by J. Levi
– oldest recorded history of Midgard, protected within the archives of Medon, the motherland 127 B.A.
“Where do we go?” Duck shouts over the beckoning howls that plague the skies above. The winged beasts thrash and snarl wildly like a swarm of blood locust that consumes everything in its wake. The citizens of Andeil scurry in panic, trampling over strangers just to seek refuge. Every building within view is engulfed in a flurry of blazes, nowhere is safe.
We carry the vylorian girl that Duck calls Merida through the abandoned streets of Andeil. I remember my studies about wyverns. They’re believed to be extinct in Edonia. Still, I find the scholars and acolytes of history to be sorely misinformed about anything in Orgard. I recall hundreds of wyvern species, but most of them expel a combination of proper chemicals that ignite when infused, giving them the ability to breathe fire. As if that were enough to send chills skittering down my spine, a wyvern flame cannot be doused by water or dirt, which forebears the prospects of Andeil very grim.
“We need to get out of the city,” I shout over the rolling howls. “We’ll be vulnerable inside a building. They’ll burn the whole place down.” Duck grimaces and then he looks at Merida. Duck’s vest wraps around her exposed body, barely modest as a makeshift cover. She’s still unconscious, unstirring even with the thrashing jolts of us running.
“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Duck pants. I can tell he’s worried, which seems opposite to his jovial demeanor. He’s always painstakingly optimistic.
“I’ll heal her, but we need to get somewhere safe first,” I say, trying to be reassuring. Duck doesn’t even spare a moment of surprise by my omission to heal.
“What about that girl from the library?” Duck blurts. It feels as though it were days ago when we met the short girl with giant eyes and frizzy hair. “She said she has a ship, right? At the marina.”
I know he is right, but the thought of pulling a stranger into the midst of this chaos seems cruel, but what other options do we have?
“Do you know how to get to the marina?” I ask. Duck nods and shifts his weight, pulling Merida farther onto his back, and drapes her over his shoulders like she’s a cloak. He’s stronger than he looks, which invokes a sense of admiration for the elmmen boy.
***
Duck weaves through the city with me in tow, bobbing through corridors, turning corners, descending stone stairs, and pacing through narrow alleys. We catch a few dead ends, fire crumbling the coastal structures into blockades. When we reach the marina, the sky above is still infested with wyverns swarming in a swirl like the churning eye of a raging storm. I almost stop to admire the sight.
I follow Duck, who doesn’t falter as he pervades the final stairway. It’s built into the side of a cliff that leads to the shipyard. The harbor is full of brigs and luggers, mostly fishing vessels but at the end of the dock is a decent-sized frigate with reefed black sails.
“There’s a ramp stationed from the dock that leads to the ship deck,” Duck calls out as he approaches, shouting senselessly. Nothing stirs on the ship, so, without invitation, Duck climbs the ramp. I follow after him, but by the time I reach the deck, Duck is already climbing a pair of steps shouting insensibly. Atop the stairs is a platform with then a door, possibly the captain’s cabin—Duck bursts through the door without the preamble of knocking first. I follow in after him, though I’m slightly offended by the blinding light that contrasts the dull darkness that suffocates outside.
The cabin is large, much bigger than I thought—possibly several times larger than it appears outside. The walls are lined with bookcases, shelves, curios, cabinets, and cubbies. Every inch of every surface is brimmed with trinkets, books, baubles, and instruments. The rest of the room is much of the same, cluttered with tables, cabinets, and awkwardly placed furniture.
I consider for a moment how some of these pieces of furniture could have even fit through the cabin door. The only windows are portholes with glass panes along the back wall.
The room’s center has a giant rectangular tank filled with water. A glowing ball of soft blue light illuminates the entire tank. It’s decorated like a coral reef I’ve seen in textbooks. I watch exotic fish of exuberant colors and varying sizes casually swim through the water.
Nearby is a table stacked with dishes, porcelain, and stoneware. Cutlery of silver, steel, and wood. Chemistry equipment litter the shelves of the nearby wall. A candle with a dancing flame warms the green fluid in a glass vial. Whirling cuckoo chimes repeatedly like the grand tower clock in the Edonian capitol from the far corner of the cabin.
