The Amulet (11 page)

“But I’m not warded anymore,” she stated as
she started scanning the perimeter of her garden with growing
concern.

“You are safe here, Ms. Faedra. Your house
and grounds have been warded for centuries, nothing can get past
the property boundaries if it has evil intent,” he continued.

“But I can’t stay in here forever, I’m going
out with my friends tonight to celebrate my birthday. What do they
want with me anyway and how did they find me? It said in Mum’s
letter that only three people know the whereabouts of the amulet,
and only two of them know about me.”

Faen’s face mirrored the look of concern that
Faedra was feeling. “I do not know what they want or how they found
you. You, the king of Azran, and I are the only ones who are
supposed to have knowledge of the amulet. The king, and I are the
only ones who know about you.”

“Forgive me for not sounding very confident
in that, when some murderous evil fairies have been coming after
me, before I even know who I am.”

“I will teach you to defend yourself, Ms.
Faedra. I will not leave your side again,” he said, trying to
reassure her.

She hung her head, not wanting to ask the
next question, but needing to know. “My mum didn’t die of a
mysterious illness did she?” She looked over and studied his
features. Her heart ached when she saw the sorrow and regret on his
face.

“No,” he replied, “she did not.” His eyes
reflected his sadness as he remembered lifting Lillith’s battered
body from the hard cold gravel pathway behind the church. She had
put up a good fight but had been overpowered. Instead of killing
her swiftly, the redcaps poisoned her. Leaving her to die a slow
painful death. He didn’t understand why. They were usually so swift
with their killings, which only led him to believe that they were
doing someone else’s bidding. As yet, he had not discovered for
whom that was. Because of the speed with which she healed,
Lillith’s bruises had almost disappeared by the time he got her
home. So her husband and daughter were left wondering what had made
her so sick, and why it happened so suddenly.

“Were you her Guardian, too? Weren’t you
supposed to protect her?” Faedra’s voice took on a demanding
tone.

“Yes, Ms. Faedra, on both counts.”

“Well, you didn’t do a very good job, did
you?” Faedra snapped. Her voice laced with the bitterness she had
carried for so long because of losing her mother at such an early
age.

Faen’s face fell, and he hung his head. “Your
mother sent me to run an errand. I should not have left her, but
she insisted. I will be eternally remorseful for my actions that
day,” he looked up and shot a determined glare at Faedra. “You can
be sure, Ms. Faedra, I will not make the same mistake twice.”

Faedra averted her eyes from his. She felt a
little ashamed of her outburst. Being mean was not a natural
occurrence for her, but she never had anyone or anything to blame
for her mother’s death before. The feeling of needing to place
blame was suddenly overwhelming.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound, well, you
know,” she spoke softly again.

“Do not concern yourself; it was no more than
I deserved. Your mother was a wonderful, caring person. She was a
very talented Custodian and could fight like no human I had ever
seen before. Her sword skills were beyond measure.”

Faedra shook her head. “My mum knew how to
fight? With a sword?”

“Yes, the best I have ever seen in a
human.”

“Whoa,” she breathed.

“She should have been the one to teach you,
but she had found out something, and was on her way to tell the
King. She was intercepted before she got to the portal.”

“So you’re telling me my mum was…
murdered?”

Faen hung his head again, averting his gaze.
“Yes, Ms. Faedra, she was.”

In an instant, the need to blame someone was
fiercely overshadowed with a need for revenge. A feeling that shook
Faedra to the core. She had never felt such a strong emotion before
and it scared her. She slid down from the swing and stood in front
of Faen with her hands, that were balled into fists, resting on her
hips.

“Show me!” she demanded. “You tell me I have
a power. Show me how to find it and use it!”

Faen looked up at the determined young lady
who was standing over him. Her eyes flashed with a passion he had
never witnessed in her before, a passion for revenge. He rose in
one fluid movement. In the blink of an eye, he was standing right
in front of her, inches from her face. She blinked back her
surprise at the swiftness with which he could move, but held her
position and did not flinch or step back.

