Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  The islets that had surrounded us might as well have not existed for all we could see of them, but what I did see was exactly how the river was bloating.

  By Gaia’s grace, that was an understatement.

  “Is that it? Do we get out of here now?”

  Dan’s question was a valid one, and as he was staring at the river, which was beginning to roar now with its tide, I felt his concern as if it were my own.

  “Look at the ore,” Matt directed, and I realized that Dan and I had been so focused on the river, we’d forgotten what we were here for.

  Just as when Dan had touched them the first time and after, when he’d been seeking the pattern on them, the rune began to glimmer, but as we retracted the others, stuffing them in each of our pockets, the edges of the ore, so smooth and perfect, began glowing a bright red. The edges’ glow was so hot, in fact, that it made my eyes ache, but even as the pattern made itself known once more, I saw the four pieces of ore were drawn together like an unseen hand was bringing them into one unit.

  With a clank, they united. A bolt of lightning soared overhead and a rumble of thunder had us all jerking in place. Just as we looked up, the newly formed ore surged upward too and, hovering about six feet above our heads, we watched as it pierced Riel’s magical protection and headed into the wilds of the storm above.

  Except, instead of being lost to the rain, or flung into the river, the metal began to become thinner. Flatter. Almost as though the rain was beating it into a shape.

  I frowned as the small ore that was the size of my palm became as flat as a pancake, but bigger even than that. Two feet in diameter, three. Four.

  It seemed to hover at that point, quivering in the air as water still attacked it, and out of nowhere, the sun pierced through the clouds. The ray was so pure, so white, that I had to look away, and when I did?

  I saw the river which had been about eight feet away was merely inches now. “Linford!” I screamed over the noise of the raging tide. “We have to get out of here.”

  But his focus was elsewhere.

  Overhead, the sun collided with the disc, creating a reflection of light so unadulterated that, once again, I was forced to look away.

  “Linford!” Riel screamed, and I realized she’d seen the rise of the river too. She rushed over to him and grabbed him by the arms. “You have to take us from this place!”

  He shook his head as though he were dazed, then, blinking at her, nodded.

  And like that, the roar of the river was no more, the rain had stopped, that beam of light overhead had disappeared, and we were in the middle of a forest.

  A different one this time. This wasn’t boggy or humid, and the chatter of the animals around us was dissimilar too.

  Still surrounded by the pink haze of Riel’s magic, I ground out, “What the fuck just happened?”

  Gabriella, with tears in her eyes, whispered, “It worked.”

  “You didn’t think it would?” Riel snapped, her fury brimming from her, making the pink haze around us pulse with her temper.

  “I wasn’t sure. How could I know?” the older woman sputtered, but that was no defense. Not for me or for Riel by the looks of it.

  Riel’s mouth tightened into a line, and she turned away from the pair of them, dismissing them in deed rather than word. Focusing on us instead, she stated, “We have to assume we need to do the same thing here, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but without the rain. ‘Help change grow,’ was what Trude said,” Dan commented warily, as he peered around us, trying to get a read on our location.

  That was easier said than done, considering the density of the trees. There was little open space here, not unlike the islet we’d been on, but what was different was the lack of a river.

  “What even is Suswa?” I asked Linford. When Riel had recited Trude’s words back to him, he’d nodded as though he knew Suswa well.

  “It’s a special crater. It was a volcano once upon a time, but where the mouth was, it collapsed. Not just once, but twice. So it’s a crater within a crater.”

  I frowned at that, but then, looking around the area, I had to admit it was fertile as all get out here. I knew that a large chunk of Africa was pure arable land, a lot of it wasn’t farmed thanks to drought, and plenty of it was farmed but actually leased to other nations. My business studies had even focused on how Saudi Arabia had leased a shit ton of agricultural land from the Sudan, but I had to admit to being surprised by just how fecund this place was.

  “The Maasai guard this land. I know they set up sentries sometimes to make sure visiting tourists pay their tolls.”

