Taken (Book Six) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series)

by Humphrey - D'aigle, Rachel

  “Colin,” she spoke softly. “I think it is important for you to not give up on yourself. I don’t know if there’s a correct answer to this age question. However, peoples’ memories are fickle. History tends to remember the bad, not the good. And as I hope you heard from your mentor, Jasper, Projectors are not automatically doomed to hurt or kill everything around them. Yes, there is the potential for that. There’s no point in smoothing over this fact.

  “However, I’ve known you nearly your entire life and the young man I see before me now may have grown and changed, but you’re still the Colin Jacoby I always thought you’d become. Strong. Brave and wise far beyond your years.”

  Arnon smiled. “You always know how to say what I’m thinking and cannot voice myself. And she is right, Colin. Life is about choices. We don’t always make the right ones. You might not always make the right ones. I’m sure Jasper made a few bad choices in his life, but he did live.”

  “Yeah, in hiding and alone for hundreds of years,” said Colin, a tinge of humor in his voice.

  “People won’t understand, generally speaking,” warned Kanda. “They fear what they do not understand or in this case, what they do not remember, which is that Projectors were once greatly trusted, revered even, like kings.”

  “But they also had other Projectors around to help them. I don’t. So what do I do? And what if it’s really sixteen not seventeen? And what if the day comes when I lose it. Go insane. Berserk. Need to be stopped? And I can’t be?”

  “You live in the moment,” said Catrina sweetly. “Like Jasper told you. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about the what ifs. Forget all that has happened, all that you cannot undo. Live in the now.”

  “See,” said Colin, “wouldn’t make it a day with out her.”

  “I really like her,” mouthed Kanda. She turned to leave, saying, “I’m going to start dinner. I think a good solid meal is just what the doctor ordered.”

  Colin’s mouth watered as he thought about eating some of Kanda’s delicious food.

  “Can I help?” asked Catrina, following Kanda, once again leaving Arnon and Colin alone.

  “I don’t know quite where to go from here,” Arnon said.

  “Well, food sounds pretty nice,” said Colin.

  Arnon reach out and ruffled his hair. “You’re a remarkable young man and you need to remember that, Colin.”

  Colin face turned flush. For a moment, he felt like he had gone back in time. Back to before he had known that magic even existed. To when he was just Colin Jacoby, target for bullies.

  “So, Colin,” said Arnon in a questioning tone. “I realize you haven’t fully told me everything that’s happened to you in the last couple of years, but where’s your sister? Where’s Meghan? Why isn’t she with you?”

  Reality came back in a flash. The Colin Jacoby those bullies remembered no longer existed. Moreover, for the first time in months, the topic of his sister didn’t send him into an instant fit of rage. His heart rate remained normal. His anger subdued.

  Colin proceeded to explain the rest of what had happened. How he discovered Catrina and that she was a song spinner, and how certain Svoda had helped them escape when Juliska Blackwell had found them out. And lastly, how it had been his own sister who had turned him in because she had mistakenly believed that Catrina was the Projector and a danger to Colin, and everyone.

  “When I left, she was living with Juliska Blackwell. Training with her, at her side all the time. You know Juliska is a Firemancer, right?”

  “Yes, that I know.”

  “Well, you know Meghan and how she thrives on attention. I think Juliska thrives equally in giving that attention at just the right times. Meghan just soaked it up, loved every minute of it. In her defense though, with the whole betrayal thing, I know she was just scared. I was really angry with her, pretty much right up to now,” he added, slightly ashamed. His sister had always looked out for him. Somehow, accepting this fact made him miss her, terribly. He didn’t know if he could ever fully forgive her, but he wondered if she was okay. Wondered what she was doing just then.

  Colin toyed with opening his mind connection to her and reaching out, but decided against it. He had no idea where she was or what she was doing and for all he knew she could still be sitting by Juliska’s side, still blind to the truth. Yeah, not ready to completely forgive her, just yet...

