Alliance of Blackbirds Read online

  Chapter Ten

  “If you think it’s going to be that easy, think again!” Quil’s voice ran through my head. His voice was harsh with an edge of desperation. “Did you hear me?!”

  I heard him, but didn’t respond. I didn’t want to.

  “Then, you leave me no choice.”

  The security of the blackness that had enclosed around me, suddenly broke open to a bright light. I closed my eyes refusing to look at it, when two hands grabbed me pulling me to my feet. I was dragged and forced to walk as the angry hands prodded and pushed me to wake.

  I opened my eyes to see Quil’s golden eyes staring back at me. “It’s about time. I thought I was going to have to beat you up.” His voice tinged with teasing and his lips curled into a smile. “I’m serious, princess.’

  “I hate that word,” I said gazing back at him.

  “That’s what you are.”

  “That’s not what I want to be.” I rebutted.

  He tilted his head studying my eyes. “Then what do you want to be?”

  I sighed and looked at the tall trees that surrounded us. “Where are we? Where is everyone?” I began to feel disoriented.

  “This is what Eutopia is like and this is what your name protects, princess,” he said stepping away from me.

  “We’re in Eutopia? I mean like right now?” I let my eyes cascade over the arrow-shaped leaves of the slender trees looming over our heads and listened to the trickling stream in the distance.

  Quil smiled with his eyes of topaz glinting back at me with daringness as he turned and ran into the forest.

  “Quil!” I yelled at him as the swaying underbrush swallowed him whole.

  I didn’t know what to do as I stood there looking through the trees and then at the cobalt blue sky overhead.

  “I thought you wanted to run in the wilds of Eutopia with me, princess.” Quil’s voice echoed back at me.

  Suddenly, a pang of excitement, anger towards Quil for aggravating me and the rush of running alongside Quil through my homeland filled me with joy.

  I jumped off the rock I was standing on and into the cool, clear water of the rock bottom creek. I could smell the fresh air filled with the sweet scent of wildflowers growing in the openness of the meadows that were surrounded by the tall curtains of trees framing it. Everything was pristine and untouched by anyone. I felt as though my feet were the first to ever touch this very spot.

  I walked through the trees and into a meadow searching for Quil. I had followed him through the forest barely keeping up with him and then he disappeared. I called his name with no response.

  Standing on the crest of a hill, I continued to look for Quil hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Everything was quiet except for the breeze that brushed past me. I started to call Quil’s name again when something grabbed me from behind and pushed me to the ground.

  I gasped for air as I peered into the glowing topaz eyes of Quil in ranger form. He pinned me down with outstretched arms, breathing hard as if he was out of breath. I wasn’t afraid or even angered at him. I was glad he was near me.

  His eyes were steady and gazed into mine as he slowly changed. I watched as each strand of hair, every muscle and bone shifted. It horrified me the first time I’d seen him change, but now, I found it beautiful.

  “Still want to be here?” He asked and I smiled nodding my head.

  “I want to be here…I want to live where I came from…I want to know everything about Eutopia…I want to be…with you.” I raised my hand running my fingers through his brown hair that changed with different shades of brown.

  “And what about Gabe and Ian and your life in Atlantis?” He asked gazing into my eyes.

  I felt the ground had fallen out from under me. I had forgotten about them. How could I’ve done that? I cared about them too, especially Gabe who has been with me all along and even jumped through a portal after me along with Alicia. And Alicia is still in the fountain of youth. She’d given her life to save Zach.

  I looked back at Quil wanting to say forget them at the same time I could never do that. I simply wanted both, but I couldn’t have both.

  “Are they here?” I asked looking around sitting up with Quil kneeling beside me with bent knee.

  A single colorful daisy nearly a perfect shade of pink, bloomed beside him. It caught his attention and he picked it handing it to me.

  “Our life here would be like this flower,” he said looking at me from under his eyebrows, “perfect, but alone. You are from this world Emily Moore, but you have no ties here. There is a difference. You have ties in Atlantis instead and the people there care about you very much.”

