by Diana Nixon
Songs of the Wind
By Diana Nixon
Published by Nevermore Press
Fort Wayne, IN 46804
2014
Text Copyright © 2014 Diana Nixon
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Copyright © 2014 Nevermore Press
All rights reserved
Published by
Nevermore Press.
Fort Wayne, IN 46804
For Nevermore Press
Cover by: Jennifer Munswami
Formatting by: Brandy Dull
Songs of the Wind
(Summary)
Losing Christian hasn’t been easy for Eileen. But she’s not going to give up. Now she has to find a way to bring him back from the magical dream, where he was taken by Eric Lanster. Together with her friend Evan, Eileen goes to France – Meridin’s motherland, where she hopes to find out the mysteries of the dream’s magic. In a small town named Fontainebleau they meet a wizard, who turns out to know a lot of their secrets….
Determined to help Eileen, Evan agrees to complete some special dream piercing training. But he can’t even imagine what he has put himself into. The magic of dreams keeps a lot of secrets. The spells are dangerous and their consequences no one is able to predict.
Friends can become enemies….
The ones they used to call their family can become traitors….
But the ones they love will always be there to help....
A Guide to the Love Lines Series
The events of the story take place in modern Britain.
There are people possessing various supernatural powers. They live in the world of humans, but there is one special place, where they get education and develop their talents. It’s a closed university called Dever.
The Education in Dever
People get invitations to become Dever’s students when they are eighteen.
Their gifts determine their attachment to a certain faculty, named after one of the founding families of the university.
Dever's Departments
Fairey: faculty for the future Keepers – people whose main job is to protect the world of supernatural from the world of human beings. Its students possess the powers of fire and spirit.
Feta: faculty for those who read people's fates. Its students use a palm-reading method to see someone’s fate. They possess the power of water.
Meridin: faculty for the oneiromancers – people who interpret dreams. They know everything about prophetic dreams and its significance. Its students possess the power of wind.
Ventura: faculty for those who can see into the future that has already been decided by someone. This differs Venturas from Fetas, who read only fate, but a person can change it, and this decision will be seen to any Ventura. Its students possess the power of water.
Vero: faculty teaching those who are able to distinguish truth from falsehood. Its students possess the power of earth.
Embry: faculty for those who have the gift to heal people. Its students know everything about all the plants and especially flowers, knowing the meaning of which, they can speak without words, using different combinations of flowers. They possess the power of wind.
Wizardy: its students are taught to rule over magic. This department is a highest level of education in Dever. Only the best graduates from the previous faculties are allowed to enter this one.
The education in the main departments takes four years and at the department of Wizardy – three years. All the graduates pass their final exams showing an individual performance using one of the nature powers they possess. These performances are the part of the program of the Festival of Arts that takes place every October.
The main judicial authority for the wizards and those who possess other supernatural powers is the League of Keepers with the Council as its main body.
Prologue
Christian
Once upon a time seven families, possessing various supernatural talents gathered their powers to protect themselves from the world of human beings. They founded a special place, where people like them could live and study developing their gifts. They called it Dever.
Today the University of Dever is the only place in the world where the descendants of the founding families can live freely without hiding their true nature. Some of them read fates, interpret dreams, heal people, distinguish truth from falsehood, foresee the future and read auras. And there are also those who possess the power of magic. The power that everyone craves; the power that turned my life into an everyday fight between good and evil; the power that took away everything, including my soul….
***
There were times when such things as love, passion and perfect match didn’t mean anything to me. Now, I can surely say that those were the times of my blindness. I didn’t realize how those distracting and unnecessary terms would change my life and make it so much better.
My existence was empty without love. But when it crashed into my life, it embellished every day with colors, light and smiles. My heart was singing and fluttering, turning my inner world into an endless universe of pure sunshine and joy.
Some people say that it’s hard to find your soul mate, especially when you don’t want the searching to interfere in your life. And I agree with them. Partially. I used to think that peoples’ lives did not necessarily need romantic relationships. I thought that being a successful and powerful man was enough to keep me happy. But my confidence vanished when I met her… Eileen Clark.
In the blink of an eye she managed to turn my whole life upside down without even realizing what she had done. Whenever she was around, she eclipsed everything with the brightness of her turquoise eyes, the purity of her soul and the unique beauty that belonged only to her.
She changed everything. She became my unconditional love, my sacred passion and my soul mate. She possessed everything that a man would love to see in his woman – beauty, intelligence, wisdom, tenderness and kindness.
Many years ago the lines of destiny crossed. Eileen and I were bound by magical spells, the forces of which no one is able to overcome. No one and nothing. Just death. But no matter how ironic it might sound, death itself was the real price of my freedom. The price I couldn’t afford to pay….
