Guardian: Protectors of Light (23 page)

“
Do you have
a better idea to stop the bleeding then, Samira?” James asked
her. 

The Pixie shook her
head.

“
Well,
then.”

The teenagers were too
busy arguing to notice they were being watched. By warrior
fairies.

“
Are you sure that it’s them?”
“Unmistakable! Look at their costumes! It 
has
 to be them. There’s no other possibility.”
“They’re coming for the flowers Asura asked us to guard with our
lives. The Guardians must not get them! At all costs!”
“If you say so... Then we should attack!”
The teenagers didn’t get any time to realise what was going on,
because within a matter of seconds, they were under attack of six
angry fairies.
They instinctively pulled out their weapons as the Fairies
attacked; Antonio rushed to a tree to make sure Bella was safe
first.

“
Antonio! How
are you doing?” James shouted as he blocked a magical attack from a
blonde-haired Fairy.

Antonio seemed to have a
lot worse time, because he had to take on two Fairies on his own.
He threw his glaive at one of them, which appeared to turn out into
a shot in the bulls-eye. The Fairy stumbled backwards and
disappeared into fog.

“
Great,
Jamey! Thanks for asking!” Antonio yelled, as he retrieved his
weapon.
He wanted to push the glaive right into the other fairy, but she
caught it and managed to turn the tables. Antonio ran forward, and
fought her hand-to-hand until he had his weapon back – and the
fairy had disappeared.

Thomas turned his head as he defeated the Fairy that had been
attacking him. “Samira! Look out!” he shouted, as the fifth of the
six Fairies aimed for Samira. Thomas swung his sword forward, just
in time to block the attack. The curse the fairy had cast out shot
away, seeking for a new target.
James yelped as the beam that represented the curse hit him in the
chest and threw him backward against a tree.

“
JAMES!”
Thomas shouted, and angrily lashed out to the remaining two
Fairies. Stunned by Thomas’s sudden, furious attack, they backed
away and took the flight, off into the Forest.

Samira flew as fast as
she could toward Bella, making sure she was still doing okay as
well.

Thomas had already knelt
down next to James, who had collapsed against the
tree. ”James! James, are you all right?” Thomas exclaimed
worried.

It took a while, but
eventually, there came a response from James. “Yeah, I’m fine,” the
red-haired teenager said. “Just a little dizzy due to the
impact...”

“
Come on,
buddy,” Thomas said, while helping James to stand up. “Let’s head
back to the Queen’s Palace. She needs to check what kind of Magic
has hit you.”

*

The remaining few metres
of the way back to the Passage were spent in silence. When the Five
– or, well, they were with six - arrived at the Entrance, they were
unhappily surprised.
An Warlock Spirit was blocking the path, probably one that snuck
away from the battle earlier and waited for them at the
Entrance.

“
This is
where the road ends for you, Guardians,” the Warlock Spirit said
while raising his arm and pointing with his index finger toward the
teenagers.

“
Surrender
now or you’ll be separated. And you all know what separation means
for the Bond of Light...
...Game over.” He laughed.

“
We’re not
afraid of you,” Thomas said. “It’s just one against at least two.
We can take you out within a second.”

“
Attack me,
and I will enter the Entrance, Guardian,” the Spirit said
threatening. “This means that one of you won’t be able to return
through the Entrance and shall have to travel through the Twilight
Forest on their own, where they will be found by the Shadow Walkers
roaming the forest... You have no choice but to
surrender.”

Thomas grimaced. “I’m never going to surrender, and
especially not to someone who’s 
way
 beneath my
dignity.”

He took a step forward,
causing the Warlock Spirit to glide backward closer to the
Entrance, but it didn’t enter. 

“
What’s the point, anyway? I mean- it’s not like
we 
have
 to go
through the Secret Passage. We can get back to the Valley through
the Twilight Forest if we want to. We’ve done it
before.”

The English-born
teenager’s eyes darkened as they stared angrily at the Warlock.
“You have no kind of control over us.”

“
You think I
don’t, boy?” the Evil Spirit said, still gliding further toward the
Entrance. “This Entrance remains open until six life sources will
have passed. It cannot be manually closed. And when I enter, the
Magic barrier your Queen has created around her lands to protect
her from evil, will be gone. Darkness shall be able to destroy
everything good in the Fantasy Valley, and the gates shall always
be open! Then you shall have no place left to run to, and no place
left to hide! And now you’re trying to tell me I hadn’t any kind of
control over you!” 

Thomas swallowed. The Warlock
actually 
did
 have a point
there. But he couldn’t back away now. He would just have to bluff
him and his friends a way out of it.

“
Bring it on,
then,” he said confidently. “Show me what you’ve got.”
The nineteen-year-old pulled out his sword and ran forward, while
roaring loudly. But just at the moment he was about to lash out at
the Warlock, the Spirit dodged his attack and disappeared into the
Entrance.

“
Oh, screw
it! Antonio, take James and Bella through the Passage and make sure
that they reach the Palace! The injured first!”

“
But Thomas-”
Antonio protested.

“
Do as I say,
Antonio! Trust me!”

Antonio didn’t ask more
questions. He just simply grabbed James’s healthy arm, without
letting go of Bella, and ran through the Entrance, with Violina
after them. James made loud protests at first, but they faded out
as soon as they had entered the Passage.

“
Thomas, what
are we going to do now? Only one of us can pass! This isn’t going
to work!” Samira exclaimed.

“
It’s just a
matter of time before the Shadow Walkers get here, so we have to
act quick and concrete,” Thomas mumbled. “Samira, step onto my
hand.”

“
What?”
Samira asked. “Thomas, please talk louder, I can’t understand what
you’re saying.”

Thomas simply stuck his
hand out toward the Pixie on his shoulder. “Sit down,” he
said.
Samira did what she was told.