Duck weaves through the labyrinth of clutter. He’s careless as he bumps into tables of glassware and chairs stacked with books, sending everything toppling to the wooden floor.
“Who’s there?” a small voice calls out from beyond the cluttered mess.
“Help!” Duck yells frantically now he knows someone is here. He disappears behind a corner of curios stuffed with creepy dolls. When I turn the corner, I see the small girl we met at the library sitting on a plush bed full of duvets, throws, and pillows. The sheets are white, and the bedposts are light oak. The girl sits cross-legged in the center. She looks tiny compared to the bed’s vast size, with her spectacles are perched perfectly on her nose with giant eyes, and her hair is even messier than before. I’m not sure how that’s even possible.
Duck rushes to the bed. The girl hops up, pushing piles of books, scrolls, and plates of chicken bones to the edge.
“Oh, dear, what happened?” the girl gasps as Duck hoists Merida over his shoulder and places her on the bed. He’s panting viciously, unable to answer the question. I climb onto the bed, nestle myself next to Merida, and summon my magic. My hands glow, and my skin hums as I pour blinding light into the already bright room.
“Sorry,” I say to the girl who’s mesmerized by the glow emanating from my hands. “The city is under attack. Haven’t you seen the wyverns outside?”
“Wyverns?” the girl asks excitedly. She jumps from the bed and scurries through her clotted mess until she reaches a porthole window and peers outside towards the sky. She gasps a wow and oh and a huh.
“You know, wyvern eggs are very precious commodities,” she says.
“Is she going to be alright?” Duck asks, his breathing finally steadying. I don’t answer because I don’t know. I feel my magic reaching deep into Merida’s body as if it were thousands of fingers embracing each fiber of muscle, the smooth surface of every bone, every inch of skin. I can feel her broken spine as if my fingers were actually tracing the contours of broken bone and serrated flesh. I feel the rupture of her entrails and the pooling of blood pouring into cavities where it doesn’t belong. This wound is too complicated and too severe for my magic to simply heal. I know it’ll take concentration as I closely work with my magic to weave Merida’s body back together.
“I don’t know. It’s going to take time,” I muster. I can tell Duck doesn’t like my answer when he starts pacing the room.
“We should leave. I can set sail immediately. I’ll just go—” the girl starts, but I interrupt.
“No! We can’t leave yet. Nova is still out there,” I shout. The girl winces. I should feel guilty for my outburst, but I’m too focused on healing and too scared to think of anything but rushing back to Nova’s side.
“He doesn’t know where we are,” I say to Duck, almost in fright. “How is he going to find us if he doesn’t know where we are?” My breathing is shallow, and I can feel my anxiety brim the surface of my mind threatening to spill over.
“I have to go get him and bring him back here,” I say. I’m about to pull my hands from Merida, but Duck places his hands atop mine.
“You have to stay. You have to help Mer,” he says. I nod because I know he’s right, but—
“—he’s still out there,” I finish my thought aloud, and then Duck rushes towards the cabin door.
“I’ll go find him and bring him back. I’ll
find him. Help Merida,” he calls out without looking back. Before I can muster a reply, he’s gone. The small girl slowly crawls onto the bed and brushes the silky black hair from Merida’s face and traces a finger against the vylorian horns on her head.
“She’s pretty,” the girl says, and then, “What happened?”
“I—I’m not sure. After we left the library, the wyverns were already swarming the city. We ran back to our caravan on the outskirts when we watched a vylorian man throw her across the field and into a caravan wagon. It collapsed on her.”
“She survived that ?” The girl asks, astonished. I almost retort the fact she lay beneath my fingers with nearly every bone broken and her skin burned so bad she’s hardly recognizable.
“Um—she was a giant wolf—until she wasn’t and then a vylorian placed this collar on her,” I explain. The girl inspects the collar with fascination.
“I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name, and then we barge in here with all this chaos,” I plead apologetically.
