by Lynette Noni
“Which way do we go?” Bear asked. “There are paths in every direction.”
“It’s ‘The Crossroads’,” Alex said. “That’s what Raelia means, remember?”
“Choose your path,” D.C. whispered, almost too low to hear.
Alex noted the strange tone of her friend’s voice. “Dix, are you all right? You’re really pale.”
D.C. looked at Alex, her eyes haunted. But then she blinked and the emotion disappeared. “I’m fine. Just nervous, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, Dix,” Jordan said. “I’ll protect you.”
He flexed his arm muscles and wiggled his eyebrows at her. D.C. smiled and tried to swat him away, but he grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder.
“This is for the caveman comment earlier,” he said.
“Jordan! Let me go!” she squealed, laughing madly. “You’re molesting the princess!”
“You say molesting, I say assisting,” Jordan corrected. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenic view.”
“Of your backside?” D.C. said dryly. “Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
There was silence in the clearing for a moment before all four of them burst out laughing. Jordan had to set D.C. back on her feet because he was laughing so hard.
“I didn’t mean…” D.C. tried to explain, but she couldn’t get the words out amid her own laughter. She inhaled deeply and tried again. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that!”
Jordan’s eyes were sparkling. “I think we’ve underestimated you, Princess.”
When they all calmed, D.C. said, “We should probably be careful what we say out here. There’s no way to know who might be listening.”
“Dix is right,” Alex agreed. “We need to figure out where we are before we drop our guard too much.”
“Why don’t you ask the Library which way to go?” Jordan suggested.
“I can try,” Alex said. “But we’re not in the Library anymore, so I don’t know if it’ll do any good.” Hoping no one else was in hearing range, she raised her voice and called out, “Excuse me, Library, can you please show us which path to take?”
Nothing. No helpful knights, no spotlights, no moving trees, not even a rustle of the wind.
“I guess we’re on our own,” Jordan said. “I vote we pick a route and see where it—”
THWACK!
“What the—” Alex cried, ducking to avoid being hit by a second arrow that whizzed by so close to her head she felt her hair move from the air it stirred.
“DOWN!” Jordan bellowed, urging the others off their feet.
Alex heard three more whistling noises accompanied by woody thwacks, and realised they weren’t being targeted so much as warned. But warned about what, she wasn’t sure.
“Terin mortalis saes fiora en Raelia?” came an angry female voice.
Alex lowered her protective arm from her head and looked at her friends with wide eyes. When none of them responded to the voice, their attacker repeated the question, sounding even more irate, if that was possible.
“Terin mortalis saes fiora en Raelia!”
“How do you feel about fielding this one, Alex?” Jordan whispered.
She sent him a look that told him exactly how she felt. But they needed to know what was going on, so she carefully—and very slowly—rose to her feet, hands raised in surrender.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you,” Alex called out, feeling like she had a big red target painted on her forehead. What if she was wrong about the earlier shots being warnings?
The silver trees to her left rustled and Alex tensed. But it wasn’t an arrow that came out of the forest, it was a young woman.
Or, really, she may not have been ‘young’, since she was clearly Meyarin, and age was irrelevant for their eternal race.
“I said, what foolish mortals dare trespass upon Raelia?”
The Meyarin was as entrancingly beautiful as any of her kind, with long golden hair, skin the colour of honey and eyes as green as emeralds Those eyes pierced Alex with a burning anger. But she was more concerned about the drawn arrow pointed straight at her heart.
“Uh…” Alex shifted nervously. “Just us. My friends and I. We, um, we come in peace?”
If Alex wasn’t so worried about not making any sudden moves, she would have slapped her forehead for such a ridiculous statement.
“You trespass upon sacred grounds,” the Meyarin said, her expression livid. “The penalty of which is death.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait just a second,” Jordan said, jumping to his feet, with Bear and D.C. following. “We didn’t come here deliberately. Or, well, not here, here, at least. We’re looking for Meya. We just got dropped off at Raelia. So not our fault.”
