Upon the Stars (Love Lines Book 5) Page 8

  “You mean someone who doesn’t belong to the Clarions knew you would dream about them coming to the wedding, but waited for the dawn to come to give the order to kill Dever’s dwellers?”

  “Yes.”

  Well, his words made sense, unless…

  “Why would I lie to you?” He asked, as if reading my mind.

  I smirked. “Why would you tell me the truth? You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “Do you trust me? Or anyone from my tribe?”

  “Honestly, I don’t. Not because I think that you are bad people. But I can’t trust someone who wants to destroy the world I live in.”

  “Same here, Eileen. I don’t want my tribe to be destroyed. And this is exactly why I promised to think about helping you. I might not be thrilled about what you do in Dever, and what they teach you to do. But I want my people to be safe. And for that, I will do anything. Absolutely anything that is within my power.”

  “Then think twice before rejecting our help and refusing to give yours.”

  “Like I said, I will think about it.”

  “Then I guess it’s time for me to go.”

  “I will ask Amitola to accompany you back to the Lake.”

  Songaa and I left the hut right the moment a boy around six years old broke the spells surrounding the pueblo and ran up to Amitola, screaming, “You lied to me!”

  She turned around, and saw her father and me watching them. Even from the distance, I could see pure terror filling her bright-blue eyes.

  “You lied to me, mother!” The boy screamed again. “They are not evil. I can feel that.”

  “Calm down, honey. Why don’t we go home and I make your favorite tea?”

  “I won’t drink it anymore! It makes me feel weak.”

  Oh…my…god…

  He was the boy that I needed to bring to Dever. My father was right, he was special. And he was Amitola’s son…whose magic I felt in the forest and in Leno’s amulet.

  Without thinking, I started to walk, heading straight to where the boy was standing.

  Amitola stepped in my way, shielding her son from me. “Don’t,” she said quietly. There was so much pleading in her eyes. For a second, I thought she would start crying.

  “I just want to talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just a kid.”

  “Who possesses magic stronger than anyone else’s in the tribe.”

  “Eileen, please…”

  But I didn’t listen to her.

  “Hey,” I said to the boy, smiling. “What’s your name?”

  “Who are you?” He asked in English. No doubt, he was surprised to see a stranger in the pueblo. And just like his mother, he could speak my language.

  “I’m Eileen.”

  His bright-blue eyes studied mine.

  “What can you do?” He asked, stepping from behind his mother’s back.

  I knew he was talking about my magic. He could feel it, as well as I could feel his.

  “Many things. What would you like me to do?”

  “That’s enough!” Amitola tried to pull the boy away from me.

  What happened next scared everyone, including me… Two chains made of pure flame wrapped around her arms, locking them as if in handcuffs. Amitola cried.

  Quickly, I pulled the boy away from her, and broke the spell he was using, turning flames into water.

  Leno ran up to his wife, telling her something in the language I didn’t know. She nodded, looking down at her burned wrists.

  “Let me heal you,” I said.

  “No!” Leno protested. “We can handle this.”

  “Let her help Ami,” Songaa said, stepping in between Leno and me. “She can do this faster than anyone of us can. You don’t want Ami to suffer, do you?”

  I guess it was the main reason that made Leno step back and let me near Amitola.

  “Take the boy away,” I said, taking Amitola’s hands in mine. She flinched, and then shut her eyes tight. “Does it hurt that much?”

  “No,” she said, breathing heavily. “But your magic does.”

  I turned around and looked at her father, saying, “What does that mean?”

  Leno took his son’s hand in his and together they started to walk away. The boy turned around and gave me another curious look. He was obviously impressed by how fast I managed to turn the spell that I was sure he didn’t mean using into a completely different one. Unlike him, I knew exactly what I was doing.

  Songaa helped Amitola onto a small bench standing nearby and said, “Your magic is very different from ours. They contradict each other. That’s why we care so much about protecting our territory from anyone possessing the gift that you have.”

  Amitola whispered, “Please hurry, I can’t stand the pain.”

  I closed my eyes, and mentally pronounced one of those healing spells that Marion taught me. It worked in no time flat, so when I opened my eyes again, Amitola’s skin was as good as new. I took my hands away from her.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “He never did anything like this before.” She looked at her father with her eyes full of pain.

  “Why are you keeping the boy here? He needs help. He needs…”

  “Just don’t say he needs to go to Dever, because I will never let that happen,” Amitola said angrily.

  “Don’t you understand that keeping him here is dangerous for every one of you? Not even your father is capable of controlling him. Besides… His eyes are bright-blue, just like yours. And Leno’s are dark-brown… Who is the father of your child, Amitola?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter! He’s a pure-blood Wizardy, and his powers started to reveal so early. You will never be able to suppress them. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “I will do my best to prevent my son from turning into someone like you. I don’t want him to become a monster, just like … never mind. Go back to Dever, Eileen. There’s nothing you can do to help us with Taima.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “No!”

