by Jess Bowen
“He said he is only here to offer his allegiance and protection.”
There was hissing from all of the serpents now.
“That’s why they are all here. The Water Guardians wish to remain faithful to their rightful Master.”
Cassius spoke again. “I know you are bound by oath not to reveal our location, but that does not stop you from coming to attempt to kill. Is that what you intend to do now?”
Ethan again wondered how Cassius could speak about this so calmly. Phoebe buried her head into Dorian’s back. The serpents hissed more fervently now.
“One at a time. I can’t understand you all at once,” the other man said.
The first serpent continued hissing while the others fell silent.
“Syran says that they would never betray us in any way. What the Wind Guardians did was a disgrace, but they are ready to fight for us, for Phoebe.”
Dorian growled again, “Lies.”
The serpent in the middle shook his head, and a soft hiss escaped.
“He is asking for your faith in them. To give them a chance to prove their loyalty,” the man relayed.
Cassius considered for a moment. “Dorian, I think we should allow them the opportunity they ask for.”
Dorian shook his head resolutely. Ethan was with him. Whatever this chance to prove loyalty was, it sounded like it involved danger of some sort; otherwise it wouldn’t have raised such a reaction.
“Dorian,” Cassius chided. “They must be given their chance. We cannot stand here protecting her forever.” He then turned back to the serpent. “You do remember, of course, that to cause a Master harm will result in nothing less than your death.”
The serpent nodded. No translation necessary. “Dorian,” Cassius pleaded, “you must give them this. Their added protection and allegiance will help us greatly.”
Dorian’s face showed how he struggled with an inner battle. Phoebe trembled behind him. It looked like it took every bit of resolve he had to turn his attention from the serpent and face Phoebe instead.
“Phoebe, if you don’t want to give them their chance, that’s fine. I won’t make you. But Cassius is right; it could help us greatly. I will be there to make sure you are never in danger.”
“Danger?” she whispered.
“You have to make yourself vulnerable before them, meaning you’ll have to walk to the edge of the lake, without my shield, but I’ll be there with you, I promise. Nothing will happen to you.” His voice was softer than Ethan had ever heard it.
“No,” Ethan said, surprised by his own voice. “You can’t just let her walk up there to them. They’ll kill her in a second.”
Phoebe winced. These serpents might have come with good intentions, but they were terrifying nonetheless. There was no way anyone there was a match for even one of them, and there were three!
“Not with me here they won’t,” Dorian growled, his eyes flashing dangerously.
“You said it will help?” Phoebe whispered again.
“I can’t lie to you. Yes, it will help us,” Dorian replied softly.
“Okay.”
Ethan couldn’t believe it; she was actually going to do it. Dorian turned back around. “One wrong move, serpent, and you will be dead within seconds,” he warned.
The serpent nodded. Dorian turned back to Phoebe and put his arm around her as he walked with her to the edge of the lake. Ethan couldn’t hear what they were saying, even with his new ears, because the blood roared in them, and his heart pumped loudly. Dorian supported Phoebe around her waist, and with a deep breath, removed his shield.
Ethan panicked when Dorian stepped back a few feet, leaving Phoebe in front of these monsters to stand alone. She trembled as the enormous serpent’s head bent down. Dorian was also shaking by the time the serpent made it down to Phoebe’s level. The serpent’s mouth opened, and Phoebe’s eyes closed.
Syran’s nose came within six feet of Phoebe’s head, and it looked like Dorian was having a very difficult time restraining himself from jumping in front of her again. Then, for five terrifying seconds, the serpent’s nose touched the top of Phoebe’s head. She looked like she was going to collapse.
A shimmering blue light left the serpent’s mouth and wound its way around Phoebe until it settled into a pattern around her bicep. The moment the light settled into her arm, she stopped trembling and opened her eyes. Syran raised his head back up and hissed.
“It has been done. Their allegiance has been given, and they cannot betray their Master without dying first,” the man interpreted.
All three serpents disappeared below the surface of the water. Dorian was back to Phoebe’s side in a flash, but she seemed to be fine now. Ethan numbly realized that the adrenaline was leaving his system now that the threat had passed, and he felt like he could move again. Lucy stepped out from behind him, and Cassius made his way forward. Phoebe and Dorian walked back to where the rest of them were standing.
“It’s okay. Everything’s fine,” Phoebe said, smiling serenely.
The ring around her arm was a tattoo of a swirl of water. Dorian still had a hold of her. Ethan looked at him, confused. Hadn’t she just been scared to death seconds ago?
“Part of the connection. Once the Guardians give their allegiance to their Master, then they trust one another. They can’t betray her now. They would be killed before they even got the chance,” he explained as Phoebe nodded enthusiastically.
Ethan nodded, not totally understanding, but the part about them dying before they could hurt her or betray her sounded all right. It sounded like she was safe now; they all were. Slowly, people went back to their activities. They all seemed to know that it was safe. Cynthia, Jared, and Evan made their way forward.
