The Emerald Staff (28 page)

“If I may have it back when you have
completed your quest,” he said as he handed her the staff with a
bow of his head.

Faedra sucked in a breath as the wood from
the staff touched the skin of her outstretched palms.

She could feel the palpable energy from the
staff running through her fingers and up into her arms. It was
intricately decorated just like its sister the ruby staff, but with
gems of sparkling emeralds emblazoned down its length. Mesmerized
by its beauty, it took her a few seconds to comprehend that she was
now holding the only hope she had of finding her dad alive.

Snapping herself back to the here and now,
she looked up at Draconis. Now it was her turn to have watery eyes.
“Thank you, I will return it, I promise.”

“I have no doubt that you will.” He turned
and moved towards the egg, stopped and looked back. “I hope you
find your father.”

She gave him a weak smile in response.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Faedra and Faen still stood in the doorway of
the great hall where Draconis was now cooing over his egg,
completely ignoring anything else around him.

“Do you know how it works?” Faedra asked
Faen.

“Just think of where you want to go and it
will take you. Make sure you wait until I have my hands on it
before you do or you will leave me behind.”

“I think we should pick up Etyran on the way,
don’t you? He will come in handy if we need to disappear or if we
need an extra pair of hands in a fight.”

Faen gave a curt nod. “I agree. Let us go
find him.”

They stacked their hands up the shaft of the
emerald staff and even though she only needed to think the
destination, she wasn’t taking any chances and spoke aloud. “Take
us to Etyran.”

Tiny green laser lights shot out from each of
the emeralds and encircled them.

“Oh, my God, this is it,” Faedra said as she
watched the tiny green lights dance around her and felt a lurch in
her gut similar to when she’d ridden the
Nemesis
roller
coaster at a theme park years ago. A split second later, they were
no longer standing on the cold flagstone floor at the entrance to a
cavernous ornate hall, but, instead, were standing on a patch of
dirt surrounded by gnarly brush. They looked around and then their
eyes were drawn downwards to see Etyran lying on the ground in
front of them. He was looking through an opening in the brush with
a pair of very modern binoculars. Faedra thought it odd to see him
with a pair of binoculars and figured he’d smuggled them into Azran
from his exiled home in the World of Men.

“Hi,” Faedra said, her voice slicing through
the eerie silence.

Etyran flung his head up in surprise and got
his hair tangled in the brush above him then promptly disappeared
from view.

Faedra reached out her foot and tapped his
leg where she knew he would still be lying invisible on the
ground.

“It’s just us,” she said, amusement making
the sides of her mouth curl.

Etyran showed himself again, he was trying
fruitlessly to free his hair from the brambles he’d got caught in
so he could turn over to see them.

“In the name of Kernunnos, are you trying to
give a man a heart attack?” He grouched, unable to look at them
until he could free himself.

Faedra let go of the emerald staff leaving it
in Faen’s capable hands, kneeled down next to Etyran, and proceeded
to untangle his golden brown locks from the thorny brush.

After a few moments Faedra managed to detach
most of the Lightbender’s hair from the brambles, enough that he
could now sit up and see his two friends. He gave Faedra a warm
smile.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting to see you again so
soon.”

“Look what we got,” Faedra said, directing
him with gleeful eyes to what Faen was holding.

“Well, I never, you found the egg.”

Faedra responded with a smug smile as she
freed the last tangle of hair from the brush and helped the exiled
Guardian to his feet.

Etyran brushed the dirt off his clothes then
brushed his hands together, sending plumes of dust to swirl around
them. “So, what are you doing here?”

“We stopped on the way to see if you’ll come
with us. We may need another pair of hands and your ability might
come in handy. We don’t know what we’ll find when get wherever it
is we’re going.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course, I’ll come.
You know me, always up for a bit of a ruckus.” Etyran said showing
his immaculate smile. Faen smiled at his old friend and rolled his
eyes. One thing was certain, if trouble didn’t find his friend,
Etyran went looking for it.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Faedra said as she
put her hands on the emerald staff Faen was already holding and
waited until Etyran had his hands firmly gripped around it too.

