by Cara Violet
Chastity carefully lifted herself, in her silvery, glittering dress, from her desk and waltzed around to the front of it, compressing the space between the rest of them.
“You’re here,” she began, “in my chamber, because I’ve been informed of those who may betray me.”
“My Queen,” Levon said over the top of Owen’s cry, “I’m certain there is no-one trying to do any such thing.”
“I’ve always trusted you, Levon,” she said with finality, and the air suddenly left the room. He gulped. “I know what they say about me, about my tantrums, about those who try and control me, but you’ve always been by my side. Always supported me.”
“I believe in you because you believe in our planet’s freedom.” He gave her the truth, even if she never noticed his sly eye-rolling and his indifference to her attitude.
Chastity shifted against the desk. “Moel will set us free.”
“But you give us choice still because the Law of the Sprites you respect and follow,” his eyes narrowed, and Levon could feel the intensity of the atmosphere rise.
“Yes,” she finally said “but the South is coming … right now.”
“What?! Where?” Levon said irately. Weren’t they just discussing this? “When?” he demanded, holding in his anger—she took none of this as seriously as she should.
Eyes hollow, Chastity paled. “They are marching the Jejova Trail, more than we could imagine are coming.”
“The Jejova Trail?” Owen said with confusion and irritation.
“There will be too many: your Valendean army won’t make it in time,” Chastity replied, mechanically. “They revolt because of me, because of what they think of me, because they think I cannot do this! That I am too young!”
“You can’t even see the water through the grass along the Trail,” Levon whispered, ignoring the breakdown the young Queen was experiencing.
“It seems,” her sobs were quiet, “death to those of us inside the Janjuc Castle is worth their own demise.”
Levon disregarded her. Regardless of what understanding she had of him, her leadership was completely wrong. Her lack of strength in this moment put them all at risk. He had never wanted the Army General position that she begged him to take a year ago; he wanted to stay out of the politics. But perhaps by his reluctance to lead the Sprites to a better life, he had consequently put them in this position. Eyes on the disappointed Kinsmen, Levon huffed, shaking off his guilt.
“This isn’t our last supper dammit! This is the Marble Castle of the noble Sprites, Queen Chastity. And we will follow you until the death. In immediacy, what is your request?” Levon advanced to the door as did Leera and the others, pausing for her response.
“We do what we know how.” She spoke quietly, tears still sliding down her cheeks. “We fight.”
Chapter Eight: Only When I’m Dreaming
The Janjuc night was frigid, to say the least. Darayan didn’t like how dark the moonlight was, either. They’d been walking for hours through this bog-riddled region, encountering more and more of the same landscape: dead ends and soggy vegetation and more nothingness.
“I feel like we’ve been going around in circles,” advised Materid—who Darayan knew was normally efficient with directions.
“I don’t know.” Darayan dropped down to the soggy leaves below and wiped his palm across more mossy grass. “I can’t even distinguish between what’s swamp and what’s not,” he lied, knowing full well this terrain was no different to the Layos Swamp Lands back home on Rivalex. He had been guiding them gently, nudging them along.
“This way,” he said feeling the dryness of the tall grass growing to his west.
“Are you sure?” Bodel squawked, squinting upward.
“Of course—”
A heavy thud sounded behind them; Darayan felt his dusty orange aura grace his skin almost immediately as his knees lowered him.
“What was that?” Materid whispered, as all went silent. “Animals?”
Darayan slowly breathed in, assessing. “No, it was someone following us.”
“What do you mean following us?” Bodel hissed.
“There is dry land further toward the west,” Darayan explained to them, releasing his aura. “We need to camp and get some rest.”
“You don’t say,” Bodel commented, snidely.
“Can you, just this once, not say anything?”
She gave Darayan a hard glare. “Duke, I’d prefer to be in a safer environment altogether than this steaming inferno of a landscape.” She pulled her arm away from a wet, dull yellow vine, “I’ve nearly fallen and drowned in this clammy Holom twice!”
