Winged (Aetharian Narratives)

by Sofia Vargas

  I smile. “For what it’s worth I tried to stop him from shooting you out of the sky.”

  “What’s worth more is that they tell me you tried to save me.”

  I feel my cheeks flush. “Yeah, that’s where I went wrong, unfortunately.”

  “Why’d you try and help me? I’m sure they knew I wasn’t one of them. And you had to know that being Winged, I would have survived the fall.”

  “Somewhere in my mind I knew that you’d survive it and really didn’t need my intervention, what little I provided. But to tell the truth, those facts didn’t enter my thoughts at all when I saw you falling. All I thought was that somehow I had to help you. I couldn’t let you hurl to the earth the way you did.”

  “Yes, well thanks for the help. I only broke both my legs and arms and had a huge crater on the back of my skull.”

  “Yeah, well if you weren’t so heavy I could have stayed airborne better. I only broke every bone in my body and either impaled or ruptured various vital organs—”

  “Unnecessarily,” he said, in case I’d forgotten that everything hadn’t needed to be done.

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I guess I figured you offered something to society that was worth saving.”

  “Even though you couldn’t tell who I was?” he said, taking a step forward.

  “Um, yeah. I guess I feel everyone adds something to society that’s worth saving.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said with a smile. He took the last step to the bars. “And here I was beginning to think I was special.”

  His hands encircled the bars and gripped mine. I straightened my fingers and slid them between his.

  “Fine,” I said. “You might be a little special.”

  * * *

  I heard the wheels of a carriage and a horse’s hooves traveling up the road. Dresden heard it, too, and turned his head toward the door.

  “What exactly is the procedure for this place?” I said.

  I found it weird that they had taken the time to make the trip to the tower twice.

  Dresden shook his head. “It doesn’t involve them making a trip back here so late in the day.”

  I frowned at the thought of letting go of him. I slid my fingers out from between his and walked to a barred window at the other end of my cell

  “Well, they’re definitely coming back for some reason,” I said. “That’s the same carriage and driver I had coming here.”

  I watched the carriage make its way to the tower and something flew into my view. I screamed and fell back.

  “What’s wrong?” Dresden said, rushing to the spot he could get closest to me.

  I glared at the window into a laughing face.

  “Sorry,” the face said, looking at us and chuckling. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Dresden said across the cell.

  He stopped laughing and I realized that he was the boy that had jumped onto my carriage on the way to the tower.

  “The name is Taegan,” he said, “not that it’s a huge concern to you.”

  Another head appeared next to his and looked in the window.

  “Is that her?” the new face said, looking at me.

  “That’s her,” Taegan said with a nod.

  “Okay,” said the second arrival. He disappeared again.

  “What are you two doing?” Dresden demanded.

  “You’re the one I saw earlier, aren’t you?” I said before he could answer.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’re here to do what I promised.”

  He disappeared. I got up from the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Dresden said to me.

  I walked to him, grabbed the sides of his head, and kissed his forehead.

  “They’re going to break us out of here,” I said with a smile.

  There was a small pang of satisfaction when his forehead glowed red.

  “And you know them?” he said.

  “Not personally, I had a brief run-in with Taegan on the way here.”

  “And he said he was going to break us out?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at the gated door.

  I heard the carriage finally reach the front of the tower and come to a stop.

  “The thing is, I don’t know how they’re planning to do it,” I said.

  I didn’t know why but an uncomfortable feeling rolled over me. The gate opened and the same guard from earlier walked in.

  “Two visits in the same day,” he said, looking at us. “Aren’t you the lucky pair?”

  “What do you want?” Dresden said.

  He reached out, grabbed my arm, and dragged me back to him.

  The guard laughed, “Isn’t that sweet? But it really isn’t her you should be worried about.”

  I could feel the heartbeat in my chest speed up at his words. I looked up at Dresden and wrapped my arms around him, intending to try as hard as I could not to let him be taken away from me.

  “I have orders to bring you in front of the Council, General Stone,” the guard said. “They want to make plans with you.”

  “I’m going with him,” I said.

  “I’m afraid you’re not,” the guard said, looking at me. “They want you guys split up and brought in one at a time. You know, so nothing funny happens.” He walked to the door of Dresden’s cell and opened it. “I suggest we get moving so as not to keep the Council waiting. Quite a few of them aren’t bearers of patience.”

  Dresden looked down at me and nodded. I sighed and my grip loosened at the look in his eyes. He kissed me in the same spot I had kissed him on the forehead. He slid out of my arms and I watched him walk out the door of his cell. The guard closed it behind him.

  “You might want to stay where you are,” he said, watching me take a step closer to them.

  I watched his fingers melt together and half of his forearm flattened into a sharp edge.

  “My orders include making sure he comes quietly.”

  Dresden took a step back, his hand to his neck. “You can’t take my word in saying that I will?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the guard said, raising his now lethal looking arm.

  “No!” I screamed.

  A silhouette jumped into the entranceway. “Stay back,” it said, pointing at me.