“That was unexpected,” Cassius said. “I am amazed by your courage, Phoebe. To stand before them defenseless is truly an amazing feat. It has proved very rewarding as well; your protection has just doubled.”
Phoebe nodded as if she knew all of this already. Ethan couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t shown any powers, but at least he had faced a terrifying monster and hadn’t run screaming in the opposite direction. That was a good thing.
Things settled back down, and Dorian hovered around Phoebe until she decided she was ready to go up to bed. Dorian led them back through the Annexus to their rooms. They parted when the girls went into their room and the boys to theirs. Lucy smiled at Ethan before disappearing behind the door.
Ethan lay back on his bed that night as lights flashed in from the sitting room window. The celebration was still going on, but it was winding down. He was so exhausted from the long day and the lack of adrenaline in his system that he fell asleep quickly.
He was walking through the garden again. It was dark. He was looking for someone, not following after someone as he had been this morning. Ethan walked toward the fountain again and around it. There on the bench on the other side of it was a woman. Her back was to him; the only thing he could really see was her long, shimmering blond hair. He was in the same place, the same garden, but this was a different woman than the one with the red and golden hair he’d seen in his previous dream; he knew that. He sat down on the other side of the bench and watched her for a few minutes before he drifted deeper into sleep. He wanted to talk to the woman, but he was too tired tonight.
9. Pool
Phoebe stretched as she rose slowly from her dreams. Cynthia’s and Lucy’s slow and rhythmic breathing told her they were still asleep. Her joints popped and muscles prickled at the sensation of being used again. She figured she must have slept so deeply that she hadn’t moved. As she curled back in from her stretch, she realized that she was still more or less in the same position as the last one she remembered before she had fallen asleep. She vaguely remembered dreaming but couldn’t remember any details.
Even though this was her second morning of waking up in the Haven, it took her a few minutes to get her bearings, to remember where she was and why her mother wasn’t shouting about waste
d sunlight. She could tell the sun had been up for a while; the light steaming in through the sitting room window was much too bright to be that of early morning sunrise. But she still felt exhausted.
Being terrified out of her mind had obviously taken a lot out of her. It might not have been such a blow if she hadn’t been able to feel everyone else’s terror along with her own. However, while Phoebe was doing incredibly well at suppressing the thoughts of everyone within range, she was not so lucky with emotions. She was still feeling them very strongly.
She supposed it was due to the fact that she had been feeling emotions her entire life without questioning it or trying to suppress them, so it was harder to keep them out now. Although, if she had to choose between having her head filled with unbearable noise or being tuned into the emotions of others like a television antenna, she would take the emotions any day, so she was grateful that she was not suffering any more than she was already used to.
Slowly, the events of the night before trickled into her mind. She rubbed the mark on her arm absentmindedly. She felt silly for being scared at all now. Of course, Dorian had said it was an inevitable part of the connection formed between the Water Guardians and herself. It was now impossible for her to be scared of them because they were unable to harm her in any way.
She could remember the way she had felt before the connection, though. The absolute terror, the way her heart had pounded so quickly it was literally painful, the doom in knowing that they were there for her, the way Dorian had thrown himself in front of her to shield her from the horrifying monsters.
The last fact was difficult to process. Phoebe tried to convince herself that he would have done the same for anyone, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He was very difficult to read most of the time. She didn’t try to listen to his thoughts; Cassius was right, that was not something she should be doing for her own personal reasons. But emotions were something she was already used to, and she didn’t really think trying to hone in on one particular person’s emotions was wrong. Some people could read emotions without her particular talent, maybe not quite as accurately, but she felt that it wasn’t quite an invasion of privacy to use it. She had spent a lot of time the day before trying to get a read on Dorian as he followed the group from a safe distance.
His emotions were so carefully controlled, so reined in; she could feel almost nothing from him, like he didn’t have any emotions at all. Then, when he had jumped in front of her, his emotions had come to life. Phoebe had been scared out of her mind, but she had managed to pick up on a few things even though she was distracted: a strong need to protect, anger, fear—not for his own life, but for hers. And there was another—it was incredibly strong, but before she could place what it was, he’d managed to suppress it. She had no doubt he knew what her talent was. When Syran had asked for his chance to prove his loyalty and Cassius had pleaded with Dorian to allow it, a battle had raged within him: his desire to keep her safe, his longing for a stronger protection to surround her, and the knowledge that it was her choice to make, not his. After it was all over, he had hovered, and eventually his constant concern and watchfulness had become so irritating that Phoebe had decided to go to bed to get away from it.
Would his concern have been as strong had it been someone else? Would he have cared so much what happened in that case? She wondered if he would be willing to die as he had been ready to do last night. Phoebe couldn’t answer for him, but she had a feeling that the answer would have been “no” to every one of those questions. She didn’t understand why; she could just tell that this was a concern he felt only for her. Dorian barely noticed anything else around him and looked like he cared about it even less, but then he had been ready to sacrifice himself for her last night. As strange as it sounded, she would have done the same for him.
