Nica's Legacy (Hearts of ICARUS Book 1)

by Laura Jo Phillips

  Nica’s eyes widened. “Ian, we can’t let the Changeling leave Apedra.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ian said. “Flora’s image is everywhere. If she goes near the skyport, she’ll be stopped. She wouldn’t dare risk it.”

  Nica refrained from rolling her eyes. Barely. “You really don’t know that woman at all, do you?”

  Ian frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Flora would dare anything, Ian, trust me on this. But the Changeling will stop her from drawing attention out of fear that it will draw Eibhleann, too. That fear is the only thing holding it, and Flora, back right now.” She tossed the thin blanket covering aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

  “Where are you going?” Ian asked. “Shouldn’t you rest a bit longer?”

  “No, Aunt Lari said ten minutes, and that’s how long it’s been. We can’t afford to waste any more time and I have a lot to tell the Dracons.”

  “There’s no reason to rush, Nica,” Ian said. “We have to wait for a shuttle anyway.”

  “No, we don’t,” Nica said, reaching for her clothes. She carried them to a doorway that led into a small bathroom and went inside. “Ten minutes,” she said, then pulled the door shut. True to her word, she was out ten minutes later, her hair soaking wet from the shower, but washed clean of the healing tank gel. She sat down to put her shoes on, then reached for her knife belt and buckled it around her waist.

  “You’re really good with those knives,” Ian said, “but what are those other things?”

  “The sai?” she asked, pulling one from the belt and handing it to him. “Careful, it’s really sharp.”

  Ian nodded, turning the shiny steel dagger shaped rod with curved prongs projecting from the handle over in his hands. “How is it used?”

  “Hand to hand combat, and it throws well, too,” Nica said, returning it to its slot when he handed it back to her. “It’s an ancient Earth weapon.”

  “I like it.”

  “I’ll teach you how to use it, if you want.”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” he said, following her to the door and opening it. “How did you learn this stuff? Throwing knives and sai.”

  “I have lots of aunts who were warriors before they became Arimas,” Nica said. “They all taught me things. Tiketa, knife throwing, sai, laser weapons, sword fighting, all that stuff.”

  “Sword fighting?” Ian asked in surprise.

  “Yes, sword fighting, but fighting isn’t all they taught me. Aunt Hope taught me about art. Aunt Summer taught me electronics and computers. Aunt Aisling taught me interplanetary tracking. Aunt Saige taught me that the strong must always protect the weak.”

  “Yes, Saige was born to be a protector,” Lariah said, catching the last part of their conversation as they entered the Dracons’ private dining room. “You look much better, Nica.”

  “I feel much better, Aunt Lari, thank you,” Nica said. Then she walked around the table to hug Garen, Trey, and Val, thanking each of them and kissing them on the cheek.

  “You guys have helped us so much, and I appreciate it more than I can say, but I need to ask for more help, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course we don’t mind, Nica,” Garen said. “Just remember what our limitations are.”

  “Of course, Uncle Garen,” Nica said. “What I’m going to ask is that you help me to do the very thing ICARUS was created to do; correct chaos caused by the Xanti.”

  “We’ll need some background, Nica,” Val said, his gray eyes sparkling at her with unmistakable pride. “We wrote the rules, so we can’t break them.”

  “I know, Uncle Val,” Nica said as she and Ian sat down across the table from the Dracons. “Queen Eibhleann gave me all the information you need. I just can’t seem to access any of it until I actually need it.”

  “As long as you have it, that’s what matters,” Trey said, smiling. “We’re listening.”

  Nica turned to Ian. “Some of what I’m going to say you’re not going to understand. It’s stuff from the Jasani’s past, but I’ll explain it all later, all right?”

  “Sure, Nica,” Ian said.

  “Okay, here goes. You all know about the ancient Druids on Earth, and how they disappeared.” Lariah’s eyes widened and she leaned forward expectantly. Nica smiled at her, understanding her interest. “There were a small handful of men and women who had power, healing power and, somehow, I know they were distant descendants of one or more Tigren. Another clue to that is that they called themselves Druids, a word, as we know, used by Clan Tigren in Ugaztun’s distant past.” All of the Dracons were leaning forward in their chairs now, listening intently. Ian was staring at her in surprise, so she reached over and squeezed his hand gently.

  “When the escape pod of women fleeing Ugaztun reached Earth, the descendants of those Tigren who still had some psychic ability, sensed their arrival and went looking for them. About a third of the survivors of the pod returned to the village and, in time, they found mates among human men and had families.

  “Two or three generations later, the Tuatha De found Earth and stopped there for a visit.”

  “Wait,” Lariah interrupted, her green eyes glowing with excitement. “I apologize, Nica, but did you just say Tuatha De?”

  “Yes, I did,” Nica said, grinning. “They’re real, Aunt Lari.”

  “Fantastic,” Lariah whispered. “Please, go on.”

  “The Tuatha De never intended to stay for very long. They’d been floating through space for eons by that time, looking for a new home after their own world had been destroyed by a solar flare. Earth was almost as beautiful to them as their home world, but it already had a sentient species, so they couldn’t claim it for their own. They just wanted to rest for a while before continuing their search.