That’s a promising start
, he
thought
, she stood her ground. Moving like that would make most
humans jump out of their skin
. He held her gaze steady with
his. In another blink of an eye he was behind her, but somehow she
anticipated the move, had turned immediately, and was facing him
again. Her eyes flashed with anger this time.

He rubbed his chin.
Lightning reflexes,
another good sign.

He wanted to try something else, just to test
his theory on her reflexes, and made to grab her by the throat.
Instantaneously, she ducked, avoiding his grip and kicked his legs
out from under him. Instead of falling to the ground, he just
hovered on his side in mid-air as if he were relaxing on an
invisible platform. Propping himself up on his elbow, he gave her a
wry smile.

She scowled at him. “What are you doing?” she
snapped. “Stop messing about and start teaching me how to defend
myself.” Then she thought for a moment about what she had just
done.

“Ms. Faedra, I think you are going to be a
natural at this, just like your mother.” He smiled as he lowered
his feet to the ground and stood up again.

She considered her reaction for a moment. It
had all happened so fast she hadn’t even thought about it. “How did
I do that?” she asked.

“As I said, you are going to be a natural at
this,” he repeated. “Now, let us begin trying to discover what
power you hold. I have observed you blowing on your hands
repeatedly over the past few weeks. Your power could be connected
with them.”

“Of course, that would make sense. Thank
Goodness I’m not going mad, although I have to wonder if this is
all a dream, and I’m going to wake up any second.”

“Be assured, Ms. Faedra, it is not a dream.
Now, concentrate on your hands and see if you can feel anything
unusual,” he instructed.

She looked at her hands and channeled all her
thoughts to them. Nothing happened, not even the slightest
tingle.“Nothing happened,” she said in dismay.

“Try again,” he instructed, circling her
now.

She closed her eyes this time and
concentrated hard. Still nothing.

“Try again,” Faen repeated.

She did, and again, and again for about an
hour, but still nothing.

“I need to take a break,” she whispered.

“Try again,” Faen insisted.

“No. I need a break.”

“The redcaps will not give you a break, Ms.
Faedra. Try again.”

She squared her shoulders at him and held her
hands out for him to see. “Well, I must be broken then because it’s
not working. I obviously don’t have this so called power.”

“Yes, you do. Try again,” he was
incessant.

Frustration was starting to get the better of
her.

“Faen, I do not have any powers!” she shouted
as she flicked her hands out in defeat. Her eyes widened in utter
disbelief as she watched two balls of light shoot from her palms.
The two balls were on a collision course with Faen’s head. He
twisted his torso and the balls flew past him, narrowly missing his
ear. They exploded against the tree trunk leaving scorch marks in
the bark. She closed her hands and held them to her chest.

“Careful, Ms. Faedra, you nearly took off my
ear,” he said with a smile. He looked at her with the proud
admiration of a parent whose child had just received an ‘A’ in
math.

“Sorry,” she squeaked.

“Oh, do not be. That was very impressive for
your first time,” he praised. “This is very advantageous. You can
control energy; electrical energy it would seem. Humans are made up
of electrical impulses, and your power gives you the ability to
mold that energy and send it outside of your body. When you have
had more practice, you will be able to mold outside sources of
energy too.”

She gawped at him; it was all she could do.
She hadn’t woken up from any dream yet, so she had to try and
accept the fact that she had just flung two balls of light across
the yard and nearly blown up the tree.

“Can you remember what you were feeling when
your power materialized?” he asked. “Could you try and reenact that
again, but with a little more control this time?”

She could remember, she felt anger and
frustration.

“I’ll Try.” She closed her eyes holding her
palms up. Faedra imagined her mum being attacked by the redcaps.
Anger seared through her. She opened her eyes in shock when she
realized it wasn’t the anger that seared her, it was the energy she
was sending from all over her body into the palms of her hands. She
stared at the balls of light she had created that were now bobbing
above each of her palms.