She blows raspberries from her lips before responding, a hand waving at me like she’s swatting a pest, “Don’t even fret. This is the most excitement I’ve had since I memorized that cooking manual with one-thousand recipes on all the ways to cook chicken,” she hooks a thumb at a thick book resting on a pillow at the foot of her bed.
“Oh, and I’m Addlyn,” she says and offers a hand. She stares at me earnestly, expecting me to offer a hand in return for a polite shake. After a moment passes, she realizes my hands are occupied, and she snorts.
“Thank you, Addlyn…for letting us be here. I’m Casaell. This is Merida. The boy who just left is Duck.” I say while nodding my head at the vylorian girl and then the cabin door.
“Duck? Hmm, can’t say I’ve ever had Duck before. Is it like chicken?” She asks.
I don’t really know what overcomes my practical sensibility. I squeal, very unmanly, before I blurt out, “You’re not a cannibal, are you?”
She bursts into laughter, which is unsightly given the nearly dead fae girl on the bed beside me. But Addlyn falls into the sheets, her arms wrap around her stomach as she rocks back and forth in giggles.
“I meant the waterfowl,” she chirps.
Suddenly, the cabin’s lights begin to blink, fading in and out until the bright lights are replaced with ominous red hues. I nearly fall from the bed as the ship sways and bows like tidal waves crash into the hull. I hold my breath, afraid the ship is being attacked by the wyverns above. Then a rumble aches through the wood planks of the floor, the crafted beams of the cabin walls, and the wooden masts outside creak obnoxiously.
“Oh, dear,” Addlyn says alarmingly.
“What happening?” I ask. The room is illuminated by my hands, which still radiate pure white light, but the look on Addlyn’s face is unreadable.
“The Flying Roosters defenses activated,” she explains vaguely.
“The Flying Roo—you know what, never mind. What does that mean?”
“Do your friends have any means of flying?”
“Flying! Why would they need to fly?” She stares with guilt on her face. I feel the sudden urge to rush out the cabin door, but I can still feel my magic deeply woven into every fiber of Merida’s body. If I pull my magic away now, I’m afraid of doing more damage to her body. Her spine is shattered in hundreds of places, and it’s taking a lot of my energy to sew them back together and mend them.
“Addlyn,” I say, and she looks at me slowly.
“Y—yes, Casaell?” she says sheepishly.
“When you say The Flying Rooster…what do you mean?” I ask. I finally notice the static in the air and the vibrations of magic stained into the vessel’s wood. I didn’t notice it before this exact moment, but I can feel it brimming with magic.
“Um—it’s fascinating really—you’ll find this funny…eventually—but um, my ship can fly…is flying—right now. We’re flying right now.”
“We have to go back right now,” I shout. Addlyn’s frown deepens.
“We can’t,” she says and then, “when the magical defenses are initiated, The Flying Rooster does the only thing it’s allowed to do, which in this case, means fly away to safety.”
“Turn it back!” My shouts are louder.
“I—I’m sorry, Casaell. We—I can’t. When the defenses activate, I can’t override them until the ship thinks we’re safe,” her bulgy eyes magnified beneath her spectacles wobble as tears swell. I know she speaks the truth, and I bite my tongue.
“We can’t leave them,” I say, my voice cracking. “I can’t leave, not without Duck and Nova. I can’t leave him.”
32
Nova
“…I found the…city of Forline. It’s as the stories tell about…I happened upon it by chance…I’ve been exploring the frozen wastes…summer so severe, the frozen tundra is mild…a feint glow in the sky…flying ships! Then I saw…one even approached…not even fae, like the stories say.…”
– the burnt remnants of a letter by Josepo Hastern 771 B.M.
In a solitary moment, I relive the night I ran through the poplar trees of the Oaken forest. I ran as fast as my small legs could carry me, but I wasn’t fast enough even then. Plunging into that river, even as a child, I understood I was going to die. I was just a small boy, barely aware of the horrors that stalk in the darkness of night. I remember her lying there on the ground face down near the edge of the poplar tree line—the ruby-red blood coated my fingertips when I brushed her hair from her face. When she stirred, she almost didn’t look like mother anymore.