“Yeah,” agreed Bear, indicating to Alex. “And we wouldn’t have known where we were if Alex hadn’t been here before.”
The Meyarin looked at each of them as they spoke, but her arrow remained fixed on Alex, and now her gaze returned to her as well. “What does your companion speak of?”
“We didn’t deliberately come here,” Alex repeated. “It wasn’t intentional—”
“No,” the Meyarin interrupted. “He said you’ve been here before?”
Alex frowned at Bear, wondering if he’d landed her in even more trouble. But since their being in Raelia was already punishable by death, it wasn’t as though she could be executed twice. “I was here about a month ago,” she admitted. “At night.”
“Impossible.” The Meyarin gave a firm shake of her head. “Before today, no mortal has ever set foot in Raelia. You must be mistaken.”
“Believe what you want, but I’m telling the truth.”
The Meyarin appeared torn by the honesty in Alex’s expression, and after a few tense moments, she hesitantly lowered her weapon. “Come with me,” she ordered. “We’ll see if you speak the truth.”
With those words, the Meyarin turned away and headed back into the forest. When Alex stepped over the mushrooms to follow her, nothing changed, and she realised she was actually in Raelia, as opposed to the last time when she’d been transported there from the middle of the Ezera Forest.
“Make haste, mortals,” the Meyarin ordered, “or I’ll be forced to motivate you.”
Alex shuddered at the Finn-inspired thought of the Meyarin running along behind them shooting her arrows. She exchanged anxious glances with her friends, and they all picked up their pace.
After a good ten minutes of silence, Alex couldn’t keep quiet any more. “Why are the trees silver?”
The Meyarin’s steps faltered, but then she continued striding forward without pausing to turn around.
Alex guessed being human meant she wasn’t worthy of an answer, so she was surprised when the Meyarin spoke.
“You’re in the Silverwood. That is their nature.”
“The Silverwood?” Jordan repeated. “That’s so cool! I thought it was only a myth.”
“Clearly, that’s not the case,” came the Meyarin’s dry reply. “But it’s unlikely you’ll ever leave this place to tell anyone otherwise.”
That managed to dampen Jordan’s excitement.
They continued walking in silence for another five minutes before the silver trees began to change colour. Slowly but surely the bark transformed into a radiant gold, and the leaves turned into a shade of dark honey.
“Are we in the ‘Goldenwood’ now?” Alex whispered to Jordan, thinking it a valid guess.
Forgetting how good Meyarin hearing was, she was reminded when their guide snorted in response. It was the first non-aggressive sign the Meyarin had exhibited and Alex hoped it was a positive noise, but she couldn’t be certain.
“Are all mortals as uninformed as you?” their escort asked.
Alex kept her mouth closed, not sure what to say.
“I think that’s a ‘no’ to the Goldenwood theory,” Jordan whispered back.
She looked at him with exasperation. “Yeah, I go
t that, thanks.”
“There’s no such thing as a ‘Goldenwood’,” the Meyarin informed them. “These trees are golden because they form the boundary around the city of Meya.”
Alex felt her heart skip with anticipation. She glanced at her friends and saw the starry-eyed looks on their faces. They had grown up hearing bedtime stories of the Lost City. For them, what they were about to experience was comparable to walking into a make-believe world.
With every step through the now golden forest, Alex felt her nervousness increase. Despite the excitement of seeing the Lost City, she couldn’t forget they were about to be in a whole heap of trouble for trespassing upon a sacred site. She had no idea how that would play out. Not to mention, there was also the potentially devastating news regarding Aven that she was supposed to deliver.
They really should have come up with a plan first…
The trees ended abruptly at the top of a cliff overlooking a deep valley that stretched across the horizon. The surrounding cliffs were lined with golden trees that glistened in the sun’s rays. Around the boundary were thunderous waterfalls spilling into a river that encircled the valley like a moat around a castle. Alex could only just see the distant and jagged cliff face that ended the valley from where they stood, but she didn’t stop to wonder just how far the distance was. She was too distracted by her first view of Meya.
