YAARAH THE GOLDEN PURRMAINE Felidragon awoke when a hair-raising shriek shook the Suylas Deepwoods. Reflexively, he checked between his forepaws. Beneath his neck. Everywhere.
“Allory Fae! No!”
He knew that his wild roar woke the others. He did not care. Something terrible had happened. His whiskers had never felt like this. Never before. Rushing toward the sound, his paws stumbling in desperation, he roared her name again. Breaking into the glade, he gazed across it and a bellow of the uttermost despair crashed out of his chest.
“ALLORY! NO! Oh, no …”
The enemy had found her and claimed victory with a single, decisive stroke.
Speared through the heart. Her hand. Her tiny leg. Hilt-deep in her left flank. Thin runnels of silver blood trickled from those mortal wounds. Allory’s head hung limp and lifeless upon her chest.
His eyes dropped, then blazed with recognition.
At her feet, a Scintillant Faerie’s breathing stop-started with that dying rattle he had heard too many times of late. Izrimy. Allory’s sisfae.
Unfeeling paws conveyed him to the murder scene despite that his brain rebelled. Dimly, through the soughing of his grieving fires, he heard other feet running, wings fluttering, voices calling out in shock and horror. His thoughts snarled up. So peaceful – how could she appear so serene in death? That wry, enigmatic smile he loved so well quirked her lips upward at the corners. Tiny Allory had never appeared more beautiful, as if she had died during a dream imbued with Middlesun’s own light. In contrast, her sisfae’s features stood forever contorted, the sapphire discoloured to a gruesome grey pallor of imminent death.
Seeing the Felidragon looming over her, Izrimy gasped, “For – forgive?”
“Never,” he snarled.
“Not … me. Please …”
She slumped and breathed her last.
Yaarah yanked at his whiskers, uncaring of the hurt. Something was wrong here. If not Izrimy, then who had perpetrated this craven attack, this assassination? As his companions gasped and sobbed, keened and commented in horror, he tried and failed to understand his whiskers-sense. Some details were readily understood. The Wraith must have attacked Allory through her sisfae, perhaps taking over Izrimy’s mind before stealing her life, too.
A perfect double slaying.
Kneeling beside him, Ashueli reached out with trembling hand. “Look, Yaa –” her voice cracked, unheeded tears streaking her cheeks “– Yaarah. A broken locket chain. She never wore this, did she?”
“Mrrr-hssst, you’re right. Only, where’s the locket?”
Small Faerie hands helped them to comb through the grass in the glade. Other details emerged. Clearly, Izrimy was the killer. She must have stolen the Princess’ zalish sword from her side before somehow tempting her sisfae to make the fatal journey into a small glade a little apart from the others. She had slain three of the Chameleon Faerie, their guards. She, or more accurately the creature controlling her, must have tried to torture Allory before slaying her with that final cry he had heard.
Yet when his gaze returned to examine his tiny friend one more time, a Felidragon scholar could only marvel. Astonishment mingled with grief, creating a massive snarl in his belly. Aside, he muttered to Sabline, he could not fathom that expression upon her face.
Who died like that? Blissful. Contented. Almost … heavenly?
Sabline purred raggedly, “My fire-heart, we must assume that the chain held her – what did you call it?”
“Her ariayaenvul. A soul locket, mrrr – do you Scintillants know anything of this lore?” he grated in rage, before gentling his voice. “Sorry. Sorry, I just … you understand?”
“She never spoke of it,” said Izzini, the female who looked like an enlarged version of Allory – enough that he had to avert his gaze. Too painful. Hot pincers of pain clamped his chest. How could it end like this? “Her powers were beyond anything we’ve ever imagined, Yaarah,” the girlfae added, “yet she tried to share them with us. She tried to teach us about scintillance, arguing that it is our heritage, a heritage we knew of only from lore and legend, and that in the barest fragments. May I … may I try to touch this chain? Maybe we should take it with us?”
