Taken (Book Six) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series) (19 page)

Sebastien saw his parents alongside Kanda, Arnon and the Tunkapog and knew the battle to stop Amelia had started.
He saw a relieved tear in his mother’s eyes but their reunion would have to wait.

Ivan had to stop Nona from jumping to Meghan. They darted back, closer to the Tunk
apog with Nona kicking and scratching the entire way.

Catrina sidled over to them.

“Catrina!” said Ivan, surprised to see her. “What’s going on here?”

“Super short version, Amelia-
INSANE! Somehow found the Immortality Stone- YES!” she said frantically, after seeing the disbelief in their faces. “And now she’s used some spell to take control over Meghan and Colin!”

They had landed in the middle of a war.
And the two most powerful players were at the beck and call of a crazy woman named Amelia Cobb!

“Ah,
” said Amelia upon seeing Sebastien. “All my little traitors have come home to roost.” She looked over her followers, many of whom could no longer look her in the eyes.

“Is there no one left with me?” she asked.
“We have everything we need at our grasps! The Immortality Stone to heal the world and return magic. The two most powerful beings born to this world to help us in our battle and to forge this new reality.”

“Amelia, I i
mplore you to release this hold,” tried Arnon again. “You know what Colin is and what he is capable of doing. You will not be able to control his powers once he reaches maturity.”

“There’s
obviously still time before that happens,” she said without compassion or concern. “I just wish I had known it sooner, it would have made finding the Stone much easier.”

She sighed in an impatient manner.

“Now is the time to pledge your allegiance to me! There is no middle ground! Bow now, before me, or prepare to die. The choice is simple. Magic is returning, this is the new world.”

To further prove her stance she shouted, “Meghan, burn this place to the ground.
We have no more need of it!”

Without hesitation, a fire bur
st out of Meghan’s hands and shot toward the nearest building. It would not take long for everything to catch and to burn, as everything was made from wood. Smoke mixed in with screams, as home after home burst into flames. Meghan stepped past the Tunkapog, ignoring any face she might have recognized if not under this spell.

“Kneel before me and you live,” Amelia spoke harshly.
“Or shall we see what Colin can do?” At this threat, many of her followers fell to their knees. They did not agree with her methods but they were not prepared to die today.

Nashua
once again ordered his army to attack. But just Amelia. They were not able to get any closer but threw potion after potion hoping to break the defense protecting her.

“I can’t believe you allowed that boy to come with us!”
Nashua shouted at his sister, Kanda. She tried to apologize but he held up his hand. “It has endangered us all.”

“It would have happened whether he had come with us or not!” argued Arnon. “Frankly, I’d rather be here to see what exactly she’s doing.”

Nashua had no argument for this. He joined in the fight, throwing potions in attempts to break her shield. Nothing worked. All they were doing was causing even more damage to their surroundings. And the air was growing thicker with smoke, flame and fumes.

Everyone froze. A new movement beneath the ground startled
them. The ground started to shake. Amelia held out her arms to balance herself from falling.

Catrina gasped and pointed,
watching the ground begin to crack, directly underneath Colin’s feet.

Sh
e stepped backwards, a smirk spreading across her face.

“I think you al
l should move back,” she warned.

They obeyed at once.

Amelia reached out her arm to Colin. “Destroy anyone not on their knees!” she ordered.

Colin turned and looked at her, raising his arm
toward her.

The white in his eyes dissolved and he let out an uncontrolled cry.

A blast of magical energy shot out of him, knocking out Amelia’s protective shield and simultaneously cracking her granite perch in two. Amelia was blown off the back of the rock and fell onto the ground.

Colin’s gaze was deadly. With the flick of a
hand, he doused the all the flames and blew away the plumes of toxic smoke.

He took a few steps closer to where Amelia had fallen.

She stirred, not dead.

He wanted to kill her, snuff out her life
, end all she had tried to do.

“He’s out of control,” someone shouted out. “He’ll kill us all!”

Shouts of agreement raced through the banished Svoda.

“Are you so quick to turn on someone that’s just saved you all?” said Catrina.

“He’s a Projector!” someone replied. “He must be killed before it’s too late.”

Colin turned and glanced toward his uncle and the Tunkapog.

They gave no reaction other than shock at the magic they had just witnessed.

Catr
ina grabbed the Magicante off the ground and thrust it into Colin’s hands.

“Re
-form the bond,” she urged him.

He did so, t
he book reshaping and taking its form, entangling itself back onto Colin’s ear. “We have to leave here,” he whispered.

“I know.”

He took a quick glance toward his uncle and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Colin grasped Catrina’s hand and instantly
they were gone.

Cloaked,
invisible and Arnon hoped, untraceable.

Kanda reached ou
t an arm to Arnon and he held it firmly. Nashua looked at them both, no words forming. He need not say it aloud. They both knew that the hunt was on. Colin was in more danger than he’d ever been.

“Arnon
!” shouted Kanda unexpectedly. She pushed him at the same moment. A spell hit her arm, splitting it open, blood spurting out of it.

“This is
your fault,” said Amelia, now on her feet and striding closer. “You still cannot stop me,” she spoke, an octave above her normal voice.

Arnon rolled over K
anda, shielding her, with blood from her injury covering them both.

“I still have the Immortality Stone,
” bellowed Amelia, her palm raised.

A throat
cleared loudly from behind her, stopping her in her tracks. She spun around, her expression one of annoyed fury.

