Trinity Awakening (11 page)

             
"She did, but she has not sung since my father died, she hasn't even hummed, it was like her voice died with him." Trinny could feel a sadness creeping up on her and looked down at her feet so no one could see the tears welling up in her eyes. The Queen came very close to Trinny and placed her hand on her cheek, it was cold, but Trinny didn't mind. 

             
"Your mothers heart is broken, her song has been lost, and this saddens me. But you have her song in your heart; this will bring healing to you and her, just as it has filled an emptiness that has been in my heart for so long. This was a perfect gift child, now I will give you one." The Queen held out her empty hand to Trinny and blew softly into it. It was like she had breathed out fine silver glitter and now it was forming a shape on her palm. When the glitter had stopped its swirling, Trinny could see on the Queens hand was left the most stunning ring, it had a wide silver band and on top it had one diamond set into the silver, the diamond was a stunning blue and the inside was whirling like a vortex.

             
"This is beautiful, I can't accept this," Trinny said. 

             
"You will take it child, it will bring you protection." The Queen gave her such a motherly look that Trinny knew she should not refuse, and placed the ring on her right middle finger.

             
"I have one question. You said that I was a child of water, I thought I was a child of earth?" Trinny asked. 

             
"You are your fathers daughter.... earth. But you are also your mother’s daughter. Now go child, you have much to do, and time is running short, you will have safe passage while near the waters." With those words the Nixies descended into the pond.

             
"But.... I don't understand.... please..." Trinny called out. The Queen gave Trinny one last look and with a warm smile on her face, disappeared in silence. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

'No man knows when his hour will come; as fish we are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.' 

- Ecclesiastes 9:11-13 (The Bible) 

"If we keep making good time like this, we should be in Taeith by midday tomorrow." Morthos called out from his scouting position at the front. 

             
"Hallelujah." Emma cried out. "I am so over this hiking thing."  Trinny had hardly spoken a word since her Morning encounter with the Queen of the Nixies, she had listened in on the conversation that Nina and Emma had with Garus, questioning him on what the Nixies were and what they could do. She had learnt that they were water nymphs, they lived in the lakes and streams of the Fae realm, they could be summoned to any one of their lakes in a moment, and they could take many forms as they were shape shifters, but they preferred the human form. Trinny also learned that they had a real love for music, and when they sang they could make you feel what they sung, if it was sad, you would feel sad, if it was happy, you would feel joy, but they could also put you to sleep with their song and make you their prisoner, but in most cases they were kind and helpful, only a small handful had ever been unkind. 

They were moving away from the stream now, the trees were becoming scarcer and rocky landscape was the new scenery. A large hill loomed up in front of them and they started the tiring climb up a steep path that spiralled through large rocks.

             
"Hey Trin, how're you going?" Emma had fallen back a bit so she could walk with her friend.

             
"Fine, just got all these questions rattling around in my head. You?"

             
"Oh, I'm great. I love walking all day then hiking up hills, it does wonders for my complexion, and this hillside breeze gives my hair a gorgeous wind swept look." Although her tone was in full sarcastic mode, both girls laughed. "I know what we need, music." Emma took off her backpack and grabbed her IPod touch from the side pocket. "Forgot I'd packed this, can't go anywhere without
Linkin Park
." Emma put one of the earphones in her ear and gave the other to Trinny, it felt like they were back at home, doing what they loved best, listening to music and spending time with each other. It perked Trinny up a little to have some kind of normal in this mysterious new world she had been discovering. 

             
"Em, what do you think the Nixie Queen meant by the '
child of water thing'
and I am my mothers daughter?" Emma took a deep breath and grabbed Trinny's hand.

             
"I was wondering when you would bring that up. I really don't know Trin, maybe she meant you were your mothers daughter because of your singing, and maybe she picked up on your love of water, it is hard to get you out of the ocean sometimes."

Trinny smiled at Emma.

             
"Maybe you're right, I just need to concentrate on what I'm here for and not worry about all the confusing stuff about my parents. I never thanked you for coming.... it means
so much to me to have you here, I think I would have run back home by now." 

             
"Hey, this is fun. I could be stuck with my brother in the garage passing him a wrench while he does up his old Ford, I’m the one who should be grateful!" Both girls laughed and kept on their continual hike upwards.

             
"What's that?" Nina asked, looking up to the end of the path where it curved to the right, it was darker there, like they were going to have to go through a tunnel. 

             
"Morthos, I don't remember any passage ways in this area." Aarion looked concerned. "Check it out!"

Morthos nodded and ran ahead to make sure it was safe.

             
"It's all clear, looks like a few large rocks have fallen here recently." As he spoke a few small stones fell down the side of the hill onto the path. "We should move quickly though, it may be unstable." They all moved swiftly to the entrance of the newly made passage, it was wide enough that two could go through at once; Morthos went through first in front of Nina, with Garus and Emma close on their heels. Trinny was about to go through in front of Aarion when a shadow swooped down in front of her covering the way through. It looked like a giant spider had made a web across the entrance, but it was much thicker and it's surface churned like molten black tar. Trinny could still make out her friends at the end of the tunnel, she reached out to touch the web like substance but was pulled back by Aarion; he had grabbed her hand and yanked her so she was now behind him. Faster than she could imagine a person could move he had formed a shield in front of them.

