Read Online The Emerald Staff by Alison Pensy - Free Book Online Page B

gave
Faedra a questioning look. “But I did not take your father, Faedra.
I did not do this.”
    “ Your kind killed my mother, now your kind have taken my father. I never asked for any of
this. If it wasn’t for this stupid amulet, my mother would still be
alive and my father would still be safe. I would gladly give it to
Vivianna, but I can’t even get the blasted thing off!” She tugged
at the amulet trying to pull it from her neck, the chain would not
break and the clasp was sealed tight.
    Faen tried to move a little closer to his
charge while she was distracted with the amulet, but she noticed
the movement. She let go of the amulet and held her palms up. The
two bobbing blue energy balls that appeared there illuminated her
face in an eerie glow. Her eyes were cold and unforgiving. Faen
hardly recognized her.
    “I warned you. Stay out of my life!” she
yelled as she turned her back to him ready to make her exit up the
lane.
    “Please, Faedra. This was not me, I…” Faen’s
voice was heavy with emotion. “Please do not leave.”
    She stood still for a moment, emotions
whirling inside her head like a tornado. She didn’t turn to face
him, didn’t want him to see the tears of pain now flooding down her
cheeks. She felt like someone had punched through her chest,
grabbed hold of her heart and was wringing all the life out of it.
When she did speak her voice was barely a whisper.
    “Your realm has destroyed my family. I don’t
want to be connected with that anymore. Stay away from me, Faen, I
mean it.” Her voice was calm, and she couldn’t understand how she
managed to sound so controlled when her heart was shattering and
her body trembled with emotion.
    A loud thunderclap ripped through the sky
above them as Faedra took off in a dead run up the lane. The bulbs
in the street lamps shattered one by one as she ran past, leaving
Faen standing alone in the dark.
    He could hear the revelry inside the pub and
looked towards the noise. He flinched slightly when he saw Jocelyn
standing in the shadows of the doorway. He’d forgotten she followed
him through the door. A worried expression pinched at her usually
serene features.
    “She will come around, Brother, she is just
angry. You need to go after her. You are her Guardian no matter how
angry she feels; it is your duty.”
    Faen turned his attention to the people who
were laughing and chatting to one another inside. They were
enjoying the evening and looked so happy. He wasn’t sure if he
would ever laugh again. Faedra may as well have aimed the lightning
bolt straight at his heart because it now felt as shattered as the
chunks of cement he stepped over before taking off up the lane and
launching himself into the air.
     
    Faedra walked through the front door of her
house in a stunned trance. She couldn’t quite recall how she
managed to get home. I must have gotten a taxi. She clicked
the door shut behind her and leaned back against it, her whole body
still numb with shock. She reached up to her head and dragged her
cloche hat off, letting her hand flop back down to her side. Her
fingers went limp and the hat slipped out of them and dropped to
the floor beside her feet.
    Her eyes scanned the small living room.
Everything was in its place and it looked lived in and homey. The
furniture was well used and comfortable but she couldn’t even take
a step forward to go and sit on the welcoming sofa. Her gaze fell
on a mug that stood, still half full of tea, next to her father’s
armchair beside the fireplace. She stared at it for a moment, and
try as she might she could not tear her gaze away from it. A vision
of her father putting it down, half finished, before they left for
the party swam in her head, and she finally gave up the fight and
let her legs give way beneath her as she slid down the door and sat
on the floor.
    Tears welled in her eyes until the mug was
nothing but a blur. Her father was in mortal danger and she was at
a complete loss to know what to do.