  Dresden’s eyes darted to him and the guard turned.

  I felt relief when I realized that it was Taegan’s partner.

  “Cover your ears and close your eyes,” he said.

  I watched his dark skin gradually turn lighter. I ran to the back wall of my cell, turning my head and closing my eyes when his body became too bright to look at. My hands flew to my ears. I could feel in my soul what was going to happen next. A shockwave rushed past me. It was almost immediately followed by an earth-shaking explosion and a blast of extreme heat. I could feel the ground and tower rattle around me. I curled into a deaf, blind ball on the floor. Various objects pelted me and then everything was silent.

  For a moment I was terrified that the enormity of the explosion had caused me to go deaf. I opened my eyes and took my hands away from my ears. I heard rubble fall to the ground. The side of me that was not against the wall twitched in pain. I looked at my singed clothes and body. My skin instantly began to repair the burns.

  I looked at my leg and swore loudly. I could see my femur for a few moments before the muscles and tissues started to rebuild themselves over it. I compacted myself tighter together when I heard footsteps coming toward me.

  Taegan walked to me. “Good, you’re conscious and relatively unharmed. You can change into these.”

  He placed a new set of clothes on the floor in front of me and turned to walk back out the way he had come.

  “We’ll be waiting outside.”

  I watched him jump over a huge stone that had broken through the bars of my cell. I made sure he was outside before I lifted myself off the floor. The left side of my body was covered in blackened skin and pink spots of new skin in various sizes. I felt a tug on my sca
lp and reached up to find new hair growing from bald spots.

  I changed into the new clothes, making sure to disturb my skin’s healing as little as possible. I walked to the hole in my cell and lifted myself over the chunk of stone Taegan had jumped earlier. As soon as I was over it I gasped.

  The front of the tower looked like it had taken a blast from a couple of sticks of dynamite. The door, along with a twenty-foot radius around it had been reduced to nothing but blackened debris. I retched but was somehow able to keep myself from throwing up when I saw what I knew had to be body parts blasted in several directions.

  “Oh, my God, Dresden,” I said, tears streaming down my face.

  “That’s not your fellow prisoner if that’s what you’re concerned about,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned and looked at Taegan.

  “He’s over there,” he said, nodding back to the bars of my cell.

  I ran over to the pile of stone. Tears streamed down my face even more when I saw Dresden’s severely burned face. The skin was completely burned off the right side of his face; his right eye stared up at me blankly. I began to move the rocks that pinned his arms and legs. I moved a particularly large chunk of rock and found his chest was caved in. I stopped letting myself look at him in too much detail and focused on moving his lifeless body out from under the pile of Star Stone.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Taegan said. “He’s Winged so his body will repair itself. He luckily got far enough from the blast that his body remained intact.”

  I turned my head and glared at him. “Luckily?” I said. The word dripped from my mouth like acid. “He needs to be taken to a hospital so everything can be set right and he can heal properly.”

  “No, you need to get going before people start to wonder what the hell happened here,” he said, grabbing my arm.

  My new and still unhealed skin ached under the sudden pressure and I whipped it out of his grasp. “You said you’d save us,” I said, my voice growing in volume with every syllable. “Look at what you’ve done to him.”

  “I said I’d save you,” he said. “I made no such promise to him.”

  I turned back to Dresden and continued moving the stones.

  “We’re going to leave with or without you,” he said, looking down the dirt road.

  “Then go without me,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said, backing toward the door. “I said I’d break you out and I have. My work is done here.”

  I didn’t answer and kept my focus on the pile of stone in front of me. I had almost gotten him out from under it. Taegan took my lack of reply as my answer and walked out the arch that had been blown into the tower. I kept to my work when I heard horse hooves gallop away.

  The sky was dark outside. I moved the last stones away from Dresden and finally allowed myself to look at him again. I broke down into tears at the sight of his mangled, scorched body. The tears only stopped when I had no more to cry. I walked to the blasted arch and looked out into the night. Even though the stars were shining in the sky, everything was black around the tower. I knew I would never find the hospital and Dr. Zaira in the dark. I walked back to Dresden without looking at him and sat with my back against the bars. I stared into the dark and listened to the wind blowing through the trees and tall grass. I shuddered. My sore body finally stayed still long enough to realize how cold it was getting.

  I had no way to know how soon Dresden would need to get back to the hospital in order for him to heal. I closed my eyes and hoped that it would be okay to get him there as soon as the sun came up in the morning.

  * * *

  I woke up when a particularly cold gust of wind blew through the gaping hole in the tower. I opened my eyes and could see a faint, pink light peeking through the trees. There was enough light to be able to discern objects around me. I looked at Dresden. It didn’t look like he was breathing or making much progress with healing at all. I was sure that something was keeping him from being able to get his healing started properly.

