Wings of Light

by Katerina Martinez

  “Rey?

  “It means King in Spanish. Keep up.”

  “Rey… why were you watching us?”

  “I wasn’t watching the both of you, only you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  The cat hopped off the fountain and moved toward me. “Call it a vested interest. I saw the way you dealt with the Caretaker. It was pretty upset at not getting to eat you.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t cry about it.”

  “I will forgive you, because I’m a forgiving person. Draven, on the other hand, is something of an ogre. I’d stay well away from him, if I were you.”

  “Don’t worry, I plan on it.” The thought struck me, then, that I was having a conversation with a cat. What would this look like to someone watching? Paranoid, I scanned the courtyard for people.

  “There’s no one here,” Rey said, “Just us. And between just us, I have a little advice to offer you.”

  “I’m getting sick of people telling me to pass these trials if I don’t wanna die.”

  “What I have to tell you has to do with your past, not your trials.”

  “What do you know about my past?”

  “More than you think.” The cat walked right up to my feet and angled its head to the side. “Don’t give Abvat what he wants.”

  My lips parted, and I drew in half a breath. How could it— “How do you…?”

  “I know you know where it is, I know what it is. Don’t give it to him. Ever. And don’t let anyone know you have it, either.”

  “I didn’t need you to tell me that.”

  The cat started walking away. “Maybe not, but when the time comes, you’ll be glad we had this little chat.”

  “Wait, come back!” This time I did call out to it, but the cat started running, then sprinting away.

  I waited for a second, until the cold got a little too much for my skin, and then I headed back to my room to find Felice getting ready for a shower. She also had one of those jars Siren had left for me. Without saying a word, I picked a fresh set of clothes up, grabbed my bowl, and headed for the door.

  “Good walk?” Felice asked.

  “I don’t really wanna talk about it,” I said.

  “Cool, I don’t really wanna talk about it. Let’s go have a shower, I’ll show you how it works.”

  “Pretty sure I know how to take a shower.”

  “Come with me anyway. We’ll talk, or we won’t, but we’re paired so we should do stuff together.”

  I shrugged, then shook my head. “Alright,” I said, surrendering to the idea that I truly was going to play ball while I was here. No, I was going to take those trials and beat every last one of them better than anyone who’d ever taken them before me. Screw Draven, and screw the Obsidian Order—I was going to show them what I could do.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two weeks had passed since the night Fate and I were separated, two weeks of intensive training breaking bones and having bones broken, all leading to today; the day of the dreaded first trial. My instructor, Aaryn, turned out to be a real hardass—I hadn’t managed any one-to-one time with her, though I hadn’t seen her share any one-to-one time with the other prospects, either. Smart move. We were probably all gonna die during the first trial, so why get close to us, right?

  Felice and I had trained every day, even after our training hours had passed, literally beating each other up every chance we could because we both shared the same goal. We both wanted to not only survive, but to be the best. To beat all the others down and come out on top. One thing I’d learned about the trials was, the better you do, the better your position in the Order after you’re through, and that gave me something to think about.

  If I could make it through the trials with any kind of respect or authority within the Order itself, then there’d be fewer people who could push Fate and I around. Fewer people who could decide how and when we eat, where and when we train, and whether we lived or died. That was something to fight for, it was something to bleed for, and I was about as ready as I was ever going to be to go and snatch those victories up.

  The only problem was, I didn’t know any magic. All this time I’d watched other prospects fling magic around like monkeys tossing their own… well, you get the idea. Magic training was also not on the curriculum for these first two weeks; it was all about physical prowess, endurance, strength, agility, and while I’d honed my skills to a razor point if I did say so myself, I was still at a decided disadvantage.

  Aaryn’s thoughts were, if you don’t know magic, you’ll have to make do with what you have and hope for the best. This wasn’t exactly advice, and it also wasn’t instruction, it was just… pointless words, and they didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. Still, I didn’t have a choice but to face this trial head on and do the best that I could.

  It was a little after dawn and the prospects had assembled at the gymnasium to wait for Aaryn, who made us wait for what felt like an hour before she finally showed up. Without offering an excuse or an apology, she opened the gymnasium door and gestured for us to walk through it, and we did, without question. We then followed her through hallways I’d never been through, moving through a large wooden door with huge, black iron joints until we wound up outside of the main structure, with the fortress at our backs and the woods ahead of us.

  “If we have to fight the Caretaker again, I’m gonna lose it,” I said to Felice, keeping my voice low.

  “I don’t think that’s on the cards,” she said. “That’d be too easy.”

  “Easy?” I turned my eyes up at her. “Maybe for an Aevian like you. I’m barely more than human.”

  That had been a tough pill to swallow. My pair, the person I was training with, had wings like Aaryn’s and could do magic, though I hadn’t seen her use any powers. Maybe she wanted to spare my feelings, or maybe she wasn’t very good at using magic and didn’t want to embarrass herself. I chose to believe the latter.

  She grinned. “That’s okay. If we have to fly anywhere, I’ll just carry you… like a baby…”

  I was about to hurl some nasty words her way, when Aaryn spoke.

