Page 3 of Defy the Fae

“Mmm,” I ponder. “What have I forgotten this time?”

When I receive no reply, no message through the wind, I slow my pace and cast a sidelong glance to my right. The owl lands beside me and coasts, his horned ears spiked to the heavens, his profile austere but proud.

Tímien’s head rotates my way, a single, aquamarine eye glittering. In his beak rests my javelin. He releases the weapon, lobbing it toward me. I catch the handle in one fist, spin it between my fingers, and jam it into the harness at my waist.

Chagrined, I incline my head as the raptor fixes me with a stern look. Indeed, he’s right. I should have known. It’s not the first trip in our lifetime together that I’ve neglected my weapon.

This is hardly an era of peace. Enemies masquerade as allies, and allies teeter on the brink of becoming enemies. I’ve lost my command over this mountain, and while Tímien still reigns supreme, every time I fly, I do so with a target on my back.

In short, I can fucking do better. That’s what the owl’s disapproving eye says.

I slow, as does he. Suspended above our world like weathervanes, we hover in place, our quills swatting the air.

“I know,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”

Tímien beats his wings nearer. The reproach dulls from his pupils, replaced by a protective light that punctures my chest. I meet him halfway and rest my forehead against his.

“Father,” I murmur.

He nudges me, a gesture that brands itself to the marrow of my bones. Lark owns my heart, and my brothers have chipped their way into it as well. But of all those I love, my father will always have been the first to introduce me to that emotion.

Blues and purples bleed over the pinnacles. A blast of air swirls around us, reminding me of the hour.

At Tímien’s insistent hoot, I pull back with a mischievous grin. “Care to test your skills, old bird?”

My father’s eye glints. We cannon apart.

I catapult toward the dark range, shooting forward at a velocity that would snap a mortal’s neck but barely ruffles my wings. Tímien’s evening call punches through the vista, rattles the slanted rowan branches, and shakes the stair rafters. We race at breakneck speed, swerving vertically around the plank extensions where Lark and I had traded blows—her whip against my javelin—before I sent a hive of hornets after her.

Shooting north, my father and I dive into a spiral around The Lost Bridges, the maze with its overlapping delirium of platforms, where Lark won her game and her freedom.

She won and left this place. Yet she came back to me.

Shecame back.

Tímien’s cry yanks me back to the present, the shrill call aimed south of The Watch of Nightingales. The race ends abruptly. We stall as the jutting lip of a promontory beneath The Watch breaks into chunks and crumbles down the precipice. My pulse stutters, and my eyes jump from the destruction toward a queue of rams rushing across an underpass dozens of leagues below.

“Fuck,” I hiss, then fling myself in that direction as a boulder drops toward the creatures who are trying to evade the onslaught.

I charge downward, my wings burning with exertion. The distance is too far. Blood rushes to my fingertips as I beseech the wind.

When it answers my call, I grab hold of a draft and crank my arm, hurling the gust in the animals’ direction. The wind shoves the boulder away, chucking it into the abyss.

Another mammoth rock plunges. I reach it in time, ignoring Tímien’s hoot and catching the slab several feet above the rams who gallop out of harm’s way and disband into the neighboring rowan trees.

The weight of stone presses on my joints, the boulder’s craggy exterior grating my palms. With a growl, I ram my fist into the rock. It cracks down the middle and splits as I fling the remains into the void.

My chest heaves, and my wings quake. That boulder could demolish a house. It could have smashed the fauna to dust.

Tímien rushes beside me. His thoughts travel through a funnel of air and match my own conclusion. This isn’t the rams’ territory. The animals must have been forced to migrate from their habitats.

That’s been happening frequently in the past weeks, the landscape showing increasing signs of fading, losing grip on itself. With the fall of each terrain, the habitats are being disrupted, migration patterns shifting and causing territorial friction between the fauna as they seek places to dwell, to survive.

I cast my father a look. “I need to tell them.”

No more gaming. No more racing.

We fly at a rapid speed while surveying the range. In the days since I last scouted the labyrinth, additional turfs have changed. One pinnacle has been shaved down to a stump, stair ramps have been severed like limbs, clefts have dented a handful of summits, a number of rowans have been torn from their roots, and The Mistral Ropes are fraying. Passages are getting blocked, routes altered, and natural resources diminished.

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