  “Pay their tolls?” Riel frowned. “You make them sound like trolls guarding bridges.”

  He snorted. “You pay or else. They make a tidy sum on guiding tourists around the crater.”

  “Why do people visit?”

  Hitching a shoulder, he murmured, “Why does anyone visit anywhere? This is a beautiful spot. It’s as good a place as any to visit.”

  Because I couldn’t exactly argue with that, I peered around and saw a family of fucking leopards watching us from their perch on a tree. Pointing to them, I murmured, “We have guests.”

  “Technically,” Dan said with a small laugh, “we’re their guests. Let’s just hope it’s not for dinner.”

  Riel grimaced. “Will my magic keep them off?” Her mouth softened when her gaze drifted over the family, and I couldn’t blame her—the cubs were cute as fuck.

  “It kept off those storms. We’re all dry.”

  “Big difference between the rain and a mama cat protecting her cubs.” She let a breath gust from her lips. “Let’s get the ball rolling.”

  Pretty much as one, we set the ore on the ground. Peering at them as Dan crouched down and pressed a finger to each piece, Linford was the one who murmured, “Our earth rune is an upside-down triangle with a ‘T’ shape crossing through it.” He pointed to the ones he thought matched and said, “Them. Just turn them upside down.”

  Riel cut him a look. “You’re sure?”

  He shrugged. “As well as I can be.”

  We each retrieved our ore and stored them in our pockets, then Riel, biting her lip all the while, pressed them closely together so there was a three-inch gap between each piece. Crouching down with her knees in the ashy soil, she stared up at us and muttered, “The only way I can grow something is to literally grow something.”

  “You can bring life, Riel. Create a seed and have it grow.”

  I frowned at her grandmother. “You want her to grow a plant?”

  Gabriella shrugged. “Or a tree. Whichever she feels best. Go with your instincts, Riel.”

  Unsurprisingly, she huffed at that. I didn’t think Riel had ever been a particular fan of kismet, and our recent past didn’t exactly seem to have made her appreciate it all the more.

  She opened her palm, closed her eyes, then sucked down a breath of air. The next time she opened them, there was a single seed in her hand. Her Virgo all grinned at one another, but her grandparents were goggle-eyed at the sight. Considering what Riel had just done was pretty much impossible, their pride was understandable. Sure, we’d seen her create daisies and a tarantula—cue grimace—but it was still a miracle to behold.

  She tucked the seed into the soil and hovered a hand over it. This time, it wasn’t as clear as it was in the Amazon. The sky didn’t turn from a cheery blue to a grim gray, and no rain fell in response to her magic. As she crouched there, shrouded in the pink haze of her power, nothing seemed to be happening.

  Nothing at all.

  Then, out of nowhere, a tiny sprout appeared through the soil. Bright green and gleaming with new life, it began to move. I’d seen videos of bamboo shooting upward, growing fast enough for the eye to behold, and this was that, just turbocharged.

  As the sprout grew, the plant morphed. The stem grew thicker, wider. Broad enough to connect the four ores with its reach. As it shot up, the ore moved with it, and though I reached out to move
them out of the way, Gabriella grabbed my hand and stated, “No. This is the way forward.”

  With the plant or tree or whatever the Sol it was growing nice and healthily, Riel got to her feet and straightened. She tipped her head back as the tree began to surge upward, moving faster now that the ore were lodged into its stem.

  At a similar height to the Water stone, the tree came to a halt about twelve feet from the ground. The ore began to glow once more, the seams a bright red that, unsurprisingly, cleaved through the tree until they were linked together. Before our very eyes, the damn tree carried on growing, except, instead of growing up, it grew out. Branches appeared, leaves morphed into being, and with it, they shrouded the silver ore… until they did as the rain had with the other. Somehow, the branches encouraged the disc to grow, to widen until the tree’s canopy had a broad circumference, about thirty feet across.

  And just as that happened, the tree itself began to glow, burning hotly, brighter and brighter, as bright as the laser light of earlier, and in a flash, the tree was no more. Ruptured apart as it turned to dust, covering us in the ashy loam.

