Ancient Mystic's War of the Realms Saga - Lady Adellandra Dratianos (best detective novels of all time TXT) 📗

hasn’t woken up yet.” Aimee said, shaking her head. “All three of you returned to the Dream Realm with us.”
“There are a lot of things we don’t understand, Amethyst.” Ariana said. “This could be another version of what happened to me. Who knows?”
“He’s not on a quest or journey. I know that.” Aimee said. “I can’t even sense him.”
“Neither can I.” Ariana remarked.
“What’s happening with him?”
Ariana shook her head, telling her almost-sister she didn’t know.
“How’s Derrick?” Shane asked.
“He’s okay now that I’ve used my Healer’s Power on him.” Ariana said. “We talked, that’s all I can say.”
“That’s good.” Shane supplied. “What about you and Lu?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Ariana asked, surprised. He shook his head and she continued. “We’re fine now, too, thank the Gods. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Let her know how much she’s appreciated once in a while.” Shane replied. “That’ll get her thinking.”
Ariana looked to Aaron’s body. After brushing a kiss to his cheek, she followed Shane out the door.
“Do you want to know my opinion?” Ariana asked Shane once they were outside. “This isn’t over, yet.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The way Tobias White-Snow’s acting, the way his son Tiger wanted to join the Canine Army. Heck, even the fact Wolf wanted to form an army to begin with has me worried.” Ariana remarked. “I’m even confused that I couldn’t sense you guys in the Old Dominion. Not to mention why Aaron won’t, or can’t, wake up.”
Shane put an arm around her shoulders. “Follow me. We’re going to figure it all out, right now.”
Ariana was suspicious, but agreed. He was the Shadow, and there was no denying his every whim.

Shadow took her to the Dream Realm, where they met up with the Lord Guardian himself, O’Dell. He and Enchantra were just as worried once Young Guardian and Shadow explained their feelings. The Protector and Grand Magus were there as well.
“I agree. This is far from over.” O’Dell remarked.
“You do not think Orthos...” Enchantra supplied, worried.
“He’s still in the Unknown, Mistress.” Shadow said. “Damian claimed he was on his own.”
“That’s what we thought about Shenara at first, remember? And Sabrina?” Young Guardian pointed out.
“So, what are we to do?” The Protector asked. “We can’t just sit around and do nothing!”
“I say we plan.” Grand Magus remarked. “If a fight is what they want, a fight is what they’ll get.”
“We’ll have to learn how to defend and fight, Warrior-style.” Shadow remarked.
“First step was forming the Canine Army.” The Protector supplied.
“I should have known!” O’Dell roared out of the blue.
“O’Dell?” Young Guardian asked.
“The Canine Valley’s Army has worked hard since its assembly.” O’Dell told her. “Sire Wolf seems to believe something else is bothering the Valley.”
“Whatever it is has gone past the Dark Mist in the Canine Wood.” The Grand Magus supplied. “I say, it was only a tiny beginning to a much bigger problem.”
“It has all Companions and Grey Areans scared of their lives.” Enchantra said. “Sire Wolf has told us both Kit and Katherine fear for their newborn kits’ lives.”
“Now with Sire Tobias in on it, something’s got to give.” The Protector said. He turned to Young Guardian. “You’re the one who agreed to the Canine Army. What are your thoughts on this?”
Young Guardian paced in her Fighter’s Gear, absently fingering the wand in her waist pouch. “Grand Magus is right. They want a fight, bigger than the Wars for Power themselves.”
“Will we be able to handle it, though?” Grand Magus asked. “If I can’t even use my Empathy power in our world, how am I supposed to use it here?”
“Not to mention, during the rescue, neither Amethyst or I could sense anything or anyone.” Young Guardian remarked, looking at Shadow.
He failed to meet her eyes, instantly telling her he had something to hide.
“Not to mention that little stunt you pulled using that sword of yours.” The Protector replied, glaring at his wife. “I saw the color of your eyes. You used Dark Magic in your sword, didn’t you?”
“I had to. It was the only way.” Young Guardian remarked. “I had to fight fire with fire. I wasn’t about to let the Dark Magic get to me, and you would have known it if you would just trust me every now and then.”
“Trust is something you earn, Ariana Moon.” The Protector cried in her face. “As of late, you’ve lost my trust of you.”
“Enough!” Enchantra’s voice startled them out of their argument. “Listen to yourselves! It is exactly what Omri wanted.”
“Enchantra is right.” O’Dell said. “We must be stronger than the Djinn if we are ever to beat them. In order to do this, we must be together in all things.”
Young Guardian and the Protector stared at each other. Tempers that flared from everywhere soon dissipated, and Shadow could feel it. Before another fight could start, he cleared his throat, silently telling his family to calm down.
Young Guardian caught his eye and sighed, looking at the group of family and Originators around her. “I have a funny feeling we’re about to be in way over our heads here.”
In silence, they all agreed.
End Epilogue:
Crusaders United