“I understand,” Darayan sighed, “but this terrain is larger than you think, it could take us weeks to get out.”
“Weeks?”
“And we must not go too far from the ship.”
“I agree with Duke,” Materid chimed in, advancing past them, “we go west and camp.”
A contorted look spread over Bodel’s face; Darayan ignored her. He swivelled around and trailed his friend. Exhaustion hitting him as they finally located a small clearing of dry soil.
“This was a good assessment,” Bodel said. Darayan disregarded her.
Materid eyed the half-broken tree in the distance and the small nest it provided on top. “I’ll set watch first,” he said leaving Darayan alone with Bodel and not enough time to refute it.
“Good night,” Darayan said laying on the dry leafy surface, on his side.
“You don’t want to sleep closer together?” Bodel said to his back.
“I said good night.”
He didn’t hear her reply, but he felt her shift her body near his and retire.
This whole situation made him think of Archibel. Darayan hadn’t spent this much time apart from her in three years. It not only seemed odd but felt odd. His heart was hurting just thinking about her. Why? He had railed against her obsessive nature time and time again, chastised her for worrying about him so much, yet, oddly, he missed her. And not just the type you feel when you say goodbye to a friend—it was the type of absence that made him feel like a piece of his heart was missing.
Sleep finally took him, every bone and muscle in his body grateful for the relief the slumber provided.
It was in this deep and dark sleep he felt his mother. Again, his name called from her lips. Again, his chest tightening and seizing up. The Felrin man came into view. Who was that man? Why did his mother die? Who were these people? Why did he even leave Layos? His eyelids burned with the unanswered questions. He wanted his memories back. He felt claws all over his body, the Felrin robed warrior getting the better of Darayan’s little limbs. Hands wrapped around his neck and suffocation overcame him.
Darayan shot up, panting.
Bodel’s fingers and hands latched around his midriff and neck, pulling him closer to her.
“What is wrong with you?” he said with disgust, wriggling away from her and pushing her to the side, “Get off me.”
“It’s just,” she breathed out deeply, “you’re so, you know, that olive skin and dark hair, you’re so different Duke. Not like any Sarinese.”
“I’m not Sarinese Bodel, you know that.”
“But you know how I feel about you. You court no female, you barely speak to Polie as anything more—I can see you’re alone, you’re like me; we’re one and the same, Duke.”
“One and the same?”
“Love me, Duke; marry me, Duke,” her pleas filled his ears with poison.
“I said get away from me!” He removed her last claw from his arms and walked away. With a hurried pace, he moved through the wetland, skipping along the streams with ease.
“Archibel,” he said aloud. Darayan’s knees finally gave way under him, and he sank slightly down in the wet mossy bank.
He knew it then.
It had been her all along. Archibel was embedded deep in him, how had he not known his feelings for her before?
There wasn’t time for him t
o catch up with the realisation—two things happened in the short moment it took Darayan to look up.
The first explosion went off like an avalanche. Darayan was sure the Janjuc Castle was crumbling in the distance. Then the ground below his feet shuddered. The surface was moving. Moving right under him. Like an animal awakening.
Sprinting back to the dry clearing he could barely see Materid and Bodel. He stopped just short of them. This wasn’t a quake. Thumping of feet surrounded him, panic laced down his spine: an army was marching, not just marching, but striding through this wet perilous jungle in rage.
“Move!” was the only thing Darayan could say before pushing his comrades forward, back toward their drowned ship, hoping and praying they had not been seen by those that stalked these lands.
Chapter Nine: An Unsuspecting Camaraderie
While the Queen’s men were preparing an army to defend her castle, Levon abruptly left the dismal morning briefing, and much to his dismay, the convoy of Kinsmen Rangers joined him; Leera keeping a close watch over him. It was bad enough he had to show some type of sympathy toward the Rangers in front of Chastity, but Owen and his men wouldn’t stop asking questions as they ventured outside the castle, away from the battle-ready Sprites and the castle stronghold, toward the Jejova Trail.
