Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties

by Kellie Doherty

  “Seems like a nice enough place, and it’ll be good to be rooted somewhere for a while. Close to home, too,” Dylori replied with a shrug.

  Rooted somewhere. Close to Dylori’s hometown. Misti was as far south as she could get but she could consider this a home, if Dylori was here with her. “I think so, too.”

  Dylori leaned over and kissed Misti’s temple before turning to Orenda. “If they need a sword, they have mine. Providing they…lend me one.”

  Orenda grinned, her serious expression brightening. “They’ll get you all the weapons and armor, if you need it. You’ll just have to pass their skills testing first.”

  Misti glanced at Arias and nodded a silent thanks to her friend. Arias nodded in return, and then pulled Misti’s plate to her and smiled, her pale-green eyes sparkling.

  ***

  The testing into the city guard proved to be easy for them. Dylori shone during the sword fighting, and when Misti hit a target with bow and arrow the size of a berry six hundred paces away the tests were over. They filled out some paperwork, signed their names, and stamped the official Rok emblem—crashing waves and a single spindly tree—on the base. The paperwork was simple enough, the only confusing bit being their current address. Misti and Dylori were technically homeless, so they put the Howling Rain Inn as a temporary location.

  They made their way back down the street, Arias and Orenda leading the way, until they reached the main square with a large fountain in the center. True night had come by now, the sun completely set and the daygems brightening. A few blue and green ones twinkled above the merchant shops, catching the eyes of passersby. They sat down on the edge of the fountain and watched the bustle of the city for a little while, enjoying each other’s company.

  Arias tucked a strand of her hair behind her ears. “I have to go back home now.”

  Orenda nudged her again. “Yes, sister, your welcoming awaits! A grand party indeed.”

  “After that, I’ll go back to my village. I’ve been gone a long time, and they’re going to need their dabbler.”

  “And get all the pendant’s information to your super-secret organization, right? Aluriah’s Agents.” Dylori bumped her, giving her a sharp smile.

  “Right.” Arias winked at her. “Aluriah’s Agents, indeed.”

  Dylori wilted a little, her shoulders slumping. “Are you ever going to tell me what that’s about?”

  “It wouldn’t be much of a secret organization if I told everyone I met, now would it?” Arias gave Dylori a small shove. “But I can tell you one thing.”

  Dylori perked up, and Misti did, too. “Yeah?” Dylori prodded.

  “We have a much better name than the one you came up with.” Arias laughed at the roll of Dylori’s eyes, but then her features hardened and she continued in a more serious tone. “And if Ponuriah has returned like Misti warned, my people will rise out of the shadows as a force unlike any you have ever seen. You may be hearing about my…organization…much sooner than even I’d like.” She paused for a moment, biting her lip, and then rustled around in her pack. “Here, take this.”

  She handed each of them a band, the same color and interwoven spherical pattern as her left earring. She tugged at it for a moment. “If my people see you wearing this, they’ll know you’re a friend. They’ll know you can be trusted.”

  Orenda shoved her sleeve up a little, showing them an armband of similar make before hiding it again.

  Dylori’s shocked expression remained for a few heartbeats before she regained her composure. She punched Arias’ shoulder. “You badass,” Dylori muttered, latching the band around her wrist.

  Arias grinned and tucked a slip of paper into Misti’s hand. “Send all kinds of letters to me. All the time. From both of you. With Zora, or without.”

  “I will.” Misti’s voice broke a little. She’d miss Arias terribly. “Please stay safe up there.”

  Arias rose from her seat and hugged Dylori. When she pulled back, tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’ll be perfectly safe with Orenda nearby.”

  “I’ll keep her safe, just like you two did,” Orenda said, rising. She shook both Misti and Dylori’s hands. “Now you keep this city clean.”

  “You can count on it,” Dylori replied.

  Orenda chuckled and looked at Misti. “I’ll send word in a cycle or so to give you a progress update on your sister.”