  “Bleugh,” Riel spluttered, dragging her hands over her face to get rid of the ash. The rest of us did the same, leaving behind dusty streaks on our faces. Truth was, we were more focused on that than on what was going on above us. Wasn’t difficult to blame us considering I felt like I had half a ton of crap in my eyes.

  “Your magic doesn’t stop dust,” Dan grumbled, but his words came to an abrupt halt. “Hope it stops leopards though.”

  I stilled, peering in the same direction as him.

  “Nice, kitty kitty,” he cooed, eying the leopards who, save for the cubs, were standing a few feet away now, hissing at us.

  When I reasoned that a tree had just shot up out of nowhere and then had disappeared in the blink of an eye, in their paws, I’d have been feeling pretty gnarly too. Especially with cubs nearby.

  I licked my lips and mumbled, “Why isn’t that beam of light thing happening?”

  Sol must have heard me. The second I uttered that?

  Thank fuck, the sun concentrated itself, found the floating silver disc, and boom.

  The blindingly strong light, exactly like a laser cannon outside of a club but a thousand times brighter, shot forth.

  Just as the leopards did.

  Fourteen

  Riel

  As the leopards leaped at us, evidently pissed at our presence, I hissed at them to get them to back off, but wouldn’t you know? Wild leopards didn’t respond to hisses.

  Saying that, did housecats?

  I doubted it.

  They were royal assholes in the best possible way. When I was a kid, my friend had a cat. Best pussy ever. Ate her weight in turkey and was a total badass around my friend’s twin brothers when they were babies.

  I seriously doubted a hiss could have made that cat back off from her protection detail.

  Still, just as I hissed, Linford spun us out of nowhere, and where we landed wasn’t much better.

  “You have to be shitting me,” I ground out, but fuck, the wind snapped up my words, tearing them from me just as it ripped at my magic.

  The cold sank through the pink haze, and the guys forged us some fresh clothes, thickly padded stuff that kept us from losing extremities. Dressed like the Michelin man, and without another word, I quickly dropped the remaining pieces of ore to the ground. As did the others. This place was intolerable, and the sooner we were out of here, the better.

  Without prompt, Linford screamed over the wind, “The air rune is a triangle with an ‘L’ running through its tip.”

  Daniel pressed his fingers to the ore and quickly found the Air stones. His hands shook from just that minimal exposure, and unsure if we could store the Fire stone together, I ducked down, grabbed a piece, and handed the others back to my men just in case.

  When that was done, the wind slipped through my magic and grabbed a firm hold of my hair. Now, I wasn’t averse to some hair pulling, but this wind nearly tore at the roots.

  “We’re not dressed for this shit!” I grumbled, calling on my magic to cover my head with a balaclava. I quickly cast another spell and made sure our whole group was covered appropriately—I swore, men didn’t know how to dress.

  Who would travel to Everest without being swaddled in a thousand layers?

  Shuddering into my down coat, and shuddering even more at the thought of what I had to do, I place the Air stone close together and, over the wind, shouted, “If this wind isn’t fast enough then…” We were already being buffeted, but behind us, there was a rock face we could cling to.

  I wouldn’t exactly have said that we were in a protected pocket, because on Everest, where in Sol’s name was protected? But we were in a kind of clearing. I’d kind of expected to be dumped on the summit, but I knew from an article I’d read only recently—an article that had cemented my desire to never climb Everest—that the summit was really fucking narrow.

  Maybe I should be grateful that Linford’s Goddess’ guided coordinates didn’t take us to the peak where we could be swept away.

  Shuddering at the thought, I pinged some stakes into place on the wall behind us, and then crafted some rope. It was rudimentary, but aside from willing our feet to be superglued to the snow, I couldn’t think of what else to do.

  Did superglue even work in minus temperatures?

  “We need to tie this around our waists,” I called out, “and then tie it to the rock face. The wind I brew might—” There was no need to carry on. Everyone knew what might happen, and no one argued because no one here was a fucking moron.

