Heir To The Nova (Book 3) (20 page)

“Honey…” she said, drawing the word out, “you are seeing this as some sort of horrible catastrophe? Nothing could be farther from the truth! This is an amazing and wondrous event, even to me.”

“Wondrous!” Maya repeated, grinding her teeth and issuing a slight bark of derision. “Yes, I am very much wondering how I am ever to swing a sword again! Or walk through a standard doorway. I wonder if I can walk the streets like a normal person, or even how do I sleep at night? What are we supposed to do, Oreale? Roost standing up like chickens? This is a disaster! We are freaks, not some new super warriors!”

My mother reached up and brushed some stray silver hairs out of my girl’s face. “Maya, dear one, I see the issue. You believe that you are stuck with your wings at this size forever, and this will prevent you from living your life?”

Maya nodded sadly.

“Oh my poor, sweet angel, nothing could be farther from the truth. These glorious wings of yours are enhancements, not a punishment. Listen to me, as soon as you learn to use them properly, you will be able to shrink their size down to fit comfortably, even under your form-fitting armor if you like.”

Maya’s big eyes lit up as my mother’s words sunk in, and she managed a real smile that brightened the room. With a cry of joy, she swept her arms around my very surprised mother and hugged her tightly.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you so much, Mom!”

My mother looked like she had just received the riches of the world as she beamed, hugging Maya back enthusiastically and kissing her on the top of the head. I even saw some streaks of tears sweep down her cheeks.

Everyone in the room looked a bit taken aback, except Alera, who quipped, “Well, I guess my work here is done. Of course, my Queen, your ministrations seem to have made my patient feel better than any of my poor efforts.” My mother continued to smile and hold onto my dark elf like the proud parent she was.

“Now bear in mind, daughter, these are now your true forms; and while you can minimize them, hide them if you will, you will always feel most comfortable when they are open and free to the air. As you get older, you may find hiding them away becomes less and less important to both of you.”

“She’s right, Mistress,” Dusk added. “As much as we appreciate our human shapes, they are always just a little bit tight and constricting. Embracing our true forms is a special treat for us, as someday it may be for you.”

“So you girls are constantly uncomfortable when you look like humans?” I asked, suddenly feeling guilty. I had always assumed they had no problem staying human for long periods of time.

“It’s not so bad; really, Father!” they protested in unison. However, I filed the information away for further thought.

Meanwhile, the druid girls had surrounded me. “Alright, first things, first,” Lin smiled. “We know what kind of wings these are; both of you have snow owl wings and eyes similar to raptors, too.”

Maya extracted herself gently from my mother’s embrace and stood with her arms crossed, watching the druids work. “I thought as much. I’ve always thought the snow owl was a most regal and beautiful bird. They are deadly silent hunters, too.”

Lin nodded. “That they are, that they are, indeed. But moving on; we need a bit more information before we can tell you if they will actually let you fly instead of just making you look amazing and drop-dead sexy.” Julia elbowed her in the ribs, but Lin just grinned evilly. “Anyway, if you would be so kind as to open your wings, Alex, as far as you can, that would be wonderful.”

It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought. For a few moments, I flailed around moving my arms and mentally shouting orders to my new appendages, but none of that was working. It was only when I looked up at the high ceiling and willed myself up there, that my wings deployed instantly and totally silently, too. Now they were fully extended and all the rich detail of the feathers were displayed. My wings appeared to be fully-grown now, with adult feathering.

Maya gasped, laughing, “Alex, my love, you are absolutely beautiful,” as she deployed hers easily on the first try.

All of the women in the room chortled in agreement. The druids were all over me with a measuring rope; Ryliss scribing measurements in her journal as the other two called them out. “Looks like just over a twenty-two foot wingspan. That’s really good and should produce a lot of lift.” Jules whistled in appreciation. After a bit of consultation, with Ryliss doing pages of math, the girls came to the unanimous decision that we could indeed fly. All we needed was to learn how.

