by M. Street
Dev wanted me to be as strong of a caster as he, and so openly shared what he knew without hesitation. I quickly matched, then exceeded, his royal silver ability to completely program the mind. Like starlings, our love cemented us into synchronicity. Intimate practicing caused my flesh and heart to flush, even under the heavy chaperoning of Safe’s Hubble-like eyes. I favored the silver spells. Stopping without harm, wiping memories, and imposing will were so powerful they provoked ethical thoughts. I loved learning the ways of the Vampacoti. Most of all, it meant spending time with Dev.
Sparkles against the Coral Sea hypnotized more of my attention down memory lane. Since the last time I saw Eli, I had progressed to third base in his ballpark of abilities, ready to steal home. My physical body bore no resemblance to my strength. Old shivers of fear now settled into protective readiness, fueled by the most powerful emotion—love. My heart gave me endless reasons to fight.
Love infused everything I did. Being around Dev tinted me a continuous pink. I changed into delicate laced camisoles multiple times a day, braiding different metallic chains in my long hair. My eyes repetitively danced over every one of his lovely features. Our auras mingled openly, mixing in front of everyone. It was impossible not to see us blend together like a well-struck chord. The intense, intimate bond between us caused swings in my appearance, giving me glimpses of my physical future, weirdly shifting my perspective. Eventually Dev and I synced to the same age somewhere in our late twenties. I loved making time with him, never being able to complete a single conversation.
We waited anxiously, relentlessly preparing for our next move. The rich camouflage of the striding Black Forest auras and Canite den kept us invisible. A powerful pack of Canites kept constant and loyal vigilance around the protected lair. The bright, blonde Zeta commanded the missions, staying wholly formulated at all times. Her ears and nostrils were in constant motion, even when asleep. I played mind games imagining what she might look like human. At night she would rake the soil into a high pile to support her snout, allowing her to face me without effort. Her ironclad feelings of a mother’s watch eased me to sleep after exhausting discharges.
Obtaining the last piece of my mask was critical to my survival. Incredibly, and quite exhilaratingly, it had been agreed to go on the offense. Plans to acquire the ivory were being scrutinized, incubated, and refined. Fast and hard disagreement ensued over my involvement. The emeralds and pearls, coupled with the ground surges, contained my wild heart, but my aqua brightness was becoming visible through the dense cover of the Black Forest auras.
While combing over Valbeth’s inside information, an unsuspected vulnerability emerged in the guard over the elephant graveyards. Her spy status was a constant reminder that matures could completely hide their true light. Out of all the fantastical powers at my fingertips, totally eclipsing my heart was simply impossible. I lived in full, exposed color. Totally unaware, the infants had that one right. As much as I protested, Dev and Safe forbade me from tagging along on their secret rendezvous with Valbeth. They agreed unanimously, saying it was too dangerous.
During the early afternoon when the sun was high and strong, only Vampacoti and Equuian forces watched over the tusks in the Congo. No Guardians. To me, my involvement was irrefutable. Outlandishly, I dominated the playing field like an agile titan. What I lacked in experience, I made up for in crude power. The responsibility of such unimaginable force caused me to shake. Along with Safe, not even an army of formulated races stood a chance against us.
Since this risk was being placed for me, I had to be part of the attempt. A complete mask would change everything. Luja technically forged a rope chain necklace from the metals in my light, amplifying the gems. After many tries and samples, she modified the spectrometer to account for my one-third gap of hypercolor. Countless strands of wheat chains crisscrossed into metallic fabric. A simple tear-shaped soft-metal pouch freely held the twin pearl and emerald pairs. The artful, glistening science augmented the cancelation effects of the gems.
Flying inland on autopilot, Dev surfaced in my free-flowing fancy. For the first time, I knew what love was. I lived for slipping away from the pack for quick shows of amorous affection. His true wanting of me made it so easy to suspend all that was wrong. I had never leaned on love before. It scared me at first, like falling in the dark.
