A loud roar echoed and Donald fell to the
ground. She didn’t think, she just ran, slashing her way through
the crowd. She had to kill a couple men before she made it to
Donald, but her need to reach her friend outweighed anything
else.
His chest still rose up and down, but blood
poured out of the deep wound in his chest. She didn’t think he was
going to make it. Sam and Spencer were moaning, although they
fought on.
Keegan was so relieved when her mother pushed
her aside. “Cover me, Keegan, and I can save him.” Her mom knelt
down and placed her hands above the tiger’s chest. “The wound would
have been fatal, but we reached him in time, Keegan.”
Keegan filled with relief. When Emerald was
done with the healing, the tiger lifted his head and licked her
face, which caused her to laugh and she patted the gigantic cat.
The tiger got to his feet and looked over at Keegan, then took off
back into battle.
Keegan sensed an arrow soar through the air
toward her, and in an attempt to evade it, she disappeared. She
jerked back, her eyes searching the sky in the split second she had
before it hit. Time seemed to slow. She could feel the pounding of
the battle in the ground beneath her feet and the cool air brushing
across her skin. The battle silenced around her as the sharp sting
of the arrow shattered her awareness. Starbursts exploded in her
eyes, an array of colors that faded to black.
Emerald looked over to where her daughter had
stood, relieved, but just as she was about to move forward, she
heard the body drop. When she looked back at her daughter, Keegan
was on the ground, an arrow through her heart.
"NO!" Emerald screamed in agony, dropping to
her knees and knowing it was too late. Keegan would have only
fallen to the ground if she were dead. Otherwise, if she was only
wounded, she would have appeared where she was headed. Frantically,
she tried to save her, but her gift could not bring back the
dead.
Rourk felt a coldness enter his body. He
closed his eyes and saw Keegan on the ground, her mother sobbing,
holding onto her daughter. Everyone engaged in the battle literally
froze in place, swords stopping in mid-swing, bodies balanced as if
in a strange painting. The only ones able to move were those
attached to Keegan. They all raced towards her body, crying and
kneeling on the ground next to her.
Thaddeus could not believe he was staring at
his vision in the flesh. The battle was over. They would lose.
Richard was also crying as he kneeled on the ground holding his
daughter’s hand, his other arm supporting his wife at his side.
Rourk felt a fury he had never known. In a
quiet, dangerous voice, he said, “They will all die.”
Emerald looked into his steel grey eyes and
felt his rage seep into her. She stumbled to her feet, swiping the
tears from her face, and grabbed the hilt of her sword. The
heaviness in her hands felt real. She stood up beside Rourk. “They
took my daughter, now I will take their lives. There will be no
mercy if they are with the dark, they will die; women, children, or
soldiers. They are no different in my eyes.”
Together, the two raced forward, killing dark
elves as they stood frozen and unable to fight back.
Rourk had no intention of leaving the battle
alive. He didn’t want to live if Keegan was not in this world. He
would join her on the other side, but not before he avenged her
death.
Thaddeus didn’t know what to do. He was
supposed to be able to save them from extinction, yet his visions
kept coming true. He couldn’t see a way out of this. It was too
hard for him to push his grief for his sister aside. In order to
think, he needed to be alone, like at home when he could go for a
run and just let go. His sister had just been killed, and now, his
mother had gone over the edge. Was the time of the light elves
really over? He couldn’t accept that. There had to be something he
could do.
Richard silently picked Keegan up, cradling
her against his chest. Grief seeped through him as he looked down
at his only daughter. It was useless going after his wife; there
was no stopping the rage that coursed through her veins. He could
feel her agony inside him. She and Rourk were no longer thinking as
soldiers. They had gone over to the side of the dark. Flashes of
his daughter’s childhood went through his mind.
When she was five and he had followed behind her on
the driveway, his hand gripping the seat of her bicycle without its
training wheels. He still remembered the way she had fallen,
scraped her knees, and stood up, brushing her hands off to do it
again.