  “Let her,” Songaa said.

  “I’m sorry father, but I can’t do that.”

  Songaa waved to someone I couldn’t see, and said, “Elu! Bring Taima here.”

  “Father!”

  “He will find her anyway, we both know it.”

  Songaa’s words surprised me. Obviously, he knew so much more about his grandson’s gifts than he would ever tell me.

  A few moments later, a woman around Songaa’s age came to us, holding Taima in her arms.

  “Eileen, this is Elu, my wife.”

  She put the boy down, and stretched out her hand to greet me, “Nice to meet you, Eileen, the bird.”

  I stared at her, surprised. “How do you know the meaning of my name?”

  She smiled gently. “It was my mother’s name as well. She told me its meaning.”

  “Can you repeat that trick with the water?” Taima asked, sitting next to me on the bench. Now that he was so close, I had no doubt it was his energy and his magic that I felt all around the forest.

  “What were you doing in the forest alone?” I asked, taking one of the empty jars, standing next to the bench. I covered it with one hand and mentally I asked the river running through the pueblo to fill it with the water.

  When the jar was full, I removed my hand and gave it to Taima. “Wow!” He said, impressed. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He looked carefully at his mother and grandparents, watching us. Obviously, he couldn’t be honest with me in their presence.

  “Can you give us a few minutes?” I said.

  “We will be nearby,” Songaa responded. I could see that Amitola didn’t want to go, but her father told her something in the unknown language and she agreed to go with him and her mother.

  “So? Why did you go to the forest, Taima?”
<
br />   “Call me Tai. I hate it when someone calls me by my full name.”

  “Okay, Tai, answer my question please.”

  “I…wanted to see Dever.”

  “But you can’t see it. It’s protected by the spells that hide it from the strangers.”

  “Actually, I can see it. As well as my mom did the day you showed up from under the lake’s surface.”

  “But…” How was that possible? “Has your mom ever seen Dever before?”

  “I don’t know. But she could see it as clearly as I did.”

  Now that was something I needed Amitola to explain to me. Because I was sure, the protective spells were working perfectly well, and no one could see through them. If only … Amitola knew exactly what to look for.

  “Okay, tell me about that fire trick you used on your mom.”

  Tai’s cheeks reddened. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “I know you didn’t. But it wasn’t the first time you used magic that is in your hands, was it?”

  “How do you know that?”

  I smiled, smoothing his messy hair. “There are so many things you need to learn.”

  “Will I learn them in Dever?”

  “What do you know about Dever?”

  “Not much actually. No one would tell me about the place. But I know that people like me live there, and they are gifted. I once heard my father talking to my mom about that.”

  “Yes, everyone who lives in Dever has a special gift.”

  “But you have many, don’t you?”

  I looked at him, genuinely surprised. “How do you know that?”

  “I can feel it. Like I can feel that the medallion on your neck has been crafted with the help of something that I can do too.”

  I looked down at the two medallions I was wearing on my chain. “You mean the silver one?” I asked.

  Tai nodded, still looking at Evan’s handiwork. “Can I touch it?”

  “I have a better idea.” I took the medallion off the chain and put it into Tai’s hand, saying, “Keep it. It is filled with magic that will protect you from evil.”

  “Wow… Are you being serious? I can keep it?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes lit up with excitement. “I can turn it into a dagger, like the one my father has. Only it will be much smaller.”

  “Did you make that dagger for your dad?”

  “No. Mom says someone gave it to her as a present. But it’s too heavy, and I don’t like wearing it. So she gave it to my dad.” He was turning Evan’s medallion in his hands, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the origins of his gifts. Amitola was gifted too, but she was not as strong as her son was. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was much weaker than her parents, which was odd, considering children always get as much power as their parents can give them.

  It meant only one thing - whoever the boy’s real father was, he was an unbelievably talented magician.

  “Will you promise me something?” I said, thinking of how to make Tai’s family believe that he belonged to Dever and that he needed to go there with me.

  “What do you want me to promise you?”

  “No matter how angry or excited you are, try to not let your gift take over you, okay? Until you learn how to make it work properly, you shouldn’t do anything that might hurt other people.”

  “Okay, I will try to control myself. But… Can I ask you for a promise in return?”

  I laughed. “Sure.”

  “Will you take me to Dever?”

  I sighed, not sure how to respond. “I will try. You know I can’t take you away from here without your parents’ approval. But I will talk to them. For now, be a good boy and be careful with what you can do. I will come back in two days.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Your grandfather and I have something very important to talk about.”

  “Cool! I’ll see you soon then. Good bye, Eileen.” He hugged me tight and I almost cried because of how much he trusted me. I bet in his eyes, I was like a fairy capable of making his every dream come true. Too bad, I was just me.

  Amitola came to accompany me back to Dever, but first, I needed to see her father again.

