Realm of Wings

Jade, holding the man in tight custody, while Kallan was cursing profoundly:

It sucked that I couldn’t read minds, it would have come in handy to prevent this fucked up show from happening! When I had sex with this man, back in Germany, at the local bar, I could have known that he was bad news! It had even been a real hint that he had a strange accent, something that wasn’t from around that place at all! But no… I just got myself halfway drunk on a chug of beer, got distracted by my own sexual needs and let go of my instinct to notice danger early on!

How stupid had I been! The dead monks were all my fault! If only I could have seen the ulterior motives from this asshole beneath my blade they would have still been alive!

Kallan nodded his head, letting me know that he had what he needed.

I put the blade I had in my hand, back in the sheath and summoned some energy to fill my hand with. There was some built-up anger, towards him and myself as well, that I needed to unleash. So, I pushed the black-haired man down on the floor, twirled the little orb of energy around on my fingertips and slowly… very slowly… let it sink down into his chest.

Screams of horror indulged my desire to witness the pain that he was suffering. Pain that I instead should have suffered because I had been this foolish! I had been the one not to notice this ass’s ideas and motives.

Blood only gurgled out of his mouth, as the cavity in his chest had been seared closed by my energy. One last attempt of staying alive, a take in of breath while his eyes bulged out at not being able to get the air inside…

I released my own breath of air, one that I had been holding in and wiped my fist over the pants of the now dead man, to try and get rid of the blackened blood. The iron smell of burned blood and skin invaded my nose and I quickly stood up straight, taking a few steps away from him.

“You could have just slit his-

“Shut it!” I interrupted Kallan. Of course, I know that I could have just used my blade to slit his throat! I’m not an idiot! It’s just that it didn’t feel the righteous thing to do at that moment. I needed more gore, just to settle my anger.

Kallan huffed at my snapping and turned around to get into the direction that he had read from the scorched guy’s mind.

Kallan’s fighters, Trixie and I followed him into another room. Luckily, this room had been cleared as every single enemy had come out into the main hall to fight. Except for our prisoner that is, of course.

Kallan immediately walked over towards the man without any form of fear or restraint. He just loosened the chains around his body and stood in front of him, waiting for him to stand up and speak. Once he was able to get on his feet, he dragged his fingers through his shortened black hair and sighed deeply.

“I really wasn’t expecting for you to come here.” He said to Kallan, in a rather joyous tone.

“Nor was I expecting you to be here.” Kallan retorted in an angry voice, clearly not happy by the presence of this man. “You do realise that father isn’t going to be happy with you, right?” Kallan asked him now.

“I don’t care Kallan! It’s not like I’m going to be the king anytime soon! You are the child prodigy, not me!” He yelled towards him and bumped his shoulder against Kallan’s as he walked out of the room while also throwing me a strange look. Kallan followed him and I just folded my arms and watched curiously towards Trixie for some answer to this.

“It’s Kallan’s brother, Zeph, and all he does is getting in trouble. Just like he did now.” Trixie answered my silent question.

Kallan, following his brother:

“Where are you going?!” I shouted to Zeph as I wouldn’t let him walk away after saying those things. I couldn’t believe that he was here, and I doubt that father would appreciate his presence here either.

“To get what I came for.” Zeph just snapped at me as he continued his stride towards the main hall, directly over towards the room on the other end. He bolted straight through the thin wooden door, and before I could enter the room myself he had stepped out already with a small wooden box in his hands.

“Here, now you can show this off to our father as well! Take the credits, I don’t care anymore!” He shouted as he pushed the box into my hands.

“Zeph, please explain-

“No. I wanted to be able to do this on my own, but apparently, it’s not granted for me to get me to complete one single mission without your help!” He shouted as he walked over towards one of our portal guards and made him summon a portal home.

“Zeph, just tell me!” I tried again, hoping that his stubborn character would just dissipate into thin air and make him listen to me just this once. But before I could reach him, he had stepped through the portal already, flipping his middle finger towards me as he disappeared completely.

“Why was he here?” Trixie asked me as she came near.

“Don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me and I was too frustrated to read his mind about it.” I turned to her after seeing the water of the portal splash on the ground.

“What’s in the box?” Jade suddenly chimed in, pointing at the box I had in my right hand. I had nearly forgotten about it as Zeph’s behaviour was giving me a headache already, knowing that I had to come up with some lame-ass story towards my father, to not get Zeph into trouble.