Ever since my light was demultiplexed and I was scientifically proved to be part of every race, my love with Dev—or any other matured being—was understood. I bonded with everyone. Our biracial love was accepted by science, but openly opposed for every kind of made-up reason under the stars.
I was still developing and discovering, trudging through multiple adolescences at once. Luja discovered that my eyes were equipped with triple the number of rods, cones, and retinas. This gave me the ability to frame a bigger aperture of light, and ultimately, life. Although no one else could see my hyper band, they could feel the frequencies like infrared rays. Everyone had taken turns placing their fingers in the bands of colorful bows draining into the spectrometer to cop a feel. Dev said he felt sparks dancing on the surface of his skin from the changing colorful bands.
With Sabina, Ozwald, and every Avian swearing an inerasable history with the Vampacoti, tensions within the troops of eleven quickly tightened. I knew the details of race wars, past and present, were being held from me. With my recent entry into the mature world, I could easily see their longstanding parasitic side effects. Centuries of ugly events, easily re-experienced, ripped scars open. This troubled me. I had no idea how to lift their eyes so they could see past Dev’s sticky history. The prince of their sworn enemies would be the last one the Avians would want paired with the future Guardian queen. The scrutiny of the camera eye pointed at the one I loved felt statutory. Although Dev had racked up a rap sheet living for centuries, his present heartfelt intentions of love and devotion to me were true.
The Canites and lone Equuian were more preoccupied with me, not caring much about Dev. Although Raven was tightlipped and rarely let it slip out, I picked up her distrust for Sabina and Ozwald. Knowing what she felt but not why drove my mind wild. All the Canites watched over me, treating me like I was family. The copper culture was the most communal with rituals and rites of passage. They wonderfully lived one for all and all for one.
Private, passionate, yet widely contrasting histories were discreetly shared with me. The recounts happened in private while standing watch or around the anonymity of the eucalyptus table. They all wanted me to experience their perspectives of past time through their soles and souls. I easily plugged into mind, body, and spirit, resonating with their bare beliefs and intimate truths. I was astonished sensing the same intense emotions across the radically different sides of the same stories.
Loss on all sides crippled everyone. Although life was supernatural, happy moments and celebrations were sparse under Eli’s reign. Luja described how the light had been quantitatively decreasing in luminosity over the last thousand years. The rate of infants developing into maturity drastically slowed, then stopped. The lack of responsibility placed on Eli for being the cause behind the discourse was shocking. His absolute power gave him an inherited dispensation. Since standing against him was futile for so long, the caustic, festering hurt was, sadly, placed on the victims.
Safe rising from the Australian jungle, calling with closed eyes, drew me out of my meandering mind and back into the fray. He extended from his favorite lotus position, intently listening. Having detected a large release of energy from my snuffing out Ozwald’s spell, he rose into the sky for more reception. The biggie-sized Guardian, always stylin’ with his halo around his bald head, was constantly mulling over thoughts of my well-being. He was my safe house. Like Dev, he trusted no one when it came to my protection. His nurturing nature caused him to helicopter over me. At times, the microscopic attention got on my nerves; however, our platinum ties to each other paved our close connection. I loved when he talked about Mom. Learning more about her was both comf
orting and conflicting.
More and more, light was becoming thicker than blood, especially when it came to Charlie. Missing my little brother had reached distracting proportions. With holographic memories of our jarring goodbye, time had less potency in healing the loss. Thoughts of Charlie led to memories of my moms, Lisa, and the old, innocent world. Reliving funny moments with Lisa gave me a quick fix but compounded to the long-term pain of missing her. I squeezed every last bit of comfort, recalling my infant life. When I was unmasked and treading in thin auras, my unbridled heart would involuntarily leap to Charlie. His unending feelings of jaded abandonment impaled like rock salt, prompting tears. My angst over our separation and unforeseeable reunion worried Dev and Safe. I stopped justifying and glossing over the danger I would put him in by visiting.
