by M. Street
Although it was my first time seeing her human form, she felt comfortingly familiar in a world that I didn’t know but that knew me.
“Yes …” I trailed off when Sabina zoomed into the room, escorted by the soldierly woman. Although her eggshell-white skin and shadowed eyes remained flawless, her long, straight blonde hair was braided with gray.
“My lady.” Sabina’s gold spiraled, worthy of a mother’s worry. “This is highly unexpected.”
“You said this nest has been compromised?” Safe asked Dev, causing all to flutter. My love was poised and composed but beat an earnest worry.
“Yes,” Dev said, fearless despite the unpleasant feelings being tossed at him like rotten tomatoes. I took his wrist, showing my pink support. The move caused audible oohs.
“Extremely interesting,” Luja said scientifically, moving closer. Her face bore fascination as her senses performed a fact-finding dance all over us.
“Raven was ambushed procuring the pearls for Piper’s mask.” Dev pulled out a silver linked chain from around his neck connected to a small leather pouch. He fished out the pair of blackened orbs emitting creamy white auras. “If it wasn’t for Piper, they would have been birthed.”
“Yes, Olo informed us, but what does that have to do with the location of this nest?” Sabina asked urgently.
“Junjari was hiding.” Luja and Sabina made a brief shrill upon hearing the name, scowling at Dev. “She waited for Olo to leave before she attacked, but we assume she heard the plans for Jeremiah and Olo to meet at Eagles Rest Peak. She is under a spell, but as soon as it’s broken, there is no doubt the Arbitri will scatter-leap the area.”
Sabina remained poised, but fireworks went off around her head. Her aura exploded, drawing attention like a shout. “We must hurry,” she announced loudly, addressing everyone in the room. Her lifelike holographic image appeared on every translucent screen.
“We must evacuate now!” Sabina spoke publicly while transmitting a golden private message to the Avians only. I felt the private instructions to meet in the Himalayas along with her clear devotion. The room snapped from silently standing to rehearsed commotion. With a single touch, the cubes of unique crystals and mirrors collapsed into the size of a sugar cube. Sabina turned to Luja. “We need to prepare Ozwald and Haruz for travel.”
“Yes, of course,” Luja replied. The metal in the room raced.
“I can help heal them,” I said. “I can donate my light.”
“So I’ve heard.” Luja’s curiosity about me rivaled my own. The metallic light brightened in anticipation for the pressured departure.
“Wait,” Dev said, stopping the pull-out before it could begin. His raised voice pilot-lit ire from the Avians. “Val—” He stopped himself, conscious of the keen, surveilling ears recording his every word. “Our insider has informed us that Eli is searching for Ahnah.”
The room thickened with distress.
“Who is Ahnah?” I asked, jittery from wanting to know about the beautiful name.
“She is one of the last Cetacites,” Olo answered with notable sadness, “and their queen.”
I grunted, not knowing what a Cetacite was nor why the queen’s name caused a ruffling of feathers.
“Cetacites are powerful predictors. They possess additional chambers in their brains.” Luja picked up my request for knowledge. “They calculate with amazing accuracy.”
“Olo.” Sabina tilted her head back, addressing the Goliath in the room. She reached into her draping layers of shimmering wear pulling out a chunk of unpolished emerald. The rough stone was much larger than the dragonfly’s gem. “With what little time we have remaining, let’s see if the pearls bond into a stable configuration around the emerald. Completing the mask is even more critical. If Eli gets to Ahnah, nothing will prevent him from finding Piper.” She stared at me, blinking her hawk eyes rapidly.
“Dev, stay here with Olo,” Sabina commanded coldly, ignoring him by keeping her eyes engaged with Safe. The two raptor escorts remained glued to Dev like rodent meat. His unease of being inside an Avian nest was justified.
I moved closer to Dev, anticipating our separation. “Please, go help Ozwald.” He half smiled, feeling my restlessness over leaving him.
Luja reactivated a compute cube, drawing my curiosity. Multiple holographic panels fired up waves of computations. A small dish came out of the top of the square, emitting a no-gravity cylinder of velvet blue light.