Back in the Outer Realm the next day, while the children were playing and Juliet was watching them, Luna gathered the Crusaders together.
“All right, everybody.” Luna stood above them with Shane beside her.
Aimee was still depressed about Aaron not waking up, Ariana was comforting Aimee, and Derrick couldn’t look at his wife without feeling some anger and confusion toward her. Ariana and Shane shared looks, as if they knew something the rest didn’t, and that just drove Luna crazy.
She got their attention and continued, arms crossed and expression even more so. “Explanations are in order. Does anyone want to tell me what happened to us? Why we’re bickering at each other? Why even my own children don’t want anything to do with me? Why I had to be the one to sense the guys deep in the Old Dominion because my two sisters couldn’t?”
“Enough, Luna!” Derrick cried. “Why don’t you ask your husband and twin sister? They seem to know everything these days.”
“We do not.” Ariana argued.
“Sure act like it sometimes.” Derrick mumbled.
“Hey!” Ariana cried in her own defense.
“Knock it off, both of you!” Shane cried in his best Shadow voice. “No more bickering and arguing, you got that?”
“I’ll stop once I know exactly what happened after we woke up from Omri’s spell.” Derrick supplied.
“You already know what happened.” Ariana mumbled. “Omri cast a spell that made us against each other in every way possible.”
“Why weren’t you affected by it?” Luna remarked. “And what happened to Aimee’s and your Empathy powers during the rescue?”
“Why did you use Dark Magic in your sword to rescue us?” Derrick asked.
“One thing at a time, okay?” Ariana asked. “First of all, it’s like this. Omri cast the spell, I recognized it, and so did Shadow. We each must have protected ourselves in different ways. That’s why we weren’t affected by it.”
“Why didn’t you protect us?” Derrick asked his wife. “If you knew what was going to happen, why didn’t you warn and protect us from it?”
Ariana shrugged. “I didn’t know how. Honest.”
“Moving on, when we woke up, our minds were focused on only one thing.” Shane supplied. “Our deep thoughts and desires against each other.”
“Why punish us?” Aimee cried. “Why punish Aaron?” She cried in Ariana’s embrace. “Why won’t he wake up?”
Shane sat next to her. “I don’t know what’s going on with your brother.” He looked at the group. “We had such hateful thoughts of each other, secret thoughts, I might add, Omri used them to pit us against each other.”
“With you four, it worked.” Ariana supplied. “Point number one: Luna was jealous of me because I was named Young Guardian, and she wasn’t.”
“I was not only jealous, but mad and angry at the Ancients.” Luna remarked. “I was the one with all the power. I was the one who told her who she was, and taught her most of the control of what she knew. Why wasn’t I the one the Ancients named Young Guardian?”
“Because who would be the Grand Magus?” Shane pointed out, putting his arm around her. “Who would be the one to bring warnings of the bad guys through her dreams? Who would be the one to learn different kinds of Magic and actually use it when necessary?”
“Ariana can do all that!”
“I can’t and you know it.” Ariana cried. “I had a hard time learning my powers until you guys came along. Before all of you, I had only the twins to help me.”
“But you weren’t there to help us when you left us for dead!” Aimee spat.
“I didn’t leave you for dead, which brings us to point number two.” Ariana counted on her fingers. “You were angry at me for not teaching you anything about the power I gave you during the Blood Pact. Aaron was mad at me because I failed to tell him about Kelly’s own Djinn takeover.”
“Now he’s lying in some kind of coma, and it’s all your fault!”
“Aimee!” Shadow tried, but was ignored.
“Will you stop it?” Ariana yelled. “This is what Omri wanted. He wanted us against each other. Well, I’m not going to stand for it.”
“Ariana’s right.” Shane supplied. “It’s hurting us more and more.”
Ariana stood up. “You want explanations, Luna? We’ll give them to you.” She looked to Derrick. “I had to do what I did to rescue you, and take you out of there. My empathy powers were out of whack. Neither Aimee nor I could sense a thing.”
“I’m still wondering why.” Aimee said.
“That, I couldn’t tell you.” Ariana shrugged.
“Good thing I can.” Shane spoke up. “I’m the one who did it.”
“What did you do?” Luna asked. “Cast some kind of spell?”
“Sort of, but not really.” Shane replied. “I used the special magic I learned in the Locket-Pendant, and used it to block Ariana’s and Aimee’s Empathy powers.”
“It forced me to use my own, even though they’re still unstable.”
“You got it.” Shane remarked. “A stroke of genius, I might add.”
“Genius?” Derrick echoed. “You call forcing Luna to use her untamed Empathy to sense us, genius? You call forcing Ariana to use her Dark Magic-laced sword to rescue us, genius?”
“How was I supposed to know she’d do that?”
“Couldn’t you tell in that locket of yours?” Luna remarked sarcastically.
“What of Aaron?” Aimee asked. “Why didn’t he wake up? Can you answer that, Shadow? Why can’t my brother wake up?”
The group was silenced long enough to look at each other, then to a hysterical Aimee.
Shane hugged her while she cried. He looked to Ariana, who was sitting at the opposing side of the couch. She failed to meet his eyes. Her sister and his wife Luna was still standing across the small living room. She was covering her mouth in a silent gasp, the emotion of fear clear in her eyes. He looked to Derrick, who had sat down and was now holding his head, refusing to talk to anyone. Shane could tell his brother-in-law and best friend was struggling with his own private demons inside.
Shane shook his head. “This has gone far enough.” He hugged Aimee tighter to him, whispering in her ear. “We’ll wake him, Amethyst. I promise.”
She pulled away just enough to look in his eyes. “Thank you, Shadow.”
Shadow nodded before addressing the group. “I won’t be able to do it alone.”
Ariana, Luna, Derrick, and even Aimee perked up to listen.