She gave her Guardian a hopeful smile and
breathed in deeply to steady her nerves. It didn’t work.

“Take us to the ruby staff.”

The tiny green laser lights encircled them
again and Faedra felt the now familiar lurch in her gut.

I’m coming, Dad
.

No sooner had she finished her thought, they
arrived at their destination. And much to their surprise, they were
now looking around an all too familiar corridor.

Faedra’s eyes widened as troops of guards
came charging past them and turned the corner up ahead, met by
guards who were coming from the opposite end of the corridor. Then
they marched through a doorway and disappeared out of sight.

“What are we doing
here
?” Faedra
asked.

Faen shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t be here.” Etyran exclaimed before
turning tail to leave in the opposite direction of the guards.
Faedra grabbed his arm and was about to do some serious begging
when a familiar voice echoed down the hall.

“Vivianna, you must reconsider. Why are you
doing this?”

“Just give me the book, Father.”

“You know I cannot do that. Even if I wanted
to, I do not have access to it.”

“You are the king, do you really expect me to
believe you cannot access the Book of Anohs?”

Faedra’s blood froze and she grabbed Etyran’s
arm even tighter as pieces of the puzzle started falling into
place.

“I somehow think he has bigger fish to fry
right now,” she said, pleading with her eyes for him not to leave
them. “Do that invisible thing, he won’t see you and it’ll give us
an advantage.”

Etyran gave her a considering glance and
nodded before he disappeared from view. Faedra still had hold of
his arm as another group of guards came charging past them and they
all backed against the wall to avoid being trampled. Once the
guards had passed, the three turned and ran along behind them into
the castle’s great hall in Azran. What they saw next prompted Faen
to pull Faedra back out of sight behind one of the enormous stone
pillars that held up the roof.

Faen and Etyran stood either side of her and
wouldn’t let her go any further.

The hall was now full of soldiers,
surrounding four people who stood in the middle. One of which, was
her father, the kidnapped one.

The king was pleading with his daughter to
let Henry go and Vivianna was standing hands-on-hips with a very
defiant look on her face. Faedra’s heart skipped as she saw her dad
being held hostage with a knife to his throat. His captor was a
tall, strikingly handsome man with jet-black hair and dark olive
skin. He wore an immaculate black tailored suit and looked like
he’d just walked off the cover of
GQ
magazine. He definitely
didn’t fit the image of a kidnapper. Her dad looked terrified but
from this distance, she could not see any evidence that he’d been
harmed.

“Savu.” Faen and Etyran hissed together.

“What? Where?’ Faedra asked looking first at
her Guardian then at the thin air Etyran was occupying. “I thought
Savu was a dragon.”

“He is,” they whispered together.

“I don’t see any dragons.”

“Dragons can take human form, if they so
desire,” Faen explained. “Savu is the one holding your dad.”

Faedra looked back at the man who was holding
her dad and could feel her anger start to roil.

“Let me go,” she said to Faen and Etyran.

“Faedra, you cannot go in there, we need to
think of a plan first,” Faen replied.

“He’s right, luv. You can’t just go in there
energy balls a’blazin’. You don’t have any idea how powerful Savu
is. He could transform you to ash in seconds,” Etyran
continued.

Fury was boiling within her now. She couldn’t
bare to look at her dad being held at knifepoint, any longer. Her
energy was building, and within a few seconds, both the men
restraining her let go with an audible yelp of pain.

She stepped out from behind the pillar and
strode forward, the rage boiling within her blocking out all
reason. The only thing she could think of was rescuing her dad.

“Faedra, I beg you do not do this,” Faen
pleaded. He was walking backwards in front of her, knowing full
well that he couldn’t physically restrain her lest he get
electrocuted in the process. “You do not have the power to defeat
Savu, none of us do.”