Everything started with a dream. A nightmare of someone being kidnapped, so real that although I was sound asleep, I could feel the fear. Then, even in a dream, I knew who the victim was. It was me.
I was being kidnapped in a dream. Despite the fact that it’s hardly believable and almost impossible, it’s true. It was done by Eric Lanster, a descendant of Jillian Wizardy, one of the most powerful magicians in the history of the Universe. There was only one person able to surpass Jillian’s abilities - her sister Medellin. Because of their hatred of the Fairey family, which I belong to, and the curses they imposed, Eileen and I suffer from being apart now.
I was swallowed by the darkness and didn’t know where I was, because Eric did his best to make it a mystery to everyone, including me. Unlike previous hours of being in the middle of this
Nowhere Land, all my senses are now coming back to me little by little.
I can see again. But there is nothing but gray fog surrounding me. I can feel again. Yet I feel only my own nervousness and fear. I used to know Eileen’s feelings as well, but the emptiness I feel inside me tells me that I’ve lost that ability.
I don’t feel the power of fire anymore. It’s as if it has been frozen deep down inside my cold body. It feels so weird, as if I somehow live apart from it, like my soul still exists, but my body is dead. And that makes my miserable situation even more helpless.
It’s a dream I can’t break through. I know it’s just an illusion, but I don’t know how to find the way back to the reality. The reality where Eileen is waiting for me.
There’s nothing else to do but hope that my family and friends are already looking for me. But the most important thing that I can’t stop thinking about is that Eric wants Eileen to be the one to find me. He needs her to get more powers. And there is only way he will succeed – if giving up her powers, Eileen makes a sacrifice of her own life….
Chapter 1. Surprises
Evan
At that very moment I was sending Eileen a dream, a memory about her first meeting with Christian. I wasn’t there myself, but I was sure the dream was a good one, not like most of the nightmares she had so often.
“Hurry up, Evan! They are waiting,” whispered Amanda, tugging on my sleeve.
“I know. I’m almost done here,” I said, making sure Eileen was sleeping peacefully as I followed Amanda to the door.
Eileen’s father, Frederick Fairey used to control her dreams, but in the light of recent events that duty was imposed upon me. After Christian’s kidnapping we tried to protect her as much as possible. We made sure she was never alone, we always watched her movements and activities, which made her really mad. I didn’t get much pleasure from her constant complaints, but eventually they were somewhat successful and I gave up and left her alone for a while, taking a break from our 24/7 watch. However, I couldn’t let her stay without any protection, so I made sure some of my sophisticated spells surrounded her mind and her room. Of course, she knew about my tricks, but said nothing.
Just like everyone else, she was worried about Christian. The two of them had a very strong bond, so it was pretty hard to compare our feelings to hers. Their bond was magical. It was created in order to protect Eileen from being killed, as she was the daughter of a very powerful magician and on the day of her eighteenth birthday she inherited all of her father’s powers that so many people wanted to get. Christian was her personal Keeper. His life was a guarantee for her safety. And now he was gone, leaving her to be an easy target for everyone who wanted her dead.
I had never seen Eileen so determined to do something. She blamed herself for Christian’s kidnapping and wanted to find him as soon as possible. She wasn’t crying or suffering openly, though I was pretty sure she badly wanted to do both. I couldn’t feel her emotions, but the sadness in her eyes spoke for itself. The colors of her aura were changing so fast that sometimes I couldn’t read it because I was completely lost in the crazy amount of emotions consuming her soul.
We still didn’t know where Christian was, so we decided to ask more people for help. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to find out who those people were. Neither did Amanda, whose father Patrick Fairey together with Frederick were the leaders of our so called searching force. Even our friend Darcy Steward agreed to stay in Dever despite her recent graduation.
“Where is everyone?” Amanda asked, entering Patrick’s office five minutes later. Her father seemed to be awake day and night, working non-stop and coming up with new ideas on how to find Christian. There was nothing more important to him than saving his son’s life.
“Already coming,” he said, without taking his eyes off the papers he was holding in his hands.
Personally, I had a better question – “Who was coming?” But before Patrick could say anything else, I felt the vibrations of one familiar aura… or rather two of them!
My elder brother Kevin appeared on the threshold. And that was just the first surprise, because next to him I saw Tara Mackenzie….
I couldn’t imagine that seeing her again would cause such a rush of inexplicable emotions inside me. Tara was my ex girlfriend. And at that very moment it seemed as if an eternity had passed since the time she and I were together. We were still good friends and saw each other quite often, but her arrival at Dever, where our failed romance once started, was quite unexpected, if not to say shocking. My brother knew about our breakup and was more than happy to hear about it. He and Tara used to date before, but when she and I realized that being just friends wasn’t enough, he let her go. She felt guilty about this, but she couldn’t do anything, and neither could I. Suffice to say that we were crazy about each other.
