The Fiuri Realms (Shioni of Sheba Book 5)

by Marc Secchia

  Hazzuriel’s bulbous yellow eyes fixed on Shioni. “Why is the prisoner not wearing a wing-harness?”

  Ashkuriel snapped, “I’m quite capable of handling a mere child!”

  “Yet you lost two Vermilion Dragonflies and five soldiers crossing the Cracks. We’ll escort you in, but I will see that prisoner properly secured before we enter Central, Commander Ashkuriel.”

  “Very well.” Ashkuriel nodded stiffly. He raised his hand. “Secure the prisoner.”

  Iridelle folded her massive arms and glowered at the Yellow Fiuri Captain. Shioni wondered, with an inward giggle, if her friend was planning how many of Hazzuriel’s teeth she could punch out with a single blow.

  “Shionelle, you’ll need to fold up your wings, like this,” said Viridelle, helping her. From the corner of her mouth, she muttered, “What’s the matter with Ashkuriel? Just when I think he’s a Black Fiuri, he’s acting nice. It makes my wings itch like the worst allergy in the history of Fiuriel. Something about all this is a great big, unseen Stink-Flower. Keep your antennae sensitive, alright?”

  The White Fiuri nodded unhappily as Viri helped her slip into a sleeveless jacket made of a tough, fibrous material, which entirely encased her folded wings but left her arms free. Even worse, there were further, strong straps which buckled over the back, around her shoulders and neck, and also around her ribcage. She heard the click of locks. Unless someone unfastened her, she was as stuck as a Fiuri in a Glue-Slap plant.

  Ashkuriel handed a set of keys to Hazzuriel with a glare that could have curdled nectar.

  Shioni rolled her shoulders. “Viri, that feels horrid. My wings–”

  “Sorry, darling petal. I know.” Unexpectedly, Viri kissed Shioni’s forehead and rubbed antennae with her. “I hate to do this to a friend. You’ll be alright. I promise.”

  And Viridelle was a tough Hunter? Shioni had a funny, choked feeling in her throat as Iridelle boosted her into the saddle and clipped and locked her into place, drawing an approving grunt from Hazzuriel. Had she been secured like this, Ashkuriel would be dead right now. The feeling was odd, and the sensation of her wings being trapped, utterly hateful. Why restrain only the wings? Why not her arms and legs? Was that because the Fiuri believed she would never be able to run away?

  As they approached Green Central, she learned why.

  The Fiuri stood at the nexus of ten major tunnels, which interconnected and wove together in a complex, very organic pattern. It took her some minutes to understand what she was seeing. What Shioni had taken for supporting struts, similar to Sherfiuri Ball, were in fact gigantic branch-like structures that spanned the tunnels from side to side, a latticework of a dark, grainy brown material akin to wood. Tiny black dots resolved into the doorways and portals of Fiuri homes, businesses and dwellings, carved into the great latticework. Shioni caught her breath. This place dwarfed Sherfiuri Ball. The Vermilion Dragonflies seemed like motes of dust as they flew rapidly into the vast city, and her neck ached once more from twizzling about to take in all the sights.

  “That’s where we’re going,” said Chardal, pointing over her shoulder. “The Halls of Endless Light.”

  One strut was not woody. It was crystal. A graceful, almost translucent green crystal spar joined the sides of the cavern from which all of the tunnels depended. It was many times again the size of the brown spars, each of which housed thousands of Fiuri.

  Shioni’s antennae tingled. Her throat felt as furry as the sponge tunnels they had passed through. That was the place where, she sensed, she would remember.

  Hazzuriel’s escort directed them to the largest opening on the crystal spar, a great portal easily wide enough to accommodate their entire dazzle of Vermilion Dragonflies. Here they dismounted. Flanked by several dozen Yellow Fiuri soldiers, Shioni marched through a series of gleaming hallways, following the sound of beautiful, triumphant music which sounded like crystal trumpets voicing the song of stars. Ranks of Green soldiers five deep and fifty long flanked the circular, gemstone-lined entrance of a hall so enormous and gorgeous, Shioni rubbed her aching breastbone. The light! The colours! All around the chamber, different sculptures and statues lined alcoves in the walls, each wondrously crafted in gemstones and other sparkling materials, each giving off its own radiance. Before her, a long, translucent walkway arched delicately over the yawning chamber to a central dais, which was surrounded by a great cloud of Fiuri nobles wearing gorgeous, shimmering costumes, resembling butterflies as they fluttered in place.