  “Listen up,” she called out, and the prospects stood to attention. “For the past two weeks you have been training your physical bodies; your strength, agility, and endurance. This trial will test those skills you have learned.”

  Aaryn flicked her wrist and produced a small, glowing, blue orb that crackled with magic. “This is a translocation orb, it will take us where we need to go. I hope none of you are scared of heights.”

  Turning her eyes up, Aaryn tossed the orb into the air where it hovered, defying gravity, then expanded into a vortex of whirling blues, surrounded by whipping arcs of lightning. My stomach flipped inside out, my feet lifted off the ground, and though I tried to pull away from the sensation, the vortex sucked me into it anyway.

  I’d been expecting a wild ride through a tunnel of flashing blue light and to be spat out of the other side, but the transition from where I’d been to where I was now, was instant; like walking through a revolving door. My whole body tingled, a sensation like the afterglow of a good orgasm. I shook my head, trying to loosen the slight dizziness that had come over me, then looked around to get my bearings.

  I was on a rooftop. The wind was strong up here, and cold. Already I was feeling the chill in my muscles. I tried to warm my shoulders with my hands, but that didn’t do much. One thing I picked up right away, though, was this was New York. We were in the city again, and not just anywhere—we were in Manhattan, although only the tips of the tallest buildings were visible; everything else was hidden under a mantle of clouds, and smog, and fog.

  “Why are we in the city?” I asked Felice who’d stepped through the vortex behind me.

  “Beats me,” she said, glancing around as other prospects arrived.

  Aaryn was last to come through, and the vortex shut behind her, compacting itself into the size of an orb again and falling into her waiting hand. With a flick of h
er wrist, the orb was gone, though where she had hidden it considering all she had on was the same tight, black jumpsuit we were all wearing, I didn’t know.

  “It’s fucking freezing up here,” Abvat called out.

  “Yeah, why are we here?” one of the other Naga, Vishal, said, echoing the sentiment. He was younger than Abvat, and twice as good looking—I almost thought I recognized him from a Bollywood movie I’d happened to catch one night when insomnia kept me from sleeping—but he hated me, too. Abvat had made sure they all did.

  “In the old world there are many Gods,” Aaryn said as she walked toward the edge of the building we were standing on. It was 432 Park Avenue, one of the tallest in New York. Off in the distance I could see the tip of the Empire State Building glinting against the morning sunlight. “They say the Gods can’t hear those who fall through the rifts into this world, but they are wrong. The Gods are always listening, and they want to help the children they lost to the rifts.”

  She spun around. “As members of the Order, your primary duty will be to hunt down supernatural elements and bring them to the Black Fortress where they can be helped. Some of them will come willingly, others will not. Many of them will possess magical abilities, or innate powers that allow them to evade you, hurt you, or even kill you. It is your responsibility to know how to adapt to any environment, and how to fight in any environment. Can anyone tell me why I have chosen this environment?”

  Silence among the prospects. Felice decided to raise her hand.

  “Felice,” Aaryn called out. “Why are we here?”

  “Because we live in cities,” she said.

  “And why is that? Humans know we don’t belong in this world; they distrust us, they won’t get close to us. The supernatural natives can identify us as other and are usually hostile towards us. Why would we congregate in such a harsh environment?”

  Felice shrugged. “It’s a comfort thing. Most of us don’t know what happened to us when we fall. We lose our memories, but we look human, so for a little while we believe we are human.”

  “Some of them don’t remember at all and go on believing they are humans,” Aaryn said, “These people will forever live on the outside looking in; marginalized and cast out by the people around them and never knowing why. But you’re only half right. There are those of us who try to get close to humans to feel safe, and comforted. There are others, however, who do remember what they are and seek to exploit the relative weakness of individual humans for their own gains.”

  With another flick of her wrist she produced a second glowing orb, this one pulsing with red and violet light. She hurled it at the floor, and the orb exploded into a shower of light and mist that started taking shape. A man appeared from the smoke as if he’d been born from it, and immediately he started snarling and gnashing his teeth. His hands were bound, as were his legs, and yet he was able to stand perfectly straight despite that.

  The first thing I noticed was the size of his canines; they were longer than they should’ve been, and both ended in fine points. The other thing I noticed were his eyes—they were black, like Draven’s… like Aisling’s. The final thing was the point in his ears; they were sharp, and not round like mine.

  “This,” Aaryn said, “Is a Fiend. Fiends are brutal, and savage. They are a culture that favors power and strength above everything, a culture that knows only war and violence, a culture with a singular ideal—to subdue and enslave everyone that isn’t them. In the dark, cavernous domains in which they dwell, they plot and plan their vicious campaigns of war on the world above, when they aren’t too busy fighting each other for dominance over their own domains. This Fiend in particular was found hiding in someone’s basement, the house’s original occupants lying dead and half-eaten around him.”

  The fiend turned his attention to Aaryn and started screaming at her in a language I couldn’t understand, but one that sounded dangerously familiar to my ears. Right in front of me, I watched his skin color change from tanned peach, to deep grey. Swirling markings that throbbed with low, red light began to appear all around his body as if they were being carelessly carved with the tips of glowing hot knives.

