Heir To The Nova (Book 3)

by T. Michael Ford

  “Oh, that’s just great; I’m back here again,” complained a familiar voice from behind us. We spun around to see the vision of Winya that I remembered from the dream weaver’s illusion standing there wearing the same party dress and smiling gently.

  “Winya, is that really you?” Maya cried, running into the larger woman’s arms and letting herself be crushed in the ensuing embrace. “Yep, in the flesh, so-to-speak,” Winya answered happily. “You didn’t think I would let you go through this alone, did you? I promised Alex I would defend you for all time, and here I am.” She looked over at me and winked.

  Maya dusted herself off. “So where are we? Are we really dead then? And why are you wearing my dress?”

  Winya blushed. “Oops…I kind of grew to like it for sentimental reasons. Anyway, to answer your first question…”

  “No, you are not dead,” boomed a voice from all around us. We all instinctively took a few steps back as a strange blue light formed in front of us. Slowly, the light scintillated lazily before it began to take the ghostly outline of a person.

  “Wow, this guy again,” Winya whispered. “He greeted me when I came here the first time, but never spoke to me again. Kind of creepy if you ask me.”

  “So…we’re not dead then?” Maya asked hopefully, addressing the blue light.

  “No.”

  “But I am?” Winya grinned cockily.

  “Yes, of course, you are dead. Stone cold dead. You don’t even have a body anymore, Winya, so why are you talking?” The blue light shook irritably.

  “Hmm…rude and has a twisted sense of humor, too. Perfect,” Winya chuckled, not in the least bit daunted by the presence. But then if you’ve been dead for four hundred years, there probably isn’t much that frightens you anymore.

  Maya shot a look of minor annoyance at her friend and pressed for more information. “So if we aren’t dead, then where are we?”

  “Inside me,” it responded.

  “Well, that’s just gross,” Winya commented.

  “Ok, why are we here then?”

  “Because I wished you to be here. I am glad to see you both. There were some of my brethren who feared you would choose to become a full-blown Nova, Alex. They believed that humankind would never attain the nobility to sacrifice its own self-interests for a greater good. I am gratified that they were proven wrong. Now, down to business. Time is short and we have much to discuss.”

  “You still haven’t told us why we are here,” Maya reminded him.

  The being brushed off her question. “Alex, we have been watching you all your life in the hope that one day you would be standing here now. I would introduce myself, but names have no meaning for my kind. But you have seen my worldly form before; I am the crystal in the room where your current corporeal bodies reside.”

  “You are a living crystal?”

  “I am what you would call an elemental, but not like the one you name Reggie. I am an elemental of pure magic, unbound and unrestrained. A limitless supply of arcane power, if you will, and one that only the Nova can control.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are a power source only, incapable of movement or extending our reach beyond our own shells. But even a power source has needs, and we created the first Nova for one reason only; to harness our power and create all that could be created. We are both their creators and their servants in many ways. The universes are very vast and in the creation process, the Nova found many more of my kind; and they, in turn, created more Nova. Over eons of time, as with any large group of powerful individuals, disagreements cropped up. And over more time, the disagreements turned to polarizing hatred, leading to two distinct sides, the light and the dark. My brothers and I are of the light, and we have upheld our laws for more time than you can comprehend. But this is a war we cannot win. The Nova were designed to create, and they do their jobs wonderfully. But for every world they create, two are lost or destroyed. To respond to this, the Nova created the nebulia, but even they are too limited by our rules to be effective. Our opponents, the dark, follow no rules so they have a free hand to mete out destruction wantonly.”

  “Can’t the Nova just step in?”

  “The Nova are well respected and have served us well, but they are flawed. Their long life span has made them opposed to change, made them inflexible and, ultimately, ineffective. Often times, a Nova’s solution to combating the evil is just to destroy the world and remake it anew; this is wasteful and inefficient. A new force must be created to combat this evil, something with the power to fight using the inherent resources of the world itself. Think of it like your body fighting off an infection. We need someone capable of not only fighting for good, but becoming a galvanizing force that draws the inhabitants of the planet together to fight off the darkness…someone like you two.”

  “Us?” we both repeated.

  “Yes. Alex, your father has always been the most open-minded of the Nova, and that is why he has your mother, and why we have enlisted him for our work. But you, we did not foresee. We didn’t even know that two Nova could bear a child; yet here you are. Alex, you are the perfect mix of mortal and Nova. When your powers are shared with your soul mate, the synergy created will forge a new class of beings.”

  “What do you mean ‘new’? Will we not be Nova?” Maya asked.

  “No, not Nova. That is the beauty of it; you will be something entirely different. Ultimately mortal, but very powerful. But that will not even be your greatest weapon. You will have mortal weaknesses to be sure, but you will also have free will and the ability to draw others to your banner, like you have already done with your host of unusual friends. The darkness has no such weapon, and never will.”

  “Ok, I have to ask, is this really the afterlife?” Winya interrupted impatiently.