“Whoa.”
Alex wasn’t sure who said it, but it was the only word to describe what they were seeing. Never in her most creative fantasies could she have imagined such a spectacular place. The entire city blazed, like it was lit from within by a silvery luminescence that seemed to flow out of a massive, spiralling building situated in the middle of the valley.
“Their palace really is made out of Myrox!” D.C. whispered in awe.
Alex realised that her friend was right. The huge architectural phenomenon in the middle of the city had to be the palace, shining with the light of a thousand suns. Or apparently just shining from the pure Myrox of which it was made. The glow was so strong that it radiated out into the rest of the impressive city, lighting the entire valley, bouncing across the river and up the waterfalls into the forest.
“Incredible,” Alex breathed.
“You should feel honoured,” the Meyarin said. “Your race hasn’t set foot upon the Golden Cliffs for millennia. It’s only fitting that you should witness such a sight before you meet your end.”
“Could you ease up on the death threats?” Jordan muttered. “If this is meant to be one of our last living moments, you’re kind of ruining it.”
Faster than Alex could track the movement, the Meyarin had her arrow notched and her bowstring taught with the lethal weapon pointing directly into Jordan’s face. If she released it, Jordan would be dead before any of them could blink.
“You’d be wise to watch your words, youngling,” the Meyarin hissed. “You’ll find that those who I’m taking you to are much less tolerant.”
She lowered her weapon, and Alex reached a trembling hand out to squeeze Jordan’s shoulder. He didn’t seem outwardly rattled, but she knew he must have been shocked by the Meyarin’s quick reaction. Neither he nor Bear had ever interacted with Aven, so they hadn’t witnessed first-hand the speed and strength the immortal race possessed. Not until now, at least.
“Come along, mortals,” the Meyarin said, and she moved closer to the uneven cliff face. “Watch your step, as the remainder of your life will be shortened further if you set a foot out of place.”
“We’re not climbing down there, are we?” D.C. asked, her voice hitching slightly. “We’ll break our necks!”
The Meyarin continued walking until she reached the very edge of the precipice, where she dropped into a crouch. She then balanced on one hand before using it to push herself off the side of the cliff.
“No!” Alex cried, rushing forward in shock. Sure, the Meyarin had threatened their lives, but Alex didn’t want to see her dead.
She dropped to her stomach and crawled until she could see out over the edge. Inexplicably, the Meyarin was perched just beneath the cliff top, standing on empty air.
“I have all eternity, but you are aging by the second,” the Meyarin said plainly. “Come along, let’s not waste any more time than we have to.”
Alex gaped at her. “How are you… levitating?”
The Meyarin exhaled wearily—it was a sign of frustration rather than anger for a change. She stood up on tiptoes and reached up to grasp Alex’s wrist, yanking her over the cliff.
Alex heard her friends scream her name as she fell, but instead of plummeting to her death, she landed on a solid surface.
“What is this?” she asked, standing on wobbly legs and staring at the transparent flooring. Despite what her body was telling her, she could see no evidence of any kind of support underneath her. It simply looked like she was floating in the middle of the air.
Alex had to close her eyes when the scenery spun around her. They were very high up, and having what appeared to be nothing under her feet didn’t agree with her stomach, regardless of the impossibly stable—but invisible—floor.
“Alex! Are you okay?”
She looked up and saw that all three of her friends were leaning over the cliff and staring at her in astonishment.
“Yeah,” she said. “There’s some kind of barrier or something.”
“It’s the Valispath,” the Meyarin informed them. “The Eternal Path. It will take us the rest of the way.”
“You guys better get down here before you end up coming over head-first like me,” Alex warned her friends.
One by one they helped each other down until they were all standing on the transparent Valispath.
