The Phoinix: Age of Demigods (35 page)

“
Go!
” growled Breanna. Clover’s snarl echoed hers.

Blythe gathered
whatever
strength
he had left to stand and ran towards his horse hiding in the
trees.

Breanna’s heart fluttered
as she felt his fear while watching him ride
away
.
She could
also feel her mother’s shame and pain. It was awkward containing
the emotions of the people around her. Her brothers knew how she
felt
;
the psychic
connection between the four siblings was strong
now
,
and none of
them knew how to stop its growth. They heard every thought
and
felt
every
emotion between them.

Panicking, Bre ran her
hand through her hair and pulled at the strands to silence the
noise in her
head. She wanted to
stop
all
of
the pain that did not belong to
her.

“Try to imagine a wall around each
person that blocks all noise and all emotion from escaping their
bodies,” Nikolaos whispered as he detangled one of her hands and
squeezed it.

Nikolaos’ firm grasp on her hand
calmed her. His calm, strong emotions overcame her panicked state.
It also helped that Blythe was too far gone to sense his
fear.

“I can make a potion to
help with that,
but
the only problem is
if
she needed to know what we were feeling, we would
be blocked from her,” Cole replied.

“What is going on?” Brian looked
cautiously at the four siblings huddled together.

“She’s empathic
now
.
Of all the
luck we have, she’s an Empath. We have zero privacy with her.” Leo
folded his arms in irritation.

Cole rolled his eyes at his younger
brother and sighed, “Leo, you are in your forties and I swear
sometimes you act like you’re a teenager.”

“
Our emotions may be
blocked
,
but she
can still read our minds,” Nikolaos added.

“I have Leora to help with the
emotional problem if the time calls for it. Just whatever you can
do to help, do it. If you could take The Power, that is all the
better. I don’t want it,” Breanna added looking regretfully at her
mother. Alina’s pain broke Breanna’s heart. “I don’t want this
life,” she whispered.

“You have The Power
because you were meant to have it, Breanna. It will help you in
some way. Do not forsake your gifts because you do not know how to
control them yet,” Brian said, holding her face between his warm
hands. He cleared his throat and turned around, “We must get
going
.
Try to
focus on anything other than
your
emotions.” Brian whistled
, and
the horses trotted back over
to them.

“Well won’t that be fun?
Teenage girl thoughts pouring into our minds because of some stupid
psychic connection, I can’t wait!”
Leo’s
said.

Leo’s sarcastic remark
struck a nerve with Cailean. He
bent down
from his horse and cuffed the back of Leo’s head, making Leo’s
teeth clang together. “Shut your mouth when addressing the
Princess.” Without another look, Cailean rode off next to his
brother.

Lysandros helped Alina
climb onto Lightning and then quickly mounted Magic to ride next to
her. The brothers followed their mother, Leo rubbing the back of
his head
,
irritated.

Whisper impatiently nudged Breanna.
Clover, Leora, and Aurora waited for Bre to follow the others, but
Breanna felt peculiar about riding with the group, as if it were
wrong.

She realized then that she sensed
Eoghan; she knew he desperately needed help…her help. However, she
also sensed that he felt at home where he was. That frightened her
the most.

“What if he doesn’t want
to come back?” Bre’s voice shook as she asked her animals the
questions plaguing her mind
.
“What if he no longer cares? I can’t lose
him.”

Whisper, do you know the
way to the Nemeton at Arras?
Bre asked her
horse.

Yes
, Whisper replied,
I can get us
there faster than the rest of the group. I must warn you, though,
that it will be safer with the o’Conaill brothers. The Druids of
the nemeton follow the ways of the old religion. You were raised
Etruscan, not Celtic. You will be in danger if you break their
rules
.

I do not care about rules.
I will handle whatever comes our way. I just need to get to Eoghan.
I need get him back before he no longer wants to come
back
, Breanna said and mounted Whisper,
determined to find Eoghan on her own.

I can get us there within
the day
, Whisper responded.

Whisper took off at an
unimaginable rate
.
Within seconds
,
they passed their group and were miles away from them.
Breanna’s
brothers
yelled psychically at her:
What are
you doing? Don’t be foolish
.
You will get yourself killed!
Lastly, Leo’s concern, which made Bre
smile
:
I’m still
getting those damn girl thoughts!

With her group miles
behind her, for the first time in her life, Bre felt alone. It
terrified her
, until she
heard Clover’s growl and saw the giant wolf,
Leora, and Aurora keeping pace with her. She realized she was not
alone after all.

You will always be alone,
Princess
, said the same feminine voice in
Bre’s mind that spoke to her while possessed by the eagle.
This power you wield is too great for others to
be near. Your mother will die and The Power within her will be lost
to you. Your brothers will perish from this time and your teachers
will burn. And that man you desperately ride towards will not live
to see another year. You are alone
,
dearest Breanna, alone with the curse of
survival
.

Chapter 27

Sacred Blood

E
oghan and Haley woke
to
loud snarls, followed by explosions.
They
rushed outside with
their weapons drawn
, but
the scene paralyzed them. Their sacred, peaceful
nemeton
had
transformed into a gory
vision
of devastation and
death.

Balls of fire flew over their heads
and crashed into tents made of leaves and wood. The whole nemeton
blazed. Druids desperately tried to smother the flames before they
spread through the forest.

