AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you see the guards?” I asked Kieran, standing silently beside me, waiting for me to converse with Cari through our minds.
“What guards?” He asked.
I pointed. He shook his head.
You needed him to confirm? Cari asked angrily.
No, I told her. I just reached into Kieran’s mind and tried to lift the cloak. I was testing my ability.
Cari did not say anything to that. I realized it was because she had missed the obvious connection I had created between Kieran and me.
After I explained to my friends everything Cari had said, we started walking toward the mountain. The night was quickly becoming darker as we walked around the lake. There was movement where the cherry tree was, but the thick bushes on the island prevented me from seeing anything.
Finally, we reached the mountain’s foot.
We did our best to avoid making any needless sounds as we sneakily approached the guards.
Two guards stood a few steps from each other in front of the gates that completely disappeared in the night. One was a man with muscly arms and a stern look, the other a guard with a crooked nose. Neither looked at us as we passed them and walked straight to the door. They stared ahead blankly, unaware of their surroundings.
When I reached for their minds, I felt Cari’s presence in them. Her power made the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the guards’ mouths opened wide.
They were empty inside. Cari had taken away their will to fight as well as their ability to see us. She controlled them with ease. As we reached the doors behind them, she did not seem to be extending her powers at all.
I’ll open the door, she said casually, as though we were coming in for a nice cup of tea.
We lined up before the doors and waited until a mechanical sound filled the air. Before long, the doors started opening, albeit very slowly.
I was looking up to the top of the door and realizing it was much bigger than I had initially thought when a girl, younger than I assumed Cari to be, appeared on the other side. She did not introduce herself, but the coal-dark irises of her eyes were impossible to mistake.
“Hey,” I said, feeling it odd to talk to someone for the first time and feel so close to them at the same time. “Cari?”
The guard behind me made a noise.
“Should we sing the Seelie anthem just in case no one else saw us?” Cari asked sarcastically. “Or will you stop being an idiot and come inside?”
She seemed serious. There were no hints of a smile on her thin lips. I did not care for it. I wasn’t about to pretend we were strangers when she had been probing my mind for the last few weeks.
“I trust you to keep their minds away from us,” I said as I stepped into the dark to stand beside her. She was a bit shorter than me, but not by much. Still, seeing her up close made me realize she was younger than I was, probably around sixteen. “Did you make yourself appear older in the vision conversations we had?”
“Those weren’t visions,” she replied. “Come.”
She turned around and started walking into the darkness without saying anything else. I went after her, hiding my smile. She hadn’t responded to my question, which made me think the answer was yes.
“Where are we going?” Kieran asked as the others started following us.
“To the weapon,” Cari replied. “Isn’t that what you came here for?”
“And to save you,” Fiona said, her tone full of compassion.
“I like to think I’m saving myself,” Cari replied as the double doors closed behind us.
“Of course you are,” I told her.
I felt Cari letting go of the guards’ minds and wondered what she made them think about the period of time they had just stood there, not thinking or doing or seeing anything because she simply had not let them. Her power was striking, considering her age. If we had the time, I wouldn’t mind learning the intricacies of mind magic from her.
Of course, you would, Cari said jokingly inside my mind.
“Why is it so dark in here?” Dearen asked suspiciously as we walked up the narrow hall. He had a point. There were no torches to light our path as the floor turned to a steep walk up.
