Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties

by Kellie Doherty

  Misti left her packs at the foot of the bed, scribbled a note explaining where she had gone, kissed both Dylori and Zora’s foreheads, and walked out of the room. She left a couple of golden darkats with the innkeeper—more than enough for a few nights’ stay even here in the south, even with her added request to keep an eye on them—she patted Dis on the nose and left.

  ***

  It didn’t take long to find Praxis, though Roorik insisted on waving amicably at every passerby he knew, and he seemed to know quite a few. Night had fallen, and the city had come alive. Vendors yelled in all five languages, folk of all four races chatted until their voices became a hum, and a steady stream of people rushed past her to start their night, but Misti couldn’t enjoy any of it. She couldn’t even enjoy the night, the daygems bursting to life and throwing orange and blue and white lights to every corner of the city.

  Rok was not like Amiin. The city didn’t have tall walls to protect itself, leaning on the guard system it had developed over the seasons. One that watched the perimeter day and night without fail and the protection provided by the crafting academy. Still, Misti couldn’t believe that only a little bit east of the city, the Ravenlock Woods stood proud and tall and petrified. Couldn’t believe these people lived so close to a place so deadly, a place believed to be teeming with suncreatures. But the people stayed because this was the stronghold of the ancient race known as venators, the race the Vagari descended from, and many Vagari lived and worked here. A dragon Vagari, Lady Ladri Bvorn, ruled this southern region, Elarial, as a legacy of this ancient civilization.

  True to his word, Roorik did take her to Praxis, gesturing to the massive stone building with a grin. Misti’s breath caught a little at the sight of its sweeping arched entrance, marble stairways, and gold-twined columns. Beautiful to be sure, but not at this moment. She had more pressing things to deal with.

  Roorik led her round the side to a smaller entryway with colorful gemstones embedded into double stone doors and a marble floor inside. A hallway lay before them, lined with daygems of varying colors and filled with chattering people. Apprentices. They wore robes matching their crafting ability, clothing famed throughout all of Inber, for whomever graduated from Praxis got to keep their robes and usually obtained jobs of high stature and utmost respect.

  Following Roorik, Misti cupped the pendant behind her hand and ducked her head. Perhaps if I don’t notice the people, the pendant won’t go off? The last pulse had happened without her command or control, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

  They twisted and turned through the corridors, walked up a few staircases and down a few more, until Misti was thoroughly lost. She appreciated Roorik’s fast clip, and the steady rhythm his boots clicked out on the marble flooring, even if he did wave to an apprentice or two he knew. He stopped outside a wide door with four gemstones embedded into the stone: blue, white, brown, and orange. One for each of the crafting colors, Misti realized.

  He turned to her. “In here you’ll find Gilmoer Asiitin, the Meti’rie, or the leader of Praxis. My hope is that he’ll be able to help you.”

  Misti nodded. “Thanks for all your help, Roorik. I’m in your debt.”

  “Indeed. Oh, and try your hardest not to stare. He doesn’t like that much.”

  Before Misti could ask what he meant, he winked, walked swiftly down the hallway, and turned a corner, his robes swishing out of sight.

  Misti took a deep breath and knocked on the door three times. The sound seemed to echo through the hall, though it could’ve been her imagination at how important this meeting was to her, to her friends, to the unknowing crowd around her. Surely, the best in the world could figure out what this pendant was made of and how to release it from her body.

  The door swung open, and standing before her was the largest man Misti had ever seen. Dressed in a black robe trimmed in orange and towering over her, the man’s broad shoulders filled the wide doorframe, his mess of tangled brown hair curled around his neck, and a single bloodshot blue eye stared down at her from his beefy face. The other eye was scarred shut by a long gash that traveled up his neck and over his face before disappearing into his hair. The scar was captivating, but she forced herself to look into his good eye. Try not to stare, indeed.

  She swallowed her apprehension and gave him a smile. “Meti’rie Gilmoer Asiitin, I hope?”

  “Yes,” the giant answered in a low, breathy voice, like wind flowing through a forest. “That is I. But who are you?”