  Kanda called out that dinner was prepared a few minutes later. They ate in silence, Colin licking up every bit of delicious food. He had missed Kanda’s cooking immensely.

  After it was finished and the mess cleaned up, Kanda and Arnon tossed each other knowing looks, which both Colin and Catrina caught.

  “What?” asked Colin, as it was clear they had something else on their minds. “If you’re trying to tell me that you guys are a couple, I sort of figured that out already.”

  Arnon laughed. “I do suppose that is kind of obvious. This is not about that though. You see, you’ve come back to us at a rather odd moment.”

  “When you first arrived, Colin,” said Kanda, “and saw me putting things away outside, that was not for winter. You see, we are leaving Cobbscott.”

  “Leaving? Why?” asked Colin.

  “Kanda must return to her people,” Arnon said. “And I am going with her.”

  “Return to who?” asked Colin, confused.

  “Colin, my place isn’t really here. You see, I serve my people, the Tunkapog, as a liaison of sorts, between the magical communities. But my time here is ending, at least for now, for regrettably we are nearing a time of war. Something we have not entered into for generations. The Tunkapog have always preferred to remain in the middle when it comes to magical... disagreements,” she explained.

  “I guess I never really thought about it before, where you came from. I guess I just always thought it was here,” said Colin.

  Kanda smiled, speaking fondly. “This will always be my home, if I am granted a way to return.”

  “So where is this place?”

  “Would you like to see it?” she asked.

  Colin glanced at Catrina, sending her a look that asked do you think it’s safe to do so?

  “Colin,” said Arnon. “You can come and go from this place as you see fit. You are not or will not be a prisoner of any sort. It is simply the home of the Tunkapog and where Kanda and I need to be right now. Personally, I would love for the two of you to join us... and I think you might actually learn some things while you’re there...” he gazed up at Kanda as if to say, how much should we tell him?

  “There is no more point in hiding any truths,” she said.

  Arnon nodded. “Colin, your timing in returning to us might just be fate. I’m starting to hate that word,” he added with a frown. “Regardless, this war that’s about to begin, well, you and Meghan are sort of part of it.”

  Colin didn’t know how much more he could handle in one day. One day? How about one lifetime? He’d just lost Jasper Thorndike, been reunited with his uncle and Kanda, revealed to them that he was the Projector everyone was hunting, found out he could not die even if he wanted to, and discovered how he had come to live with Arnon Jacoby. He still had many questions; he wasn’t ready to leave his uncle. Not yet. And now to top it all off, there was a battle brewing that he and Meghan were somehow a part of.

  So many answers, but so many more questions. He felt like they had barely scratched the surface of everything he wanted to talk about. And the unanswered questions, neither Arnon or Kanda had those answers.

  He was alone. One of a kind. He didn’t belong anywhere. A deadly freak in the eyes of nearly everyone, possibly including Meghan. Anger, fear and confusion overwhelmed him. His mind started to feel cluttered, burdened with too much thought.

  Could he really do all of this without Jasper’s help?

  He could not stop the steady stream of doubt clamoring its way through his brain.

  Kanda’s house started to shake, things falling off walls and shelves. Arnon gra
bbed her arm to steady her as the shaking increased.

  Thoughts swarmed in Colin’s mind, clumping together, becoming incoherent. Without realizing it, he started to rock back and forth.

  “Colin,” Catrina called out calmly.

  He had let his guard down. The book sputtered, unable to keep up with his thoughts. Deep inside his very core, he felt something welling up. Expanding. Needing to burst. In the matter of a second he knew it was too late; he could not stop what was about to happen.

  At the same moment that this thing inside him freed itself, he ordered a barrier around Catrina, Arnon and Kanda. They were each confined inside an impenetrable bubble-like cocoon.

  At the same moment that each was protected by this cocoon, a wave of magical energy erupted out of Colin, shattering everything it touched. It started with a glass vase, shards flying into the air, followed by the furniture and windows of Kanda’s home. It flattened her walls, sending wood and belongings shooting outward, smashing into trees.

