The Faerie War

Chapter 17

Seventeen

I jump off the bed and rush to my door. I throw it open—and almost collide with Ryn.

“What the hell is—”

“I don’t know.” He grabs my hand and drags me through the throng of people rushing around in the corridor. “I’m guessing we’re under attack. We need to get out of here.”

“What?” I pull my hand out of his grip and stop running. “No, if the base is under attack, we have to help defend—”

“You’re our only hope of finding the Star, Violet.” He grips my shoulders and bends to look me in the eye. “I’m not going to let you die here fighting brainwashed warriors when our real fight is against Draven.”

“But we can’t leave everyone to—”

“Oliver!” Ryn reaches out and grabs Oliver’s arm as he hurries by. “Do I have permission to get Violet out of here?”

“Yes! Go!” Oliver makes a shooing motion with his hands. He turns to leave, but Ryn won’t let go of his arm.

“Where’s the sword?” he asks.

Oliver hesitates, then leans closer to Ryn. “My room. Break open the wooden paneling behind my bed and you’ll find it.” Then he hurries away, shouting at the top of his voice, “You all know where you should be right now!”

“I’m taking Arthur!” Ryn yells after him before catching my hand once again. He pulls me through the crowd, against the flow of people still tugging on shoes and items of clothing as they run. I realize we’re by my door again when he says, “Get your jacket and shoes. I’ll get the sword. Meet me down at transportation.”

My brain kicks into action and sends me dashing into my room. I shove my arms into the thick, padded jacket Farah gave me. I roll up my few belongings, including the not-so-white-anymore cloak, and stuff them into my bag. I pull my boots on; they lace themselves up to my knees as I run out the door, my bag bouncing on my back.

I make my way to the corridor with the pole. When I get there, though, I see a hole in the floor and no pole. The tiles around the hole are cracked and broken.

I turn around and try to remember the way to the nearest staircase. There’s no one to ask. The base has become eerily silent. I start running, knowing I’ll come across stairs soon enough. I round another corner and see the main stairway. I dash toward it, but as I reach the top step, another explosion shatters the silence. The ground shudders beneath my feet, and I slip and tumble down several stairs before I’m able to stop myself.

“Vi!” Ryn jumps down the stairs and pulls me to my feet. He has a sword and a bag slung over his back. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

The tremor is gone, but I keep my hand on the banister anyway as we run down. Just in case. Dust hangs in the air, and by the time we reach the next level down, we can barely see through the greyish haze. Instead of smooth tiles, I feel rubble crumbling beneath my boots. I stop running and look around. “This is where it happened,” I whisper. My eyes search for movement, but I see none. Whoever did this is either hiding or has moved on to attack another level.

“Come on,” Ryn says, his foot already on the next step leading down.

“Wait, isn’t this the level with Uri’s lab?”

“Yes. Lab, training center, spare weapons.”

“Shouldn’t we—”

“No.” He takes my hand and pulls me after him. “As selfish as it sounds, you have to think of yourself right now, not Uri. That’s the only way we can end this.”

We keep running down. Ryn doesn’t let go of my hand. We reach the transport level, but instead of turning left toward the room where the magic carpet is, Ryn sprints across the landing strip to a door almost as wide as the entire dining room upstairs. Two massive levers attached to the door sit in a horizontal position. Ryn goes to the one on the left and points to the other. “Lift that, would you?”

I get beneath the lever and push up—with the help of a little magic—until the lever is vertical.

“Okay,” Ryn says as he grasps a handle at the bottom of the door. “Don’t freak out.” In one swift motion, he slides the door all the way up.

“Why would I—Oh my freak.” I jump back as an enormous clawed foot slams down on the ground beside me. Scales the color of a burning sun cover a face that rises toward the ceiling high above us. The roar that follows almost deafens me, and the flames that curl from its mouth sear the air.

“A dragon?” I say. “We’re riding a dragon?”

“Yup. This is Arthur.”

“That. Is. So. Cool.”

Ryn looks at me with new appreciation. “I didn’t know you were a dragon fan.”

I didn’t either, but I’m almost certain that rushing through the air on a magic carpet is nothing compared to the thrill of soaring the skies on a dragon’s back. “I guess you never asked.”

We enter the enclosure, which, although enchanted to look like a forest clearing, isn’t exactly big. I imagine Arthur can barely spread his wings in here. Ryn lays a hand on one of Arthur’s forelegs, and the dragon bends down so we can climb onto the harness on his back. His scales are smooth and cooler than I expected.

“Is he friendly?” I ask as I settle behind Ryn onto Aruthur’s back.

“Sure. Toward people he knows.” Ryn pats the dragon’s neck. “And yes, he knows me.”

Arthur stands up. His body rolls and sways as he heads out of the enclosure, and I almost slide off his back. I grab onto Ryn’s jacket.

“Here, put this around your waist.” Ryn reaches down for a strap attached to one side of the harness. “Wrap it around yourself once, then clip it in on the other side. Okay, can we speed things up a little, Arthur? We’re kind of in a hurry.”