  Suddenly, the brilliant sky faded as if something was sucking all the color out of it. I looked back at Quil.

  “You are part of Eutopia, but Eutopia isn’t part of you.” His voice was like a whisper as I could see at the forest’s edge a group of people melting from the shadows, some in human form while others in ranger.

  Then a girl with long dark hair, stepped out and toward us. It was Aria, leader of her own clan of rangers and daughter to the original Eutopians. She stood a distance away and smiled.

  “You freed us here. The Wall is gone and the rightful Eutopians have power now. This world was saved.” Her lips didn’t move, but her voice was soft like a gentle breeze in my head. “Your work here is done, Atlantian.”

  I shook my head at her words as she quickly faded into the underbrush along with the rest of her tribe. She’d called me Atlantian, is that what I was? I didn’t know and gazed up at Quil who patiently sat beside me.

  “So…what are you going to do, princess?” He smiled crookedly at me.

  “Do I have a choice?” I snatched some daisies and plucked the petals from them throwing them to the ground like confetti.

  “Everyone has choices.” He shrugged his shoulders and picked a brilliant blue daisy just beginning to open and tucked it behind my ear. “The flowers that grow here aren’t usually that blue, it’s an oddity and though it made Eutopia beautiful for a short while, it won’t ever bloom that blue again.”

  I plucked the flower from my ear and looked at it. Quil was right it was bluer than all the rest. “Am I that flower?” I lifted my eyes to him.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It survived and did well, but it may not survive to bloom that color next year or the year after. But, there is always that chance that it could.”

  I put the flower behind my ear again and smiled at him. “You don’t make this easy.”

  “I’m not making it hard. I’m just showing you your options.”

  I looked around at the serene landscape wanting to know more about everything Eutopian, but something far away and growing in strength grew in the back of my head until my ears rang.

  “Emily, you’ve got to wake up!” Ian’s pleading voice erupted in my head.

  I covered my ears and closed my eyes. When I opened them I was staring up at a creamy white ceiling. Even though I was lying down, I felt the bed I was on spinning. I closed my eyes again and opened them hoping I was just dreaming and I would be back with Quil in Eutopia. All I could see was the white ceiling and then Ian standing over me eating an apple.

  “She’s up!” Ian yelled a little too loud. “Caleb, she awake.” He stepped away as I covered my eyes with my hands.

  “Do you have to be so loud?” I sent Ian a message as loud as I could.

  “Sorry,” he said kneeling beside me as Caleb lifted the blanket and my shirt up.

  “Hey,” I said trying to pull the blanket back.

  “Don’t move too much, I was up all last night watching for bleeding.” He ignored me and touched my stomach which was tender even to his delicate touch. “Still pretty sore,” he said gazing at it along with Ian.

  “Twenty-seven stiches,” Ian confirmed.

  “What,” I asked.

  “That’s how many stiches it took to close you up
and there was blood all over the plane. Claire’s cleaning that up along with Alice.”

  I looked between Caleb and Ian. “Claire, Alice, Jimmy…are they alright? I mean is everyone here and safe?”

  “What about me?” Ian moved aside to let Gabe sit beside me.

  I smiled at him as he laced his fingers through mine. My thoughts drifted to Quil and what he’d said to me. Though I wanted to run in the wild lands of Eutopia and visit the Crystal City, I knew now where my home was. I looked up at Gabe as something blue sitting on the nightstand caught my eye. Gabe took notice of what I was looking at and grabbed the tiny vase holding a brilliant blue daisy.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Quil said it was Eutopian tradition to give someone flowers when their hurt or sick to help them get better. He said it’s something to do with the vibes or something it gives off…I don’t know, something like that.” He twirled it around, shrugged his his shoulders, then put it back smiling at me. “It’s pretty, and I think the only one blooming in Alice’s garden like that.”

  “Where’s Quil?” I asked wanting to know and not wanting to know.

