“I shouldn’t have looked,” he mumbled. “Maybe I’m reading this wrong?” He looked at it again and again.
Meghan attempted to see what he was looking at but could not read it. Sebastien jerked his head, hearing the commotion in the huts below. “I’m not supposed to interfere, but I won’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Sebastien cast a spell and a tunnel of light appeared out of nowhere. He threw the papers he had exchanged for the Magicante inside of it and they were sucked inside. The tunnel disappeared, along with the papers. Meghan watched as Sebastien transformed back into Bird and flew down into the mud huts, where he proceeded to save her life.
“What was on those papers?” she asked Colby again.
“Something that obviously made that boy doubt what he was doing to get them.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything!” she wailed, stamping her foot like a child having a tantrum.
“Okay, fine! The truth is I don’t really know. All my father said is that it was a spell, something Amelia Cobb wanted and was willing to make an agreement for. My father wanted the Magicante, I guess he had no use for the spell.”
Meghan thought hard about it all. Sebastien was working for Amelia at the time. Whatever it was, she had it now, and there was nothing that could be done about that. This was a memory. History.
Something else dawned on her. Nona. She had known who Sebastien was. And kept it from her. Meghan could not fathom the idea of Nona keeping such a secret from her.
Colby heard her thoughts.
“She would if she thought it was the wisest move. Catawitches will do anything to protect their Masters. I have no doubt they are trying to find a way to locate us, right now.”
“Can they?” she asked him.
“No. I don’t think they can.”
“I don’t even know why this memory is the one you decided to take us to,” Meghan spat out. She wanted to go home now, back to her friends. Back to the real world. Back to Nona, whether she’d hidden secrets or not.
“I just caught onto one,” blamed Colby. “This is something you were thinking about, not me.”
“Can we just leave here, please? Go home.”
“I’m uh, not sure how to do that.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. She didn’t relish reliving more terrible memories while Colby figured out how to deal with his issues!
“Maybe we need to figure out what exactly your issues are,” she mumbled, half to herself, half out loud.
“I don’t have issues! Just something I need to figure out how to control. I was hoping my...” he paused, trailing off.
“Your…?” she prodded him to continue.
“I was hoping my mother could help me,” he finished.
“If you were seeking out your mother, why did you come to me?”
He refused to answer. Instead, she felt his thoughts once again starting to race at an overwhelmingly fast pace.
“Oh crap!” she said as everything around her started to swirl. “Where are we going now?” She tried to clear her mind, hoping they’d end up in one of his memories instead of hers.
When everything stopped spinning they were again in a place she never thought she would return to. Eidolon’s Valley.
“Is this another of my memories?” she asked.
Colby glanced around. “Actually, I think this is one of mine. I hated this place,” he spoke with a glum voice.
“Wait a minute, that’s me and Ivan and you following us.”
“Yeah, I did follow you for a while. I had time to kill, wanted to see what you were up to.”
“If I’d known it was you I would have...”
“What? Tried to stop me? With your pathetic magical abilities.”
“You can still burn,” she warned him.
“Not anymore,” he argued in a taunting voice.
“Again with the cryptic.” She folded her arms, waiting for him to explain.
“My father, he...”
“He what? And just who is your father by the way? He sounds like a big jerk to me!”
“How dare you speak about our father that way?” His dark eyes glared down at her. She suddenly realized that he was quite a bit taller than she was. Regardless of how small he made her feel, she stood her ground.
“I’ll speak about him all I, wait... what?”
Colby caught his mistake too late. He hadn’t meant to tell her yet.
“Whatever. You were going to find out you’re my sister soon enough anyway.”
“You... wait, are you saying that Jurekai Fazendiin is your father?” She stumbled, catching herself.
“Ding ding ding!” his voice rang out. “Turns out you’re my long lost twin sister.”
“No. That’s not possible. Colin is my twin.”
“Sorry. Wrong.”
“You were at the cave to see your mother. My mother.”
“Ding ding...”
“Oh shut up,” she spouted. “Colin has to be my brother! I can hear his thoughts, just like I can yours.”
“But I can’t. Or maybe I just haven’t tried.” He pondered attempting to take a peek into Colin’s mind.
“Keep your thoughts on the here and now if you don’t mind. I’d like to stay in one place for a little while.”
“Fine. Anyway. So, you’re my sister.”
“And Fazendiin is really our father?” her lips turned downward as she confirmed this.
“Don’t look so disappointed. Do you have any idea what this means?”
“No. I really don’t. Other than being completely horrified by it.”
He ignored the last bit and shook his head.
“We could accomplish so much together. You’re a little behind, but I’m sure that Dad,” Meghan cringed as he said with such ease, “could turn you into a pretty powerful...”
“Stop,” she ordered. “I don’t know what you’re scheming, but you can forget it. I will never join you. I will never condone what you’ve done.”
“Why is it that everyone thinks we are the bad guys?”