Some small convoy they were, and exactly what Levon was expecting them to do he had no idea, but if they cut off what of the South they could, they could assist the castle in not taking the full brunt of the attack. And having multiple trained aura users on their side, he guessed, wouldn’t hurt. The South had been training in the ways of the Silkri for years, they would be no match for all of them, but if they could pick off a few Sprite Mages one by one, it was a start.
“I took my own blade!”
“No, you didn’t!” Nash and Lafael bickered as they stalked through the grasslands towards Jejova.
“If this goes on any longer,” Levon interjected, “I won’t give you any warning about the Jejova Trail!”
Owen snorted. “It’s not as if you were going to.”
Leera laughed; Levon raised his eyebrows and then shrugged in honest agreement.
“Pay attention,” Levon echoed over his shoulder, as the landscape finally turned into the wet and marshy terrain of Jejova. His eyes stretched along at the wavering nature of ominous trees and strangled shrubs.
“I really enjoyed that meal,” Everett beamed at Levon as they stepped into sludgy, moss-covered ground.
“Yes,” Taelen said “wasn’t too bad at all.”
“Silence!” Levon spat. The group took a few more steps toward him then halted in his shadow. “Don’t move, anyone,” Levon suddenly reached for his blade, the others reacted as swiftly. “Someone is here—no, there is a camp not far …” his eyes concentrated on the ground. “Dammit, foreigners!”
“Wait,” Leera said before Levon darted away, “is that one of our skyfleet, painted red?”
Levon glanced up, and there, in the distance, a prohibited Sprite-manufactured D-wing skyfleet—only, instead of midnight blue, the whole thing was coated in crimson red, a colour like blood. On top of that, it was without its glowing lights that signalled the D-wing as a nightcrawler.
“They’re in camouflage,” Levon admitted in surprise. “I would dare say they have more.”
“Have you let the Congress know you have a skyfleet?” Owen interrupted disapprovingly.
Levon grunted. “They don’t need to know.”
“What is with planets breaking laws—?”
“The Felrin have no right to prohibit travel,” Levon stated, half-annoyed, half-patriotically, “Not for the Sprites. We are a free people.”
“You’ve no right to journey through space without permission,” Owen said with irritation. “This is why wars are started, because species break laws.” Owen paused as Levon headed away from him, hurdling over several unseen streams, “Are you even listening to me?”
“Just move!”
Leera hurriedly followed in Levon’s footsteps, brushing aside sticky, weedy hanging branches.
One step after the other, Levon advanced with subtle stealth, steadying his aura of cobalt and silver sparks around him. Whoever the foreigners were, they were still here, fumbling around. He could smell three, no four of them, one—
“Who are you?!” Flinging a branch aside, Levon’s blade moved swiftly as the young man lit up in spinning dusty orange aura; the Sprite’s blade coming to rest right against the Gorgon man’s throat, his party of two, also glowing in aura, stopping shortly at his rear.
“Duke,” the Gorgon said unconvincingly. Leera and the Kinsmen Rangers caught up to them.
“Duke?” Levon could feel the lies emanating off of him, lies the other two of his company bought. “You’re a Gorgon, Duke,” he stated. “Drop your aura!”
“I’m from Hyravane,” he said unmoved. A few seconds later he eyed his comrades and released his aura. They followed.
“Lies!” Levon edged his way towards the dark-haired Gorgon. “The only planets and species that remain in the Hyravane system are the Harpies on Hilan, and the Aquamorphs on Whidal and you are neither. Unless you’re from Tinwala or Abergot?”
“Abergot.”
“LIES!” The blade pressed closer; Levon’s hand gripping tightly to the hilt. “Both those planets were destroyed years ago!”
“And my family and I fled,” Duke admitted this time more confidently.