  “He left as soon as we got here. With the Wall gone Eutopia is a mess and Quil’s tribe is slowly gaining control. Ian made a portal for him to pass through.”

  “Is he coming back or can we go there?” I asked.

  “Well, not right now, but maybe in the future. The Alliance is meeting and new rules are being made. There is the possibility of a portal room in one of the vaults and Ian,” Gabe pointed back at Ian as he sat in the chair eating another apple. “Ian may be in charge of it or at least one of the ones in charge of it.”

  I looked up at the ceiling as tears stung the back of my eyes for reasons I didn’t even understand myself.

  “Em,” Gabe said taking notice of my tearing eyes.

  Gently he dabbed them away with his thumb and peered down at me with concern. What’s wrong?” He whispered.

  I glanced at the flower quickly then back at Gabe. His grey eyes now more blue and his hair in perfect gold waves surrounded his perfect face. I reached with my white hand and touched it as he covered his hand over mine.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “I think I’m finally home.”

  I tilted my head up and gazed at the flower and then back at Gabe knowing I really was home.

  The next two weeks my life existed within the four walls of the bedroom. My mother stayed with me every night and we talked until I fell asleep. She told about her life in Eutopia and how she took a piece of the Wall’s power hoping to destroy it by leading the glass people away from Eutopia. She had Ian’s father contain the magic into the amulet. She knew Ian was my half-brother and she avoided the subject when I tried to talk about Morwen, Ian’s and my father. I didn’t want to push her since we had our pasts to catch up on.

  “I knew one day it would find you.” She gazed at me while running her fingers through my hair. “The amulet had a connection to me and I knew when you had it. I was overjoyed that day.”

  “What was it like—I mean connected to the amulet?” I asked and she drew in a breath looking away for a moment.

  “Very dark,” she said gazing back at me. “You were a light to me when I thought of giving up.”

  “But Ulric said he killed you.”

  “Ulric was easily tricked,” she said flatly. “He thought I was dead, but he never dealt with an Unseen. We’re like cockroaches—hard to kill and a disgusting way to put it, but I had to let him think I was dead.”

  My eyes were growing heavy and my mother’s gentle touch was soothing as she ran her delicate fingers over my temple. It was getting late, and the light in the room was dim, making her hair glow like she was an angel.

  “I didn’t want to leave you,” she said suddenly as if that thought had escaped her lips. “It was the last thing I wanted.”

  “It’s alright,” I said trying to sooth her.

  “No, it isn’t, Emily.”

  “But, I’m here now and I’m here with you. No one can take that away.”

  She shook her head. “Look at you trying to calm your mother. It should be the other way around.”

  I smiled at her. “All I want is you and now I’ve got you. The past doesn’t matter—you can’t change it.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “How did you get so wise?”

  I shrugged my shoulders not really thinking I was wise. “I don’t know…genetics.”

  My mom smiled and then laughed.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  The last thing I remember before falling asleep was her warm kiss on my forehead—I finally got my first good night kiss and for the first time, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

  Despite the hundreds of times I asked about Alicia—she was still in the fountain of youth and I knew Claire had the responsibility now to get her out.

  “Claire might need my help,” I said quickly as Caleb helped me sit up.

  “No, she doesn’t.” His green eyes flashed at me and I knew he was getting tired of my reasons to leave.

  “But I can help her…I am a Receptor you know.” I continued anyhow.

  “And what will happen if you use all of your strength and shrible up? Then what? How are Zach and I to fix that?”

  I looked at his serious face and then let out a deep laugh that made my belly hurt.

  “If you’re going to help anyone, help yourself first by getting up and walking around.”

  “Can we at least go outside?” I asked as he held me by my arm.

  “Too far, we’ll just stick to the house.”

  The house was empty and Caleb and I walked to the living room.

  “Are you going back?”

  “To Eutopia?”

  I shook my head as Caleb looked at the floor as we walked by the window.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I want to, but there really isn’t anything there for me. My mother is gone and most of her kind had been killed when the Wall was expanding.” We stood in front of the window gazing out. “Besides, I like it here and Alice is a wonderful cook. Her and I have become chums and thinking of opening a restaurant in Port Blue.”