  Suddenly, the crystal trumpets ceased playing.

  A huge, richly robed Green Fiuri lifted a crown of pure diamond, which caught the light behind him, creating spangles and rainbows of light all around the chamber. Before him knelt a small Blue Fiuri, the train of her gown a hundred Fiuri paces long.

  Realisation struck Shioni with the force of a rampaging Cave-Crawler.

  “And so, I have the pleasure of crowning our new Queen–” the massive Fiuri paused for effect, beaming at the great throng of Green Fiuri.

  Shioni shrieked, “Azurelle!”

  Chapter 15: Coronation Capers

  With a ting as though a bell had chimed, the crown of the realm dropped onto Azurelle’s shoulder, bounced off her clasped hands, and rolled away down the train of her dress–miraculously, not shattering into a million shards. The Blue Fiuri lifted her eyes to gaze in utter incomprehension at the party standing at the end of the footbridge. A thousand gasps filled the chamber with a sound like a breeze rustling leaves.

  “Azurelle!” Shioni recognised that Fiuri! She must know her past! In a trice, Shioni slipped between her guards and set off at a sprint across the footbridge.

  “Stop that Fiuri!” someone bellowed.

  The soldiers came pounding behind, but Shioni was fleet of foot, not to mention desperate. Focus on her friend! Beat the soldiers fluttering down into the footbridge, duck a grasping hand, spring over a net somehow cast into her path.

  Shioni smashed into an unseen wall. She shook her head. Gold-robed Green Fiuri fluttered closer to her, muttering their spells. A powerful force gripped her body, crushing her against the footbridge. “Azurelle?” There was no sign of recognition on that face … but she knew her! She knew! Shioni could not understand. “Azurelle?” she groaned again, trying to reach out to her friend.

  Suddenly, another Fiuri stepped onto the dais. Small, and dapper-winged, with a roguish flip of dark green hair, the Green Fiuri stared down the footbridge at her.

  Tazaka!

  There could be no mistaking the molten power of his yellow-eyed gaze. His eyes blazed with an unnatural glow, as though small suns burned in his eye-sockets. There was warmth, but not of a comforting kind. It burned. It examined and judged. It made her wings droop and her heart squirm like a trapped fish. Behind his power, Shioni sensed a mind of eerie brilliance. Arresting as his magical power was, Shioni’s greater shock was Azurelle’s blank-faced response.

  It sparked fury.

  Beneath the crushing of Tazaka’s Fiuri magicians, her own strength swelled. She cast them aside. For a second time, she felt a strange outward punching of power which shimmered like a rainbow veil, and the pressure lifted. The magicians fell back in their massed ranks as though she had clouted them all simultaneously. Shioni scrambled to her feet.

  Lord Tazaka’s antennae twitched in surprise. “Seize her!”

  Two Yellow Fiuri soldiers grabbed her arms. The magic blasted them across the chamber. The magicians redoubled their chanting, casting spells and wards, but her magic simply shimmered through a range of colours, and Shioni slipped past them with the ease of a fish wriggling upriver.

  “Stop her!” roared Tazaka.

  Arrows skittered across her path. Most deflected away from the running White Fiuri as though abruptly terrified into bolting in the opposite direction, but one ricocheted off the footway and pierced her left calf muscle. Stumbling, falling, Shioni cast herself at her friend’s feet.

  She gasped, “Azurelle, darling, don’
t you know who I am? Please …” She clasped Zi’s hands. Could she not remember, even now?

  Azurelle just stood in place like a beautifully-dressed doll, a faint expression of confusion creasing her features. Zi asked, “Who are you? Why are you here, strange Fiuri?”

  “Don’t you know me? I’m Shioni. Please, say you know–”

  “Get away from my Queen!” Tazaka kicked her in the ribs.

  Shioni groaned, lifted into the air by the brutal force of his kick, but somehow her crazy, uncontrollable magic acted as a springboard, throwing her back at Lord Tazaka. The Green Fiuri leader half-lifted his arms in defence before Shioni slammed into him.

  Fragments of memory swirled through her brain. “You evil … Fiuri stealing … Kalcha!” she snarled. Lord Tazaka tried to punch her in the gut, but Shioni lifted her knee to deflect the blow. They scrapped briefly, her fingernails clawing his eyes and cheeks, before a bright green light flared between them.

