On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) (8 page)

But despite all of the nice weather, and the melting snow, Aladestra couldn’t bring herself to be happy. The Realms had been savagely attacked lately, by caustics and, Azra would argue, by alarists as well.

Aladestra pulled her shawl tighter still and pressed on, her mind on the attacks her realm had faced. It was a shame that the war in the Realm of Earth was happening now. She would send reinforcements if she could, but the truth was, none of the realms could spare any of their defenses. She was busy rebuilding, and having guard details strengthened at all towns and cities within her borders.

The call of a crow overhead drew her attention again. She shuddered, hoping it wasn’t an ill omen. But then a glint of something on the crow caught her eye, and Aladestra stopped.

“Hush, Smith,” she said. The wind toyed with her long curly hair, casting strands of blonde on the wind, and her blue eyes studied the shape better. She channeled a thread of wyrd into her gaze, sharpening her focus and strengthening the distance that she could see.

“Get inside,” she whispered to Smith. He made to protest. “
Now,
” she ordered. He obeyed.

The short, chubby man half-closed the tower door behind him, peeking out the crack left. “What is it, Guardian?”

“Not a crow,” she said. She watched the black wings spiraling over the city. “What do you want, bird,” Aladestra said. It wasn’t even a bird. She could vaguely make out the shape of a human where the body of the bird should be.

It was an angel.

She gathered her wyrd around her. Lavender energy crackled across her hands. It wouldn’t happen this time. She wouldn’t stand by and watch as her realm was attacked again. Before the fallen could act on its own, Aladestra threw her hands out, and from them giant arcs of lavender lightning flashed through the sky, finding their mark.

The fallen drifted to the side, rolled, and winged toward her. She felt the coming of the angel’s power.

Before her a muscular man landed, a swath of black cloth tied around his waist. He shrugged his shoulders, and loose feathers fell, smoking, to the floor of the parapet.

Smith shut the door firmly.

“That hurt,” he said, his voice beautiful, soothing as the warm winter wind.

Aladestra wasn’t fooled. She launched another attack. The force of wyrd concussed the air around the fallen, flipping him end over end from the tower. She raced to the edge, throwing balls of lavender fire one right after the other in quick succession.

The angel darted expertly out of their way and flew around the tower, out of sight.

Aladestra heard a large boom, a shudder, and dust and smoke filled the air. Now the noises from below weren’t the casual notes of conversation, but screams of terror and pain. There was a loud roar, and the world split into chaos. A great gust of smoke and dust rushed up the sides of the tower and quickly overcame the parapet she stood on. The clear air was clogged with so much debris that Aladestra couldn’t see.

Glass rained down into the streets, shattering across the cobblestones, slicing people to shreds as the apex of the Wyrder’s Academy came down. In another explosion, dust shot out from the academy, and the skywalk between it and the Ivory Tower vanished out of sight, dropping away and plummeting to the streets below. In minutes the enormous Ivory City was surrounded by a plume of smoke. Blotting out the sun, the smoke skittered peacefully across the basin of the Falls of Nependier, where it got lost in a churn of spraying water. It rose up, greeting the base of the mountains, and rose still further. Aladestra wouldn’t be surprised if the elves were able to see the dust by nightfall.

She cast her wyrd out in a shimmering bubble around her, clearing some of the air. Her heart raced double-time, wondering what had happened. She heard shattering glass, and another loud noise followed by a great reverberation in the ground. She was knocked to her knees, the Ivory Tower swaying in some cataclysmic event.

Aladestra heard the fallen land beside her.

“Looks like some of your building’s foundations aren’t as strong as you thought,” the angel muttered.

In horror a light dawned. She raced to the edge of the tower, trying to see down, but the hazy air wouldn’t let her. There were cries of terror below, whimpering and the sound of running feet. Another shudder in the ground, and another crack. Now that she knew what she was listening for, Aladestra could hear the sound of mortar breaking, tumbling to the ground, smashing giant holes in the cobbled streets below.

She turned and let her rage flash out of her in a torrent of wyrd. The angel backed up, slapping away every burning tendril of lavender wyrd as it slithered at him.

“By the Goddess, I
will
see you dead!” Aladestra said.

The angel tried to mount an attack, his sword coming out of its sheath and hammering down on Aladestra, but a force of wyrd repelled the blade. She called her wyrd forth into a jagged shape much like a dagger, and she plunged it deep into the fallen.

It gasped once, and she yanked the shard up, arching it under his ribs and driving it toward his heart. Blood cascaded around her hand, soaking the sleeve of her dress and ruining the white shawl that now lay forgotten on the floor of the parapet.

The angel started to fall to his knees, but Aladestra shoved all of her rage into the wyrded shard, and it shattered. An explosion of wyrd happened inside the angel, and shards of her lavender wyrd shot from the surface of his skin, leaving his flesh hanging on his frame like tatters of cloth.

He fell dead at her feet.

Aladestra knelt beside him.

“Smith,” she said, her voice cracking. “You can come out now.”

The door creaked open.

“I need to write the other Guardians. Bring me some black parchment; this is a dire situation.”