“It’s true,” the woman said. “I am Bodel of Sari. We are not here to go against you, we are only looking for an escape, to get back to our planet.”
“We need help,” said the other Sarinese, recognisable by his dark skin and dusty orange hair native to his home planet.
“And what about your lying friend?” Levon waved his hand.
“Leave him,” Owen said much to Levon’s consternation, “I feel these people are of no threat.”
“No threat?” Levon laughed, his aura spinning diagonally around him, brighter than ever. “They have no idea that, not only have they lost their waterlogged ship, they’ve bought the Sari Conductor with them.”
Everyone kept silent.
“He’s a kilometre back I’d say, keeping his distance while following you.”
Duke’s face dropped. “What?”
“He arrived on your scapecraft,” Levon confirmed, “I can smell his torn skin from here. Perhaps, sitting in an algae patch.”
“And we will help you find him,” Leera stepped forward, her eyes under her flyaway blonde hair telling him to be quiet, “if you, trained aura users of Sari, will help us face the Sprites of the South.”
Levon didn’t say anything against his wife’s plea. Leera always got her way, and maybe right now she was negotiating a bigger deal. Three extra trained aura users—three Topazi—would be a great deal of assistance to this small convoy, now more of an unexpected camaraderie.
“What about our departure?” Duke asked. “When we find him, we’ll need to leave somehow; our ship is in the bottom of a stream.”
“We will get it out for you,” Levon said truthfully. “We sure wouldn’t want you to crash here and have to stay in Jejova.”
The Gorgon took his glance to his two friends again. When the two Sarinese nodded, Levon knew Leera had gotten her way.
“We will assist you,” the Gorgon finally agreed.
Chapter Ten: The Janjuc Civil War
“Why do think the Sarinese Conductor is here?” the Sprite Woman asked Darayan. She kept close to the aggravated Sprite, Levon, and he assumed they were more than colleagues.
“I don’t know,” Darayan replied, knowing full well the Conductor was being chased by Captain Fallow and Lieutenant Nolar, and Sari was embroiled in its own war with fish creatures.
The bigger issue now was what the Holom had they got themselves into? They’d escaped the Sari transport with the Conductor in stow? Where had Sali been hiding? And how did the Sprite know he was here? Darayan had somehow felt he was, he knew they
were being followed. But going into war to get help to find him? Was this absolute ludicrousness?
“How long have you been living on Sari, Duke? I mean you’re a foreign Topazi, that’s near unheard-of.” It was the Kinsmen Ranger, Owen who asked him.
“About three years,” he answered. “My Sarinese wife, Polie, and I made it our new home; the Sarinese were very accommodating, and after a few trials they elected to give me training. I was lucky that as I child I had been raised by a very strong mentor already.”
“Oh?” Owen frowned.
“Well,” Darayan could feel Dersji’s name on the tip of his tongue, “my father, before he died, assisted me.”
“Pity he did that,” Levon said carelessly under his breath.
Darayan felt the heat flush through his checks and his jaw clenched.
Leera grumbled. “Levon has a distorted way of seeing things sometimes,” she said glaring at him, “but his heart remains for his people and those who help him.”
The huge Sprite, ears twitching and his white blonde hair flowing down his back simply moved forward.
An avalanche of foot soldiers had increased to their east.
“You got plans, Sprite?” Darayan questioned, sarcastically—because he knew it would be on everyone’s mind.
At first Darayan thought Levon chuckled, but when the Sprite flung round and growled, he knew he was not in a humorous mood.
“There are nine of us with aura use,” his eyes skimmed Leera, remembering his sre-shi couldn’t use his, most probably due to his aura being unidentified on the specturm. “My wife is a worthy fighter without it, so she will flank me.” Darayan nodded, as did Owen. “The way this Trail works is unlike any other swamp land,” Levon held Darayan’s stare, “the streams intentionally move either away from you or under you.”