For My Sister

Chapter 6

First, she took away my sister's ability to have children. Now, she wanted to take away her life! A series of words unfit for anyone went through my mind to describe Bhavani at that moment. I was good with a sword but my anger must have amplified just how good I really was, because with perfect ease, I drew it and swung. Bhavani only had time to look at me with surprised eyes before I planted my sword perfectly into her skull right between her eyes. It was a rather freakish thing to see her looking at me like that with my sword in her skull still crying out in agony. Immediately, I pulled my sword out of her skull with such force that she fell backwards in the water. As the dark clouds surrounding us dissipated, I knew that Bhavani, daughter of Nociv, was gone forever.

But my sister, might have already been lost to me. She was gasping for air in a very mangled position at the bottom of the boat with her eyes closed. There was no color in her face.

"No," I said taking her gently in my arms. "No, no, no, no! Don't die on me now, Jolene! We left so you would be protected and you will be now! You...you have to meet Mother and Father. We still have to find some way to remove the curse from you so you can have lots of kids because you're going to make a great mother just like ours. Just don't die! Jolene, please!"

In the midst of my panicked grief, a thought came to me. Valentia, had asked if the healers had come and healed Aunt Gina of degenerative cancer. They couldn't though because her fate was already set in stone. Maybe Jolene's wasn't.

"I don't know who you are or how to call for you correctly!" I shouted to the sky above. "But my sister is dying! I know you couldn't heal my aunt as this cancer was already her fate but death right now cannot be Jolene's! I beg of you come and heal her!"

For a few moments there was nothing except the waves and the ice and the sense of hopelessness like there had been before. Suddenly, there was a sound of wings flapping somewhere behind me. When I looked, I saw three winged guardians, two female and one male, all dressed in scarlet. The male one took me by the shoulders and had me scoot back away from my sister while the two women took her in their own arms.

"My name is Galen and I am one of the three healers of the Snow Islands. I can tell you right now that you have nothing to fear. This death that you fear your sister will fall into is not her fate set in stone."

One of the women had set Jolene's head on her lap and placed her hands on Jolene's face. The other woman placed her hands on Jolene's chest, and together they chanted something that I couldn't understand but sounded very sweet. As they chanted, my sister began to change. The color came back into her face and her body began to straighten out like a normal body so that it was obvious that the bones that had been broken, were now healed. Jolene began to breathe easier and more evenly. When the winged women, had finished their chant, she opened her eyes, looked around and smiled.

"You did it, Julian! You got her!"

Jolene and I attacked each other with a big bear hug so quickly that we nearly fell out of the boat. The only reason we didn't was because the three healers disappeared without a trace and two other winged guardians appeared to catch the boat and hold it steady. One was a woman with long black hair and fair skin and the other was a man with a freckled face and curly brown hair.

"What just happened to Galen and the other two?" I asked.

"Their job is done. It's our turn to take over." The woman said.

"Wait! I think I know who you are," Jolene said. "I bet you're our personal guardians. As long as Bhavani was alive, you couldn't come to us but now that she's dead..."