She was nine, dancing around the kitchen like a
ballerina with her skinny arms in the air and socks on her feet.
Richard recalled how she slid after one particularly hard twirl and
knocked Emerald’s favorite blue vase from the table. They had
cleaned it up, the two of them, and hidden the shards at the bottom
of the trash can. Emerald found out anyway.
Just a few weeks before, she had stood in the living
room, rolling her eyes at his bad jokes. Richard had wondered then
when it was she had become such a beautiful young woman.
As he carried his daughter away, the battle
fell into motion once more, continuing on around them. He didn’t
care about the war or their inevitable extinction, all he cared
about was getting his daughter away from the scene of her
death.
Suddenly, loud chanting overwhelmed the sound
of the battle. Richard could not understand what was being said; it
sounded like gibberish. He looked around, searching for the source,
and saw a woman walking towards them.
She had on a long white robe that was flowing
behind her. Her brown hair fell down the side of her shoulders and
she had an innocent looking face with soft brown eyes. She was
almost translucent. Richard could tell he and Thaddeus were the
only ones that could see her because no one else gave her a second
glance. Richard also knew she was a spirit walker. He had heard of
them but had never laid eyes on one.
Thaddeus whispered, “It’s Anna’s mother.”
Gently, the luminous woman took Keegan from
his arms continuing with what sounded like a spell. Keegan’s body
took on the same translucent sheen as the woman’s. The colors
started to come back, faded at first and then brighter. They were
shocked when Keegan’s eyes fluttered open. Looking up at his father
in shock, Thaddeus whispered, “Dark magic.”
Keegan’s eyes slowly focused. She tried to
look around, but her vision was blurry. The earsplitting noise was
overwhelming to her. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what
the noises were. Who was holding her? She was being cradled in
someone’s arms. Panic rose in her throat.
“Keegan, can you hear me?” his voice sounded
desperate. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Blinking
her eyes a few times, her vision finally cleared a bit. She tried
to speak, but nothing would come out. A wave of dizziness washed
over her and then there was darkness.
“What have you done to our daughter?” Richard
asked, stepping forward.
“I gave her life back. Your wife gave me my
life back, and this is my repayment.” The woman’s voice was
matter-of-fact.
“Yes, but at what cost? Only black magic can
bring someone back from the dead.”
“There will be consequences, but she is
alive. Isn’t that enough? I would do anything to protect my own
daughters even if it meant using black magic. If you and your wife
do not approve of my actions, they can be reversed within
twenty-four hours.”
Richard took his daughter back, holding her
gently against him, and he knew that would be impossible. He could
not take back the gift they had been given. Whatever the
consequences, they would work through them.
“Why is she not responding?” Richard
said.
“Her body has undergone a major
transformation, which causes sensory overload. She will be out for
at least a day, if not more. Her body needs time to recover. I will
stay with her while she recovers in case anything goes wrong. Your
wife should be here; a healing might help speed up the
process.”
Richard closed his eyes and mentally
screamed,
Emerald,
she is alive
.
Emerald’s sword was raised. Without pause she
slashed, and another body dropped to the ground. She couldn’t close
her eyes to see what Richard saw, there was too much going on, and
it would cause her own life to be taken. Scanning quickly, she
searched for Rourk. She heard his animalistic scream as he drove a
dagger through a dark elf. She had to get to him. As much as she
wanted to run to her daughter, she had to let him know. She worked
her way through the crowd and eventually was close enough to get
his attention.
“Keegan is alive!”
She couldn’t possibly have said what he
thought she did. Rourk saw his opponent advance, and he took care
of him swiftly. Looking over at Emerald with a puzzled look in his
eye, he said, “Alive?” He couldn’t seem to comprehend what she was
saying.
Rourk tried to process the information, and
in doing so he let his guard down. A dark elf drove a blade through
his stomach. Rourk looked down at the blood. Stomach wounds were
the worst, and he knew he could bleed out slowly. Emerald
efficiently killed the dark elf and they made it safely off the
battle ground.