Feeling my approach, Dev hurtled toward me from my left, dashing on the crests of waves from his southern watch. The sun reflecting off the water obscured his glittering silver. Namid flanked the edge of the rainforest, galloping from my right at full thruster speed. My intuition did me right, opening up and trusting her. The Equuian woman, like me, was one of a kind. She was a master of her race, innately strong, and able to disrupt space within a quarter-mile radius. Her bravery in opposing the stance of her race falling into allegiance with Eli left her criminalized and isolated.
Thankfully Namid had found shelter among Mom and the Avians long ago. There was loneliness inside her that she held very still. She missed running with her race. A catching hope began to rise in her, believing that I could change things. Her high faith in me didn’t sit well. I didn’t want to let her or anyone down.
I felt Namid’s bronze charging through my veins when I shadowed her. Like an Equuian, I knew I could distort space. Safe warned against attempting the move. He worried that the size of my capacity in conjunction with the looseness of a first attempt would generate a detectable wake, drawing the Arbitri. Having a talent I could not use made it very alluring. I was chomping at the bit to try.
I decelerated to face Safe standing above the tips of tall fig trees. The tubular nature of their auras mirrored their dripping roots.
“Who created the sonic boom?” Safe asked tersely.
“I did, deflecting a spell,” I said begrudgingly, coloring cardinal, reliving the size of Ozwald’s golden cheap shot. “Fired from his highness, Prince Ozwald.” I used his title smugly.
Safe tightened his expression, showing his discontent. “It’s time to depart anyway. You’ve been exposed for long enough.”
He stepped into flight toward the rendezvous point, keeping inside the entrancing blue aura of the rainforest. I leaned forward and followed carefully, keeping my rich, worked-out pearl just a notch above simmer, like Dev taught me.
Sensing my silver, black-and-white sabertooth, I sank below Safe weaving through the rainforest limbs. Dev growled, speeding up to me. He clearly felt my aggravation for Ozwald. As rehearsed, we converged upon a dead space created by a family of elderly eucalyptus trees in the center of the jungle, oozing orange, opaque auras. Safe and I set down close to Ozwald. The prince looked bored, leaning against a tree. He stood with arms crossed, like he was waiting for a slow elevator. Namid slid into the last stretch, formulating human. Breathing shallow and fast from her run, she took a readied position behind the Avian prince. Dev transformed human while sailing over a crystal clear flowing river.
“The size of your last cast was out of bounds,” Safe told Ozwald formally. The golden guy’s empty expression was fully unapologetic.
“What happened?” Dev ramped charge, connecting my discourse to the golden royalty. He positioned himself between me and Ozwald, reaching back to touch me. With the ancient tension between the two princes, they rarely engaged each other. I held Dev’s arm, dispelling my burnished emotion before a fight ensued.
“Do you suppose Eli or the Arbitri are going to hold back because she is a princess?” Ozwald asked Safe and Dev aggressively. “On the contrary, they will give their all to destroy her.” He forcibly stepped around Dev, pinning me with blaring blue eyes.
“I’m sorry for …” He labored for the right words. “… playing rough and speaking frankly.” He finished with a perfunctory smile.
“I’m good,” I said steadily, standing on my own bare feet. “I know what I’m up against. Plus I repelled the shot no problem. In fact, that makes the score five to zero between us.” My comment inverted Ozwald’s lordly expression. “But who’s counting?”
Dev laughed, giving my sentiments more sting. Ozwald’s aura ripened.
“Enough,” Safe interjected, cutting the banter. “Change of plans,” he said drawing prelaunch attention. “Piper, leap Namid and Ozwald back to the Canite lair. I will take Dev.” Safe lifted himself into the air.
I stumbled, grasping for potential reasons for breaking precedence. I always carried Dev. Before I could voice a question, the Guardian brick house holstered my love upward in straps of light. I followed involuntarily, rising and enveloping Namid and Ozwald in my aura. I tightened my grasp around the Avian prince because I could, causing him to exhale.
“Watch it!” Ozwald grunted.
Dev’s unsettledness over the change in protocol matched my own. Safe opened a leap point and vaporized. My intuition jumped, confirming something was going down. Chasing the weirdness, I raised my hand and opened up an elliptical portal. I strapped Namid and Ozwald to my backside before jolting upward into a fall.