  “My name is Misti Eildelmann.” Misti hesitated for a moment, remembering Dylori’s warning once more, but this man was the leader at Praxis. Of course she could trust him. “While I was on duty protecting a village near Amiin, a banished Blood crafter forced this pendant upon me and I can’t seem to get it off.” She lowered her hand so Gilmoer could see the pendant around her neck. “It’s dangerous. And we…my traveling companions and I had hoped you could help. That anyone here at Praxis could help.”

  “Very well. Come in.” Gilmoer stepped back into the room, allowing her to enter and closed the door behind her. He lumbered over to a large desk and sat in an equally large chair behind it. A high window would have let light in over his shoulder if it had been daytime, but daygems did just as well, washing the room in a steady white glow.

  Misti stole a quick look around. Books filled one side of his office, stacked on a bookshelf, on the floor, on a spare chair, and artwork of oceans and forests and sunsets adorned the walls, but nothing caught her eye so quickly as the woven-silver birdcage sitting open on the desk. Ornate and beautiful, the cage had tiny orange gemstones embedded round the base and a large orange jewel at the flourished tip where all the woven-silver twined together. A bowl of water and pile of black seeds sat below its tiny perch stretched out to the middle.

  “I assumed you would notice that, being Vagari.” Gilmoer laughed as Misti snapped to attention.

  Heat crept up her neck. Awed by his status, she said, “It’s quite a beautiful cage, but where’s the bird?”

  Gilmoer motioned for her to sit in the chair across from him and she did, settling her hands gently on the fancy wooden armrests and feeling the cushion sink beneath her weight. She wanted to give him her full attention, but her eyes kept straying to the cage.

  “I am not one to keep my companion animal in a cage, but she does like sleeping inside it from time to time.” Gilmoer stuck his finger out in the air in front of him.

  It was an odd gesture, like he meant to point at her, until a tiny white bird, no bigger than Misti’s hand, flitted down from the ceiling and perched on his finger. The bird chirped a greeting. Its breathy voice was much deeper than Misti would’ve thought, and it surveyed her with beady, bright-red eyes that seemed to glow.

  A suncreature! Misti’s insides clenched, her hand drifting down to the dagger at her belt. But then she looked more closely at the tiny bird. Fluffy white feathers with a hint of yellow at the tip, a short tail, feathered feet ending in long black talons. The bird’s name finally came to her. A snowleet, native to the Shey region in the west. The bird scratched its chest with its long talons, allowing her to see some of the pink skin beneath its feathers. Pink skin. Not red. Not a suncreature.

  The tiny bird seemed almost hilariously miniscule compared to its massive companion, and she had to tear herself away. “That’s a lovely snowleet.”

  “Larya is lovely. And she thanks you for the compliment.” Gilmoer grinned, his blue eye glinting. “Though I wouldn’t have pegged you for the sort to mistake a bird for a suncreature, being a fellow Vagari.”

  It took Misti a heartbeat to realize she had done exactly what Roorik warned her against: openly stared. He hadn’t meant the scar. He meant the snowleet, so like a suncreature many must gawk in its presence. Heat flushed her cheeks, now, and she ducked her head.

  “I meant no disrespect. Zora is often regarded similarly.”

  “Your vulnix?” Gilmoer asked, setting his hand down on his desk. Larya flitted to perc
h on his shoulder.

  How did he know? When Misti gave him a questioning look, he tapped by his eyes. He’d recognized her vulnix bloodline through her differing eye color. Impressive.

  “Yes. Her coloring is like a sunrise,” Misti replied. Sunkissed. Her thoughts returned to her. Zora and Dylori and Arias were just hit by a blast of death and she was chatting about companion animals. What am I doing? “She’s one of the reasons we came here as quickly as we did. The pendant burst out and hit her, and my other companions, causing my friends to fall into in a sleep-state and my companion animal to fall unconscious. It’s killed others before, and destroyed suncreatures, too.”