Arthur lurches forward, and I grab onto Ryn once more. The strap around my waist doesn’t feel like nearly enough to hold me in place. Arthur raises his wings, then brings them down again. Again and again, faster each time. Wind gusts around us, and soon we’re in the air, swooping toward the end of the strip. Instead of hitting the wall, it vanishes the moment we reach it. I remember the river at the last second and take a deep breath of air, tensing in preparation for the ice cold water. It never hits me, though.

“Good thing one of us remembered to put a shield up,” Ryn says. I open my eyes and see a bubble of air separating us from the dark water. It disappears a moment later as Arthur breaks the river’s surface. His powerful wings lift us from the water, splashing us with ice-cold droplets as they sweep through the air.

I half expect to see the valley overrun with Draven’s warriors, but there’s no one out here. I twist my head around and look back at the waterfall hiding the base and the intruders that managed to find their way in. I feel like a coward, flying away from a fight that people we care about will probably die in.

“Stop it,” Ryn says. “It’s your responsibility to find the Star. It would’ve been irresponsible of you to stay and fight, so stop feeling guilty that you left.”

I duck my head down behind his back—finding a space somewhere between the sword and bag—to shield my face from the wind’s chill. I raise my voice and say, “And what about you? Don’t you feel guilty at all?”

He hesitates before saying, “Of course I do. The rest of my team’s back there. My father’s there. But it was more important to get you out safely, and you weren’t going to do it on your own.”

I know he’s right.

We soar up and out of the valley. The bright light that flashes around us as we pass through the protective dome causes Arthur to roar and twist around. He blasts the now-invisible dome with fire before Ryn manages to calm him down. He snorts, sending a puff of smoke into the air, before gliding away from the valley across land that becomes more densely covered in white the further we go.

Now that I don’t feel like I’m about to fall off, I shift away from Ryn slightly and release my hold on him. I bet he was enjoying having my arms wrapped around his chest, but I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I raise my arms at my sides and tilt my head back. The wind whips at my hair and pushes at my arms. My fingers grow numb from the cold, but I don’t mind, because when I close my eyes, I feel like I’m flying.

Exhilaration.

“Having a Titanic moment back there?” Ryn asks.

I open my eyes and lower my arms. “What?”

“Never mind.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “You never did get any of my movie references.”

I look over Ryn’s shoulder to see where we’re heading. On the horizon, a faint orange haze means dawn’s about to break. Ryn leans forward along Arthur’s neck and says something I don’t recognize. Perhaps there’s a special dragon language I don’t know about. I open my mouth to ask, but Arthur makes a sudden drop toward the earth, leaving my stomach hanging somewhere up in the air above. A shriek escapes me, and I catch hold of Ryn.

Plummeting.

Air rushing.

The ground growing closer.

Aaand … suddenly we’re gliding again, Arthur’s wings spreading wide to catch the currents in the air. He banks and swoops past a clump of bushes before landing.

I push away from Ryn and slide down Arthur’s leg. “You did that on purpose.”

“What, you didn’t enjoy that?” Ryn climbs down with an innocent expression. “I thought you were looking forward to the rush of riding a dragon.”

“The rush of riding a dragon, yes. The rush of plummeting to my death? No.”

“Don’t be silly,” he says, which somehow annoys me even more than the fact that he just tried to scare me. “You’re a faerie. You would’ve caught yourself long before you hit the ground.” He reaches over his shoulder and removes the sword and bag from his back. Then he pulls out a cloak, speaks words to enlarge it, and lays it on the frozen ground. He sits down on it and places the sword in front of him. “Let’s figure out where the Star is.”

Anxiety zings through me, replacing my irritation. I sit down on the cloak opposite Ryn and cross my legs.

“Hey, there’s really no need to be anxious about this.” Ryn leans forward and touches my hand. “This is what you do, V. It’s going to work. You managed to find Jamon, remember?”

Yeah, apparently I did. “Okay, so, I hold this sword, and then …”

“Uh, search with your mind. Something like that. If this sword really does belong to the Star, you should see where she is.”

“Okay.” Ryn removes the sword from its sheath. I wrap my fingers around the hilt, then jump as Arthur blasts a spindly bush nearby with a spurt of flame, turning the brittle branches to a burned crisp. He proceeds to uproot the blackened bush with one bite. He crunches, swallows, and licks his lips with a forked tongue.

“That’s … weird,” I say.

“Yeah, he doesn’t just eat meat. Anyway, the sword?”

I turn back to the weapon in my hand. I hold it up and see tiny words engraved along the blade’s edge. “This is the prophecy you were telling me about,” I murmur. My eyes scan the words.

Two halves in one have more power than a whole. The fae world will bow beneath his mark. Only the sword can stop him, and only one can wield the sword: the Star of the high land. She is hidden, but the finder will find her. She will break the whole in half. By the strike of the sword, and the death of innocence, evil will be laid to rest.