Her brofae Vartin said, “It’s like one or two of the locket chains I’ve seen around our colony. I mean, our great-grandfae Samorini had one, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Kartan and Saritan agreed.
“I wonder what became of those old lockets?” Izzini wondered, reaching out. Her hand shook so badly that she had to steady it with the other. “I’m so sorry, Allory Fae, that we were not worthy of your trust in us –”
Kerzing!
“Ouch! What?” she snatched her hand back, grabbing Vartin’s arm for protection. “What the –”
Kerzing! Ker-kerzing!
The four Scintillants spluttered and exhaled as one. Given the deep gloom of an hour now well beyond midnight, the azure sparks which had leaped first to Izzini and then across to her three brofae was more than apparent. Another time, their open disbelief might have been comical. Now, fires ignited in a scholar’s voluminous brain. New connections sizzled into being. He raised a paw but could find no way to express what churned inside his draconic hearts.
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One word lived in his mind. Hope. A wild, uncontainable, impossible sense of hope.
He stroked his whiskers as if wishing for all the wisdom ever known beneath Middlesun. More than ever, he needed a spark of inspiration. A sparkly spark – not inspiration, but in-spark-lation.
“That’s scintillance,” Xiximay stated flatly.
“Allory’s signature,” Sabline agreed.
Yaarah made to speak and found he could not. What was this? A gift beyond the grave? A sign that power still indwelled her minuscule, broken being?
How could he allow himself the slightest glimmer of hope?
Taking Xiximay’s hand in hers, Zzuriel landed beside them. “Allory left you a gift, didn’t she? Look, the necklace has vanished, too. Is … is it too irrational to imagine … oh, Allory.”
Her voice choked off.
All four Scintillants touched their necks. Nothing present, they agreed.
Coming between them, Harzune said, “No, it is not at all irrational. Allory’s talent was her inimitable genius for life itself. She left something of herself for you to find – you Scintillants need to realise that part of her elemental spark lives inside of you, now. What you choose to do with this legacy …”
“Basically, you’ve been infected with sparkle, fizz and effervescence and my brofae thinks you ought to let it take root in the inmost sap of your beings,” Varzune explained.
The four still gaped at one another.
“Exactly what I meant,” Harzune agreed, leaving the Jokerbro’s jaw sagging like a bough heavy with fruit. “Thanks, Varzune. Now, my friends, if Sparkles taught us anything at all, it was that she never meant to keep her unparalleled gift to herself. She was generous to a fault, giving of herself again and again, even when it cost her … everything.” Wiping his eyes, he whispered, “We must honour her legacy. See her face? Even at her darkest hour, she chose to defy the Wraith’s plot – are you alright there, brofae?”
Varzune shook his head dully. “Not really.”
“Me neither. We will find a way, my friends. That’s a promise. We will find a way.”
Yaarah said, “Zzuriel is right. I don’t believe she’s truly lost to us.”
“What do you mean?” Xiximay clenched her fists. “That’s as dead as dead gets, scholar! Blade through the heart? Her spirit has flown.”
“To where, and what power could possibly bring it back? We all have seen with our own eyes what she is capable of,” the Felidragon replied evenly.
The Phoenix nodded with obvious reluctance, yet desire burned in her eyes. “It’s one thing to raise others, but what of herself? Don’t misunderstand my meaning. I want to hope, I just … I don’t know how. I’m a warrior, not a mystic – Fakori, could you … just? You know?”
The rose-pink Faerie clasped his hands together over his heart. “Wishes aren’t that simple, warrior Xiximay. I will meditate. I promise I shall pray with all my strength for a pure wish that will keep our sisfae alive and even return her to us.”