Rosa laughed and threw open the door. “Good! I have just the person to teach you how to fly.” Nia flew in with a wicked look on her face, taking a few reconnaissance laps around Maya and me.

“Looking good, guys. The course is all set up. Let me be the first to welcome you to pixie flight school!”

Pixie flight school. We’re both gonna die!

The twins quickly got the two of us dressed in heavily modified training outfits, which they had stayed up all night crafting with Rosa’s input. Once they were put on, they looked pretty normal, but the number of buttons, extra panels, seams, and slots were mind-boggling. Apparently, this was all necessary to make sure we didn’t lose them in flight. Dawn and Dusk fussed over us like new mothers with infants.

Once we were dressed, Nia started leading us through the back halls of the keep and finally out a door opening onto an area that I wasn’t even aware existed. It was a long, narrow area between the walls of the keep and a section of sheer cliff face that fell off abruptly just to the left of where we were standing.

To the right side was a large set of stone steps that meandered down to the floor of the space far below us. Lin, Julia, and Ryliss were already perched happily on the steps, with a pile of drinks and snacks spread out on a nearby blanket. They got up and marched over to us as we looked over our training center. Lin smiled.

“Ok, you guys, I know you have great confidence in your pixie flight instructor and all, but we should point out there are some big differences between your snow owl wings and Nia’s more primitive chitin constructed set up.”

“Primitive!” Nia howled. “Primitive! You’re really pushing it, Auntie. Can your bird wings do this?” She proceeded to hover, dart forward and backward, side to side, and finally did a couple of inverted figure eights over our heads. Then she hovered and stuck her tongue out at the tousled-haired blonde druid.

“Well, no,” Lin laughed, “but you can’t fly for hours at a time without tiring, float on thermals, and fly silently. Plus, you are pretty limited on the weight you can carry, and need I mention the molting cycle?”

“Ok, yeah…molting really sucks.” Nia grimaced, but then seemed to remember why she was here. “Ok, back to flying!” Our pixie instructor buzzed up to a nearby wood rail and alighted on the top. Pulling a long splinter off of it, she slapped it into her other hand like a baton, displaying a no-nonsense attitude.

“Alright, listen up! My name is Flight Instructor Nia. When you are in my class, I will have your complete attention at all times. There will be no eating, drinking, mind messaging, whining; and especially, no kissing, groping, petting, or longing glances in my class. A moment’s inattention in the air means the difference between living to fly another day and a messy regurgitation by a hippogriff. Remember, only you can prevent forest flatulence, and there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’. “

“Nia, are you sure this is the right place for a fledgling?” I interrupted, eyeing how far down it was to the floor of the training area. At least, it was sandy and flat at the bottom. Every twenty feet or so there were large ten-foot high posts sticking out of the ground, reminding me of training pells but much taller.

“This is the place, alright; your father picked it out, Alex. He said you two need to acclimate to your new wings as quickly as possible. Until you accomplish that, you two are pretty much defenseless.”

Great, now my parents are trying to get us killed, too.

“Ok, Nia, we get it,” Maya chuckled nervously. “What, exactly, are we supposed to do here?”

“It’s easy. All you have to do is fly down and stand on one of those posts. It’s as simple as that.”

I caught Maya’s eyes as the pixie continued to wax poetically about how easy it all was. They were still the emerald green pools that I fell in love with but were somehow changed, slightly different.

“Your eyes have changed; I think I almost like them even better,” I whispered.

She smiled confidently. “I like yours better, too.”

Nia buzzed around our heads. “Hey, focus, you two. Heh-heh focus, get it? But yeah, they have changed alright. It’s one of the things I am supposed to train you on, or test actually.”

“What, our eyes?”

“Well, you both have raptor vision now,” Julia gushed. “Isn’t it cool?”

“So you’re saying we can see better?”

“Haven’t you noticed, silly?”

I shook my head absently. “We’ve been inside most of the time until now.” I gently took Maya’s hand, and we walked over to the edge of the cliff face. Looking down, the sensation was very odd; it seemed the more we concentrated, the sharper the image.