“Maybe because you kill without a thought, don’t care about anyone or anything except yourselves and getting what you want.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like Juliska Blackwell turned out to be so great either. And then there’s Amelia, she almost makes Juliska look like a saint!”
“Just because that’s true doesn’t mean the Svoda are bad people. They’re just misled. They were tricked.”
“You don’t know that much about their history, do you?”
She ignored him.
“I’m sure there’s lots of stuff they left out of their history books. Oh, no,” he suddenly veered off, a frightened look on his face.
“What?” she asked, feigning concern.
“I’m using history. Man, I hate it when my father is right.”
“He makes you learn history?”
“You have no idea what I’ve had to learn,” he droned on. “The school work never ends.”
“You realize this isn’t helping your cause any.”
He let out an angry sound and continued. “Whatever. The point is, that the Svoda aren’t so innocent as you might think they are. They’ve done their share of damage. They’ve killed.”
“I don’t think any one person or group is purely just good or bad, Colby. No one is perfect. But I think more so than anything I’ve seen, they are good people with good intentions. Unlike you or your father. Do you really think your father is a good man? Our father I mean.” Ugh, that left a bitter taste on her tongue.
“Like you said, Sis, there is no just good or evil. But yes, I do think his intentions are... well look what he’s given me!” Colby proceeded to open up his shirt and show Meghan a scar over his heart.
“What the heck happened?”
“He made me powerful. More powerful than anyone else, including himself.”
“How? By stabbing you?”
“Necessary. It was the only way to transfer the power.”
“Sometimes it takes a little sacrifice to get what you want. I’m not afraid to get a little dirty.”
“You are so unbelievable! Colby, a father should not stab something into his son just to make him more powerful! And look at yourself! This isn’t a gift. It’s a curse! You can’t even control it. And do you really believe someone like Fazendiin would really make you more powerful than himself?”
“I was angry at first, I’ll admit that. But he’s not what you think, Meghan. He’s not the pure evil you believe him to be.”
“He really has you brainwashed,” she charged.
“Not at all, he’s just given me a very broad view of the world. Can you say that?”
“Maybe I haven’t learned everything there is to know about magic and the magical world, but I still think what he did to you is wrong. Look at what it’s doing to you. You’re stuck grasping onto memories in order to keep some kind of control over yourself. What happens when we leave memory lane? We have to go back to the real world at some point, Colby.”
The memory shifted again, but only slightly this time. They were still in the E-Valley, and Eidolon was taunting them with the velvet bag and informing them that the man they had come searching for was dead.
“I’m still pissed I didn’t get that bag,” Colby noted.
“I thought you were after Colin’s book?” Meghan asked haughtily.
“Yes, but I planned on taking the little bag with me too. I don’t like to leave loose ends.”
“Whatever was in there is in the hands of Juliska Blackwell now,” her tone indicated a sarcastic, well done. “Ivan handed it over to her when we returned.”
“My, our father,” he corrected, “gave it to her to begin with. Only right it should have been returned to her.”
“What do you mean?” Meghan demanded.
“See, here we go again. You don’t know anything.”
She ignored him and asked, “Are you telling me that Juliska and our father were working together?”
“Were. Are. Will be for the foreseeable future.”
Meghan’s head was too full, she felt like she was spinning out of control. Why should she be surprised? Juliska was evil, so why not be working with Fazendiin. Her father...
“Did Juliska know about us?” asked Meghan.
“Don’t think so. Well, not until a few months ago on my part anyway. Think Dad kept a pretty tight cork on me being around, and you... we just found out about you quite recently.”
Meghan didn’t say more but she knew how it had happened. When Fazendiin had shown up to threaten the Svoda he had smelled her blood. He discovered who she was right then.
Colby looked longingly back toward the velvet bag, now currently being taken by Ivan Crane as the group battled the goblins.
“What’s inside?” asked Meghan.
“A weapon. A magnificent weapon.”
“I don’t know as I’ve ever heard the words magnificent and weapon used in the same sentence. If it’s so great, why did Juliska let it out of her sight?”
“Dad gave it to her because she needed a way to silence that Flummer girl! She’s a trouble maker if I ever saw one and dad needed her out of the picture. So Juliska was given a weapon to make that happen. Once I learned that Eidolon had stolen it, I came up with the clever idea to pretend to tell him what it did if he helped me steal Colin’s book. Especially after I spied Colin wandering into the valley in search of the Flummer girl. I thought it would be a nice, easy way to get the book and also steal back the stone...” he stopped, biting his tongue.
“Stone? That’s what’s in the bag, a stone?”
“Not just any stone,” he continued. “One that can do wicked things, if in the right hands.”
“Perfect, and Juliska has it now.”
“She probably doesn’t even know what it is and what it’s truly capable of. From what I heard about her reaction from Karnavan when they were in that meadow...”
Suddenly the scene around them changed again.
Sucked into a new memory.
“I think I’m getting better at this,” said Colby. “This is exactly where I wanted to go.”
They were back in the meadow with the field of pyres. Karnavan and Juliska were speaking closely. She was upset over a special weapon that Karnavan had been given.