“Hey, Bro! Aren’t you happy to see me?” Kevin asked, crossing the room in a few steps. He stopped next to me, the corners of his mouth curving in a sarcastic chuckle. No hugs, huh? I thought as sarcastically to myself. Fine, whatever. Not a big deal. His aura touched the edges of mine and I flinched from the cold shiver running down my spine. Kevin had that weird ability of making me uneasy every time he and I met. It always felt wrong.
“And just look who is here!” He nodded towards Tara. “You must not have seen each other for ages!” Jeez, nothing changed – my brother was the very same asshole he had always been.
“Actually, we met just recently,” I said dryly. “Hi, Tara,” I greeted her with a tensed smile.
“Hey, Evan.” She smiled sincerely, embracing me. The moment her arms locked around my waist I stopped breathing, caught off guard by her unexpected touch. Not that we never hugged when we met somewhere, but somehow this time was different.
“Good to see you again,” she said, looking at me with the incredible gray-blue eyes I used to look into for hours….
She took a step back and I blinked twice, trying to calm down my foolish heart that seemed ready to jump out of my chest. Hell, she still knew how to make me behave like a loyal puppy. And I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of gathering the pieces of my broken heart again. Once was more than enough.
“Tara?” Amanda whispered in surprise, leaning closer so only I could hear her. “Really? Isn’t she one of your.…”
“You’d better stop right there, love,” I snapped, looking at her with a warning in my eyes. I didn’t want to hear the end of her comment, knowing that she wouldn’t say anything I wanted to hear. I liked Amanda. She was amazing, funny and smart, but sometimes her sharp tongue was pushing the limits of my infinite patience.
“I mean, she must be one of Dever’s graduates,” Amanda said, hiding a chuckle. Yeah, her pissing-off skills were almost as perfect as mine. She could be my own sister, not Christian’s!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to notice Amanda’s fleeting confusion. Kevin barely managed to hide his grin. He knew perfectly well how hard it was for me to break up with Tara. Despite saying that he was okay about us, dating, I knew he suffered a lot too. That’s why now he was using every possible opportunity to show how pleased he was to see me feeling uneasy in Tara’s presence. Of course, she didn’t betray me, but now I could experience first-hand what it meant to be so close to her and yet so far away at the same time.
“Well, yes, Evan and I were um… fellow-students,” Tara said, avoiding my gaze.
“Right.” Amanda nodded and gave me a wink.
Incorrigible! I thought to myself, shaking my head.
“Okay, guys. Now let’s get to some more important things,” Patrick said, getting down to business.
“I have already done some research and here’s what I’ve managed to find out about Erick Lanster,” Kevin said, taking some notes out of his jacket pocket. “He was born in France, where he spent the first fifteen years of his life. Then he moved to Amsterdam, where he lived before coming to Britain. He also has an apartment in London, but as you may guess, it’s empty at the mo
ment,” he finished with a self-satisfied look on his face.
“How did you know so much about him?” Amanda asked, surprised.
Kevin gave her his best radiant smile in response. “I work in a Council, dear, and I have access to some special sources of information.”
Yet, I didn’t want to know what those special sources were. My guess was that he had asked some of his friends to look for the necessary information. And I was sure as hell that most of those friends were doing illegal business in all of the spheres in our supernatural world. Sometimes I thought that he was one of them too, but I never dared to ask him directly. It was much better and much safer to stay away from him as much as possible.
Even before that story with Tara, Kevin and I weren’t very close. He thought I was too smart to understand his lifestyle and I thought his life was too messed up to be understood. Even though he was a student, he spent most of his time in Dever just showing off and making everyone think that being a hereditary Wizardy, a member of the only founding family possessing magic, meant being the best. I couldn’t and I didn’t really want to understand his viewpoint. Of course, I used to be restless too, but unlike my brother I could be even called a Goody- Goody.
My thoughts were interrupted by Patrick’s voice. “Did you ask Anna about Eric’s recent movements?” he asked.
“She doesn’t see anything,” I replied ruefully.
Just a few weeks ago Eric used our friend Anna Delgado to recharge his life energy, stealing a few years of her own life by drinking a potion she had made, using a mixture of different plants she knew so much about. Anna is a student of Embry faculty that specializes in healing people. Thank God, that day she was saved before Eric killed her. But unfortunately, his actions left some bad consequences and now she was able to foresee his every step. But her visions stopped the moment Eric escaped from Dever, taking Christian as his hostage.