  “I’ll be right back, okay?” I rushed to the stone hut where I knew I would find Songaa. He was there with his wife. “I’m sorry, can I have a word with you?”

  He told Elu to wait for him outside. Then he turned to me, saying, “I know what you are going to tell me, Eileen. Tai needs help. But sending him to Dever is not an option.”

  “Why not? Simply because you think he will learn something bad there? But this is ridiculous! He will learn bad things even without anyone’s help, by using his gifts in the wrong way.”

  “There are other ways to help him.”

  “Ways like what?” Not that I expected Songaa to confirm our suspicions about their tribe using some kind of secret magic to suppress powers, but asking was worth a try anyway.

  “I can’t tell you. It’s the tribe’s rituals that can’t be revealed to anyone who doesn’t belong to Waroi.”

  “If you believe that tea or other potions can suppress your grandson’s gifts, you are wrong. No tea would ever be able to make a wizard forget about their magic.”

  I turned to leave, but Songaa’s next words made me stop.

  “But masterminding would.”

  “What?”

  “You know what masterminding is, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do. But masterminding doesn’t work like this.”

  “How do you know that? Have you ever asked your friend, the Master of Lords, to make you believe that you were powerless?”

  I stared at him, half-shocked, half-angry. “Evan would never do that to me or anyone else.”

  “Even if a person asked him to do that?”

  “Do you really believe that Tai can be masterminded?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t believe that. But other gifted people who don’t want to be like you…they could live happy lives if only they could forget about their powers.”

  I didn’t know what those words meant. Honestly, I thought the old man was out of his mind. If everything was that simple, Clarions would ask the Lords that accompanied them to the wedding to mastermind them. They wouldn’t need to kill anyone or think about destroying Dever.

  “I’d better go,” I said to Songaa. “I’ll come back in two days.”

  He didn’t say anything in response, so I left, unable to stop thinking about his words about Evan. My mind was shut for Amanda. I didn’t want her to know the things I was thinking about at the moment. Though I knew she would ask me about them anyway.

  But could Evan really make people forget about their gifts?...

  Chapter 9

  “Stone huts? Seriously?”

  To my surprise, Evan was the only person waiting for me at the gates, dying to know more about my meeting with the tribe.

  “Is that all that Amanda managed to read in my thoughts?” I asked, a little frustrated. Evan couldn’t have found a worse moment for his jokes.

  “I thought they would live in lodges with teepees or something like that.”

  “For God’s sake, Evan! Their lifestyle is the least of the things we should be worried about. Is there any news about my mother?”

  “Your dad talked to Peter, and he said he would try to find her. But we haven’t heard from him yet.”

  “I see…” My worries about Mom returned. Considering the amount of time that had passed since the moment I left Dever, Peter had had more than enough time to find her. Unless she never made it to Patricia’s…

  “She’s gonna be fine, Eileen,” Evan said. “Just give Peter a little more time. You know how much of a pain in the ass he is. No doubt, he is taking his time looking for your mom and trying our patience. Now, tell me, do Waroi wear bearskin and war bonnets?”

  “Oh, Evan, your childhood was obviously overdosed with Disney movies.”

  “Pocahontas was one of my favorites.”<
br />
  I stared at him, unable to believe that he could think about fairy tales when there were so many more things that we needed to discuss. And then, I laughed. Like really laughed for the first time in weeks. “Unbelievable… Who would have thought that Mr. Smart-Ass Murray is just another Pocahontas obsessed kid?”

  “Ha-ha, very funny.” Evan grimaced. “Just don’t tell me you didn’t like Poca.”

  “Poca?” I laughed even harder. “It’s the first time I have heard anyone calling her that. My, my… True they say – men never grow up. And you, my dearest friend, are not an exception.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, enough scoffing.” He suddenly became very serious. “Tell me, is that true that they are hiding a pure-blood Wizardy boy? Is he the one your father wanted you to bring to Dever?”

  “Yes. The kid is unbelievably talented. And that was his energy that Kevin and Elena felt near Dever. He’s very curious about everything related to the university. His parents didn’t tell him anything. So naturally, he wants to know everything.”

  “I have never heard about kids possessing magic. Have you?”

  I shook my head. “No, never.”

  “Amanda said that his father is not his biological father. Is he?”

  “I think his real father was a very strong magician. And he possessed silver magic.”

  “What?”

  “I saw a piece of jewelry that I first thought was created by the boy. His name is Tai by the way. But then he said it was a gift from someone he didn’t know.”

  “And you think it was gifted by his biological father?”

  “Yes. The energy of the jewelry was very similar to the one I felt in Tai.”

  “Hmm… Silver magic is a very rare gift,” Evan said thoughtfully.

  “I know. Where’s Christian, by the way? Why didn’t he come to meet me?”

  “His father called him a few minutes before your return, and he went to see him.”

  “What did Patrick want from him?”

  Evan shrugged. “Don’t know. Christian didn’t tell us anything.”