  She told him of the powers the pendant possessed, how she could control it for a little while, what its effects were on her and others, the danger everyone was in with each passing moment. Finally, she took a deep breath. “Can you or anyone at Praxis help me?”

  As the question settled about the room, her nerves seemed to stretch once again, her heart rate quickened, her palms grew sweaty. She suddenly realized how much she’d hung on this one person and his organization, this single group of crafters who were more powerful than all others. She had hung her whole life, her present and her future, as well as the lives of the people she held dear, on these crafters.

  Gilmoer gave her a sad look and she braced for the worst. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen this type of crafting before.”

  Dread swept Misti’s breath away. Even after all his training and studying and learning from the best and after becoming the best of the best, even he hasn’t heard of this crafting? Misti couldn’t believe it. Gilmoer called in other powerful crafters, one of each ability, and while the strangers listened to her story and stared intently at the pendant, they hadn’t heard of it either.

  The room became a revolving door of crafters from every region after that, a storm of people with Misti in the middle, not knowing what to do or what to say or how to act. The only thing she discovered during this time was that not one of the newcomers had heard of this new type of crafting. Worse still, no one knew how to break the pendant or remove it without serious consequences to her or to the people surrounding her.

  “How?” Misti yelled, fear making her stand and glare at Gilmoer. The snowleet fluttered up at the intensity of her voice. “How do your people know nothing? How can that be possible? You’re the best in the world, and yet you know nothing? Nothing at all?”

  “I apologize,” Gilmoer said. “I had hoped we would be able to help you. Remove the pendant, or give some knowledge, or comfort, if nothing else. But this crafting is strange for us. We deal in the purer side of crafting, strengthening our natural skills. We do not force it upon someone else or lash it to a piece of jewelry. This is not our kind of crafting and certainly not our way.” He said the last words with such force that the sound rumbled about the room, settling in the nooks and crannies.

  The back of Misti’s eyes stung. “You can do nothing?”

  Gilmoer leaned back in his chair and steepled his giant hands in front of his face. “We can ask the guard to see if they have captured a banished Divus. See if we have any in the city irons. Perhaps only another banished one would know what to do. In fact…” He called a crafter in, a youngling with shaggy black hair and equally black eyes. Gilmoer muttered a few words to this boy and shooed him away. They sat in silence, Misti trying not to cry, listening to the soft tinkling of the snowleet’s song, and Gilmoer staring at the ceiling, a pensive look on his face.

  Moments later, the boy was back, whispering a message to Gilmoer. Gilmoer’s face fell and he gestured the boy away. “I’m afraid our guard hasn’t apprehended any banished Divus of late. They know to stay away from our city.” He puffed out his chest a little as he said this, a grin curling on his lips, before deflating again. “To our own folly this day, it seems, since we need them here most of all.”

  “Then, what—” Misti’s voice cracked and she stopped, shaking her head. Panic wrapped around her like fog on a fall’s eve, but she tried to ignore it. “What am I supposed to do? Find a quiet place in the middle of nowhere until someone, somewhere, finds a banished Blood crafter who can tell me something? Hope a suncreature ambles along so I can kill it? Hope it kills me, perhaps?” Misti slumped back into the chair, defeated. “I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled.

  “Well, we don’t want it to kill you, that we know for sure,” Gilmoer replied, his voice gentle now. “We can provide a cage like you had before, but stronger, one that should last for a long while. That way you can continue living your chosen life, and we can continue our search for the banished ones.”

  But Misti knew that having a cage around the pendant was only a temporary fix. The guards had a full-time job keeping the city safe and the apprentices at Praxis wouldn’t have much time to spare from their studies. She’d probably have an easier time finding the banished ones herself. It would certainly put fewer people in danger if she went out alone, but she knew Zora, Dylori, and Dis wouldn’t let her go by herself. Arias would help, she was certain of it. A pang of fear and sadness lanced through her chest, but instead of letting her unhappiness consume her, Misti set her lips in a determined frown.

  “Please put a cage around this orb. I will search for these banished Divus myself.”

