Guardian: Darkness Rising (24 page)

“
Thank you, Fe,” Luke smiled.
“Also... sorry for acting like such an annoying prick all the
time.

“
I was being ignorant and selfish.
I should’ve listened to the four of you.”

Felicity shrugged. “Well, at least you’ve
finally come to your senses.

“
Although it took you a
while.”

Luke made a small, offended noise. Felicity
chuckled. “I’m just joking,” she said, punching her cousin in the
shoulder. “Go to sleep.”

“
Not before you answer my
question,” Luke said. “You said you ‘saw’ that I was awake.
How?”

Felicity’s eyes widened slightly. “I don’t
know,” she said, “it was more intuition. I – I’m sorry I haven’t
been of much use in the past few days. I wish I could’ve done more
– but I was scared to mess up.”

“
You weren’t useless and you
wouldn’t have messed up,” Luke said decisively. “Just because you
couldn’t see, you weren’t worth any less.” He swallowed.

“
But I understand that you were
afraid, and that you still are. At least now, we can fix that.” As
he spoke, Luke reached for the leather bag the Queen had provided
the Guardians with. The amount of food inside of it had already
slimmed quite a bit. “With this.”

He pulled out the vial of flower
dust, showing it to Felicity; its glass shimmered in the moonlight,
and so did the substance the vial held.

“
We can cure your blindness with
this, Felicity. I’m sure of it.”

“
I don’t know...” Felicity said.
“What if we have to use the entire vial in order to get it to
work?”

“
We can always try,” Luke
suggested; eventually, Felicity nodded. Luke took two fingertips of
dust from the vial and blew the dust gently into Felicity’s
eyes.

The teenager blinked for a bit, giving the
dust some time to do its work.

“
Nothing’s happened,” Felicity
sighed with disappointment, lowering her eyes. “I still can’t see
anything.”

“
Just go to sleep,” Luke said,
“maybe it’ll have changed in the morning. It was only a little bit
of dust, after all.”

“
I’ll only go to sleep if you do
so too, Luke. You’re my cousin, and I’m the oldest. So... that
makes me responsible. If I don’t make sure you all get your
naptimes, then I’m sure I’ll be getting a butt-kicking from my
parents.”

Luke cackled with laughter, quickly putting a
hand over his mouth in order to muffle his laughter. Felicity
laughed as well.

Luke felt at ease and ready to go to sleep;
maybe now his mind had finally come to rest a bit.

*

When he woke up at the crack of
dawn, Luke felt slightly more energized and hopeful than he’d felt
the night before. And there was more than one reason as to why he
felt that way.

“
Guys?” Felicity said as she woke
up, “guys! I can see!”

“
Really?” Marco said, with an
astonished look on his face. Tony squealed with happiness, flinging
himself around his sister’s neck.

“
Yeah!” Felicity
said, happily accepting her little brother’s hug. “I mean – not too
well, it’s as if I’m not wearing my glasses while I’m supposed to –
but I can
see
.”
She then looked up at Luke. “You were right, Lucas! That powder
restored my vision – even if only a part of it.”

“
Told you,” Luke winked at her.
“It’ll only be a matter of time until you’ll be able to see
properly again, Felicity. I promise.

“
Shall we go now?”

The others agreed; they had to keep
going.

The teenagers walked into one of the nearby
villages; they knew there was a lake ahead, and thus they’d need a
boat. And these villages seemed to be the best place to find
one.

The Guardians made their way through the
village as its inhabitants slowly began to wake up; people opened
their windows, came out into the streets to greet each other. And
of course the Guardians didn’t go by unnoticed.

People started following the group of five as
they were headed for the dock, silently whispering. The teenagers
eventually caught flashes of conversations.

“
...Not again...”

“
....Why are they here? I
thought.... dead.”

“
Apparently, the Spirits....
kids.”

“
Poor souls.”

Eventually, the teenagers, Daisy
in particular, had had enough. “Alright,” Daisy suddenly said
loudly, “if anyone’s going to help us out here, that’d be
very
appreciated. But
what we don’t appreciate, is people following us as if we’re some
kind of parade!”

The townspeople started to mumble.
Apparently, they realised Daisy’s point, as they began to back away
and return to their homes quickly. Only one person remained: she
looked fierce, her dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. Her dark
green eyes glittered dangerously in the low sunlight.

“
Looks like you kids need a boat,
huh?” the woman said. “Yeah, I can get you one.

“
How much gold have you
got?”

“
Eh...” Daisy
mumbled. “Nothing, actually. We’re not...” she paused, not exactly
sure how to phrase it. “...
from
here.”

The woman laughed. “It’s fine,”
she chuckled, “I kid. I know who you lot are.” Her expression then
turned more serious, as did the tone of her voice. “But honestly,
the fact that the five of you are standing before me
does
concern me. What
are you kids doing here?”

She gestured at the Guardians that they had to
follow her to the dock. “I’m Undique, by the way.”

“
Well, Undique,” Felicity said,
“we understand why you’re concerned. Nobody here had expected the
Master to return, after all.

“
Honestly, neither had
we.”

Undique nodded. “Obviously,” she said. “After
we’d been freed from the underground hiding places we lived in to
survive the Master’s reign, we’d never expected to ever see him
again.” Her expression got a slight tinge of worry. “Has he really
returned?”

“
He’s trying,” Marco said, “but
we’ll stop him before he gets the chance to take over Lunaria
again.”

“
But... at the current moment,
we’re after one of our friends,” Luke said. “She... ran away
because of something the Master did to her.”

“
Poor girl,” Undique said. “You
said ‘she’, right?” Luke nodded, causing Undique to let out a small
sigh in relief.