  I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Really, I’m serious. It’s been a dream of hers for a long time and I can say a dream of mine as well.”

  “You wanted to open a restaurant in Eutopia?” I raised my eyebrows higher in disbelief.

  “I can tell by the look on your face you don’t take me serious,” he said turning to me. “Yes, it has, but in Eutopia things like that didn’t exist—I thought I was being revolutionary and I guess I was just behind other worlds.”

  Caleb crossed his arms and gazed out the window.

  “I think it would’ve been a revolutionary idea in Eutopia,” I said.

  “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.” He shifted his neon eyes to me.

  “Is it working?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I have to say it is.”

  Just then the door opened catching me off guard. Abe, Jimmy and Karinna along with Alice came in and they were talking all at once.

  “I’m telling you the portal room is a good idea,” Jimmy said following his brother to the kitchen.

  “I’m not saying it isn’t a good idea, but after the risk of the glass people and how close Atlantis came to being destroyed by them,” Abe leaned on a chair gazing at his brother, “it’s just too soon to start such a big endeavor.”

  “Troll spit!” Jimmy spat out and then looked at his brother. “That’s how the Alliance used to think and if you wait too long look what happens…other worlds will gladly come in and take over. The Alliance is making a right move. Portals were always controlled by them and I think supervision is wise, but also independent involvement is needed. We are a strong world, always have been, but we can easily get passed up if not invaded.”

  Jimmy
stood with crossed arms peering steadily at his brother. Abe let out a worried sigh as Karinna came up behind him.

  “The Alliance is right, Abe and so is James.” Her voice was soothing even to me. She ran her fingers over his greying hairline. “Come and rest, you worry too much.”

  Karinna lead him down the hallway while talking to him privately. He had a distant, drawn out appearance to him.

  “Ah, Em,” Jimmy’s voice boomed. “You’re looking better.”

  He came over and smiled at me. “You look hungry though. I know I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll make some lunch,” Alice was already getting pots and pans out and lighting her gas oven.

  “And I’ll help,” Caleb said with raised finger joining Alice.

  “So, how are you doing?” Abe asked sitting down on the couch as he motioned for me to join him.

  “I’m better,” I replied.

  “No, I mean, how do you like it here?”

  I gazed at him for a moment just as the door opened again and I was greeted by Gabe’s blue eyes tinged more with grey. Something was wrong—I could tell by their color.

  Ian and Zach held Claire up by her arms. She was pale, even her hair appeared dull. Her usual upbeat personality that could easily be seen by just looking at her, was gone. She didn’t look at me as I watched Ian and Zach take her down the hallway.

  Gabe sat by me and forced a smile.

  “Alicia—how are we going to get her out?” I asked as Gabe took my hands.

  “Don’t worry about that now...they’ve got it handled.” Abe said lying through his teeth. “You’re supposed to be taking care of yourself.” His words had a parental tone to them.

  “I can’t, knowing one of my friends is in trouble.”

  “Rasmus, David and Pandora went to call upon the Alfheim to help.” Gabe announced.

  Jimmy shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Does the leader of the Blackbird clan know about this?”

  “Does he ever know what we do?”

  Jimmy let out a sigh and stood up as Thomas came in the door. Their eyes met in surprise.

  “Thomas,” Alice said taking notice of him. “Why don’t you and your father go to Port Blue and get me some lemons. I know they’ve got some just in from earth.” She handed him some silver coins and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then nodded to Jimmy.

  Thomas looked back at his father and smiled. “Do you want to walk or take horses?”

  “Well,” he said. “The walk would probably do me better and I’m sure the horses would be relieved that I did walk instead.” He rubbed his large belly. “Alice your cooking is too good and now you’re making walk to get more food. How in all Atlantis am I to get back into shape?”

  “Your shape is fine,” she said. “Now go or lunch will turn into supper.” She shooed them towards the door.