  “Wonderful.” Misti’s chest tightened painfully at the thought of her sister, at the thought of her loss, but she forced herself through it. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

  “Worry not,” Orenda muttered, then glanced at her sister, who was busy scratching Zora under the chin. “Time to go, Arias.”

  Arias gave Zora one last pat and darted over to give Dis a huge hug, and then went to her sister’s side. Her singsong voice lifted a little. “This won’t be the last I see of you, for sure.”

  “We’ll make sure it’s not,” Misti replied, blinking back the tears gathering in her eyes.

  With one final wave, Arias and Orenda disappeared into the crowd of people. Misti swallowed hard, trying to push down the sadness in her heart at seeing Arias and Orenda leave. She hung so much hope on Orenda.

  Misti latched the rust-colored band around her wrist, admiring its design before turning her blurry gaze to Dylori and sank into her open arms. They stayed like that for a little while, looking at the bustling space where the sisters had stood.

  “I have something for you.” Dylori pulled Misti down onto the fountain’s edge. A couple of Nemora children splashed in the fountain behind them, getting water on Zora. Zora crouched playfully, and then zoomed above the water, splashing the kids in return and yipping happily. “Here,” she said, pulling a scale from her pocket. It rested in her palm, pure-white save for a fiery tint on its edge. A large scale, larger than a dragon’s, almost as large as a wyvern scale.

  “You didn’t,” she murmured.

  Dylori grinned. “I grabbed it when we were searching for Arias’ sword. I already gave Arias one before she left, and I have one. This one’s yours.”

  Joy flitted through Misti, warming her. She had killed a wyvern. The pendant had helped, but still. Now she had a piece of proof to remember her bravery. She hugged Dylori in thanks.

  “Now what?”

  Misti shrugged. “Now we wander around our new city. Get to know the place. Buy some new clothes and supplies since our things from the Amiin Moon Knights won’t get here for a fortnight.”

  “Figure out where we’re going to live,” Dylori murmured. Her lips pressed against Misti’s temple.

  “Yeah. That, too.” Misti’s cheeks burned, and she hid her face in her hands, embarrassed by her blush at the idea of living together as a couple, not as comrades. Dylori said ‘we.’ Dylori laughed, a beautiful soft noise, and Misti lifted her gaze again. “But for right now, let’s wander, okay? Just for a little while.”

  And wander they did, strolling through the streets, smiling at passersby, buying some new clothes. When the first rays of the sun came up over the horizon, they retreated to their room at the inn and slept in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  MISTI MUNCHED ON SOME rasha berries, tartness exploding in her mouth. She lifted the broken wyvern head and let it catch some of the daygems lighting their small abode. She and Dylori had found this place three crescents after taking their guard jobs, a simple one-story house with a kitchen, a bedroom, a bath, and a living room. They needed to put their own finishing touches on it, but the packages currently sitting in the living room from the Amiin Moon Knights would make it easier.

  She worried at first that it would be strange living with Dylori after everything, that being together so much might ruin their budding relationship, but the opposite had happened. Because of their seasons with the Moon Knights, they were used to being in close quarters, used to each other’s quirks, and Misti enjoyed their time together more and more. She could feel herself falling more in love with Dylori.


  Misti sat in their kitchen, arms folded on the metal countertop, gazing out the window. Even though it faced the wall of the house next to them, it let the moonlight in. She put the broken wyvern head back on the counter, setting it next to the tooth of the first suncreature she had killed on her own and the scale of the wyvern, and waited for Dylori to return from her shift protecting the streets. Misti had gotten off her shift early, with the edges of the city secure and no rumbling from the Ravenlock Woods.