“Put the emerald in the field,” Luja instructed Sabina. The queen put the rock fused with green crystals into the tube. It sparkled like tinfoil in a microwave, floating still. Luja opened a thick vault of a black metal that weirdly did not give off light. She pulled out a pencil-sized piece of black, volcanic-like porous material, beaming a strangely familiar sight. Especially after the true mirror in Madagascar, I recognized my light as easily as my face. The pipe of rock held a sample of me.
Luja placed the black stick into the blue field suspending the emerald and walked away like she had done her part. The stick slowly sank as my light leisurely dissolved into the vibrant blue rising to the emerald. “Let’s see if the pearls and emerald can cancel out Piper’s frequency in the short amount of time we have”.
“Piper,” Sabina spoke maternally. She stood poised at the entrance to a long corridor with Luja. “Leave them. We must hurry.”
Dev and Safe went to work, placing the black pearls into the no-gravity field. The murky pearls formed rings, spinning around the glowing stone, rotating wildly into different positions.
Forcing myself away from the scientific moment, I moved fast to join Sabina and Luja. “You can take samples of auras?” I asked, drawing comparisons to blood work.
“Yes, certain materials will parasitically extract light, holding the lumens for approximately seventeen days.” Her eyes smiled. “I took a sample of your light when Safe brought you here.”
“Whoa,” I said, staring down the long tubular passage. The curved walls and ceiling were adorned with beautiful mosaics, rivaling the ancient Romans’. The spectacular pictorial details of the countless fragments of stones and glass were amplified by the diversity of auras. The long corridor beamed with a kaleidoscope of landscapes of birds of prey, telling Avian history.
“I’m sorry we don’t have time,” Sabina said, noticing my attraction to the illuminated stone art. We blazed down the gallery hall, passing many other openings heading up, down, and sideways. Like a mounded ant hill, the entire rocky mountain had been artistically cored into catacombs and passages. Preoccupied with capturing the remarkable murals, I didn’t see Sabina and Luja coming to a stop. Absorbing my momentum, I halted just shy of knocking into them.
“My lady,” Sabina addressed me formally.
“Please don’t call me that,” I said with an uncomfortable chuckle.
“Oh, but you are.” Luja beamed hopefully. I rolled my eyes in frustration. “You are the one who—”
“We are sorry about Esther.” Sabina cut off Luja. The Avian queen’s sentiments were respectful but held little feeling. “Your mother carried her crown well and with honor. Like any mother, she did what she needed to do for her child. You are the agent of change we desperately need. The world did not think you were possible. Keeping you out of harm’s way is of utmost importance.”
Disapproval clouded her face. “Olo said your mother was aware of your relationship with Dev. Is that true?” Sabina asked like it was hard to believe. The blue fire in her eyes concentrated waiting for my reaction.
“Yes, she did.” I inadvertently picked up charge in swift defense. My feet were bare, but I felt like I was wearing steel-tipped boots with five-inch stiletto heels. In spite of my heart and mind burning to know more about Dev, my intuition dug in deeper. We were destined to be, even though it meant accepting a past I didn’t like.
“It’s ok.” Sabina touched my face softly, conveying her certainty. “From what I understand, you thought Dev was an infant when you met him.” Luja and Sabina
both looked as if they had solved a great mystery. I knew they didn’t have a clue.
“Mom told me about matures falling in love with infants, especially when we first hatch, or whatever it’s called. She also told me that was not possible for a Guardian princess to fall in love with an infant.” I used my title to my advantage for the first time in defense of Dev. “Like swans, royals fall in love once.” I recounted Mom’s exact words. “But it’s ok. Dev is matured.”
“Yes, but you are quite different,” Sabina said, ready to debate the realness of my love. My blood heated, and I got ready to stand up. “Many Avians have been lost since Esther birthed. Not only from the Arbitri, but at the hands of Vampacoti.”
Just then, a cold wave shivered through my bones, causing me to grimace.
“What’s the matter?” Luja asked, twitching her head.
“I don’t know. It’s like a call,” I said, remembering Raven’s Canite plea for help, “but this is dark and intrusive.”
“Eli,” Luja said, unnervingly soft.
“Hurry.” Sabina blurred into a fast break. Before I could blink, we soared down the hallway into a large, circular room. One wall was lined with beds made from gigantic chucks of polished stone. The slabs of earth emitted a hearty, healing green aura like the baobab trees.