  BOOM!

  Shioni shot into the air, which stretched like an elastic band before snapping her back at Lord Tazaka a second time. An evil little grin played around his lips as he brought a large, glowing green gemstone out of his robes and raised it aloft. The light flared. Shioni slammed into the platform, grounded, stifled by a force a hundred times greater than Tazaka’s magicians had thrown at her. Shioni’s teeth clacked together as something struck her jaw, and her vision wavered through darkness. Pain blossomed in her head. Her magic seethed and fought back, flashing through myriad colours and roiling like a coruscating ball of lightning, before his green Fiuri power snuffed it out with the ease of a hungry monster bolting down a snack.

  Shioni slumped.

  “Ah, nothing like a warming battle to waken the blood,” Tazaka gloated. “So, White Fiuri, we meet at last.”

  Azurelle plucked his sleeve. “What is this child doing, disturbing my coronation?”

  “She’s a renegade and nothing to worry yourself about, my petal,” Lord Tazaka soothed, with a smarmy smile that made Shioni nauseous. “How are we today, Princess Annakiya? With the power in your royal blood, I shall complete my schemes. No Fiuri will be able to stand against me, not even those foolish Blues.”

  Great leaping hyenas! She remembered!

  Tasting blood in her mouth, trying to shut out the pain in her leg, Shioni gritted out, “Then it’s a good thing I’m Shioni and not Annakiya, isn’t it, Tazaka? And you can stuff your evil alliance with Kalcha up your nostril and–”

  Tazaka’s brow darkened. Lofting her into the air with his power, he snarled, “How can this be? Kalcha promised!”

  “Oops,” said Shioni. Pitching her voice to carry, she shouted, “Tazaka has been exiling Fiuri to another world where an evil magician steals their Fiuri powers–”

  “Shut your proboscis!” yelled the Green Fiuri.

  The green light tried to squeeze her mouth shut, but there was a tiny glimmer of magic still alight within her, matched to her defiance. Shioni cried, “His great power comes from another world! Kalcha captures Fiuri and wrings the magic out of them! Tazaka is a traitor and a murder–”

  “SHUT IT!”

  A blast of magic slammed her against the dais. All was black–for how long, she did not know–but when Shioni opened her eyes again, it was to see Lord Tazaka approaching Azurelle with the runaway crown held in his hand and a smarmy smile for his audience, every bit in charge once more. She glanced around. Her friends were still at the far end of the walkway, under heavy guard. Judging by the bodies lying about and Yellow Fiuri soldiers limping away for treatment, Iridelle must have attempted to come to her rescue.

  Shioni was forced to look on helplessly as the big Green Fiuri crowned her friend with due ceremony, and the trumpets played a fanfare over the polite clicking of thousands of fingers, as the nobles cheered their new Queen. Azurelle, Queen of the Green Fiuri. Shioni could not withhold a tear that slid down her cheek. Well, her vain but steadfast friend had attained her dream now–only, this dream came furnished with a wicked husband-to-be.

  Tazaka beamed. With deep bows in every direction, he cried, “We’ll be married in a month, according to the traditions of the Greens, may our wings fly together, forever!”

  More clicking, and cheering! Lights and fireworks and displays of magic! The Halls of Endless Light rippled to a glorious celebratory display as Tazaka’s magicians made flowers blossom and fragrant petals rain around the room. They evoked scenes of Fiuri life and triumphant battles and more.

  Shioni remembered everything now. What could a Human do, on Fiuriel? How would her friends Viri, Iri and Char respond if they knew what she was … an alien, a monster, even? Her heart felt so burdened, she feared it might stop beating for sheer shame and despair. But nothing about her newfound memory changed her Fiuri-ness. She was still Shionelle, the little White Fiuri, and Azurelle apparently had no memory of who she was. Tazaka had to be controlling her!

  Her eyes narrowed. Things might look hopeless, but maybe there was a chance …

  After a long time of lapping up the applause and celebrations, Tazaka turned to Shioni. At once, there was a hush in the great hall.

  Lord Tazaka stroked his pointy beard. “Now, little Fiuri, what shall we do with you?”

  Azurelle waved her hand vaguely. “I’m so happy today. Why don’t we just let her go? Soon, we can be together, o Tazaka, my precious tara-petal.”