“Do that, frrr-pssst,” Yaarah yowled, desperately trying to gentle his distress and failing. Sabline put a wing over his shoulders with a gentle purr of encouragement. “I understand – theoretically – that cooling a body to a very low temperature can slow the processes of life to an infinitesimal crawl. It is the best course of action I can suggest at this time. If we could somehow remove her from this … situation, without causing further damage – and Zzuriel, if you could perhaps carry her in a sling and keep her body cold, but not too cold, I could see us travelling on to consult with this Elven Seer. His skill and knowledge are legendary, for what he does not know, he may be able to divine from the mists of time itself. If anyone may hope to save our Allory, it is he. And, Fakori Fae –”
The Purewish Faerie cracked open an eye. “Aye?”
“Meditate quickly.”
* * * *
At dawn, two very different but equally grief-stricken parties departed from the glade where Allory had been murdered. All the Shapeshifter Fae and half of the Chameleons under the leadership of Harzune and Queen Istrazuki set out for the Elven city of Ahm-Shira. Both Hazintwines accompanied them. The rest of the companions travelled toward the farthest sun-spinward region of the Suylas Deepwoods in search of Princess Ashueli’s relative, Amazas.
Zzuriel bore Allory’s body in a special pouch fastened to her back. The Scintillant Fae’s icy blue cheek rested upon her shoulder, as if she were a Faeling who had merely fallen asleep, weary of all the travelling. The cooling process had stopped the bleeding completely, despite the massive rent in her chest. Since Fakori Fae had pronounced a wish over her in a mystical language no-one – least of all the speaker himself – understood, they had no idea what his contribution to her wellbeing had been.
Positive so far? Please, let it be …
Grief still threatened to snuff out the very fires of his draconic life.
Yaarah caught Ashueli touching her blade, the one which had pierced her tiny heart. Blaming herself. He knew that feeling all too well. They should have watched Allory more carefully. Guarded her like the irreplaceable treasure she was. The enemy had taken full advantage of their inattention, slipped in between them at the opportune moment, and ended her. No remorse. Not a single farewell.
He could not stop his scholarly brain from churning over the possibilities, all the implications of what they had seen and knew. All this time, could she have been hiding that soul locket and the power of all the souls it contained, from the Wraith or the vampiari spirits? Had she contrived to conceal the locket from that entity at the last, perhaps even surrendering her own life in lieu of granting it access to what it desired most?
Were this true, her actions betrayed courage a class apart. He could only marvel.
Legends held that the vampiari feasted upon the very essence of souls, tormenting them for all eternity. Allory had spoken of carrying a terrible weight of souls, before demonstrating it in the most emphatic fashion possible, downing a Giant who had loomed over her like a mountain speaking to an ant.
Precious, irreplaceable little Sparkles.
This Felidragon missed his best friend like he’d miss one of his own wings. When had this sapphire mite come to mean so much to him?
Yaarah had to dip his gaze from examining Allory’s face just one more time in the forlorn hope that a peal of piping laughter might escape from her lips. She would flit over to his head and those tiny fingers would give him an upside-down scratch … and she’d tell him that really, everything he understood about evolution, life, death and the nature of Spheris itself was just a pile of old crock, because with a click of her fingers and a twinkle of her teensy sparkly feet, she could defy death itself.
Her dancing! Oh, her luminosity, that uninhibited joy in being alive which she had only just begun to discover …
Even the knowledge that his intuition about her had been right from the very beginning barely brought a twitch to his whiskers. The Felidragon was always right. Thank the very heavens that held their Middlesun his boast had proved to be true.
Could he believe now?
Sensing Sabline’s gaze upon him, he turned to regard her over his shoulder, the sable Dragoness who fired his heart like no other. Nightzephyr. What a rascal that Fae was. Without access to Allory’s healing gift, she would die soon. He knew it. She knew it. Yet this morn, a quality lived in the tawny fires of her gaze that caused his heart first to skip a beat, then to rush along afresh. She inclined her muzzle in a way that communicated, ‘Let’s do this, Scholar Yaarah.’
She was right. Destiny was not done with Allory Fae yet.
He’d bet his own whiskers on it.