  “Have I told you about the vaults of Port Blue yet?” Jimmy asked Thomas as he opened the door for them.

  Thomas gazed at him for a moment then smiled. “No,” he said.

  “It’s a long story. We’d better take the scenic route.” Jimmy motioned for Thomas to go. “Be back in a little.” He announced shutting the door.

  “Alright,” Alice said as I watched her cut up a lemon.

  Rain had set in and I spent most of the time resting, which I was getting tired of or looking out the window. Gabe and the rest of the Blackbirds were working feverishly with the Alliance in trying to set up new rules and laws concerning portals to other worlds.

  Alicia was still in the fountain of youth and David, Rasmus and Pandora still haven’t returned. Jimmy said with the storms it would probably delay them. I tried to talk to Claire many times, but she just huddled in her room, silent and withdrawn. Even Karinna couldn’t reach her. I tried yelling at Claire telling her snap out of it because Alicia needed her. It was no use, Claire just tucked herself away and I didn’t know what to do for her.

  “The rain stopped, I want to show you something,” Gabe said with flushed cheeks. I’d never seen that happen to him and wondered what he wanted to show me.

  Caleb and Zach released me from my house confinement and I got dressed in a long, nubby, cream colored sweater coat and a pair of knee high leather boots. I followed Gabe with his hand in mine through the garden to a hidden point overlooking Port Blue and the Sanudra Ocean.

  We stood facing one another with the sound of the waves could barely be heard, but seen. They looked like an artist had spilt a thousand shades of blue and colored the water with them. The wind blew gently just enough to make Gabe’s hair flutter. I smiled at him.

  “It’s beautiful—I love it.” I said thinking this is what he wanted to show me.

  He looked out to the ocean and smiled before setting his stormy blue eyes on me.

  “Remember when we were with the Alfheim and talking to the Empress?” Gabe asked and I nodded. “She spoke of my mother and…” He lowered his head.

  “Gabe its ok,” I said taking his hands in mine realizing what he wanted to show or more like tell me about his mother.

  “She died chasing after my dog and at the time she was pregnant. It wasn’t her that just died, I lost a sibling that day—one that I’ll never know.” I tightened my hold on his hands as tears stung the back of my eyes. “Don’t cry Em, it was a long time ago and believe me, Abe made me talk about it. I don’t dwell on it like I used to and I know it wasn’t my fault. I spent a long time blaming myself…I… I just wanted you to know.” His voice was steady and calm and I

  could see in his eyes that he did have a hold on things as long as it was under his terms.

  “I just couldn’t talk about it then…it…it came up unexpectedly. And I wanted to tell you when we were alone.”

  I intertwined my fingers through his like a vigorously growing vine and leaned closer until I rested my head on his chest listening to the rhythm of his heart.

  “Gabe, I’m so sorry.” Gabe loosened his hand and tugged at my chin until our eyes met.

  His eyes were blue now, nearly matching the water that framed our serene landscape.

  “I want to give you something.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  He pulled from his pocket a necklace with an oval shaped stone that was the brightest blue I’ve ever seen. Gabe let it dangle in the air like a spider and it caught the light twinkling like a star.

  “It was my mothers,” Gabe stated looking at it. “I didn’t want it at first because I wanted to forget my past and everything that happened when I got here. Abe made me keep it and said if anyone should come into my life that filled my emptiness, that I should give it to them,” he said holding it in front of me. “I love you Emily Moore and weather you feel the same way, you’ve filled my emptiness that I’ve had vacant for too long.”

  “Oh, Gabe,” I said flickering my eyes from the pendant to him. “It’s beautiful and what you said…no one has ever said anything like that before to me.” I smiled at him. “I love you too,” I said quietly in fear that the wind would carry my

  words away and I didn’t want anyone else to savor them, except for Gabe at this one moment.

  “Plus, I know you have a thing for jewelry, especially old antique kind,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders and in a playful tone.

  I shook my head, lifted my hair and turned around. “Just put it on before I change my mind.”