A giant grey and white
wolf jumped into the middle of the clearing, followed by a man
shooting balls of electricity into attacking soldiers. Eoghan
recognized
him
instantly
. It was
Eversor, accompanied by his pet-weapon,
Lupa.

Lupa jumped from soldier
to soldier, effortlessly tearing limbs from their bodies. Lupa, a
trained
,
merciless killer, was too quick for them to use their swords
or magic.

When a group of warriors without magic
tried to attack Eversor, a giant gold eagle swooped down and slit
their throats with its razor talons.

A group of archers
positioned themselves in a tree house
,
raining arrows dipped in hemlock
down on Eversor. He tried to block them with a shield
charm
,
but one
slipped through and lodged itself in his shoulder. Eversor roared
in pain and pitched a ball of black liquid at the tree.

The black liquid sprayed
itself to cover the tree and men. Agonizing screams filled the air
as the bubbling liquid
spread,
disintegrating
the soldiers’ flesh. In a
matter of seconds, everything the liquid touched was gone: the
tree, the structure, the weapons, and the men. The ground
absorbed
most of
the black substance
, leaving
nothing but scorched grass and soggy ground of
black liquid mixed the blood of the fallen.

Haley tried to lunge into
the fight but Eoghan grabbed her arm
.
“You can’t, Hale. Did you see what
he did to that treehouse? Not to mention what Lupa is doing to the
ground soldiers. I can’t watch you die like that.”

Haley ignored Eoghan as
her mind surged into attack mode
.
“Where are Nemetona and Druantia? They should be
here protecting the grove! And where are my brothers?”

“Damn it, Woman, listen to me! We need
a strategy. Obviously random attacks are not working. We must
regroup!” Eoghan screamed at Haley.

“Caedmon!” Haley called out, finally
locating one of her brothers.

Caedmon dodged a man’s leg
that Lupa
had torn
off and whipped over the crowd. He finally made it to Haley
and Eoghan, luckily without a scratch.

Haley rubbed his back as
he hunched over, trying to catch his breath. “Where
are
Cadman and
Druantia?” Haley asked frantically.

“Druantia woke in a panic and told us
to get out of here if we wanted to live. Then she snapped her
fingers and disappeared. Soon after she left we heard explosions
and screams. Cadman left to join the archers,” Caedmon
replied.

“Oh the
gods
.”
Eoghan’s
stomach did flips as he recalled the awful scene they witnessed and
briefly looked at the scorched grass.

They had unknowingly
watched Haley’s brother, Cadman, die a gruesome, agonizing death.
One
scream
among
the many that echoed through the nemeton was
Cadman
,
and there
was nothing any of them could have done to stop it.

Tears swam through Haley’s
rage filled eyes. She stared at Eversor and a thousand attack
scenarios ran through her mind. Wind whistled as Haley
glided
her
long
yew staff through the air. Soon
,
the air was charged and everyone’s hair stood on
end. Trees all throughout the grove creaked as they swayed and the
ivy vines unwound themselves from the trunks.

“Haley, what are you doing?” Eoghan
asked as the wind picked up speed, blowing over tents.

“Don’t get in her way,
MacBeatha,” Caedmon
warned as he
grabbed Eoghan’s shoulder and pulled him away
from her.

Suddenly, the wind and the creaking of
the trees stopped. Everyone in the nemeton stopped moving,
including Lupa and Eversor. The gold eagle settled itself on a
branch of the Great White Oak. Dead silence filled the grove until,
without warning, the Great White Oak snapped a branch into the
eagle.

The bird fell to the
ground with a thud where the black liquid
had been absorbed
. The bird let out
a pitiful gurgling noise before it was disintegrated by the soggy
ground infused with Eversor’s deadly, black liquid.

Haley whispered as if
speaking to a lover, “
Scriosann ár
naimhde
.” The forest burst into action
with vines and trees lunging at Lupa and Eversor.

Eversor tried to slash at
the tree limbs but the vines ensnared him. Lupa jumped, bit, and
rolled away as the vines surged through the forest, hoping to
strangle
her
.

The Great White Oak swung a branch,
knocking Eversor to the ground. Eversor tried to shoot a ball of
black liquid at the giant tree but an arrow with hemlock poison
shot through his hand. The ball of liquid fell out of his grasp and
almost landed on his head. He rolled out of the way as much as the
vines would allow. However, as the black liquid spread towards his
body, it burned away the vines that restrained him.

The vines grabbed hold of
Lupa and pinned her against a tree. Haley let go of her staff, but
instead of falling to the ground,
it
stood upright at Haley’s side and
followed her. She raised a hand in Lupa’s direction and slowly
formed a fist. As she closed her hand, the vines around the wolf
tightened, causing Lupa to whine and whimper.

“Haley, no! You cannot hurt the wolf.
She is a victim here, an innocent demigod. It is not her fault.
Elpis and Eversor have enchanted her. I saw it myself. This
happened to her because she saved my life. Please, let her go,”
Eoghan pleaded with Haley, but she was too focused on the enemies
who destroyed her family and nemeton.

“Victim?” Haley said,
eerily soft
.
“You
call this murderer a victim?” She clenched her fist tighter and
Lupa howled
in
pain.

“Haley,
stop!
” Eoghan grabbed
her shoulder
,
but
Haley whipped around and twisted his arm. Eoghan fell to his
knees
,
gritting
his teeth from the awkward angle
at
which
she held his wrist.