“I don’t think she knew what she had that whole time,” said Colby. “That might have changed by now.”
Meghan worried about everyone still on the island. What had happened after Jae had thrown himself to his death? They had fled the island thanks to Sebastien and her mother’s candle. They’d gotten away. Those left behind would not be so lucky she imagined. Had everything just gone back to the way it was before Jae had jumped? Or was something much, much worse happening now?
She also worried about being in this memory, as she did not want to relive her betrayal to Colin. Her eyes widened. Oh no. If this memory goes on for too long, Colby will find out he’s the... she cut off the thought and hoped she’d hidden it, but nothing worked right in this bad memory trip.
He started laughing. Shaking his head.
“You think I don’t know. You really are a stupid girl, sister or not.”
She bit her lip, hoping it wasn’t what she feared.
“I already know your dear non-brother, Colin, is the Projector. I tracked him. Killed his teacher. That’s how I got this scar.” He pointed to his chest.
Meghan backed away, the look of horror on her face.
“You did what?”
“You heard me.”
“This is what makes you a bad person, Colby. You killed someone. An innocent person. And you don’t even feel bad about it.” And someone who it sounds like, was helping Colin. As horrified as she was by Colby’s actions, she wanted to bust out and ask if her brother was okay. And Catrina, was she okay too? What had happened to them? And her brother had a teacher? How? And what was he being taught?
“I do what I am ordered to do,” Colby explained like this was answer enough, for his actions.
“You’re just a puppet. Nothing more,” she charged.
“Perhaps. But an invincible puppet that can do anything I want to. No one can stop me. Not even my father.” His voice frightened her. Was he putting on this show of force just for her? Did he really believe all this crap he was spouting? And so willing to kill on command?
She turned and ran. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she could hide inside their memories. Her movements slowed, the motion becoming hard. Like trying to run through air that was thick.
“Where are you going, Sister? You can’t hide from me in here.”
She stopped and bellowed, “You’ll never be my brother. Never. I will never work alongside you. Colin, true brother or not, will be more family to me than you will ever be!”
“But I haven’t even told you the best part yet,” said Colby as the memory changed yet again. They landed on a wooden boat. Meghan, stuck with her captor. And this was not one of her memories, this had to be Colby’s.
Meghan gasped as she watched Colby shove a blade through the body of an elderly looking man. A man it took her a moment to recognize.
“Jasper Thorndike.”
“Otherwise known as the last living Projector, until your brother came along. My father thought Jasper had died years ago. He hid very well. But he made the mistake of taking on a student who was careless.” There was no compassion in Colby’s voice. This is what frightened Meghan the most about her twin. His lack of compassion. Or empathy, or sympathy. Perhaps the magic his father had cursed him with had a little to do with it.
“Jasper was helping Colin,” Meghan muttered, a sick sourness churning in her stomach.
“If you can call it that. I took him out pretty easily, so I don’t know what good he was doing, or how he managed to stay alive all these years.”
Somehow, thi
s Jasper, had known what Colin was long before anyone else, and he had sacrificed his life trying to help him.
They did not stay on the boat long. Meghan closed her eyes, for a moment thankful to know that Colin hadn’t just been on the run and in hiding and afraid. He had not been alone. When she opened her eyes, they were in a new place. A vast estate nestled at the top of a hillside.
“And where are we now?” she asked wearily.
“This is my home. A home you could share with me. And our father.”
She shook her head, the mere idea of that sinking that sickness a little deeper in her gut.
“You might just change your mind one day, Sis. If you haven’t realized it yet, you’re going to live a lot longer than the average person. Once all your friends are old and dead, me and Dad, we’re all you’ll have left.”
“I’ll still have Colin,” she told him.
“Do you know how many people are hunting him down as we speak? He won’t make it to his next birthday. They’ll find some way to kill him.”
Meghan hoped desperately that it wasn’t true.
She gasped quite suddenly as a startling sight caught her off guard. Jurekai Fazendiin was walking towards them. He towered over both of them, his stare penetrating, almost as if he could really see her even though this was just a memory. But he walked straight through her.
Colby, like it was just a regular day, started to head toward the palatial home. “Would you like a tour of your future home?”
She wondered if she threw up in this memory, if she threw up for real...
CHAPTER 8
A long, jagged crack broke into the mirror belonging to Romul Voskvol, the sixth Grosvenor to be created, now dead. Freyne Rothrock summoned the remaining immortals, and one by one the other six materialized. They were not surprised to see the crack in Voskvol’s mirror.
“It is done then?” questioned Narona Fentress. “I gather the stones I gave you permitted you to drain Voskvol?”
“My dear Narona, it’s lovely to see you too,” said Freyne.
“Since when did we ever exchange pleasantries?”
“Business then,” he agreed. “Yes, the deed is done. He is gone. His powers are now in the stones.”
Taken (The Blood Spell, The Fugitives, and The Firemancer's Son) (A Fated Fantasy Quest Adventure Book 6) Page 6