
.
You’re
the one that tried
to kill me? This whole time—”

The woman laughed. It sounded so arrogant, so
spiteful, that Shawna found her hate and anger easily switched to
this mysterious fair-haired enchantress. This was the woman who had
tried to end her life all those years ago, and had been trying to
ever since. She felt the protective presence of her parents, and
despite the danger they were facing, she felt an inner warmth
beginning to grow. She realized how relieved she was knowing that
her deepest fears had not come true. Her father saved her life. Her
mother did love her. She had been wrong the entire time.