My heart rose seeing Haruz and Ozwald. Both had swarms of people helping them sit up. By the slurry of fading dream flies, I knew they had been in a sedated sleep. I ran ahead to greet them.
Haruz yawned with inches-long canines, stretching, popping his joints. “My lady!” He groaned, smelling me with trumpeting nostrils. With a shimmer of copper, he quickly clothed himself in battle fatigues. “What are you doing here?”
He scratched the side of his head, further matting his hair. Raven’s faithful protector still ran in my veins from my healing him. He was confused by my presence. A clear, sparkling gel was smeared all down his neck. The substance held his flesh together where the Vampacoti attacked. He was healing remarkably fast but was still out of commission.
“My lady,” A younger, Ozwald said too officially, rippling this light back and forth. He greeted me pointedly, knowing the salutation would rub like me like spiky rock salt. His arm was half formulated into a white-gray wing. The organic engine was heavily bandaged with the same jelly used on Haruz’s neck. Magnets bracketed his arm.
“Sorry, I would salute, but my arm was busted in two locations procuring your emerald,” he said smarmily, narrowing his blue-on-blue eyes while cocking a smile. The pride in his battle scars cranked on my guilt. Holding in a wince and clenching his teeth, he lifted his freakishly elongated arm with rows of feathers up and down. “At least I can move it now.”
“Thank you,” I said shining clearly, grateful for his sacrifice. “Glad to see your confidence wasn’t hurt.” I couldn’t help sparring.
He pulled his wavy blond hair behind his ears with his left arm. “What’s going on?” he asked me like I had done something wrong, finally noticing the other Avians packing up and shutting the place down.
“The nest has been compromised. Luja, assemble an escort team to take Haruz and Ozwald out the escape tunnels,” Sabina ordered.
“What? How?” Ozwald said, absorbing light. “This place has been hidden for centuries!”
“Ozwald,” Sabina scolded.
“We don’t have much time. Give me your arm.” I built charge, reaching for his hybrid limb.
“Huh?” Ozwald jerked away from me. “No way. You’re in love with a Vampacoti.”
“Ozwald,” Sabina said her prince’s name again, sounding like an impatient mom.
“I’m only going to help you,” I said, miffed.
“Do what? Fall in love with a Canite?” He tilted his head toward Haruz, reflecting his mother’s petrified stare. Haruz snarled.
I placed my one hand on his shoulder and another on his wrist before he could dismount the bed. Twitching, I broke contact with his feathered, muscled skin touching a silent, surging rage. The discordant, scraping vibrations were lightless, cold, and totally out of place. Unsure, I looked into his eyes for an explanation.
“Alright, it can’t hurt.” Ozwald’s cavalier attitude and pessimistic grin made me think I had felt something I didn’t understand. He slid closer to me, acting totally normal. “But if I …”
“Hush already.” I cautiously placed my hands on him, prepared to deflect whatever I felt before. This time, I picked up nothing. His body was eerily quiet, like an abandoned ship in the middle of a still sea. My light linked, flowing into his arm toward the hot breaks. One by one, the feathers slowly folded back, dissolving into his limb with fizzles of golden light.
Breathing heavier and drawing light from the blocks of granite, I aimed my thoughts to stimulate his bone to grow and tissue to mend. The magnets fell off and the gel evaporated. My hands were hot, but his flesh and bone remained cool. I reflected the waves of energy between my touch, healing his arm fully human. I let go, breathing like I had just finished intense yoga.
“Wow,” Ozwald said, feeling high off my donation. “You made a believer out of me.” Sabina’s ecstatic feelings decorated the room with light flakes, dismissing the weird feelings I felt when I first touched him.
Without warning, the purple hue of the nest’s earthy interior flashed to a bright yellow. Like a fully lit fire engine, the emergency harmonic waves were unmissable.
Startled pops filled the room. “The force fields have been activated,” Luja said, alarmed, running to one of the pulsating cubes in the room. Her light vibrated sizable stress, causing projections of holographic views of the mountain to appear around her.
“Take them out the escape routes now,” Sabina battle-commanded, pointing at Haruz, Ozwald, and me.