             
"Aarion!" Garus was calling out from through the tunnel. "What's happening?" 

             
"Stealth, get the others to safety, we will meet you at the Sanctuary." Aarion had now formed the shield around both Trinny and himself like they were in a human sized eggshell; the surface was a swirling mass of light and fluid. 

             
"But Aarion, we can't just leave you here." Morthos cried out. 

             
"Go now! Get the others to safety." Aarion’s voice was so commanding at that point that Trinny was taken aback. Morthos directed the others to run.

             
"But Trinny?" Emma questioned while looking back through at her friend. 

             
"Aarion will protect her, she'll be safe with him, but we don't have his protective power so we need to go." Garus reassured Emma, and they all ran. As Emma looked back she could see a shadow moving on the hillside, she looked up into the sky to see what large creature could be creating a shadow that big, but there was nothing there, she cried out.

             
"Morthos, the ground!" Morthos turned to see the shadow nearly on them; he drew his sword from under his shirt. Nina stopped and her hands were immediately engulfed in flames, she threw a fiery ball at the shadow, it missed, she threw several more, but the shadow would move away just in time to avoid Nina’s attack. 

             
"It's a Stealth. What ever you do, don't let it get hold of you."  Morthos called out. 

             
"Garus, get Emma and Nina out of here." Nina gave Morthos a look as blazing as her hands.

             
"I don't back away from a fight, I'm staying with you!" 

             
"Fine. But do you think you could actually hit the thing."  Morthos grunted.

             
"Sure, and once I've finished with it, I'll be happy to sear the surly look off your face too!" Nina was now throwing
balls at lightening speed and hitting the edges of the shadow, with each blow it was getting smaller. Morthos swung his silver short sword down at the menacing shape, cutting through over and over again.  After a few minutes of this the dark shape was now in hundreds of tiny pieces on the ground, but each piece was moving toward the next and joining up to reform. "I've had enough of this, cover me." Nina said to Morthos, he nodded and kept re-slicing the pieces. Nina closed her eyes for a moment and then turned her ignited palms toward each other, the ball in the center started to grow, and as it did her hands grew wider and wider apart until it looked like Nina was hugging an enormous sphere of fire. She lifted the massive flame above her head. "Move Morthos!" Morthos jumped out of the way as the huge ball of red-hot fire came down on the tiny pieces of Stealth shadow. Most of the bits were incinerated and the few remaining slithered away between the rocks on the hillside. 

             
"Not bad." Morthos said to Nina in a nonchalant voice.

             
"I just saved your butt big man." She had an amused look on her face. Morthos did something that didn't happen to often, he smiled.

             
"We better catch up with the others, the one thing Garus can actually do well, is run." As he turned to go, a dark shadow plummeted from above them and enveloped Nina like she had been put into a huge black plastic bag, Morthos turned back but could do nothing as he saw Nina being lifted into the air, he could see her mouth forming a scream behind the shadowy form but he couldn't hear her.

             
"Nina!" He cried out.

             
"What do we do?" Trinny cried out in a frantic voice. 

             
"They can't touch us while we're within an Ora shield, but I can't keep this up for much longer, the Ora is weakening by the hour as the poison spreads, I can feel my powers getting weaker as well." Aarion looked worried. There were now two Stealth, one blocking their way and the other swirling around them waiting for it's move. Parts of the shield were starting to look thinner than others and it was flickering.
Do something Trinny; use your power, but how?
Trinny was so frustrated that she didn't know how to use her abilities.
Think Trinny, think...the pendant! 
She took hold of the tear shaped amber pendant she wore around her neck and closed her eyes,
now what?
She thought
.
'
Breathe Trin, breathe
.' Trinny could hear her fathers voice speaking to her, she was six years old and had climbed up a tall Pine tree at the camping ground they were staying in, and she was too terrified to get back down.
'Just take a deep breath and think about how to make your way out of this situation Trinity, one step at a time.'
She started to breathe deeply and the word ‘protect’ formed in her mouth, she spoke it out.

             
"Protect!" She opened her eyes, the ground around the failing shield Aarion was struggling to hold together rumbled, and the rocks and earth started to lift off the ground. "Protect!" She yelled the word this time, and as she did the rocks and earth around them shot up into a wall, they were now standing in an earth funnel. Aarion’s shield came down.

             
"How are you doing that?" He looked at Trinny amazed. 

             
"I don't know, but it feels natural, so lets take this one step at a time...SEE!" As she spoke the word a small hole opened in the wall of the funnel, they could see that the Stealth had converged into a large umbrage and was moving forward in an attack. "Defend!" As Trinny yelled out the word
the funnel wall unraveled around them to create a massive bullet like shape, it hit out at the shadow pushing it into the tunnel opening, there was a massive crashing sound as great rocks came down around the entrance trapping the stealth inside and blocking the passage through on both ends. "Oops!" Trinny said, realizing she had just cut off their path. Aarion grabbed Trinny by the hand and started pulling her back down the hillside path they had spent a good hour getting up.

             
"We have to find another way, hurry, that Stealth won't be held back by rocks for to long, it will find some gap and slither it's way out, come on!"