I remember the look in her eyes when she told me to run to the river and hide. I failed her, though. I was caught before I found a hiding place. I tried to fight the man in black. I even bit him, real good. Enough that he dropped me into the river to be carried away by the strong undercurrent.
I remember that even at the threat of drowning, I worried about upsetting my mother. I hated to see her sad. I never wanted to see her sad.
Like a festering wound scabbed over and then reopened, I relive the pain I’ve suffered for years over the loss of her. I mourned my mother years ago. Yet here she is, crawling to her feet with a fierce look in her eyes.
I should have looked for her. While I ran amuck, stealing fortunes from nobleman and daring adventures of grandeur, I could have saved her, I admit to myself. If only I weren’t so gods damned selfish.
I let it enrage me, churning my blood until it feels like fire in my veins. It consumes me as if it has sentience. It begs to take over, to be in control to grow, fester, and kill. Oh, how I want to give in to the raging seduction of letting go. The burning desire to let go of control and embrace the chaos.
Chaos.
A wall of twilight flames envelops me like a suit of armor. It lurches against my skin but spares me the singe of heat. It breathes as I breathe, it moves as I move, it roars as I roar.
Before Veryn releases the magic billowing between his palms, I slam my fist into Veryn’s chin, it slips, and I lose balance as he shoves a sphere of molten flames into my chest. This time my twilight flares of violets fail to consume his magic. Instead, his searing flames ignites and explodes against me, hurling me backward. I slam against the rough terrain, my back scraping against rock and sand as I flip, but I gain enough balance to brace myself on my hands and knee as I slide against the earth. I pant as my flames of void and twilight flicker, but they don’t extinguish. I watch as Veryn, who must have been thrown back as well, climbs to his feet. The vylorian riders above swoop in a formation. Before I have a chance to roll out of the way, a strip of sharp claws rakes across my back, forcing me to grunt. I roll to dodge the next attack, though a second rider throws an obsidian-stipped spear with inhuman accuracy. I barely miss it, the sharp edge grazing the side of my neck until blood drips into my collarbone.
“Piss off,” I shout, pulling back an arm and summoning twilight flames. Just as the wyvern dips low enough, I swing as hard as
I can. An orb of flames erupts from my fist, burning the wyvern’s wing clear off, sending the beast and its rider to the earth. Neither gets back up. The other wyvern’s rear back into the sky, gaining a safe distance.
Veryn scantly walks to his obsidian crown that flew from his head earlier and places it atop his head. He pats at his regal clothing, brushing away the soot and dirt, and then turns to my mother. His wicked grin returns as he says, “Oh, Ryna, what a joyous day this must be for you. The return of your long-lost son. I knew you were lying when you said he died.”
“Veryn, enough,” my mother groans, holding herself up on shaky legs.
“You thought you could hide him from me?” Veryn turns to me, tilting his head to the side. “I know someone very interested in meeting you. He’s been looking for you for a very long time.”
“Who?” I can’t stop myself from asking. This is a trick. It has to be.
“Stop,” my mother shouts, though her voice is so broken I can barely hear it above the wyvern howls.
Veryn traces a single finger along the curved edge of his blade, acting as though he’s in deep thought. “I came for my pet, but I guess you’ll do fine.”
I scoff. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Veryn looks at mother again, rolling his eyes. “Really, Ryna, are all your offspring so unruly?”
“Please, Aedan. Go and find—” my mother starts, but a lash of wildfire sweeps across the open space, lancing mother in the back. Veryn rears the fire back, aiming for another lashing. “Keep that filthy mouth of yours shut.”
I’m sprinting again, roaring as I call on more magic. My body aches with exhaustion, and darkness bleeds into the edges of my vision. I refuse to succumb until I feel his blood spill against my fingers. Kill, kill, kill, the riosan prism whispers.
The vines and roses on my forewarn twist and writhe in my rage. The petals shrivel and fall, the buds decay, only to blossom again before wilting once more. A vicious cycle: everything is just a vicious cycle.