Zara looked up to see the lavender lightning lance up into the sky. She sat on her bench, eating her sandwich, and wondered what was happening. People strolled by her, paying neither her nor the lightning any attention, just enjoying the warm winter weather and good conversation with friends. A slight breeze stirred her red hair, and she munched away, watching what was happening in the skies above. She saw the lightning hit something that looked like a bird, but then it responded to the strike, and as the creature wheeled out of the sky toward the top of the Ivory Tower, Zara could see that it wasn’t a bird at all, but a human with wings . . . an angel. She dropped her sandwich, stood, shielded her eyes with her hands so she could see better, and watched for a few moments. She couldn’t see anything, and then the creature flew off the top of the tower, snapped its wings open, and flew around the tower. There was a huge flash, a roaring noise, and then a giant explosion of fire and wyrd that lit the air brighter than any sun.

Zara stumbled back. Everything was silent. Chatter in the streets hushed as everyone turned toward the flash. Zara knew something was different, but part of her mind tried to rationalize what was happening, tried to root her in the physical world. She was aware of the hem of her green dress billowing around her ankles in the warm breeze, how it tugged at her cloak, and how her sandwich was on the ground and she should really pick it up. And then screaming, and a roar of noise like a giant waterfall crashing down around them. The sounds of glass raining down close at hand, shattering on the cobblestones. Dust and debris so thick it quickly blotted out the scene of the Ivory Tower. Hands grabbed her, shook her from her stunned state, and pulled her backwards into a store, its glass windows framing a scene of terror outside. People ran and didn’t look back. Close behind them, rivers of smoke and debris raced along the streets like water cascading violently through a channel.

“Dear Goddess,” Zara said, turning to the balding shop owner. “You saved my life.” She was shaking. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew something was happening that would change her life forever. She sank into a chair, her wobbling legs no longer able to support her body, and gave in to her tears, though she didn’t know why she was crying. She didn’t know the significance of what was happening, or even what was going on outside the windows, the streets were so clogged with smoke.

The squat shop owner pressed a glass of water into her hands, but she was shaking too badly to drink anything. She moved to place the glass on the mosaic table beside her when another explosion made the very air quiver. Zara jumped, and the glass slipped out of her hands and shattered on the floor, sending streams of water and glass cascading over the tile. Zara screamed when the glass broke, placed a hand to her chest and gasped for air.

“I’m sorry,” she told the frazzled shop owner, who immediately started cleaning the mess.

Banging came on the front door. Zara jumped. The shop keeper backed away, his frightened gaze flickering between Zara and the door. If they opened the door, then the debris and smoke would flood in here, and all the terror, and all the chaos from outside would be even more real.

Zara hiccupped. Shivered. The pounding came again, bloody prints on the glass of the door. Screaming. Another roar of noise. Zara closed her eyes tight, willing to be out of this nightmare, willing to wake up to the sun filtering through her penthouse apartment, painting her bed in honeyed yellow relief.

And then, with a startling shatter, the windows of the shop exploded in on her, and the ground shook, heaving her from her feet, throwing her across the floor. The person from outside fell through the door, a shard of glass tearing up through their midsection, pinning the woman in the doorway. Smoke flooded through the shop with a gale force wind that tore at Zara’s green dress. There was no oxygen to have. The heavy smoke burned her lungs, making breathing impossible. She coughed, gasped, and coughed again, her head flooding with pain. A moment of terror, blind panic, and then the roof gave way under immense pressure, and Zara knew only darkness.

Days later two figures showed up at the keep that were a welcome sight for Joya, even if their presence did cause a bit of a stir through the barracks lining the walkway to the front of the keep. None of their ilk had been seen before by the likes of those in the Realm of Earth, but Caldamron and Shelara didn't let that faze them one bit. In fact, if they even noticed the way the soldiers investigated their alien forms, and their weaponry, they didn't show it.

In the light of day, Shelara's skin shimmered slightly less, though the blue seemed deeper, even if the green incandescence didn't blush so frequently across her skin.

Caldamron's black and white furred figure stood out strangely among the shorter humans. He stood like a soldier before his Guardian, his clawed hands clasped behind his back, the metallic weapons he called guns holstered at his side.

"It’s great to see you!" Joya trumpeted. Instantly the dark elf and the cat-man relaxed.

"Guardian, is there any news of Uthia?" Caldamron asked.

"The last we knew, she was going to see if she could get some help from the other dryads in the Shadow Realm — we haven't seen her since," Joya informed them. "But come, I would like to introduce you to the Guardians of the Realm of Earth, and get you settled in. We are about to have a meeting I would like you both to sit in on, if they will permit my counselors to attend."

Joya lead the dark elf and the cat-man into the black and white tiled entrance hall with its various chairs and tables for awaiting summons. She turned left immediately, and they ascended the stairs that reached high into the towers of the keep.

"I half-expected to be attacked while we ventured here," Shelara said. Joya wasn't sure she could ever get used to the odd accent of the ooslebed, the proper way she spoke, and how well-enunciated each word was. It seemed to be a racial quality, and Joya loved it in the dark elves that called the Shadow Realm home.