  Aaryn turned to it and gestured over the ledge. “You are free to leave at any time,” she said, and its bindings unlocked with a flash of light, and were gone.

  His eyes widened, he then turned his attention to the edge of the building and made a mad dash for it. Without skipping a beat, he hit the ledge in his stride and used it to vault himself high into the air, spreading his arms wide as he fell. The prospects, myself included, ran over to the edge of the building to watch this crazy idiot throw himself to his death, but by the time I reached it, I watched him soar into the air and into the distance on huge, black, leathery wings.

  “Holy shit!” I yelled, the wind carrying my voice on its back.

  “Prospects,” Aaryn said, stealing my attention away. “Your trial is as follows. Kill the fiend. The first pair to do either will have won this trial. I will be watching, but I would like to remind you that all rules are off while the trial is in progress. I cannot intervene, and you will not find aid outside of your partner.”

  “What?” Abvat said, outraged, “Only one winner?”

  Ignoring him, Aaryn threw herself off the side of the building, spreading her wings and taking flight after the fiend.

  “What’s the matter, Abvat?” I said, “Don’t think you can handle the competition?”

  His annoyed face transformed into a grin. “You know what, I’m fine with it. I’d love to see how you’re gonna pull this off without any magic.”

  Already there were prospects leaping off the side of the building. Two of the prospects that had been paired held hands as they approached the edge. Suddenly, their bodies were engulfed in ghostly, golden fire, and they simply walked off the building and started rapidly floating into the distance.

  Another prospect had grown his own pair of large, feathery wings and had taken to the sky. His partner, meanwhile, had had shuffled out of his physical form and become something like a cloud with a human shape that was easily able to keep up with his counterpart. Other prospects had chosen to turn around and head for doors to the inside of the building, where they were either going to take the stairs or the elevator to the ground floor and work from there.

  I was about to turn around and follow them when Felice took hold of my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m going after that fiend, what does it look like?”

  “Those prospects have already lost. We have to fly.”

  “Oh, yeah, let me just spread my non-existent wings and take off.”

  “I’ll carry you!”

  I turned around to face the edge of the building, wondering if maybe something inside of me would awaken. One look at the clouds below, though, and I felt my stomach twist like a wet rag being wrung out over a kitchen sink. “This is insane. There’s no way I’m jumping off this thing with you. We’re totally gonna fail this one.”

  Somebody grabbed my shoulders and held me over the edge. My heart leapt into my throat. I tried to squirm, but a sudden shock of something ripped through me, rooting me to the spot like I’d just been tasered. Abvat spun me around and growled, pushing my shoulders to make sure my upper half was hanging over the edge of the building. “Yes,” the Naga said, “You’re gonna fail, but you won’t be alive to worry about that. I’ll find the stone another way; maybe I’ll ask little Fate.”

  Across his shoulder I saw the other two Naga doing the same thing to Felice. One of them had grabbed her wrist and was shooting this dark magic into her system, killing her ability to move. I tried to call to her, but Abvat pushed me off the edge of 432 Park Avenue, and then I was free-falling, watching side of the building race alongside me.

  Abvat’s magic started to wear off as I fell, but that only meant I could turn my head up and start screaming as I pushed through the clouds. Manhattan lay beneath me, its streets filled with cars that were no m
ore than little dots, most of them yellow, all of them moving through streets that crisscrossed each other. If not for my panicked screams, the fall would’ve been eerily silent at the start, the sounds of the city only reaching my ears at around the half-way point.

  My heart hammered inside of my throat as the street below rose up to embrace me, those tiny dots growing to full size right before my very eyes. The urge to move my shoulders suddenly came to me, like something out of a dream. Somehow, I didn’t know why, a sense of déjà vu crept in, like I’d been here before, had done this before. I shielded my face with my hands and waited to fall directly into the backseat of a yellow cab. Boy, that driver was going to be in for one hell of a day. But something happened, then. My speed slowed, I felt my entire orientation change, and then my feet made contact with the roof of the cab.

  Gently.

  Gracefully.

  I opened my eyes and touched my face. “Fuck… I’m alive!”

  The cab driver perked out of his window, angled his head up, and yelled at me, but I couldn’t hear him. I was too busy padding myself down, making sure I hadn’t actually died and had become a ghost. Nope, I was alive, everything was in place. I turned my eyes up at the sky and saw the clouds eat the tops of the buildings near me. No sign of Felice, or Abvat, or any of the other Naga.

  “Hey!” the cabbie’s voice finally registered inside of my brain.

  I turned my eyes down at him. “What?” I asked.

  “Get the fuck off my cab!”

  “Oh…”

  I slid off the back of the cab and onto the sidewalk. Other cars had already started honking, but nobody seemed to be staring at me in disbelief; no one had noticed I’d just fallen off the top of that skyscraper… and survived. There was pain in my shoulders, a dull throb like I’d pulled a muscle or two, but besides that, I was fine, and I couldn’t explain why.

  A guy in a business suit wolf-whistled at me after I bumped into him. I flipped him the middle finger. “Keep your eyes to yourself, asshole.”

  His expression stiffened. “Bitch!” he yelled as he walked off.