  I figured after the rainstorm, and then, ya know, growing a tree in a handful of seconds, they could predict with little to no issue just how much of a clusterfuck the wind I was going to brew would be.

  Just thinking about it made my skin crawl with misery at how cold the temperatures were going to dip to. I already felt like my bones were in the deep freeze. Any colder? I wasn’t going to be a happy bunny.

  As I knotted the rope around my waist and passed the rest to Daniel, I waited for everyone to link up. Staring overhead, I winced at the sky which was almost white, it was so pure. Our feet had left tracks on the pristine snow, and I eyed that then the Air stone.

  Calling on the elements was easier now, but calling on the wind when I knew it could blow us off the fucking mountain was sure as shit no fun.

  Still, if we were all tied together, then Linford could ping us out of here… Didn’t mean I had to like it though.

  When we were tied together as one, and the guys were clinging to the metal posts in the rock face, I summoned the wind.

  No surprise, it came to my call like I was born to cast it, which, go figure, I was.

  I shivered as it caught onto the existing wind and slipped in seamlessly. At a guess, I’d have said the ‘breeze’ was approaching hurricane level-force before we arrived. Now? I wasn’t even sure if our minimal safety guards were going to save our asses. As Fae, we had inbuilt protections against flying in these winds, but standing still was apparently a whole other ball of wax. Figured there had to be a catch.

  My only consolation was that if anyone was going to die today, it wasn’t innocent Sherpas and stupid tourists who wanted to climb the mountain. That article I’d read had said there was a narrow-as-fuck window for climbing Everest and that was back in May.

  As the wind brewed, the way it whipped at the few locks of hair that slipped through the holes in my balaclava stung as they lashed at the exposed skin with the silken strands. I truly resented having long hair at that point as I called on more and more, not stopping until the wind sapped the very breath from my lungs and the snow on the ground beneath us stirred.

  Maybe that was the catalyst.

  The ore was suddenly swept away by the snow. My grandmother screamed, just loud enough to be heard over the wind, but Linford, thank Sol, caught her and held her back.

  Within seconds, the glow from the ore beg
an, and it melted through the snow that had grabbed it. It was picked up by the wind, then tossed into the air until it was about twelve feet from the ground—there was definitely a pattern there—and like that, it was hurled around like pizza dough being tossed until it was wider and wider, getting thinner and thinner, spread flat until it was as wide as the others.

  The wind had been howling piercing sounds that hurt my ears, noises that would make me shiver forever. I’d been in the eye of a storm, I knew what it sounded like, but this? Nothing compared. It was wild and raging, and, I’d admit, terrifying. Clinging to the metal post made my hands ache from how hard I was clutching at it, and my eyes streamed as I waited for the bolt of sunlight to appear, to take us from this misery.

  With an eerie whistle, the wind came to a sudden halt. In contrast to the bullet blender of seconds before, there was only silence, because the bolt of light appeared, streaming through from out of nowhere and colliding with the disc.

  Linford didn’t need prompting. He got us out of there before I even took my next breath, and it was with relief that we were away from that hellhole—who knew hell was cold as fuck?—and onto the final stop in our journey.

  Our quest.

  I gulped at the thought because, whatever life changing crap was about to go down, we were going to get a bird’s eye view of it. The other stones had evidently been ‘activated,’ but it would undoubtedly require the fourth and final one for any affirmative action to take place.

  I gnawed on my bottom lip as I looked around the area. The sky was just as white as it had been on Everest, but it was different here. There were trees and shit, lots of different colored rocks, and, thank Sol, in the distance, I could see evidence of life. Granted, the distance was well away, but it felt less isolated than the place we’d just left.

  Why anyone wanted to go there and spend thousands for the privilege had me wondering at their sanity.

  Shivering still because though it was definitely warmer here, I felt like I was defrosting, I turned around, whipping off the balaclava I was wearing, and came to a startled halt when I saw my Virgo and grandparents were staring at me.