The Silvia Saga: Boxset

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Declan

Dara stands and turns around to face us. She nods, telling us exactly what I didn’t want to hear. This child has the same symptoms as our mother. We have to find out what the hell is going on here. Why are people in our village getting sick? There has to be an answer somewhere; we’ll just have to find it.

Harlan slaps me on my shoulder.“You, me, and Jolie need to head out to find some kind of remedy. Oliver will check out the skies to see if he can find anything. Blair can stay here with Mum.”

Nodding, Jolie appears next to us, and we head off, walking through the dense forest inside our village. Oliver jumps into action, transforming into his eagle form, taking to the skies, and weaving through the trees.

“Wait up. I’m coming to help,” Dara yells, jogging to us.

“No way. You need to stay here. Look after our mother and start interviewing the sick to find out more details,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. There’s no way she’s coming with us; it’s too dangerous for her to be out here with James wanting her dead. We made a pact, my brothers and I, to keep her inside as often as we can until we are ready to head out to claim the final stone.

Dara, being her usual stubborn self, puts her hand on her hip.“But I should be with you guys, helping,” she pleads.

“No, Dara. Just go be with our mother,” Harlan grits out harshly.

She lowers her head in defeat, perhaps knowing not to push him any further. I know she just wants to help, but having Dara with us? We would be more worried about her than finding anything. She’d be a distraction.Blair appears, wrapping an arm across Dara’s shoulder. She leans into him and not coming with us will kill her. She always wants to help in any way she can.

We reach the outskirts of our village; the barrier is so clear between our land and the parts that James has destroyed. Our village is full of lush vegetation then outside, it’s like blackened charcoal as far as the eye can see. If it wasn’t for Jolie’s protective bubble over our village, we would have nothing left. Jolie glances around behind her.

You okay? I ask her.

Mind your own business, she replies, but I can tell she’s uneasy.

“Let’s keep inside our land. The villagers wouldn’t have caught anything outside here anyway,” Harlan says as he walks along the barrier.

What could our mother and the other villagers have caught that caused this outbreak? I wonder … if Jolie and the other healers are having trouble creating a healing spell, giving them a cure isn’t looking good. They usually can heal anything, but with this, they are stumped. Perhaps working out the source will help. Jolie sets off ahead, her eye on something on the ground. She stops in front of a Ladybirth flower. Kneeling down, she picks off some of its petals and places them into her pants pocket.I raise my brows at her in question.

“These could help create some medicine to ease the pain,” she explains, standing back up.

We continue walking around the barrier, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

Oliver calls from above. Glancing up into the skies, I see him coming down toward us. We stop as he lands and transforms back into human form.

“There’s something off with the water at the waterfall—the colouring isn’t normal. We need to check it out,” Oliver says, walking off toward it.

The waterfall is where we’ve gotten our water supply lately since James burnt out the rest of Silvia. Could it be causing this outbreak?

We make it there in record time. Jolie kneels down beside the water, looking closely at it. I lean closer to the liquid, my face a rippled reflection on the surface. It has a red tinge to it. It’s faint, but it’s there.

Jolie reaches into her supply bag and pulls out a thin vial. She goes to put her hand in to collect some water. Darting my hand out, I stop her.

“The water could be contaminated. I can’t have you catching this too,” I say, my brows drawn together in concern.

She shakes her head, pulls some thick gloves from her bag, and then places them over her hands. She fills up the vial in seconds and places the lid back on tightly.

“We have to run some tests on this back at home. Something’s not right,” Jolie states, putting the vial into her bag and zipping it up.

We make it back to the village quickly. Jolie hurries off to one of the healer’s houses. I hope we get some answers before it’s too late.