Thomas started to run
toward the entrance, and pushed Samira slightly against his chest.
“I hope this works, and that it won’t kick one of us out,” he said.
“There we go!”

He ran through the
Entrance, which instantly started to close. Thomas ran as fast as
he could to stay ahead of the bending trees, and it eventually
worked.

When he entered the
Queen’s Valley, he nearly tripped over a tree root and stumbled
forward across the open place.
Antonio and Bella weren’t there, but James was. “I sent Antonio
ahead with Bella,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The Bond of Light arrived
at the Queen’s Palace without any further problems. When they
entered, Violina was waiting for them in the hallway.

“
The Queen is
expecting you in a different room this time,” she said. “Follow
me.”

The room they entered was
decorated in the same style as the living room, but seemed to have
a much warmer feeling, due to the floor being from spruce wood
planks.

A king size bed stood in
the middle of the room, and someone familiar to the teenagers was
lying in it.
“Bella! You’re awake!” Samira said as she fluttered toward her,
while still carrying the flowers. “You’ve still got them!” Bella
responded. “I’m glad to see you’re okay, Sam.”
“So are we to see that you are as well,” Antonio said with a
crooked smile on his face, as he fluffed Bella’s
hair. 

“
Ouch,
Antonio, that hurts,” Bella moaned. “Please be careful.”

“
Oh, sorry,
Jingle Bells. I thought you would’ve already recovered.”

“
She might
still feel pain in her leg and head for the next few days,” Queen
Eloine said, who had suddenly seemed to have appeared out of thin
air.

“
And there is
a chance that her leg won’t be strong enough to carry him today.
Especially not when you’ll be climbing the mountain, so I’d advice
that you spend the night here, and see how it goes tomorrow
morning.”

“
If you’ve
got the time, could you please examine James?” Thomas said. “He has
been hit by some kind of Magic spell.” James was leaning on the
Brit’s shoulder.

“
I will,
boys. But I can’t say if it’s anything bad or not before any
symptoms show up, so I’ll have to give it an hour or two before I
can examine him,” Queen Eloine said. “I suggest that you have
dinner together with me and sleep here. If I can watch it progress
throughout the evening, I can come up with an quicker solution. For
now... Samira, will you come over here and bring me one of the
three flowers?”

Samira dropped one flower
on Bella’s bed and fluttered with the other one to Queen
Eloine.
“Your Majesty, can you show me how I am supposed to use the
flower?”

The Queen nodded. “Come
with me to the living room, there I will show you. Bella, I’d
suggest that you try to sleep and take some rest. It’s been a long
day; we’ll wake you up before dinner.”

The four teenagers and
left Bella alone, who immediately sank down on her pillow and
closed her eyes.
In the living room, Queen Eloine walked toward a medicine cabin and
got some sort of golden bowl out of it. It had been decorated with
tiny emeralds and sapphires; she took the flower from Samira, put
it inside the bowl, before setting it on the table.

“
Now, Samira,
I want you to concentrate on the flower’s energy,” Queen Eloine
said. Samira landed on the table and spread her arms.

Nothing happened at fist,
and Samira was starting to get worried it wouldn’t work. But Queen
Eloine kept encouraging her to keep going. And suddenly, the flower
started to glow, and so did Samira. She got lifted off the ground
as a trail of sparkles surrounded her.

A white flash filled the
room, but it didn’t knock everyone back, like the one that changed
Samira at first.

The white light faded
out, and Samira was sitting on the table. She had been turned back
into her old self.

She gasped happily while
looking at her hands, jumped up from the table and hugged James and
Thomas. “Guys! We did it!” she cheered loudly.

“
Samira, I am
so proud of you! I knew you could do it!” James said, holding his
sister’s shoulders and smiling at her. “And now all of this is out
of the way... I’m thirsty; I’m going to refill our water sacks at
the moat outside.”

He grabbed the leather
shoulder bag Thomas had dropped on his chair earlier that day and
left the room. “I’m back before you know it,” he said.

Samira waited for about a
minute after James had left the room before leaving as well. “I
might better go and look after him. We still don’t know what he was
hit by.”

At the moat, James was
digging around in the bag which he had hung around his shoulder to
find one of the water sacks.

But right as he pulled
one out of the bag and wanted to squat to fill it, his hands
started to shake. It felt like they were asleep; it was a cold and
tingly feeling, that quickly spread across his body, causing him to
lose all muscle control.
James’s fingertips first turned white, and then blue. The same kind
of colour appeared underneath his eyes, forming a strange pattern
across his head.
James winced and staggered, but tried to stay on his feet and not
to fall into the water, with his feet at the absolute edge of the
moat. But he quickly lost control of the muscles in his legs; his
knees buckled and he fell forward into the water.

Fairy
Flu

“
JAMES!
NO!” 

Samira sprinted toward
the moat, where James had just disappeared underneath the water’s
surface. She knelt down at the water’s shore, bending over until
her head was under water, in hopes of finding her brother, but she
had no such luck.

“
Dang it!”
Samira said as she pulled her head back up to breathe. “It’s a
whole lot deeper than I was hoping it’d be down there.” And without
any further hesitation, she took a deep breath and dove into the
cold water. Luckily, James hadn’t sunk down too far, so Samira was
able to get to him quickly.

She grabbed him, and held
on to him tightly while swimming back to the surface and dragging
the two of them back on land.

As quick as she could,
Samira got to her knees and looked at James to examine him. The
redhead was extremely cold, with a bunch of blue marks going all
around his face and fingertips.

“
Oh no,”
Samira mumbled; she knew that whatever this was, it wasn’t good.
She stood up, got her brother in her arms as careful as she could,
and started to run back to the Palace.