Phoebe had fallen asleep confused and had awoken with no new answers. Perhaps Dorian would be different today and she would be able to figure it out. But for now, breakfast was sitting at the foot of her bed, and she could feel her stomach grumbling angrily. Lucy and Cynthia started to rouse as Phoebe grabbed her bowl and started eating.
She was too distracted to really pay attention to her food, so she was surprised when she tasted something she couldn’t quite identify but that was probably the most delicious thing she had ever eaten. Phoebe then tried to remember what she had been thinking about and felt her cheeks flush as she remembered that it was what Dorian had smelled like the night before—not quite identifiable but the best aroma in the entire world.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked, spotting her pink cheeks. Lucy was very observant.
“Nothing, just thinking,” Phoebe mumbled as she set down her half-emptied bowl and grabbed her stack of clothes to get in the shower.
By the time she exited the bathroom and Cynthia made her way in, Phoebe’s head had cleared and she was thinking of other things. She and Ethan were getting their companions today. She was excited about that, although Bree spent enough time with her that she already felt like she had one. The polar bear cub was incredibly cute and loveable, but she couldn’t understand why he wanted to spend so much time with her. Not that Phoebe minded, she just didn’t understand it. This place was turning out to be incredibly confusing. It was frustrating, and she hoped everything would come together soon.
Twenty minutes later, Cynthia exited the bathroom and Lucy took her turn. Phoebe was brushing out her dried hair when someone knocked at the door. Cynthia ducked into the bedroom to change out of her bathrobe, and Phoebe went to answer the door. She was somewhat surprised to see Dorian standing there.
She figured he was there to take Ethan and her down to receive their companions. His hard expression was once more in place, and she had a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to get much more from his emotions, either. She checked to be sure. Nothing. She was disappointed, although she could tell he was working very hard to hide whatever he was feeling, harder than he usually had to. His gaze softened slightly when he saw it was her who had opened the door.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. His voice had lost some of its roughness, but not much.
Phoebe was surprised to discover that it upset her to see him like this, trying to pretend he didn’t feel anything, like he didn’t care. “I’m fine, and you?”
He nodded curtly. “Fine, thank you. Are you ready to go down to the Pool of Companions?”
All this formality, hadn’t this been erased in the near-death experience of the night before? “Not just yet. Lucy is cleaning up. We got a late start this morning.”
“I’m sure yesterday evening drained your energies. I’ll make sure the boys are up. If the three of you will join me in the hall when you’re ready, we’ll then go down to the Pool.”
Phoebe nodded stiffly. It felt like nothing had changed. He turned to walk across the hall, and she shut the door with a loud snap and sighed.
“What was that about?” Cynthia asked, stepping back in, fully dressed.
“Dorian’s here. We’re going down to the Pool of Companions after Lucy finishes up,” Phoebe explained.
“Humph, he’s such a drill sergeant. He needs to lighten up,” Cynthia said, scowling. She then launched into a long rant about Dorian and why he was being so bland and boring and what he needed to do to rectify the situation.
Phoebe didn’t really pay attention. However, the comment “Maybe we could push him in the lake the next time we’re close enough” caught her attention and made her laugh. She was sure, though, that would make him angry rather than entertained.
Another twenty minutes passed, and the three girls were ready to make their way out into the hall. Phoebe had barely opened the door when Bree jumped up in her arms. She smiled. Evan was going to feel left out if Bree kept this up.
The boys were leaning against the wall and pushed away as the girls walked to join them. Evan smiled and motioned to Bree as he shook his head. Phoebe smiled in return. Sebastian stood off to the side again. Phoebe wasn’t
really sure what purpose he served. She had never once seen Dorian ask him to do anything. Other than the one time he took her and Ethan’s bags, she had never seen Sebastian do any more than look nervous and jumpy, either.
Phoebe avoided Dorian’s eyes altogether, knowing she wouldn’t like what she would see. Instead, she focused on the cub in her arms as he lay back and batted at the strands of hair hanging over her shoulder. Having Bree near always made her feel better. Evan stood just off to her side, and Ethan and the others followed behind her.
Dorian spoke in his hard, indifferent voice. “I am taking you to the Pool of Companions. I don’t want you to feel alarmed, but a few people have shown up to watch. Just pretend they aren’t there.”
Phoebe had a feeling that he was trying to make it sound like a lot less observers than there actually were. They all walked down to the entrance hall, and she discovered she was right in assuming there were more than a few people there. It looked like the entire village had crammed themselves into the hall.
There were groups on stairways and along hallways that led off the large room and many more still looking down from the balconies on the upper floors. The sun poured in from the domed ceiling, and light danced off the wings of creatures floating in the hall so that it looked like there were prisms floating up above. Phoebe momentarily forgot everything else that had been in her mind and suddenly felt very nervous.
Cassius stood by the pool, waiting for them to join him. When they moved closer, Phoebe realized that it wasn’t so much of a pool as a shallow puddle. It couldn’t be more than a foot deep in the middle, although its diameter had to be at least ten feet. There were golden animals inlaid into the ivory stone beneath the water, and each animal had a jewel glittering where an eye would be. Cassius and Maya greeted them beside the pool.