“This is so unnatural,” Bear said, looking down.
“I recommend that you all take a seat,” the Meyarin suggested.
With no other warning, they shot forward through the air. Alex felt the breath leave her when she slammed against the transparent force field surrounding them. She barely managed to choke back a scream as they flew along what she could only describe as an invisible rollercoaster. Every twist and turn moved them lower to the ground and closer to the city, passing over the moat-like river and moving so near to one of the waterfalls that Alex felt the water spray through the apparently not-so-solid force field.
The Valispath moved so quickly that within seconds they entered the outskirts of the city, and then they soared in and around, above and even below the silver-glowing buildings. Faces of Meyarins blurred past them, but they sped along too fast to take in any real details other than the fact that they were heading deeper into the city.
“Where are we going?” Alex yelled over the wind. She wondered why—and how—the Valispath protected them from falling, when it didn’t keep out the other elements.
“Where do you think?” the Meyarin returned. “Are all mortals so unintelligent?”
For the second time, Alex wasn’t sure how to answer the generalised—and offensive—question. Instead, she looked ahead to what she guessed was their intended destination.
The Meyarin palace was the jewel of the city. It was truly beautiful, with swirling, slimline towers spiralling high into the heavens. The closer they came, the more easily Alex could see past the overwhelming glow of the Myrox and make out the finer details in the architecture.
“Wow,” she breathed when the Valispath stopped their forward momentum just near the entrance.
“You can say that again,” Jordan agreed, still collapsed against the barrier beside her.
The palace was made out of Myrox, that they already knew, but it wasn’t just made out of Myrox. Golden vine-like designs wrapped around the silvery Meyarin metal, creating the most breathtaking sight Alex had ever seen. The magnificence was utterly indescribable. It was a palace outside the most imaginative of dreams.
Alex could have stared at the architectural masterpiece for days, but their Meyarin escort cleared her throat, breaking her and her friends’ reverenti
al gaze.
“Follow me,” the Meyarin said. “And don’t speak unless addressed.”
Alex and her friends followed their guide up a long set of shining stairs until they reached a massive Myrox and golden- vined archway that led into the palace. Two fearsome guards stood on either side of the entrance, one male and one female. Both had swords and other glinting weapons attached to their dark, Myrox-infused, leather-like armour, along with quivers of feathered arrows and bows strapped to their backs.
Despite their bulk and authoritative stances, they were still beautiful to behold. The dark skinned male was huge, both in height and muscle mass. He had shoulder-length hair and an amused expression on his ruggedly handsome face, while the female had wavy black hair and intense steel-grey eyes.
It’s really not fair that an entire race of people can be so attractive, Alex thought.
“Kyia, frey de gearsa landi?” the male guard spoke, glancing at Alex and her friends curiously.
“Hireth en gartha de seafe lae nias,” their Meyarin guide responded. “Taern de Raelia.”
The female guard scowled and raised her sword threateningly. “Mae keare vars en hersan! Kyia, raesa felin de oarna Raelia!”
Their Meyarin escort said something in response, and the unknown female guard stepped forward, her steely eyes blazing with anger.
“Stop, Vaera!” their escort ordered firmly in the common tongue, allowing Alex and her friends to understand. “The humans are under my protection until they’ve been questioned.”
“I don’t take orders from you yet, Kyia,” the female guard— Vaera—spat back.
“But you do take them from me,” came another voice.
Alex sucked in a breath at the sight of the Meyarin who appeared at the entrance to the palace. He was… well, ‘wow’ didn’t quite sum him up. He was not as youthful as the other Meyarins she’d interacted with, but he was just as beautiful, and he stood tall and confident with golden hair and warm, amber- coloured eyes. His demeanour exuded wisdom and kindness, and for some inexplicable reason, his very presence calmed Alex’s nerves.
Then she noticed the crown on his head.
“Stand down, Vaera,” he ordered.