Maya was ecstatic. “Alex, this is wonderful; I can see Bel’s farms from here. Look, a marmot!”

I was just beginning to share her enthusiasm when I noticed the poles. They were identical to the ones in the floor of the training area, but these were sticking sideways out of the sheer rock face below us; and it was a very, very long way to painful rocky death beneath them.

“Nia, care to explain those?” I pointed.

She smiled evilly. “Level Two.”

Yup, we were goners alright. Nia launched into her pixie flight basics speech. Basically, we were getting the same lesson that was taught to two-week-old pixies and she wasn’t pulling any punches. I tried not to find this degrading; but with the druid trio laughing at every other word, it was difficult.

We were about to try it when my mother appeared outfitted in a yellow dress and a large sun hat; but instead of saying anything, she just sat down on a section of step and folded her hands across her knee. When we all turned to look at her, she just smiled. “Oh, don’t mind me; I’m just here to watch and give advice if needed.”

We shrugged and put all our attention back on the pixie, who continued, “Remember, all you have to do is float down and stick your landing on the top of one of those posts. Do that and we can move on; but if you miss, you will need to walk back up here using the stairs and try again.”

By this time more spectators were arriving. Mingt brought a picnic lunch wrapped up in a towel. Hons and some of the earth wizards showed up with cold drinks, and a group of Lin’s and Julia’s friends brought a sliced watermelon. This was starting to take on the flavor of a party or sporting event.

My first attempt was nearly my last. I confidently leapt off with my wings extended, but as I attempted to flap, I somehow instead folded my wings up and I dropped like a rock. Just before I hit the ground flailing madly, I felt giant claws wrap around my panicked body and lift me up, setting me on my feet in the sand. I turned to find Dawn hovering over me like some kind of giant momma bird. She gave me a knowing wink and flew off to join her sister doing air patrol above us.

“Hey, you could have given me a lift back up to the top, you know,” I groused as I collected my feathery baggage and started up the long flight of cut stone stairs.

Maya took to the air next and, of course, did it much more gracefully. She actually managed to touch the top of one of the poles with her foot on the first try, before sliding off and gliding the ten feet to the ground. My second and third tries saw me missing the pole entirely, but at least I didn’t require rescuing. The stairs were getting to be a pain though; it really hurts to step on your own wing!

Maya, now a crowd favorite, stuck her third attempt perfectly. She preened and bowed for her fans while atop the pole, maneuvering her wings perfectly to keep the light breeze from blowing her off the perch.

“Alex, you simply must come up here! The air is wonderful!” she gloated.

“Show off,” I growled and pushed off again; and again came to an untimely end, not even close to a post. It got so bad that many of our onlookers gave up and went back to their duties, convinced that I was a hopeless case. It took a few more hours of practice, but by lunchtime, and after a few tips from my mother, Maya and I could both land on the tops of the poles consistently. After lunch, we continued on with the lessons, moving on to short flights from post to post. Three days of this routine and we started to get a lot better. Sleep was still a challenge, but exhaustion became the mother of invention; and I finally found a way of wrapping my wings close to my body while laying down that didn’t cause me too much discomfort. We had a second large bed moved into our room, one for each of us, until we got this figured out.

On the morning of the fourth day, we were back out at the training area. We were getting good at staying in the air, sometimes for over an hour at a time. But our sharp-eyed instructor would never let us fly higher than the keep or out over the cliff. But today, we resolved that was going to change.

“Today, we are going to practice post-to-post drills,” Nia droned on; however, Maya and I had other plans. At a signal from Winya, we both made a bold dash for the cliff. The pixie did a double take upon seeing her students making a break for it.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going? Wait! You’re not ready for Level Two yet!” she screamed.