  “By this time most of the people of the village had some degree of power, being descendants of the Ugaztun refugees. Not a lot of power, but enough that they were drawn to the Tuatha De, or perhaps it was the other way around, I’m not sure.

  “Eibhleann did not put the reason for this in my mind with all of this other information, but I do know that the Tuatha De can no longer have children among themselves. But, they discovered that if they mated with the men and women of this village of people who called themselves Druids, they could have children. Half human, half Tuatha De children that were born human in every way, but with a much stronger spark of power than any of their human parents.

  “The Tuatha De realized two things. The first was that they couldn’t continue to mate with humans without running the risk of altering the entire human race, something they felt they had no right to do. The second was that their existing offspring could pose a serious threat to other humans. They could not bring themselves to destroy their own children, so they decided to teach them the importance of using their powers only for good, in service to their fellow man. They watched over them throughout their lifetimes, and the lifetimes of their children, and grandchildren, to be sure none strayed from their teachings. Many of them were healers of one sort or another. Healers of humans, animals, plants, trees, the very earth itself.

  “Word spread of this growing village of Druids and their power to heal and, inevitably, jealousy and suspicion began to grow. One night the Druid village was attacked. By the time the sun rose again, only one hundred and forty two Druids survived. The rest were murdered in their beds. Over eight hundred men, women, children, even babes in their cradles. Those that survived did so either because they were not in the village at the time of the attack, or they were able to use their powers to hide.

  “This tragedy is what marked the end of the Tuatha De’s time on Earth. Queen Eibhleann’s heart was heavy with the knowledge that their intrusion into the lives of the humans had wrought such pain and sadness for so many. She also knew that if she did not take the remaining Druids with them when they left, they would be murdered as well.

  “So, the Druids left Earth with the Tuatha De. In time, they found Apedra, a planet of stone a
nd ice, but in a system with a sun and a moon. It wasn’t what they’d searched for, but the humans they had with them couldn’t live indefinitely on their floating isle like they could, and their time was running out. Eibhleann used the Udari, the crystal of power that she’d taken from their home world before its destruction, to nudge the planet into an orbit that was a bit closer to the sun, and waited for the ice to melt. Then she used the Udari again, this time to create an environment that both humans and Tuatha De could live in.”

  “So that’s what happened to the Druids,” Lariah said softly, her cheeks wet with tears. She looked at Ian. “You are Druid?”

  “I am, Highness,” Ian said. “Even I did not know all of that story, Nica. Most of the people of Apedra know some, few know as much as I did. We are all taught from the cradle to never speak the word Druid in the presence of an outsider. It is forbidden to speak of power, or if one has power, to tell outsiders about it. We have lived in secrecy and fear from the beginning of our world. Maybe it’s time we stopped.”

  “You might want to give that some careful thought first,” Nica said. “After all, the current troubles were caused by the Xanti when Eibhleann refused to use her power for their purposes.”

  “What did the Xanti do?” Garen asked.

  “They bombed Apedra, about one hundred and fifty years ago,” Nica said. “When the Xanti first arrived, Eibhleann placed a shield over Galia, the continent where all the humans live. She didn’t want to put an impenetrable barrier around Galia for fear that she would lock some humans out, or worse, lock Xanti in. The humans of Apedra at that time had no electronics, had barely discovered electricity, but the Xanti walked around in electronic suits. So, she surrounded Galia with an invisible shell that disrupted electronics of all types, such as the Xanti bombs, and the Xanti bio-suits, but didn’t effect basic electrical devices. She didn’t know the Xanti would attack at that point. She did it to deter the Xanti from going there.”

  “So that’s why electronics don’t work,” Ian said. Nica nodded. “But why is the shield still in place after all this time?”

  “I’m coming to it,” Nica said, giving his hand another squeeze. “When the Xanti attacked, Eibhleann called all Tuatha De to the island she called home, the Shining Isle. Her intention was to surround it with a shell similar to the one she’d put around Galia. Before she could put the shell in place, a Xanti bomb hit what she calls the Iron Gate.

  “There are two groups of Tuatha De, which those of us who’ve read the legends might be familiar with. The light, or Seelie, and their exact opposites, the dark, or Unseelie. You won’t find a Tuatha De who is both good and bad, like humans often are. The good ones are Seelie, the bad ones are Unseelie. The Seelie live in our dimension, in the light, and are ruled by Queen Eibhleann. The bad ones, the Unseelie, live in another dimension, a dark, cold place ruled over by the Thorn King. All that separates the two is this barrier, the Iron Gate. Where the Queen resides, so resides the Iron Gate. It isn’t something she carries around with her or chooses to keep close. It’s just there, wherever she lives. So it was on the Shining Isle with all of the Tuatha De because that island is Eibhleann’s home. When the bomb hit the Iron Gate, it cracked, and an Unseelie Changeling got out.