  That announcement drew a nod from Gilmoer, who called his messenger boy in once again and whispered something to him. A few moments later, three Elu came into the room, one whom she recognized as the powerful Elu crafter who had come in before and another dressed in similar flowing blue robes. The third Elu was dressed in commoner threads, white shirt, dark pants, heavy boots, and her chest, shoulders, and forearms were encased in black wyvern-scaled armor.

  Misti had to do a double-take. The third Elu looked familiar, with her bushy black hair, dark skin, and wide-set eyes. This woman had green eyes, paler than most because of her Elu blood but much darker than Arias’, and she held herself differently, more guarded, with her arms crossed and giving the room a wary look. She carried a thin Shey sword at her belt and a large pack on her back. Whereas the robed Elu nodded their hello to Misti, the armored Elu hardly seemed to notice her.

  Gilmoer eyed the armored Elu before turning to his messenger boy. “I did not call for three.”

  The woman answered before the boy could. “I’m only here to deliver what you had asked for.”

  Misti was sure of it: this had to be Orenda, Arias’ sister. Her voice sounded too much like Arias’ not to be related.

  The woman reached into the large pack, retrieving a large blue-green gemstone the size of two fists and setting it on Gilmoer’s desk. The gemstone glinted in the daygems’ light, casting beautiful rainbows on the desk, floor, and walls. It must be from Ratnaa Grove, the Nemora Grove responsible for gems and jewels. From the way she held herself and the long journey this woman had to be a trader, who went to the Nemora for various foods and supplies and brought them back to the cities and villages. Being a trader, this woman must have traveled farther than even Misti had. Perhaps she might know where banished Blood crafters could be found. Hope bubbled in Misti’s chest.

  “Give me my payment, and I’ll be out of your hair.” The woman stretched out her hand, seemingly oblivious to the shocked look on Gilmoer’s face.

  “We are right in the middle of—”

  “I’m only here for payment, good Meti’rie, and then I’ll leave you to your business.”

  Gilmoer shook his head, ruffled around in his desk for a moment, and procured a large, heavy-looking sack and handed it to her. “Thank you for your service. Now leave.”

  The woman gave a curt nod, swiveled on her heel, and walked out, not even bothering to look anywhere else but at the open door. She didn’t even bother to shut it as she left.

  Misti bit her lip, deep in thought. From what Arias had told them, she had developed a certain picture in her mind’s eye of what Orenda would be like. This woman looked to be Arias’ sibling, but their mannerisms couldn’t be more dif
ferent. Misti looked expectantly at the two Elu remaining, waiting for them to craft the cage and wondering if she could catch up to that armored Elu after they had finished.

  ***

  With a new blue Moon cage glowing around the pendant, Misti charged her way through the halls, hoping to catch up before Orenda—or the woman she thought was Orenda—left the building. She had thanked the two Elu and promised to keep Gilmoer in the loop about what happened. He was Meti’rie, a Vagari who deserved the highest respect as the leader of Praxis and had helped when he hadn’t needed to. Like the Moon Knights, he made her promise to return once the pendant was off her, so he could study it in safety. It seemed like everyone wanted some time with this pendant, save for her.

  Misti rushed down the stairs and out into the courtyard before recognizing the bushy black hair and wyvern armor of the mysterious Elu. She rushed through the expansive courtyard, darting around a fountain spouting blue-colored water. Leaping over a multicolored flowerbed, she headed down a walkway, pushing past some apprentices as they lingered, chatting and laughing.

  The Elu in question stomped down the main pathway leading to the entryway of Praxis proper, a large stone archway decorated on all sides with colored gemstones. Misti caught up with the Elu just as she walked beneath this archway.

  “Excuse me,” Misti said.

  The woman leaped sideways. “Don’t sneak up on a woman like that!” she yelped.

  Misti raised her hands and backed away a step. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  The Elu rubbed her shoulder, eyes darting to the ground. “I was just…thinking, that’s all.”

  “Must have a lot to think about to be in that deep,” Misti replied, lowering her hands and smiling. “I’m Misti, by the way.”