At least we weren't flying, however, so I suppose I should have counted my blessings.
Rose manipulated the steering wheel and sent the car hurtling toward a ramp that would take us off the dusty highway and onto the a much narrower street below. I frowned as I looked out the window and realized that this small road had no branching paths or turns, and was interrupted a few hundred meters away by a stone wall with a heavy steel gate.
“The wall looks like the one around the Merope manor,” I observed.
“Good eye. Dad’s people helped build this place.”
We slowed as the car approached the gate. A guard, dressed in a plain khaki-colored uniform and armed with a well-worn rifle, marched up to the driver's side of the car. Rose rolled the window down and leaned closer to him, whispering something I couldn't quite catch.
“You're cleared to enter, Miss Merope,” the man said in a louder voice. He stepped back and the gate began to open. Once it'd cleared enough distance for Rose's car to fit, she hit the accelerator and sent us smoothly cruising through the opening.
Behind the wall and the gate was a small settlement—little more than a village, really, and I blinked in confusion as I realized I didn't recognize any of the architecture. The way the buildings seemed to flow out of the ground, almost as if they were grown rather than constructed, told me that this was the work of magic. Strong magic, at that.
Rose slowed and stopped the car right outside the village square, killing the engine before turning to me with a grin. “Come on. Let's go.”
I opened my door and stepped out onto the ground. Unlike the barren lands surrounding the walled settlement, inside was blanketed in vibrant green. Clusters of fruit trees grew between structures that were likely homes. Grasses and wildflowers carpeted the earth between the carefully-maintained paths of shaped stone.
I took a deep breath and inhaled the scents of dozens of different plants. I recognized many of them from Mother's garden at House Alcyone, but others were unfamiliar. The air fairly thrummed with more ambient magic than anywhere else I'd been in Fialla. My legs and feet tingled with each step. The land beneath me was so rich with aether, so abundant with ley lines that I knew it had to have been done intentionally.
“Does anyone live here?” I asked. “I don't see anyone.”
“Yes, but they're understandably a bit anxious, as they don't know us.” Rose shrugged and gestured toward the village square's beautifully landscaped flowerbeds. “I've never been here before, never had a reason to come here before. Not until you became a part of my life, anyway.”
I blinked. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Rose nudged my side, pushing me toward the square. “Go on and you'll find out.”
At this point I realized Rose wasn't going to tell me anything useful. It would be up to me to figure out why I'd been brought here. As I took slow, deliberate steps toward the garden, I closed my eyes and let the magic of this place sing through my body. There was something about the power of this tiny patch of land that echoed back the whispers of my soul.
Here, more than any place I'd ever been, I felt at peace.
I felt the barest ghost of a touch upon my hand, and I opened my eyes.
They who stood before me was shorter than I was by perhaps half a dozen centimeters, but they were even more slender and ethereal in build. Their snowy features were delicate and angular, but the proportions were subtly inhuman. Wide-eyed, I stared at this beautiful and otherworldly being in awe and wonder. It was as if I were peering into a strange sort of mirror.
“You are Eiri's,” the fey stated.
Never had I heard such a musical voice. It seemed to echo within itself, but it wasn't a quality of the physical sound. Rather the fey's words were formed by the soul and spoken through resonance; a small part of me was dimly aware that the fey wasn't speaking Common at all.
“How do you know?”
The fey tilted their head and I noticed an odd pair of amorphous shadows spread from their back. A tremor ran through them and the shadows flexed, spreading outward like a bird's feathers before taking to the air.
Wings. They were wings.
“How could I not know? You're of the same spirit.” The miinari sniffed and their lips curved into a pleased smile. Their wings folded back down and appeared to vanish into their body, and they held out a petite hand toward me. “Also you smell very much like her.”
Trembling, I reached out to take the fey's outstretched hand. The pale flesh was far smoother and softer than that of any I'd ever felt, even Yuka's or my own. I could feel the fey's magic through our shared contact, and they could feel mine as well.
“Who are you?”
The miinari didn't let go of my hand. “I am called Maiya.”
“Lily. That's my name, I mean.”
Maiya nodded. “I know.”
“How?”
The skies, already rather grim, began to darken further. Drops of rain began to pelt the ground around us. I felt the cold droplets strike my head, but I barely noticed. Strands of shadow entwined themselves around Maiya's arm and spread outward over us both, forming a barrier of wispy darkness that warded off the rain.
“Resonance,” Maiya answered.
“But I didn't—”
The miinari's laughter sounded like fairy bells chiming. “You didn't need to. Your mind may not have recognized me, but your heart did, and it spoke to me through the soul-whispers.”
“Plus Dad told her we were coming.”
I whirled around toward that voice. “Rose!”
“Greetings, child of Lailah,” Maiya said to Rose as she stood next to me. Her height was so much greater than Maiya's and even mine that she didn't even try to step beneath the shadowy canopy. Instead, she'd unfolded an umbrella and held it over her head to keep dry. “Please offer your… father… our thanks for all they've done for us.”
“I will,” Rose promised. She turned toward me and gestured toward the structures that rose from the land around us. “After the miinari were forced out of their homeland in the Far East, many of them crossed the sea to settle in Fialla's northern lands. The Governing Council accepted them with open arms as refugees, and things were peaceful for many years. Until the Forge War happened, anyway.”
Maiya's expression dropped at the mention of the war. “They sought to punish Fialla for offering us succor.”
“You mean the kanari,” I murmured.
“Yes. The sacred servants.” Maiya looked as if she were on the verge of tears, but instead of dwelling on such things, she changed the subject. A fork of jagged lightning split the sky some dozen or so kilometers away. “Come, come, child of Eiri, child of Lailah. Let's get out of the rain before it starts to get worse, yes?”
Maiya turned and strode purposefully toward the closest dwelling, not waiting for either the human or the half-fey to respond. I marveled at the wispy shadows still suspended over my head, the mystic threads of Maiya's wings remaining behind to shelter me from the water and the wind.
“Rose… I don't know what to say.”
“You don't need to say anything, little red lily. I can see how much this means to you just by looking at you.”
My partner's arm encircled my shoulders and she drew me close. Together, the two of us walked through the garden and into the open door of Maiya's home.
~to be continued
About the Author
Hi there! My name is Corinn Heathers, and I'm the author!
Most about-the-author blurbs are written in the third person, but I find it tiresome and dull to do so. So here it is, from the top: I'm a queer trans woman, a low-level femme, a gigantic nerd who loves role-playing games, MMOs and visual novels… oh, and I'm an author of speculative fiction based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I love to write science fiction and fantasy, or science fantasy fiction, or science fiction masquerading as fantasy and everything in between. As you might have noticed, I write stories with predominately female and queer cas
ts.
Readers can connect with me through my Twitter account, @syn010110, or by following my Facebook author page (facebook.com/corinn.writes.stuff), though I'm not the most active social-media butterfly. I also maintain a public email account that readers can use to contact me if they wish ([email protected]), which I check reasonably often.
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