Maya grabbed my hand and laughed as we both jumped over the edge with smiles on our faces. We spread our wings, and the air caught under them with a satisfying pop of uplift. Swinging out over the drop-off on the backside of the mountain gave us a spectacular view of one of the twin waterfalls that fell off this side of the fortress. The sensation was invigorating and like nothing either of us had ever experienced. We were forced to let go our hands, otherwise our wings would have gotten tangled, but we still flew together.

We circled for a short while, enjoying the warm updrafts from the sun up the sides of the cliff face. Soon I noticed a devilish look in my dark elf’s eyes; and with a challenging smirk, she tilted down into a dive. Caught up in the moment, and not about to let her have all the fun, I dived right after her, hugging the cliff face as we dropped. Dodging the posts sticking out of the cliff face, we accelerated all the way down to the valley floor, and at the last minute reshaped our wings and re-extended for maximum lift. Our momentum pushed us smoothly out over the river, all the while laughing like hysterical children. A large herd of wild goats drinking at the river spread out in panic as we passed overhead. Finally, we slowed and beat our wings to gain altitude once more. In a few minutes, we were back high above the keep, enjoying the warm sun on our feathers.

Maya flew up next to me. “This is wonderful! I never knew life could be so free!” She took my hands and pulled us closer still as we hung in the air, wrapping her arms around me. “I love you.” The sunlight was captured by her wings and face as if she was literally glowing.

“I love you, too; even if we didn’t quite make it to sea slugs,” I said as we kissed hundreds of feet in the air. Our kiss slowly turned into a form of dance in the sky that got more and more complicated and passionate as time went on. Separate, then flap to gain altitude and re-join for our dancing embrace. We were up there for a good long time before a familiar voice showed up.

“Really? Air dancing a mile in the air and you haven’t tested out of Level One yet? You two are absolutely horrible students!” We could see she was pulling our legs, as she was smiling and seemed happy.

Maya chuckled. “Oh, really? Are we doing this wrong? Tell me, how do pixies dance, then?”

Her face contorted a bit as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. “We…um, we dance on leaves. Ok, fine, we dance like you guys did. Only our wings are meant to let us do this; hover, I mean. Besides, you’re giving the entire school whiplash with your up and down, up and down!”

“The entire school?” Maya asked, puzzled. Then she whipped around and focused on the student body assembled in the courtyard, on the walls, standing on steps, sitting on rooftops…all watching us intently! My dark elf flushed and shot me a deeply embarrassed look.

“Oops, I guess we didn’t think they would notice,” I said.

“How could they not? You two are radiating like a second sun in the sky!”

“Huh?”

She slapped her forehead. “You’re both glowing! Like a lot.” We both shrugged again. “Really, you didn’t notice? What, do you picture each other with the sun constantly behind the other? Never mind, stupid question. But we really need to get you two back to the keep. You may be on a romance high right now, but you’re approaching your flight endurance limits, so scoot.”

Laughing, we blew past her on the way back to the training area. It wasn’t very hard to believe that we were faster than the pixie. But even though we weren’t really out there very long, I could feel myself starting to tire out. Flying at speed takes a lot more energy than just riding thermals.

My mother was waiting for us when we landed, and we watched her eyes glow for a bit as she smiled at us. “Congratulations! Your wings are now fully mature.”

“Does this mean we can learn to hide them now?” asked Maya impatiently.

Mother chuckled, “Yes, and it appears that’s not the only thing.”

“Meaning?” we asked in unison.

She reached over and put an arm around Maya and gave her a gentle hug. “As I told you a few days ago, dear; these are wondrous enhancements. While you aren’t Nova, you appear to have gained some variations of traits formerly only nebulia were granted. You both are a bit stronger now. Maya, you gained far more proportionately than you, Alex, as you already had magically enhanced strength. Of course, the wings and eyes are unique to you, but you are now both immune to sickness, poison, and disease. Your rate of healing is also much faster; a broken arm will heal in a few days instead of a month. And lastly, but most impressively, is that glow of yours.”

“Ok, so we actually glow now? What does that even mean?” Maya asked.

“Well, it looks really cool,” Nia commented, “and it draws a crowd, for sure.”