Without time spent, I placed us down nine thousand miles away from the Australian rainforest to the Black Beauty with white glove service. Worry ignited, feeling blanks on my tendrils of sensors extending through the dense leap mists. I snapped away the fog, confirming what my skin already felt.
Dev and Safe were missing.
22
Best Laid Plan
M
y light split, slipping into a protective worry. The weird deviation in exit plans, coupled with the unexplained absence of Dev and Safe, didn’t sit well. My closest constants were missing. For the first time since losing Mom, I felt alone. I released Namid and Ozwald from my leap grip just above the tinseling grasses. My aura billowed thin, absorbing the solar tides and bountiful rays of the close sun after the covert maneuvers. Involuntarily, I absorbed profuse amounts of light in rhythmic pulses. The natural high did little with my mind in full-churn. With my senses deadened in the solstice vortexes of the Black Forest, Dev and Safe were vacant to my ears. My racing heart slowed. Fears of loss rushed in, causing me to flicker.
“What’s wrong?” Sabina asked, rushing out of the Canite den. She colored orange-red with grandmotherly concern, seeing my grasping heart and scrambling mind. Since the destruction of the Teton nest, she remained elderly. Jeremiah, Raven, and their guards hurled in from behind the thick brush. The enormous creatures moved super stealthily as if the pads of their paws were made of plush cotton. The Canite king and princess formulated human, sliding in. Our eyes and auras nodded fast salutations. Haruz and Miguel remained prehistoric, panting, snorting, and sniffing.
“I would appreciate if you went a bit easier on liftoff,” Ozwald spouted, strutting away into the magical forest hideout. “Thank you, your highness,” he added, without turning around.
Ozwald turned to Sabina, rippling his light in admiration. “Hello, Mother. Piper is multiples stronger than all of us combined, and she knows how to run, but lacks combat experience. I still don’t think she should be part of the mission.” He paused, extending effort to look back at me, dismally adjudicating. The golden prince didn’t wait for my skillfully aimed response. Dim and tired, he disappeared into the energy-dense opening of the lair. I didn’t care to debate with him while Dev and Safe were mysteriously absent.
Namid nodded her exit. Worn from training, she jumped into a bronze explosion. The charcoal and brown mare with black hooves and streaming mane trotted inside the edge of the trees before folding down near patches of wild violets spewing fluttering canary-colored auras. Halos of dream
lights rapidly formed around her head and neck, settling just above her lashes.
“Piper, where are Safe and Dev?” Jeremiah asked suspiciously, flaring his nostrils while pointing his ears in every direction.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, using reasoning to flicker down from my flare. There was no way either of my guys would leave me unless absolutely necessary. Not keeping me informed broke a solidified precedent. My intuition ran silent, further injuring my mood. “Right before we returned, Safe asked me to take back Namid and Ozwald. He took Dev, and they leapt first.” I told what I knew. “They should be here.”
“Once again moves are being made without council,” Sabina said fervently to Jeremiah. “This is extremely suspicious, especially with our impending window of opportunity.”
With camps polarly apart and warriors calling foul on each other, the king was big on transparency. Sabina, gearing up to stir it up, swiftly painted the unapproved travel as a transgression. The dainty Avian queen, wearing a formal dress of deep color highlighting her blueish pale skin, was politically savvy. She used her long, silver-laced hair and maternal eyes to her favor, funneling belief to her side. Her dislike of Dev ground at my patience.
The Canite king cleared his voice, turning to me. “Piper, please go rest. The solstice is nearing. The festivities commence in Paris in less than seventeen hours. Our success depends on you being your best.”
The combined Canite nerve was noticeably raised an octave with the impending operation. As badly as I wanted to defend my men, butting heads with Sabina would only make things worse. Besides, Jeremiah’s request rang like a founder’s bell. Although I didn’t feel tired, my light lagged from the last set of drills and leaps. Since I would be firing the first shot, I needed my energy levels to be capsizing. Most importantly, like a fix, I needed Dev by my side before I could relax.