“I’m not running.” Ozwald hopped off the table, flaring the gold in his aura.
“There is no time to argue!” Sabina snapped. Ozwald reluctantly complied, helping Haruz.
“The Arbitri have arrived,” Luja spoke loudly, watching a miniature scene of two platinum men flying around a nearby peak. “The fields will slow them down, but not for long. Once they locate the nest and Eli is summoned, it won’t take long for them to breach the fortress.”
The urgency in the air felt as if the mountain was on fire. Like a well-rehearsed drill, the room cleared in an orderly fashion. I headed back to the other entrance, knowing that I had to get back to Dev.
“My lady, go with Ozwald and Haruz!” Sabina said impatiently, standing at the doorway.
“Not without Dev.” I remained fixed.
The Avian queen let out a gorgeous, piercing, disapproving caw. “This is not the time …”
“You will never change my heart.” I lifted my head, flexing my glittering pearl royalty for reinforcement.
Sabina joined me, shaking her head back and forth incredibly fast. “Let’s go,” she said reluctantly, staining a radish red, but complying. We screamed down the mesmerizing mosaic hallway toward the hangar bay. The earth shook violently as though the mountain had exploded from within. Behind us, the ceiling collapsed, locking us into a one-way direction. I flickered, watching the priceless artwork crumbling into chunks of rock and dust.
Safe, Dev, and the pair of guarding Avians affixed to them were the only ones remaining in the carved out hangar. As I approached, my milky light was gone and the emerald rock was no more. One was now two. A pair of polished, egg-shaped emeralds twirled in perfect orbit. The black pearls rolled around the diameter of the circling green gems. Safe grabbed the floating duo, putting the gems in a belt around his waist. I rushed to Dev.
“How do we get Piper outside the field?” Safe asked Sabina. The queen went to the last active cube in the room, shifting screens of light all around her.
“We have a problem.” Sabina’s thoughts generated swarms of buzzing light around the crown of her head. She pushed an illuminated scene of the outside landscape into view. The realness of the 3-D image made me feel like a giant. More Arbitri wer
e arriving. Three Guardians swarmed around the nest, casting waves of probing light against the purple mountain. A fourth Guardian stood rigid, casting a dome of sturdy light, locking down the entire nest and the surrounding peaks. I plucked on my brave feelings, making more of them. The spell holding Junjari was broken too soon!
“The field will hold them for no more than five minutes,” Sabina said.
The Avian queen went back to the projected dashboard from the computing cube. With fast hand movements, she filled the room with multidimensional cross sections of the nest. No one spoke, visually feasting on the illuminating facts. Although we were under some kind of yellow, pyramid-shaped force field, all the main routes in the labyrinth were destroyed. Even the escape routes were imploded for miles with giant blocks of granite.
“This is impossible. How did this happen?” she asked aloud, assessing the internal damage. From her dithering anger and fear, we were in a bad bind. We all soaked in the unfortunate images in the room. I analyzed the visuals with precision, dissecting the displays in parallel. At the same time, I fired off my senses. Despite the evacuation, the nest still held many souls. Thankfully Ozwald, Luja, and Haruz were nowhere near. I hoped they had escaped because the spider had spun his trap.
“We cannot leap through the force field or the dome,” Safe said forcefully.
“We will engage.” Sabina swallowed, knowing the odds were stacked against us. Her aura charged, burning bright with fearlessness. “I’ll give notice of battle.”
“Hurry!” Dev threw gasoline on a hot fire.
Sabina flared, releasing a box of old anger for Dev she had skillfully concealed.
“Not here! Not now!” Safe’s loud voice stopped the fight before it could begin.
Out of nowhere, a flash of brilliant platinum appeared on all the lucent hologram screens. Eli was here! His projected dimensional image looked much older than when he tried to strangle me in Oak Creek. He bore no resemblance to Mom, but unfortunately, we did look like siblings. Oddly, he was dressed formally but with bare feet. Six Guardians spun around him in a circle. Another Guardian channeled light into the dome, fortifying the impenetrable net around the mountain. I knew by Dev’s fear trembling through my body that we were in a mortal jam. My intuition screamed, looking for tread on polished ice.