Laying him down on the ground, Emerald went
to work. She smiled down at him, her hair sticking up wildly and a
stripe of blood across her dirty cheek. “I don’t know how or why,
but Keegan is alive.” Rourk wanted to jump up, but knew he must
wait until she was finished. He would be no good to Keegan dead. He
closed his eyes but saw nothing when he sought her.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I can’t see
her.”
Emerald closed her eyes. She couldn’t see her
daughter either. Had she heard Richard wrong? Closing her eyes, she
focused on her husband. He was sitting beside their daughter’s
body. Her eyes were closed, and she was not moving. Sensing her
Richard thought,
She
is alive, but she’ll be out for a while
. Emerald responded,
I’m hurrying, Rourk
needed a healing. We’ll be there shortly.
Some healings took longer than others, and
Rourk’s was one of the longer ones. When she finished up, she
helped the young man to his feet and they set off at a rapid pace
to Richard’s tent. Emerald flung the flaps of the tent open and ran
to her daughter.
Kneeling beside her, she felt for a pulse. It
was shallow, but she had one. Emerald focused every ounce of energy
she had, and called forth her ancestors. She knew it could be done
because her own mother had told her, but she herself had never done
before asked for the ancestors. She felt them surround her, and
begged for their help in healing Keegan. She smiled when she felt
her grandmother’s hands touch hers. Closing her eyes they began
their work.
Emerald instantly knew something was off. She
knew her daughter’s energy field, and it had been altered. Keegan
usually had a particularly warm energy that felt like the sun was
shining directly on her. Now, her energy felt cool as if it were
the air from a nighttime stroll in the fall. Emerald pushed aside
her fears and focused on the healing; maybe when she was fully
healed she would feel normal. There were three generations of
healers working on Keegan, she would be fine.
The healing continued for well over two hours
while Emerald sat over her daughter’s prone form. It was the
longest healing she had ever given. Eventually, Keegan’s breathing
returned to normal, her pulse was slightly lower than it should be,
and she was still unconscious. What mattered was that she was
alive; she would pull through.
Emerald realized that Anna’s mother was
there. The woman had sat silently through the healing, staying at
Keegan’s side as she had promised. “I don’t understand. How can she
be alive? You are a spirit walker?”
Jennifer gazed almost lovingly at her. “Yes,
I am a spirit walker.”
Emerald’s voice was uncertain. “I thought
spirit walkers just helped people to the other side?” She had a
sinking feeling in her chest, and she almost didn’t want her to
continue.
“I used black magic to bring her back.”
Jennifer stated it as if she was worried of the other woman’s
reaction. Her tall, thin body slumped against the side of the tent,
her unwavering brown eyes waiting.
“How could you have used black magic when you
are on the side of the light? I have felt your soul; you are a
creature of the light.”
Jennifer took a deep breath, her chest rising
and falling slowly. “My parents died when I was young, and my
grandmother raised me. She was a witch, and she worked for the
dark. It is a long story how she went from light to dark. Growing
up, I was taught black magic, I didn’t know there was anything
wrong with it. As I got older, I realized that my grandmother was
evil. This is the first time I have ever used black magic to bring
someone back from the dead. When I saw Keegan was passing, by heart
ached for you. I did the same thing I would have done for my own
daughters.”
Emerald looked up with tears in her eyes,
“Thank you for saving my daughter. Do you know how this will affect
her? Rourk and I could not see her with our mind's eye when we
tried.”
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer murmured, shaking her
head. “I don’t know exactly how her body will react. There will be
changes like the one you mentioned. We have to wait till she wakes
up to see. She has a strong soul. The best way that I can think to
explain it is that she will have a spark of dark in her. Her light
is strong enough to keep it at bay.”
Thaddeus was pacing the tent like a caged
animal, avoiding looking at his sister as his mind whirled. His
voice broke the uncomfortable silence that had followed Jennifer’s
declaration. “I need to be alone to think.”