Just as curious as her to find out what made this mess all happen, I opened the box and peeked inside. I furrowed my brows as I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, as the thing inside was only a solid grey marble. It wasn’t even glowing or showing some sort of magic, indicating that this was an item to replenish our magical fountain with. Yes, it had one of our ancient runes of protection carved in it, indicating that this was a Fae item, but other than that It was just an ordinary, grey, polished stone.

Trixie looked curious but frowned also when she saw the item draped in a small red cloth as well. But when Jade saw it my curiosity peaked high as her eyes grew large and soft gentle sparks lit up her skin. She reached for the stone and I could swear that some small yellow sparks jumped over towards it.

Not ready to wanting to grant her this piece of stone, as I still don’t trust her motives, I quickly pulled the box away and closed the lid on it.

“You know what it is?” I asked Jade.

“No. But I do believe it’s mine.” She replied, which made me raise my eyebrows in question.

“Care to explain?” I asked her.

“I wouldn’t know how. I mean, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that the black-haired idiot here,” She said as she pointed to the scorched dead guy. “is a leading figure, as he was so easy to kill; I still don’t understand why he send some footage of your brother towards the German Conclave, and I still don’t know why I have never met any other Fae. But other than that, I can feel from within that the orb inside the box belongs to me.” Jade pointed to the box in my hand while saying this in all honesty, still confused about all that had been happening here, which I agree to be strange.

“Besides, I think I can prove it.” She then stated and both Trixie and I quickly snapped our heads up.

To see her talk like this was so opposite to what she had shown us earlier. Her way of killing that black-haired man had been gruesome and utterly disgusting, so contradictory to the way she was explaining herself now. She didn’t have to actually explain herself to me because she never had the obligation in her mind to explain anything at all. She could have tried to get the item out of my hands by force, as that is what she is using all the time, but she didn’t. Her self-awareness doesn’t care for any shame, or what people thought of her, yet now, she is trying to compose herself into getting the item by playing nice.

Or is she just this complicated and is this her genuine emotion too? Fierce and deadly, but also truthful and reliable?

I know that women are complicated, but if she is all this, then I seriously don’t know how to handle her! Women!

“Show it to me.” I said to her, asking for the proof that she said to have. She squeezed her lips tight, pondering over if she should, but decided to show it anyway.

She bundled up the sleeve on her left arm, above the elbow and made some of her energy course through the fingers of her right hand. Then, she glided her fingers over the skin of her left arm, from the wrist towards the elbow and when the energy sizzled and her fingers continued to move, the same rune that stood on the marble, appeared on her lower arm!

Several questions came to mind, as to how she could hide her body marks or where she got the mark in the first place? Was it just a random tattoo, or did someone purposely apply this to her? And why? I mean, some of the yellow winged Fae had runes on their skin that lit up when they use their power to shine, showing the old rune of the sun. And I have tattoos as well, but they were all just ‘normal’ ones and no runes.

But even though I have all these questions and I was really trying to trust her, I can’t have her have this item. We know too little of her origins and powers, or lack thereof, that I can’t give her this grey marble just yet. She has to come with me to E’ne Belanore for my parents to see her, to question her, or maybe read her mind, as they are stronger and may be able to get through to her. Only then, when I’m certain that she is no threat, I will give her this.

“You’re not going to get it.” I closed the lid and put the small box in my pocket.

“Seriously? It is mine, give it to me!” She shouted and reached for my pocket. “I show you something that I have never shown anyone else and you don’t even trust me with it?” She continued and made her hands full with core energy, ready to attack me with it.

I nodded towards my green-winged men and immediately they shot roots out of the ground, to surround Jade with, capturing her without doing any damage. But as the roots shot up, to cage her in, her eyes started to glow with a bright golden light, brighter than the amber colour her eyes already had, and within a flash, she had dashed backwards.

I hadn’t imagined it!

She had done this before, in the hallway a bit back in the monastery, right when we rounded the corner and were ambushed by a lot of enemies. By dashing backwards, she had managed to avoid several bullets flying in her direction, but because I hadn’t seen the complete action, I just thought that she was trained to be this fast. But seeing her now, her eyes wide and confused about this small defensive act as well, I knew that this was something new to her too!

What the hell is she!?