Faedra looked straight through her Guardian,
as if he weren’t even there. The expression in her eyes scaring
even him. When he realized there was nothing he could do to stop
her, he stepped aside.

“Let my dad go!” Faedra yelled as she neared
the gathered group in the center of the great hall.

Some of the guards parted to let her through
when they looked round to see her storming towards them with a look
of thunder on her face. A picture of her must have been circulated
amongst the troops now, as they all seemed to recognize her, unlike
her encounter with a couple of them a few days before.

The gathered group in the center fell silent
and turned to look at her. She could sense Faen and Etyran flanking
either side of her and that made her just a little more confident.
She may look like the coming of World War III on the outside but on
the inside she was quaking like a leaf caught on a stiff autumn
breeze.

She noticed the hair on the guard’s heads
closest to her rising with the static electricity she was
generating. The guards took a couple of steps back from her on
either side, looking more uncomfortable with her than with what was
transpiring in the middle of the hall. Controlling her energy was
going to be her next concern. She couldn’t care less if she blew
away Vivianna and Savu, but to hurt her dad, or any of her friends
in the process, was unthinkable.

“You’re early,” Vivianna’s silken voice cut
through the silence like a knife. “I wasn’t quite ready for you
yet. How did you find us?”

“Looks like my poor excuse for a brother
helped them,” Savu hissed with contempt as he cast his eyes over
the emerald staff Faen was holding.

“Well, no matter, it is not going to affect
our plans.” Vivianna gave Savu a smug look before returning her
gaze to Faedra.

“I said, let my dad go,” Faedra repeated, the
lack of control over her energy causing an audible crackle in the
air around her.

Vivianna held out her hand, palm up and
wiggled her fingers. “The amulet first.” Her voice was so sickly
sweet it made Faedra want to gag.

“Not going to happen.”

Vivianna raised her eyebrows and gave a
little devil-may-care shrug. “Well, in that case, I guess daddy has
to die.”

“If you kill my father you’ll lose your only
bargaining chip. I can’t see you doing that, somehow.” Faedra’s
stomach was hardly able to keep its contents down. She was so sick
with fear hoping her double bluff would work. It was taking every
ounce of strength she possessed to keep her exterior calm and cool;
inside she felt like a volatile time bomb with only a few seconds
left on the clock. Savu pushed the knife harder against Henry’s
neck causing her dad to go up on his tiptoes to evade the blade
from slicing his skin. Faedra took a step forward ready to create
merry hell in the hall when she saw the subtle look Vivianna gave
Savu and he loosened his hold a fraction. Henry relaxed the tiniest
bit in response, and the stalemate was allowed to continue for a
while longer.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The tension in the great hall was rising.
Vivianna started to pace back and forth in front of her hostage and
her father, chin resting between thumb and forefinger calculating
her next move. Faedra didn’t take her eyes off her dad, who looked
back at her with question and confusion in his eyes. She could
hardly blame him, he didn’t belong in this world, had no idea of
its existence until a few days ago. Heck, she’d only been
introduced to it a few months ago and was still having a hard time
getting to grips with it.

The tense standoff between her and Vivianna
was not good and she knew it wouldn’t last for long. Vivianna was
sure to make a decision about her next move very soon and Faedra
wanted to be ready. Although, at this point, Faedra had her doubts
that Vivianna was the one pulling the strings anymore. She stopped
looking at her dad after giving him her best ‘
it’ll be all
right, Dad
’ look, and turned her attention to her adversary who
was still pacing back and forth. In that instant, she wished her
power allowed her to read other people’s thoughts.

She was distracted by a “psst” noise coming
from somewhere behind her. Her eyebrows pinched together as she
looked around and noticed Faen had turned his head to look, too,
but they couldn’t immediately see anyone else in the hall.

“Psst.” The noise was a little more insistent
this time. Faedra scanned the hall and caught a glimpse of black
and white hair and half of a very pale face peeking out from behind
one of the massive stone pillars towards the back of the hall.

“Jocelyn?” she mouthed.