“
Well, this is my boat,” she said,
pointing at a rowboat that was probably just big enough to take the
five teenagers. “If you’ve got the time to return it, please do.”
She chuckled. “But if you don’t, don’t sweat it. I’m sure it’ll
find its way back to me somehow.”

“
Thank you so much, Undique,” Tony
smiled, as he shook the sailor’s hand, “we’re forever in your
debt.”

“
Not really, kid,” Undique said.
“Not really. Just go and get your friend back – and maybe save the
world while you’re at it, okay?”

Tony laughed. “Will do.”

*

Going to sleep had been a mistake.

During the night, Mari had drifted on the
tide, but had unfortunately ended up far from where she was
supposed to be.

As Mari rowed back to the realm that had once
carried the name ‘the Edge’, now Louloudia once again, she thought
of her friends. Where were they? Were they coming after her, or had
they decided to put the most important thing – their mission, of
course – before her?

While a part of Mari hoped that she hadn’t
taken her friends’ minds of their mission, another part of her
hoped that they’d come after her. That they’d come to find
her.

But that probably wasn’t going to
happen, so Mari quickly put her thoughts aside and focused on her
own mission as she stepped ashore. As she did, Mari decided to
follow the shallow stream that split from the lake into Louloudia
to find the Land of Light.

Not that far away, a man was tracking down his
prey – James. He’d made it halfway through Louloudia by now,
closing in on the teenagers that formed his target.

He wouldn’t let them get away; he wouldn’t
disappoint his master.

James was unaware of the fact that
Mari was near, despite the fact that she was hundreds of metres –
at least – away from him.

What James did know, was that the teenagers
were near. Tony and Marco had studied Linmor Lake as they’d flown
over it a few days earlier, and were guiding their friends to the
shortest route across the lake. And James was planning to catch
them exactly there.

James was in no rush; he knew that
despite the small distance the teenagers were going, it’d be quite
a difficult task for them to get across. Rowing is heavy when
you’re untrained.

And James wasn’t wrong. The teenagers had come
far, but they’d come hardly halfway through before Marco’s arms got
too tired to row.

“
Can someone else take over,
please?” Marco huffed. “I’m tired...” His eyes were focused on Luke
as he spoke.

The redhead Marco was looking at,
however, was busy getting himself into trouble. He was leaning over
the edge of the boat; he thought he’d noticed something moving
under the water. As he bent forward, Luke’s cape slowly sank closer
toward water level.

Just as the red fabric of the cape
hit the water, something yanked at it, catching Luke by surprise
and pulling him under as he let out a yell.

Luke tried to look for whatever
had grabbed him as he was submerged, the water stinging his eyes;
he quickly noticed multiple sirens, clawing at his cape, seemingly
trying to choke him. Luke tried to kick them off, but ended up
getting both his legs grabbed by the seemingly beautiful
creatures.

The sirens had got a stronger hold
of Luke’s cape, pulling him down quickly, and Luke was starting to
feel lightheaded. His fingers clawed at the brooch of his cape,
trying to get it off; he was surprised to feel the tight fabric
around his neck loosen before he’d loosened the brooch.

Arrows seemed to be the cause; one the sirens
hissed as she pulled back her arm. Blood was floating in the water.
The other sirens met the same fate; some weren’t lucky enough to be
just hit in the arm, though.

Luke felt a pull on his arms;
Daisy’s and Marco’s faces appeared in front of him. While Marco
pulled Luke up, Daisy fended off the sirens with her daggers. Both
the teenagers had taken off their capes before jumping in the
water, in order to avoid getting caught the same way Luke had
been.

Luke returned to the boat coughing loudly.
Marco and Daisy joined him quickly; mere seconds after he’d boarded
the boat, Luke found four pairs of stern eyes looking at
him.

“
What?” Luke said. “I thought I’d
seen something move under the water. And I wasn’t wrong.” He
shivered, both due to the cold and the thought of being drowned by
fish-ladies.

“
Just be glad we had arrows to
shoot into the water,” Felicity said, showing Luke her now
half-empty quiver. “If we’d all had swords, we probably would’ve
cut one of your limbs off.”

“
Thanks for saving me, guys,” Luke
said. “...Again, I guess.” He then proceeded to do what Marco had
asked him, and started to row the boat back to the
shore.

Luckily, Luke managed to get him and his
friends safely to shore before his arms turned to limp noodles,
too.

The Guardians thankfully climbed
out of the boat and got ashore. Felicity guessed that they’d been
in the boat for about an hour, guessing by the height of the sun –
it’d finally begun to rise above the mountaintops.

“
Then that means we’ve got plenty
of time left before sundown,” Luke said. “Good... I wouldn’t want
to face the Master in the dark.”

“
Yeah, but we’re
probably not going to be able to face him until sundown, Luke,”
Felicity said. “Especially not if
he’s
going to be blocking our
way.”

She was pointing at a figure in
the distance, who was approaching the teenagers quickly. It didn’t
take long for Luke and his friends to realise it was James
approaching them.

“
Dad,” Luke gasped in horror. “Oh
no.”

Luke knew his father wouldn’t recognize him
and would be likely to attack him, but Luke was still reluctant to
hurt him. To Luke, the man that was approaching him with his sword
raised was still his father. Luke was still convinced he could save
his father.

In fact, Luke was prepared to use a portion of
the flower dust Queen Eloine had given him to do so. They had
plenty of the stuff (since they had to cure their parents, too);
so, if given the chance, Luke couldn’t think of any excuse not to
use the dust on James.

“
Guardians,” James said, now close
enough to the Guardians to be able to attack them, “you have come
far, but not far enough. My master wants your heads...” He paused,
and flashed a grin that looked eerie in combination with his
glowing red eyes; it didn’t help that he moved the black blade he
was holding to his chin. “...and I will be the one to deliver them
to him.”