  I tried to remember the place my mind went after the fall. I wasn’t dead, but I also wasn’t alive. I couldn’t remember what it was like or what I had thought about, if I thought at all. It was a place of nonexistence for me to wait while my body healed me back to life. I put my hand to his chest to check for a heartbeat. Whether I couldn’t feel anything because my fingers were numb from cold or because there wasn’t anything to feel, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I had to get him help. If he wasn’t set right he would stay lifeless.

  I got up and looked around. I knew the only way I would be able to get to the hospital quickly was to fly. I looked at the frostbitten grass. Grass hadn’t been strong enough to keep the two of us airborne when I had tried to save him at the cabin. This grass looked thicker than the grass in the north; it looked a little stronger and sturdier. I still doubted it would be much better than the other grass but I knew I had to give all my options a try. I took hold of Dresden’s left arm and hoisted it over my shoulders to pull him off the ground. I staggered under his weight but was able to make my way out of the tower. I placed him back on the ground and set him against the outside wall so that when I was ready all I would have to do was scoop him up and go.

  I walked into the grass to try out option one. I closed my eyes and released a pulse. I watched every blade of grass within a ten-foot radius break free from the ground and fly to me. I realized how different this grass was as soon as it made contact with me. Up to that point the dust I had collected before hadn’t hurt at all as it squeezed through the skin of the lumps on my back. The grass I had collected while at the cabin had a much different feeling since it was thicker and significantly larger than pieces of dust. The grass I had used before cut through my skin like tiny knives. Though it was alarming, it hadn’t been a concern with the adrenaline running through my body.

  This grass pierced and sliced its way through my skin without me being full of adrenaline. A tiny scream escaped me as the grass stabbed me. Unpleasant as it was, the pain left when my skin healed around my newly formed wings. I looked at them and flexed them to make sure my control was good. I estimated that they were almost nine feet long. I hoped that it would be enough and took a deep breath and a running start toward Dresden.

  My feet lifted off the ground and I reached out my arms to grab him. Once I had my arms wrapped around him I turned my body to the sky, slammed my feet on the ground and flew upward. My arms slid against the tower and helped me keep a good grip on him, but I could already feel the strain of his weight. I flapped my wings in an attempt to keep momentum, but we dropped back to earth instead.

  The blades of grass erupted out of my back. I pressed us against the side of the tower harder to help control the speed of the fall. We slid down until my feet hit the ground. My legs buckled and we dropped to the side. I could stand up so I figured the fall didn’t do too much damage to me. I seated him against the wall again and looked around for something else.

  I knew the dirt off the road wouldn’t be any better than my attempt with the grass so I fixated on the trees. There weren’t very many of them, but there was a small cluster not too far way. I was sure that it would provide enough material to build my wings, but there was no telling if it would be strong enough. I walked into the cluster of trees and stood where I figured the middle was. I knew the leaves wouldn’t help me much so I focused on the bark; it had to be much thicker and sturdier than the grass and leaves. I closed my eyes and didn’t let myself think of anything else but the tree bark around me. I released a pulse that already seemed stronger than any of the previous ones. I kept my eyes shut and bit my lip to hold back the yell. Huge chunks of wood jabbed me in the back and buried themselves under my skin.

  I opened my watery eyes and saw that most of the bark has been stripped off the trees. My wings look like they were bigger than the last pair. I flew out of the trees and into the air to give them a try. With each beat I could tell there was more power behind them. I took the same approach
to Dresden as before even though he no longer was propped against the tower.

  I gathered as much speed as I could and flung us into the air as soon as I had a good grip on him. I thought we had done it when I was able to position myself parallel with the ground and the wings seem to keep us in the air. My heart sank when our height off the ground grew less with each passing second. At least this time my wings held together long enough for us to touch down to the ground.

  I laid Dresden down and let my wings fall apart. I looked toward the sun angrily. It was now visible over the trees. All my time and effort was going to waste. I turned away from him to see how far we had flown from the tower. It was at most two hundred feet. I screamed in frustration and kicked at the tree bark that had let me down. I had no idea what to do now. We were out in the middle of nowhere. Tree bark was probably the strongest material I’d find for miles.

  I picked up a particularly large piece of bark and threw it as hard as I could at the tower laughing at us in the distance. I watched it shine a particularly brilliant shade of deep blue when the sun emerged from behind a cloud. My eyes hadn’t left its sparkling blue surface when I begin to laugh, too. The strongest material I’d be able to find anywhere in this world had been right in front of me the whole time.

  I jogged back to the tower and ran my hands across the Star Stone. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it would do the trick. I knew there was no way the strongest stone in the Aetherian world wouldn’t be able to keep Dresden and me in the air. The question was how did I break apart an almost indestructible material?

  I put my hand to my necklace and squeezed it. Mom was able to do it once; although, granted she wasn’t able to yield a very big piece. I now regretted not asking her how she had done it. I look at the wreckage. There weren’t very many pieces small enough for me to collect into my wings. I was certain that I would need much more than was readily available. I stepped inside and closed my eyes. I focused on the Star Stone and released a pulse. I heard the broken stones rattle and opened my eyes again. I saw small cracks forming on the pieces that were already separated.