“Act
ually, you don’t,” declared a cocky voice. It was Colby, sitting calmly atop the Immortality Stone. No one knew who this boy was except for Ivan and Sebastien, as Meghan was still missing.

“Colby, you cannot take this!” said Ivan, stepping forward bravely.
He raised his palm to fight. Sebastien joined him.

“Who are you?” shrieked Amelia at Colby.
“Who are you to tell me what I no longer have? You are just a boy!” she spat.

“My most favorite words,” mumbled Colby in a bored manner.
Amelia started to run at Colby, as if she were planning on jumping up and knocking him off her precious stone.

Colby raised his hand, snapped his finger and they heard a crack. Amelia Cobb’s head was suddenly facing the wrong direction, looking back at the Tunkapog, her
dead eyes bulging with fury. Her body slumped to the ground.

“You killed
her,” said one of her followers, stunned.

“Oh, she needed to be killed,” said Colby. “You know, that’s the problem with all of you... sometimes, people just need to die.”

Another voice called out from the bewildered crowd.

“Colby?”
It was Meghan. She had returned. Her eyes were their normal shade of ocean blue and she was casting them back and forth between the dead body of Amelia Cobb and her brother, Colby.

“A
h. Hello again,
Sis
,” he spoke in a cold hiss. “Long time no see.”

All eyes swiftly landed on Meghan, demanding an explanation of who this boy was, why he was here, and why this boy called her
Sis!

She couldn’t speak and just looked away. No words would come to her.

“Don’t look so disappointed,” he told her. “Trying to convince that nut job to stop what she was doing was
n’t possible! She would have had to be put down one day or another. Why not now? Save a few lives,” he rattled on.

Silently, she sent him, “It’s not that you did it, it’s that you enjoyed doing it.”

“I certainly won’t mourn her loss,” he sent back. “Sometimes, you have to be the one that stands up and says enough. Enough of all this craziness. And actually do something about it.”

Meghan refused to reply and
shut her thoughts off from him.

Aloud, Co
lby said, “See ya soon, Sis. Oh and by the way, early happy birthday. Sixteen tomorrow. Maybe next year we’ll get to throw a party?”

Meghan folded her arms in defiance, looking down.
When she looked back up, Colby was gone.

And so was the Immortality S
tone.

“Please, please tell me that what I think just happened, did not just happen,” said Arnon.

“Colby is Meghan’s real twin brother. It’s a really long story,” said Sebastien.

“And do we know who this boy’s father is?” asked
Nashua, stalking over to them.

“Jurekai Fazendiin,” answered Meghan, weakly. “I can’t believe he killed her, just like that.
I thought...” she didn’t know what to think. She had hoped there was some small piece of Colby that could be saved. And why had he said happy birthday to her? She wasn’t supposed to turn sixteen for months yet.

Their eyes again fell onto the dead body of Amelia Cobb.

No one approached her, they just stared.

Someone treated Kanda’s wound while Arnon located Meghan, finally able to see her and
speak to her. Her eyes widened, tearing up upon seeing him. She hadn’t even realized he was there. She hadn’t recognized his voice. She ran into his arms. Kanda joined a moment later, her arm bandaged, the blood stopped.

“I thought once I’d spoken to Colin that I was pretty well caught up with what’s being going on in your lives, but it seems I may be incorrect i
n that theory,” Arnon told her.

“You have no idea,” she replied tiredly
. “Wait! You talked to Colin. Is he here?”

“No, he’s gone.
Just minutes ago.”

“What exactly happened anyway? I’m a bit fuzzy about how I got here.”

“I’ll let you handle this,” said Kanda, heading to aid her brother.

While Nashua
and Kanda spoke to the stunned followers of the now deceased Amelia Cobb, and Sebastien had a reunion with his parents, Meghan spent the next couple of hours updating her uncle on everything that Colin had not told him, or had not known to tell him. He in turn, filled her in on everything Colin had shared with him.

“So Colin has no idea you’re not really twins?” said Arnon, his voice saddened.

“No. And he refuses any of my attempts to reach out to him, not that I can blame him.”

Arnon understood her pain but also Colin’s anger.

“We were always sure that you were born of immortal blood, we were just never certain which immortal. And Fazendiin, the first created. Considered the most powerful. The most wise.”

“I don’t know if I’d say wise,” said Meghan, a short smile flitting across her lips.

“Don’t mistake what I mean,” said Arnon. “His knowledge is as vast as the many long years of his life.”

“Oh, yeah, well..
.” she shrugged, no idea what to say. “Oh, um, so is it really my birthday tomorrow?”

Arnon shrugged. “I was not to long ago explaining to Colin that we picked a date we thought was close. We didn’t actually know when you were born.”

“I suppose Colby has no reason to lie,” she said with an accepting sigh. “Birthdays just don’t seem as important as they used to.”

“I don’t think your bro... I mean Colin, would agree with you,
” said Arnon.

“How much danger is he really
in?”

When Arnon could not reply she knew it was the worst kind.

“I’m going to try and help him,” she said. “I don’t know how. But I cannot give up. On Colin or Colby. Not yet. Oh! I can’t believe I haven’t told you yet!” she blurted out at the end. “My mother is still alive!”

Arnon’s mouth fell open, no words comin
g out. Just sounds mimicking attempts to speak.

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “
That was pretty much my reaction too. I was about to meet her when all this craziness with Colby started. I don’t know what all’s going to be happening around here, but I really have to go back. I have to meet her. I need answers, about a lot of things.”