“Well, I sure hope I’m the finder this prophecy is talking about.” I close my eyes, try to ignore the fact that Ryn is watching me, and let my mind relax. I slide my fingers across the cold metal ridges of the sword’s hilt and imagine someone else holding this weapon. Someone who can use it against Draven. My mind soars, and I feel like I’m flying. Faster than Arthur. Faster than the magic carpet. Fast enough to cover great distances in only seconds. Everything I see is a blur, until I finally slow down. Even then, I can’t really see anything clearly. I brush past hundreds of other minds, but none of them are the one I’m searching for.

And then I stop. Somewhere far away. Somewhere near the ocean where a pink sun hangs above a horizon of water.

I open my eyes and find Ryn leaning toward me. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I nod. “It did, but not exactly. I got a sense of the general region.” I sit up and turn in the direction of the pull I can still feel. A soft but undeniable tug within me. “It’s that way, but I don’t know how far away.”

“If you didn’t get an exact answer, then it must be quite far. That’s how it usually works for you. As you get closer, you’ll be able to determine her location with greater accuracy.”

“Okay, so, that means we’ve got a long journey ahead of us.” I look over to where Arthur is munching on another toasted bush. “And as cool as it is to fly on a dragon, we can’t make him fly nearly as fast as the magic carpet.”

“No, but I’m not that concerned about speed this time.” Ryn slides the sword back into its sheath and stands. “I have a different plan.”

“Which is?”

“The faerie paths.”

I laugh as I stand. “Are you insane?”

“Possibly. Sometimes. But not right now. We have a dragon, V.” He slips the sword strap over his head so that it lies diagonally across his chest. “We can open a doorway in the air and fly right through it and beyond. We don’t have to hang around on the other side. By the time Draven’s guards arrive, we’ll be long gone.”

“Unless they’re also riding dragons now,” I point out, “in which case it wouldn’t take them long to catch up.”

Ryn thinks about that for a moment. “That wouldn’t be cool, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. We’ve never seen them on dragons before.”

“Okay. Well, if it happens, I’ll try not to say ‘I told you so.’”

A smile turns Ryn’s mouth up into that expression that seems to do something odd to my insides. “You won’t try at all. You’d love to be able to say—oh, hang on.” He reaches into a pocket and pulls out his amber, which reminds me that I still haven’t sent a message to Jamon. “It’s from Oliver.” Ryn’s brow furrows as his eyes scan the words on the amber’s surface. Then he closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh. “There was no attack,” he says, looking at me. “They’ve searched every level and can’t find any intruders.”

Relief floods my body. “So the explosion …”

“They’re saying it came from Uri’s lab. It destroyed the whole laboratory, as well as the spare weapons room and part of the training center. No one was seriously injured, though.”

I remember the clutter in Uri’s lab. Couple that with his scatterbrained nature, and it seems entirely possible that the explosion originated there. “Poor Uri. He must feel awful knowing he’s responsible.”

“Yeah. Anyway, Oliver says we should just go on and find the Star. They’re all busy there fixing up the damage.” Ryn removes his stylus from an inside pocket of his jacket and flicks it across the amber’s screen. “There’s also a message from Em.” He laughs, then shakes his head and writes a quick reply. “She says the most ridiculous things.” He slips the amber and stylus back inside his jacket while something strangely resembling jealousy stirs in my stomach. I push away thoughts of Em and Ryn before they can take hold in my mind.

After an odd look in my direction, Ryn says, “Okay, you open a doorway, and I’ll bring Arthur over here. Once we’re inside, you’re directing the way.”

I dig inside my bag and find the stylus I haven’t used in a while. I half expect Draven’s guards to show up the moment I start writing the words on the ground, but no one appears. I drag a large doorway open like I did when I helped the reptiscillas move their belongings.

“Okay, jump on,” Ryn says. He reaches down for my hand and swings me up as Arthur lumbers to the edge of the dark hole. He spreads his wings, takes a step forward, and dives down into the darkness. I expect air to rush past us, but the faerie paths don’t do things like that. We could be speeding faster than light, or we could be suspended in the blackness of nothing. “You’re directing us, V,” Ryn reminds me.

I hold the image of the ocean and the pink sun in my mind, feeling that tug within me that wants to pull in a certain direction. Warm light brushes my closed eyelids. I open them to find us flying above an ocean reflecting the pink-orange sky. The sun is a little lower now than when I saw it in my head. I guess we’ve left a rising sun for a setting one.

“Which way?” Ryn asks.

“Uh, that way.” I point a little to the right.

Ryn twists around and looks behind us. “You mean away from shore?”

I turn and see a strip of land behind us. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Arthur swoops low and drags his back feet through the water, spraying us with foam. I laugh and wipe the wetness from my face. The water is cold, but not as icy as the air we just left behind.

“Do you have any idea what we’re heading toward?” Ryn asks.

“No, but I’m hoping it’ll become clear soon.”

“Well, if not, you’ll need to use the sword to try and find her again.”

“Yeah, okay.” I look over my shoulder to watch the land disappearing behind us. It definitely seems further away now, but what catches my attention are the two small shapes that rise into the air and start to grow bigger. I frown, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. After several more moments, my eyes make out wings attached to the two shapes.

Wings. Which means flying creatures. Coming toward us.

“Uh, Ryn? I think we have company.”