  I swear the being sighed and then replied. “No, this is not. As I said before, you are all currently inside me. Everyone who spends time within these walls, and especially those who die defending the fortress, become changed by it; more precisely, changed by me. This Mark of Sky Raven, as I think of it, allows me to call out to those souls who have served and died for me. You, Winya, are one such person.”

  “But why? Why keep me or any of us here?”

  “It is a complicated question, but the simple answer is that I still had need of you. Worry not; I have created this place to exactly match the real afterlife so that none are robbed of their peace. And those of you who leave this place as you did, Winya, do so only by their own choice. You will recall that your sisters moved on and you had the opportunity to do so as well, but you had your own destiny to wait for.” Winya grew very quiet. “And while we are on that topic, I can safely tell you that Alex never had the ability to reach into the afterlife as you all thought. All the younger version of Alex did was request that the door be opened for him. Of course, I had to make sure none of you really remembered too much so I altered your memories slightly.”

  “So Alex doesn’t have the ability to contact the dead?” Maya asked.

  “No, he has the ability to travel here; and soon, convey from here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “All will become clear in time, but right now, you need to go and face the changes that lie before you. But before I send you away, I have one last question for Winya. I offer you the chance to stay here and rejoin your sisters if you wish. You will be free to move on and join them in paradise.”

  Maya looked at her friend in fear and sadness and Winya looked at her in the same way. Not taking her eyes away from Maya, she said, “I thank you for the offer; please tell my sisters that I love them and I am sorry, but this is my destiny now and I will stay here.” A small tear ran down Maya’s face as she hugged her friend.

  “Very well, I will pass along your message. I pray I will not see you three again until the day you walk these halls for the last time. Oh, and I am sorry but this might sting a bit. Goodbye.”

  With another flash of light, we were back in the re
al world, our hands still on the stone before us. Maya looked at me in confusion and then suddenly started to scream in agony. Before I knew what was happening, something hit me in the back. It felt like two red hot daggers stabbing me right between the shoulder blades. I heard more screaming and shouting from what sounded like Mother and Rosa before I fell to the floor, and all went dark and quiet.

  Chapter 9

  Something was off, that much I knew. I tried opening my eyes, but they didn’t seem to respond. I was weak and so very tired. I felt like I was in a bed; at least there were soft things around me. I could also feel a weight on my chest, but any concerns I had about my condition vanished as I recognized the smell of Maya’s hair.

  I drifted back to sleep and rested for what felt like a long time until a firm hand clasped my shoulder. “Alex, son, it’s time to wake up.”

  My eyes opened, but were unfocused, registering only a blob of color standing above me. I blinked and it was like a series of magnifying lenses started to snap over my eyes, each layer adding additional sharpness to the image until I could see every line and crack in the polished wooden planks that made up the ceiling of our tower room at the top of the keep. Shifting my attention to my father, I watched him smile tentatively, but the crow’s feet near his eyes showed that he carried a great burden of worry. Looking away from him for a moment, I could see I was propped up against the headboard, surrounded by mounds of pillows and covered with a thin blanket.

  Maya was stretched out on her stomach on the bed, with her head on my lap, her curls spread out in all directions on top of my blanket. She was covered in a blanket, too; but it appeared there was something else on top of her as there was a conspicuous bulge. I put my hand gently on the back of her neck and lifted up the blanket slightly. All I saw were feathers and a lot of them. So why is there a dead bird in our bed? Running my hand down to her shoulders, I discovered two intriguing things. One, my dark elf was completely naked under that blanket and two, those feathers were small, immature wings, and they were attached!

  Reeling a bit and hoping fervently that this was a dream after all, I bent my head to my own shoulders, and I was gifted with an excellent view of similar wings, draped over the headboard and attached to my own back. They were handsome wings I would have to admit; primarily white, with black speckles. Turning back around, I looked at my father questioningly, hoping for an answer.

  “How?”

  He chuckled and pulled up a large side chair. “Honestly, we don’t know, but you two gave everyone quite the moment when you both started screaming. Your mother was frantic and gave off so much magic, I think she goosed every wizard in the fortress! I kept trying to tell her that if the crystal was going to kill you, you would have just been instantly vaporized, but she was in no mood to listen.”

  “Umm, thanks…I think.”

  He suddenly looked horrified with himself. “That was the completely wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”

  “Just a little.”

  “I’m sorry, I am still getting used to having a son.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “Anyway, you two had a bad time of it, screaming and thrashing about; but you never let go of each other. In fact, we had to pry your hands apart to bring you up here. Rosa grabbed the druid girls and Alera, and brought them to you as quickly as possible. But there wasn’t much to be done; the transformation was beyond the ability of human magic to alter. Thankfully, you both fell unconscious shortly after.

  “So what are we really?”

  “Well, you are exactly what the crystal entity explained you would become, the new generation of special protectors of this planet. Of course, to everyone else you probably look like owls.”

  “Owls,” I repeated woodenly.

  ..................................................

  Maya

  Sleep was wonderful, and a rest-filled night after the last few weeks was very much needed. I could sense Alex’s presence and, as always, it made me instantly comfortable, so much so that I nearly drifted back to sleep again. But then he started doing something that he shouldn’t, and he wouldn’t stop! I shifted uneasily in the bed and turned my head without opening my eyes.