“Very good, Ms. Faedra,” Faen smiled.

She looked up at him and smiled back. The
balls of light fizzled out and disappeared. This power seemed to be
connected to negative emotion, and that wasn’t something she was
used to feeling. She didn’t like the idea that she would have to
make herself angry or frustrated to be able to use it.

“Faen?” she asked. “I don’t want to have to
be angry to conjure my power. I don’t like feeling that way.”

“Do not worry, this is just the beginning.
You will learn to control your power much more easily as time
progresses. At present, heightened emotion enables you to pull your
power forward. In time, you will learn to control it without
negative emotion. Although, it will always be strongest when your
feelings are running high. That is just the natural order of
things. Not much different to the ‘fight or flight’ response humans
have to danger. It will be most powerful when the need for it is
greatest.”

They decided to take a break for a while.
Faedra lifted herself back up onto the swing and watched as Faen
lowered himself to the ground to lean against the oak tree.

“What power did my mother have?” she
asked.

“Your mother was telekinetic. She could move
things with her mind.”

His reply sparked a memory that Faedra had
almost forgotten, but, in a flash, it was there again, clear as
day. She had walked into the dining room one morning when she was
little. Her mother was doing some dusting and humming to herself.
She had her back to Faedra and hadn’t heard the little girl walk
in. She was standing on a chair reaching up to try and dust the
light hanging from the tall ceiling, but couldn’t quite reach it.
She opened her hands and the duster floated up to the light and
started dusting by itself. Faedra had let out a gasp causing her
mother to turn to look at her. The duster had fallen gracefully to
the floor. Lillith had flushed, picked up the duster and gone about
her business as if nothing had happened. Faedra had never been
quite able to believe what she’d seen, so put it to the darkest
recesses of her mind.

She thought of something else, too. She was
going to ask the question when Faen mentioned it, but got caught up
in another thought, and had forgotten about it until now.

“Faen, you mentioned earlier that you and
Jocelyn were keeping the redcaps away from me. Who is Jocelyn?”

He sighed. “She is my little sister.”

Faedra’s eyebrows shot up. “You have a little
sister?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied stoically. “She is
the black and white dog you see at the church. She guards the
portal to the Land of Azran.”

Could sibling love and rivalry be the same
for fairies as for humans, she wondered. Faedra laughed, and Faen
narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, that growling thing you do with
her makes perfect sense now,” she responded to his frown. “My
friend’s little brother gets on her nerves all the time, but she
still loves him, even if she can’t stand him sometimes.”

He didn’t respond.

“Wait, you said she guards the portal.
There’s a portal at the church?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, we can get to your world at the
church?”

“Yes.”

“So how come the vicar couldn’t see her that
day when I asked him if she was his?”

“She used glamour to hide herself.”

“Ooh,” Faedra shuffled excitedly on the
swing, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “I know what that means!
It means you can choose to make other people see what you want them
to see, doesn’t it? I remember that from an episode of
Charmed
.”

Faen gave her a martyred look, he remembered
that episode of Charmed, also. Along with all the others in the
seven seasons he had watched with her. It was her favorite show,
and she never missed a single one.

Faedra practiced using her power for several
more hours, watched by Faen as he relaxed against the ancient oak
tree. He was impressed by how swiftly she was becoming adept at
focusing her thoughts and creating balls of light in her palms, but
she had not yet mastered, apart from that very first time, the art
of being able to throw them at a target. They dissipated into
sparks just a few inches from her hands, and he could tell she was
getting tired. It was, after all, her energy she was throwing away
each time, and she had to replenish it with something to eat or she
would get weak very quickly.

“I think you have had enough for one day, Ms.
Faedra,” he said as he rose in that fluid motion of his and was, in
the blink of an eye, standing before her. “You need to eat, you are
growing tired. Remember, this is your energy you are expelling. You
need to replenish it often.”