  The city guards had gone into the woods the same night Misti and Dylori had been initiated, but they hadn’t found anything. Crescents of searching with the Moon Knights’ aid had come up with nothing. Even the village had disappeared. A giant scorch mark, like the smaller ones Misti had noticed, had appeared in the clearing in its place. The city guard had issued a warning to the public to be wary of worshippers, banished ones, and suncreatures. Not the dire warning that Misti expected because of her story, but a good enough for now, at least until other evidence surfaced.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going to happen, something big. She didn’t think the others believed her. Yes, the Blood pendant and scorch marks were new and strange, but apparently not new or strange enough. And Misti couldn’t give them the pendant for inspection, an aspect that both the Praxis leader and the Moon Knights reminded her was key for their investigation. She’d heard the Moon Knights were doing a full-fledged query of their ranks because of Zarious’ betrayal, so at least they believed that part of her story.

  It occurred to Misti after the fact that she didn’t really know where the white light had transported her. It could’ve been anywhere. To the Cinder Forest up north, maybe. To the Sunglade even. But her heart beat too fast whenever she thought of it and she had to stop. The only thing they could do right now was their jobs, and Misti found she enjoyed hers as an archer.

  The feel of the bow in her hands, the ease with which it destroyed the suncreatures who attacked the city, the simplicity of being part of a well-oiled organization again—one that hadn’t been tainted by the sun goddess, as far as she could tell—calmed her. Under the tutelage of a fellow vulnix Vagari city guard, she was finally learning the fighting techniques suited to her bloodline and excelled in that approach. And the other guards treated her with respect. Treated Zora with respect, too, despite her coloring. It seemed like down here, being differently colored didn’t matter much.

  And as long as she didn’t think much about how the Vagari worshippers could somehow change normal beasts to suncreatures, she could kill them with ease. If she did think about it, it would overwhelm her, paralyzing her until Zora bit her back into the present. She knew that she had to kill these creatures, that even if they hadn’t been born from the ashes, whatever they were now, they weren’t the creatures they’d been. She thought of Char the same way. Her sister had died, and whatever she was now wasn’t Char. That didn’t stop Misti from yearning to see her again.

  Dis had his own stable down at the guard compound, a stone structure that might’ve been a bathhouse at one point. He slept some days, but most of the time he was at Dylori’s side, walking the streets with her. He made for quite the deterrent against ruffians. He liked sleeping outside their house the most. Zora sometimes slept with him, but mostly she stayed with Misti. Currently she was snoozing in a patch of moonlight, her wings wrapped tight against her back and her nose tucked into her tails. Misti stroked her fur and kissed the top of her head, and Zora chirped in response. Misti and Dylori had already drawn up the plans for a small expansion in the house for their animals and just needed a few nights off to do it.

  Misti had spent the better part of a crescent going over what had happened with a scribe of the Athenaeum of the Ancients, the library of all the histories and stories of all the races and civilizations to ever come into existence since the dusk of time. They went over every detail multiple times, just to get it right, and when they had finished, the scribe left the city, heading to the Athenaeum to deliver this new piece of history. She felt better than she had in ages. Char’s sacrifice would be burned into the history books, her words there for all to see.

  The city seemed overly quiet for Misti’s liking. Like something bigger was meant to happen but vanished before it could. She caught herself wondering why others in the city weren’t worried. Dylori told her again and again that they were doing all they could here, protecting the city and telling the scribe of Char’s warning, and if something else loomed, they would deal with it when it arrived. But Misti still worried. Still wondered where her family was, still feared the worshippers would transport to their home in a flash of white light and take her away, still felt angry at Danill’s betrayal and her own failings.

  To keep herself from drowning in fear, she spent much of her downtime at the library at Praxis, trying to find any mention of the bright-white lights of transportation, the banished folk hideaways, the worshippers’ new types of crafting abilities. Anything to help find Char. Waiting for news from Orenda felt torturous, but Misti knew this was where she should be. Had she gone with Orenda, she would have just slowed the woman down.

  As she watched the moonlight drift slowly over her fingers, the ache in her chest from her sister’s death returned, the gaping pit sucking her happiness away. Misti bit her lip. A part of her feared that pit would always be there, that she’d never be able to fill it. But she had thought the same of the cracks in her heart from when she discovered her parents’ worship and her frantic flight from them and those had healed. It just took time. She gripped the sides of her mug and sipped, letting the sweet tea scorch her tears away. Setting the cup down, she dropped the suncreature tooth and the wyvern scale into a small glass cup by the window, then nodded. She’d keep them here as a symbol of how far she’d come.