  Inside of their protective cocoons, Arnon and Kanda watched, helpless, speechless. Catrina called out to Colin, but he struggled to hear her over the chaos strangling his mind.

  “One thought,” she shouted. “Grab one thought. Be in the moment.”

  He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he told himself. He grabbed hold of that thought and threw away all else. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said again and again. “I want everything to be as it was.” He repeated this thought until quite suddenly Magicante caught up with him and he no longer felt like his inner core was about to burst open.

  He opened his eyes. He was back in Kanda’s kitchen, as if nothing had happened. As if the explosion had never happened. Even the glass vase was intact, on the counter. The cocoons dissolved and Catrina ran forward.

  “I’m sorry,” Colin spouted. “I should have been more careful. I could feel it building. I just didn’t realize it wouldn’t stop.”

  “We’re all okay,” Catrina told him.

  Colin took a daring gaze into his uncle’s eyes. There it was; what he had expected to see all along. Fear. Doubt. Distrust. Then all of that vanished.

  “Wow,” Arnon breathed out.

  Kanda did a few turns around her kitchen, which a moment ago had been blown apart. Everything was exactly as it had been. Not the tiniest thing was out of place.

  “I know the theory behind what just happened,” she said, her tone amazed, “but to see it in action. I’m sorry, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but that was astonishing to witness.”

  “That’s what I meant, it just came out as wow,” added Arnon, in a bewildered warble.

  “Still think I’m not a freak with a non-fulfill-able death wish? That all of this is just somehow going to work out?” Colin asked, a part of him almost feeling vindicated. Like he had needed to show this to his uncle, to prove what he was, and what he was capable of doing. His words had come out more harshly than he had meant, partly because he was angry with himself and partly because there was nothing left to hide.

  “I stand by everything I’ve said Colin,” Arnon replied confidently. “You didn’t ask for this. And as astonishing as it was to see, you controlled it. You didn’t let it win.”

  Colin let out a long sigh. He tried to imagine Jasper and his hundreds of years of living as a Projector. How had he accomplished it? Was he just lucky? Did he have some uncanny ability to remain calm in any circumstance? No matter what?

  He suddenly felt very old. Very tired.

  And although his uncle sounded confident in what he said, there was still a hint of fear in his eyes. Colin wondered how badly he had frightened them all, and whether they felt safe being around him. Catrina was still at his side. Her smile warmed him. Gave him hope.

  Kanda was about to leave and return to her real home, taking his uncle with her. He wondered now if they were questioning the decision to allow him to come.

  Chapter 3

  A brutal truth was revealing itself to all that stood near the cliff’s edge. Irving Mochrie fell to his knees after seeing his son Jae jump to his death, after claiming that it was Juliska Blackwell who created and controlled the Scratchers. And that his son was one of them.

  How could this be? Could she really have fooled them all? Had she really turned his son into a monster? How had he not known this was happening? How could he have missed such a pivotal thing in his son’s life?

  The group was small, but growing larger with each passing minute as more and more Svoda arrived. Whispers and murmurs spread like wild fire, no one believing what they were being told. Saying things like, “There is no way,” “This must be a mistake, she would never do this to us,” or “I don’t believe this for one minute, she’s our leader. She protects us.” Denial spread through the group catching up with the wildfire tale of what those present had witnessed.

  Juliska looked over them in eerie silence, her stare furious.

  Why didn’t she deny these horrific claims?

  Why did she stand in silence?

  Out of those gathered on the cliff, a small few had already known the truth: that she did create the Scratchers. That she did control them. They had not expected, however, for Jae Mochrie sacrificing himself to be the way it was discovered. His courageous act had taken them instantly down a one-way road.

  Billie Sadorus nodded curtly at the Jackal sisters, Kalila and Kalida, owners of the Jackal Lantern, and then towards the Flummer family, Noah and his mother Sidra, who had helped Colin Jacoby and Catrina Flummer escape many months before. They stood in front of Noah’s wife and young child, shielding them.