  “As soon as Eibhleann realized what had happened she threw up a barrier around the entire island to prevent the Unseelie from escaping, but she was too late. It was already gone. She and the other Tuatha De turned their attention to repairing the Iron Gate before any more Unseelie could escape. That’s when the Xanti dropped one last bomb, which turned out to be the most devastating of all. It broke the Udari, the source of power for all of Apedra.

  “Sensing the change in the flow of power, the first thing Queen Eibhleann did was try to remove the barrier she’d placed around the island to trap the Changeling so she could go and repair the Udari. But, once again, she was too late. Not even all of the Tuatha De, working together, could make the smallest change in it. With the Udari broken, that barrier, and the shell around Galia, were stuck, for lack of a better word. The Shining Isle became a prison, and all of the Tuatha De have been trapped there ever since.”

  “Damn,” Ian breathed softly as he struggled to absorb all that Nica had just told them. He frowned. “Nica, you said the Xanti attacked a hundred and fifty years ago, didn’t you?” She nodded. “The deterioration of our land only began about thirty five years ago. That makes no sense.”

  “The shield Eibhleann put in place around Galia served to hold the power in, just as the barrier around Eibhleann’s island has held power in. They weren’t meant to do that, but they did, which is a good thing or everyone would already be dead by now. But everything grows weak with time, Ian, and the weaker the shield gets, the faster it deteriorates.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that, but I didn’t know why it was happening. None of us did. We just thought Eibhleann and the Tuatha De abandoned us.”

  “They would never abandon the people of Apedra, Ian,” Nica said. “You are their descendants. Children of the only children they will ever have now that their world is gone. They love you.”

  “Then why have they stayed away from us for so long?” Ian asked. “The legends of the Tuatha De and the Druids are alive because we teach them to our children, but no sign of their presence has been seen in the history of Apedra.”

  “They fear causing a repeat of what happened on Earth,” Nica said gently. “It’s for your sake, for the sake of all the people of Galia, that they stay away.”

  “Most of the old stories and legends of the Tuatha De Danaan depict them as selfish, arrogant, even cruel at times,” Lariah said. “It appears they got that wrong.”

  “Very much so,” Nica said, then looked at her uncles, sat up straight and folded her hands on the table before her. “The life threatening situations that Apedra is now experiencing are a direct result of the Xanti’s interference, and the chaos they left behind them wherever they went. Therefore, according to the precepts of the ICARUS charter, intervention is acceptable.”

  “You are correct, Nica,” Val said, smiling.

  “She is,” Garen agreed, “but we need to know what it is, exactly, that she asks our help with before we can agree to interfere.”

  “The most immediate threat to the citizens of Apedra is the escaped Changeling,” Nica replied grimly. “It returned to Apedra quite recently, and has been hiding inside of a human woman ever since. It fears Eibhleann, so as long as it doesn’t discover that she and all the Tuatha De are trapped, the humans are mostly safe from it.”

  “Mostly?” Garen asked.

  “It discovered that it can absorb the power of a human by drinking his, or her, blood,” Nica said. “It’s quite strong now, but it’s still afraid of Eibhleann, which is our only defense against it.”

  “You are quite powerful yourself, Nica,” Trey said, surprising her. “Is it strong enough to cause you harm?”

  “Yes, Uncle Trey,” she said. “I threw two of my knives at it. One bounced off its chest. It caught the other one in mid-air and threw it back, barely missing me.”

  “That must be the one that’s buried in the stone of the fireplace,” Garen said. “We could try to kill it for you, Nica. This creature is not meant to roam freely in this dimension, and wouldn’t be if not for the Xanti. Each life it takes only furthers the Xanti’s chaos, so it’s fully within our charter.”

  “No, Uncle Garen,” Nica said, shaking her head. “Changelings aren’t the only creatures of the Unseelie realm, but they pose the greatest danger to the Tuatha De because they are the exact opposites of the Seelie. If an Unseelie is killed, then its opposite, an innocent Seelie, will die as well. There are only eighty two of the Tuatha De remaining as it is, not counting Queen Eibhleann.”

  “What is to be done with it then?” Garen asked. “And please do not ask us to stand by and watch you battle with such a creature, little Nica. We lost your bright smile and happy disposition for eight long and worrisome years. We will not lose yo
u again.”

  “I appreciate that, Uncle Garen,” Nica said, blinking back tears again. “Very much. But don’t worry, I’ve got no plans to tackle it myself.” All four of the Dracons arched brows at her. She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know that Flora was the one hiding the Changeling at the time.”

  “You threw a knife at what you thought was a normal human woman’s forehead?” Trey asked in surprise.

  “There is nothing normal about Flora Layton, Uncle Trey,” she said with a scowl. “Believe me, she had it coming.”

  All of the men, including Ian, raised a hand to their mouths to hide their smiles. But Lariah caught Nica’s eye and gave her a faint nod of approval. Sometimes, a woman has to be ruthless.

  “The only one who can capture the Changeling and return it to the Unseelie realm is Eibhleann,” Nica continued. “I have to free her.”

  “But, how?” Lariah asked, then smiled. Nica returned her smile and nodded.