  The front door opened and shut with a thud. A couple more thuds followed as Dylori removed her armor and set down her sword. Strong arms wrapped around Misti’s shoulders, and she settled back against Dylori’s chest. Her sadness vanished as the warmth of Dylori’s affection surrounded her, along with the familiar scent of wood and sweat and sweet hybis soap.

  She looked up into Dylori’s dark eyes. “How was today?”

  “Fine, thinking about what to do with Char’s jewelry?”

  Misti nodded, her eyes settling on the glinting metal once more. “I’m not sure if I should bury it. She didn’t have a proper burial.”

  “I think you should keep it,” Dylori whispered. “It would be a piece of her you could take with you no matter where you went.”

  A piece of Char. A piece of family. She liked that idea. Deep down, Misti wondered if that was why she hadn’t done anything with the jewelry piece yet. Wasn’t that why Danill had insisted on breaking it in the first place? So, I could have something of Char’s with me always? Misti unwrapped her own bracelet and slipped the wyvern head next to her wyvern wings. The metal charms clinked softly against each other as she retied her bracelet and swung around to face Dylori, pulling her into a soft kiss.

  “Thank you,” Misti whispered.

  “Always.” Dylori pressed her forehead against Misti’s.

  A thought flittered through Misti’s mind, a memory of their journey together, and she pulled back. “Where did that salttree leaf go? I think it would look lovely in this glass.”

  Dylori chuckled. “I gave it back. I didn’t want to offend the Nemora any more than you had. So I returned it to them during our negotiation over the lake.”

  A rush of warmth spread through Misti at that slight confession and the laughter lingering in Dylori’s dark eyes. It was a simple thing, giving the leaf back, but she knew how much having that token had meant to Dylori.

  Dylori reached into her pocket, holding out a pure white pebble for Misti to see. She dropped it into the glass. “Arias did give me a pebble, though, and the Nemora didn’t mind that we grabbed some. I asked before we left.”

  Misti wanted to say that she loved Dylori, wanted to confess
that here and now, but she couldn’t quite say the words just yet. She squeezed Dyorli’s hand. “You’re amazing, Dylori.”

  “So are you.” Dylori’s dark eyes read love and hope and kindness, things Misti would always see there, but they also read something else. Need. They smoldered with it.

  Misti hadn’t wanted to move too fast, so they hadn’t been intimate past kissing. But she needed it, needed that connection. That comfort. She rose from her chair and pulled Dylori into the bedroom. As she guided Dylori down to the bed and began undressing, the glint in Dylori’s eyes made her grin even more. She had lost her blood-family, but she had found another one right here in Dylori’s arms, and Misti’s soul sang with their connection. A new tie, rebound with Zora and Dylori and Dis.

  They were slowly building a life here in Rok and a home here with each other. And while Misti knew something bigger and more dangerous was reaching over the horizon, she resolved to enjoy each quiet moment she could. For now, the moon was high over their heads.

  The End of Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties

  [Book One of The Broken Chronicles]

  The Broken Chronicles Book Two - Orenda’s Story

  Orenda Silverstone is an Elu trader, desperately trying to finish a secret list of dangerous tasks in order to save her wife. She only had four tasks on her list when she met a woman named Misti, but now she has one more. Five in total. Five tasks and one cycle left. She can do it. She has to. But an old friend comes back into her life, one who she divulged her secret tasks to even though she was warned not to. A friend who she drew into this mess, who blames her for it, and whose final task is to “kill Orenda.” Can Orenda save her wife while also staying alive? What happens when some less-than-reputable clients want to come along and don’t take no for an answer? When her friend finally gets enough courage to finish her off, how will Orenda respond?