  “Hmmm…Alex…you’re playing with my ears again…”

  He chuckled but didn’t even flinch like he normally does. “For once, I can safely say that I am not touching your ears.” He’s not? Well, whatever he is stroking feels really, really good. Wait…what is he touching, my back? I opened my eyes. I was on my stomach so I had to crane my neck a bit to look up at him, and strangely, my field of vision seemed wider than normal so it was no problem to see him. Alex was gazing at me lovingly with his hand on the back of my shoulders. I was still having vision issues, because his normal gorgeous brown eyes looked amazingly large and rounder from this angle. And the lenses of his eyes were like polished crystal; they almost glowed. He had his back to the low headboard, and it looked like there were wings behind him; big fluffy, white and black speckled wings.

  “Um, are we dead?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sea slugs?”

  “Not slugs.”

  I sighed and got more comfortable on his lap, but then I started thinking. “If we’re not dead, then why do you have angel wings?”

  Alex snickered. “If I was an angel, I wouldn’t be having the kind of thoughts I’m having about a certain beautiful dark elf, who happens to be completely naked under those covers.”

  “What?” I raised myself up on my elbows and looked down my front, and then grinned up at him. “Hmmm…very astute observation, but you’re hiding something. Why does it look like you have wings?”

  “Because I do, sweetheart.”

  “Ahuh.”

  “And, I’m afraid, so do you.”

  “What?” I twisted around and tried to see, but Alex wrapped his arms around my shoulders and held me in place.

  “Maya, calm down; we aren’t allowed to move around yet!”

  In disbelief, I struggled with him anyway. Escaping his grasp momentarily, I looked back and there they were! About four feet long; but mine were totally white on the top half and only went to black-speckled toward the tips. Instantly, I felt a sharp stab of pain ripple through my back. Shaking his head, Alex carefully pushed me back down to my resting position on his lap.

  “Told you not to move; our wounds aren’t closed yet.” He reached for something next to the bed and carefully placed it between my shoulder blades. “Yep, you reopened one; Alera will be pissed.”

  I did my best to calm down but still, how does one respond to ‘you have wings’? Alex straightened the blanket covering me to preserve my modesty and sighing, shifted his weight and brought one of his wings over the top of the headboard so it was directly in front of me. His wing was a little longer than mine, but still only a little over four feet. I had to admit it was gorgeous to look at, even if it was totally inadequate for flying. From my experience in the forests, I would say this looked like a juvenile owl’s wing more than anything else.

  “We have wings,” I said in disbelief.

  “Yes, it seems that we do; but, Maya, considering the alternative of death or sea slug, this doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “But why do we have them?”

  “Well, my parents don’t even know, but I would have to guess this is what the crystal entity meant when he said ‘something new’.”

  I didn’t really know what to say, and a little full-blown panic began to set in. How will my life change with this? Am I even a dark elf anymore? By the stars, what am I going to tell my parents? Will I even be able to use a sword effectively with these useless things on my back? Sensing that I was about to lose it, Alex started to massage my neck and shoulders. I didn’t want to be placated, but I couldn’t help but relax with his strong hands running over my body.

  “Feeling good now, are we?” said Winya with her usual snide remark.

  “Oh, shut up, you have no idea how good this feels.”

 
; “Actually, I do.”

  “How?”

  “What? I never said anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Ok, she is definitely hiding something. But before I could properly confront her on the subject, the door to the room popped opened as Dawn and Dusk walked in with huge smiles on their faces.

  “Oh good, you’re both awake, and so cute, too.” Dawn nodded, before yelling down the hallway. A few seconds later the druid girls, all three of them, burst into the room with Alera and Rosa not far behind. The first thing they did was break out their sketch books and started writing and whispering among themselves.

  Rosa threw herself on top of us and tried her best to hug every inch of us. “Alex, you owe me! And I demand as payment that you never do anything like that again!” she said as tears ran down her face. “Your screams still haunt my dreams. I felt your pain. I know it wasn’t your fault or anything, but I still don’t like it.” I tried to hug her as best I could with Alex still keeping me from moving.

  “Alex, you can let go of me now.”

  “Actually,” Alera growled, sliding around from the other side of the bed, “it is better if he didn’t.” Rosa dried her tears and sat down next to me on the side of the bed to hear what the healer had to say. “You seemed to have reopened your wounds and he appears to be keeping you from causing further injury to yourself. If you don’t start behaving, I will have to administer a sedative.”

  Rosa smiled next to us. “A fine idea!” She looked at the girls who were huddled together comparing notes in their sketchbooks. “Girls, could I have a time estimate, please?”

  They buzzed a bit longer before Ryliss stepped forward. “If our observations are correct, the transformation should be done in about fourteen hours.”

  “Excellent!” She leaned down and whispered in Alex’s ear, “Don’t think you have outshined your master just yet. Even without help from your mother, I learned one of your own enchantments and made some improvements of my own. Nighty-night, you two!”