  Maura grasped her hand, silently letting Billie know she was at her side and then let go, poised to fight when it became necessary. They were just a few, but ready to fight against Juliska Blackwell nonetheless.

  They had hoped that they could increase their numbers before this moment came, to give themselves a better chance at success. Now that all Svoda groups had returned, they had hoped to recruit others to their cause.

  Billie frantically searched for the one other person she knew was privy to their cause, the person responsible for her knowing the truth. She caught his eye but found she could barely see as tears stung at her cheeks, blurring her vision. She trembled for just a moment in her brother’s gaze. Garner returned her unspoken words, mouthing, “Be strong, for me.” Billie wiped her eyes and looked away, steeling herself for what was to come. They had both known it would come to this some day.

  “The price of truth and freedom,” Garner had told her, years before. “For what better cause could I forfeit my life? When the time comes be strong. Sacrifice will be the easy road. It’s you that will have to forge onward. Fight. And live.”

  The time for goodbyes was passed. Sorrow would have to wait. This was the time to fight! She daringly looked his direction one last time, showing him her resolve. She bowed her head toward Ravana, Garner’s wife, who stood firmly by his side. Billie resolved to make sure their sacrifice would not be in vain.

  Garner turned and faced his wife, whispering something. After a moment of embrace, they walked out of the crowd, toward Juliska Blackwell.

  The Gypsy Queen remained silent.

  Perhaps hoping the Svoda would not believe what they had seen or were being told. Perhaps biding her time to strike at the right moment. Regardless, after today, no one would doubt the truth of her true nature.

  Garner and Ravana took strong steps, splitting apart as they got closer to their target. They closed in on her, at first Juliska suspecting nothing other than her followers coming to her aid.

  Ravana continued forward, Garner stopped. His eyes never left Juliska’s as he spoke.

  “What is sacrificed today will show all Svoda the truth. No doubts will remain. You are at your end!”

  Juliska came back to life. Her nostrils flared and her eyes bulged with rage. She had been tricked by her most loyal subject.

  Smoke erupted from her skin.

  Dark inky vei
ns pulsated into fiery lines across her face, neck and arms. She raised those arms into the air, making a motion with her hands to draw in the clouds, darkening the sky and throwing a dreary blanket over the entire island.

  Billie motioned for her small army to hold back; they would advance once Garner and Ravana attacked Juliska. Their only chance of success was to catch Juliska off guard.

  Billie had only witnessed her brother transform once, it was nearly impossible to watch. She shoved the memory back into the recesses of her mind; she needed to remain focused. She could not allow her brother’s inevitable demise to overwhelm her. They had just this one chance to take Juliska out of power.

  Juliska’s deadly gaze dropped, ignoring Ravana and slicing into Garner.

  Horrified gasps erupted from the Svoda as they watched Ravana begin to shift and transform before them.

  Garner turned away from Juliska and did the same, contorting into the hideous form of his inner beast. His teeth became long and jagged, his head elongated, dark gray skin replacing his own human skin. His fingernails grew sharply out of his fingertips, his knees bent forward, dropping his height just a few inches as the nails on his toes grew out and bent, clicking against the rock on which he stood. Translucent, web-like wings freed themselves from his back, heaving upwards into the air. As if he needed to drive the point home, he took a short lunge toward the Svoda. He had no intent to harm them, only to frighten. He turned on the spot back to Juliska. She headed toward him, fearlessly, her hand outstretched.

  Ravana, now behind her, leapt upward, her wings flapping against the air with a snap. She dove for Juliska, her wings ready to enclose around her master and creator.

  She didn’t make it. Up over the backside of the cliff two Scratchers flew up, landing on Ravana, pinning her to the ground.

  Juliska ignored the cries behind her.

  Ravana’s body let out a shudder and then went limp. She was dead. Garner let out but a single whimper, which in his Scratcher form came out as a miserable snarl. He lifted off the ground, swung his head to find Billie and let out a ferocious howl.