  “Maybe I will let her go.” Shioni could not believe his words. Lord Tazaka kissed Azurelle’s fingers. “You’re more beautiful than a sapphire’s heart. You will be the greatest Queen the Greens have ever known. We must not spoil this day with a judgement. But we must reveal this creature, so that all might know the true nature of the danger that I overcame today.”

  Zi slipped her arm through his. “Ever my gallant protector.”

  What Azurelle needed was a sharp slap! Shioni fumed, knowing Tazaka’s hold over her friend would not easily be broken. What she needed was one of the Big Chief’s nectars, something to restore Zi to her true, bubbly self, not this lifeless, expressionless creature Tazaka had made her.

  But, a restoration? Was Tazaka about to turn her back into her Human self?

  “My fellow Green Fiuri, members of the greatest Fiuri clan of them all!” Tazaka shouted. “It is ever in the moments of our greatest joy, that we must remember how evil can slip among us in the most cunning of guises. Always, we must be vigilant! We must protect ourselves and our caves and our families from the schemes of our enemies.”

  He pointed dramatically to where Shioni floated in the air, a couple of wing-lengths from him. “Look at her! A Fiuri child in appearance. So sweet and innocent, yet this Fiuri walked right through the wards and spells of twenty highly trained senior magicians. I warn you, my friends, that there is a terrible monster concealed here, a monster who would steal the very magic from our larvae and carry them off into the tunnels to feast upon their entrails. Look. Watch as I unmask her true nature.”

  Suddenly, the clips and buckles of her wing harness loosened themselves. The awful material slid off her shoulders as if it had come to life, and although Shioni trembled, she could do nothing to stop Tazaka. Here it came. She was about to make everyone scream and faint as she turned into a huge, galumphing Human.

  “Flutter your wings, White Fiuri,” Tazaka said, maliciously. “Show us how very white you are. Has any of you–any one of these Fiuri gathered here today–ever seen a White Fiuri? One with four wings and no colour?”

  Shioni cringed at the silence. Somewhere, a male voice screeched and someone shushed him.

  Lord Tazaka was strutting up and down the dais now, waving his hands. “That is because you have never seen a Fiuri such as this, here in the Fiuri tunnels. Because this creature comes from up there!” Over the rising tide of shouts and exclamations of horror, Tazaka shouted, “Yes! It is true, for I, with my great magic, have discerned the true nature of this monster! And though I cannot prove it yet, I swear that only our Blue Fiuri enemies have the p
ower and the gall to employ this freak, a larvae-murdering drinker of Fiuri blood, sending her among us in the guise of a Fiuri child!”

  Clearly, outlined in the doorway of the Halls of Endless Light, Shioni saw the shock and horror on her friends’ faces. They believed Tazaka.

  “Friends, this White Fiuri’s power is the same ancient power which destroyed our great Fiuri civilisation and chased us down into the caves. It is the same power which roams the world up there, seeking ways to annihilate any Fiuri who dares to stand against it!”

  His voice rose to an impassioned shriek that echoed throughout the great hall. “This monstrosity, this cunning assassin, is a creature of wild magic!”

  Chapter 16: Prisoner

  THere MIght have been something comical about petrifying the very pollen out of an audience of thousands, Shioni thought, if it were not so sad. And, if it did not terrify her also.

  Poor Azurelle. How could she withstand Tazaka’s power? In real life, Zi would have died rather than marry her nemesis. She had one month. And from what Azurelle had told her in the past, Lord Tazaka would not be taking a new bride for love. He wanted revenge, not happiness. Meantime, Azurelle’s best and depressingly human friend was powerless, trapped in a magical Fiuri dungeon with no magic, no hope, and her neck firmly stuck in a noose of her own making. Wild magic. The idea made her retch. Surely, Tazaka had to be lying? He was using her as a way to foment war against the Blues.

  To cap it all, her friends hated her.

  What a perfect day.

  As Shioni shifted on her lumpy pallet in the corner of her dungeon, her chains clinked and burned against her skin. The burning was due to Tazaka’s personal addition to her bonds–his biliously green, all-conquering magic. Its tendrils coiled around the metal with the tenacity of vines. “Don’t want you entertaining any thoughts of escape, Shioni,” he had sneered, before the transparent dungeon door slammed behind him. As the door was as thick as Shioni’s arm, she knew only an elephant could break it down.