Chapter 1

How about we don’t

Harwa

I don't recall all the events of the past, or when the spheres changed because there is not much to go on besides the stories we were told as kids and half of them are now just fairy tales, whispered horrors or just fabricated versions of what happened. It was so long ago. But, change is what it did.

My ancestors were inhabitants of the planet Kronto.

Years ago, our planet was one. Situated over 300 million light years away from planet earth.

To save an entire planet from the silent minds, a race the earthlings called demons, our kind made a great sacrifice, we abandoned the laws of the universe, and did the unthinkable, we merged with Earth.

The inhabitants on the planet earth called themselves humans. They called us many different names and welcomed us as their leaders without objection. They saw us as angels, fae, and Ethereals and we were worshipped.

We called ourselves Runics. The Runics liked the humans and their planet. Their need to survive, their emotions, and desire to fight until they die to save their young were traits our kind wasn't used to.

So the Runics of Kronto taught the humans our skills, and with it, how to increase the capacity of the mind, not knowing the rules they were breaking, would have such major consequences.

The silent minds came with an army to try and defeat us all. They almost succeeded, but a young boy, Arick, called upon the dieties - The Queen of blood and bone and the Prince of Knights to spare us.

The Queen asked him if he would give his life to save us all and the boy agreed. The Prince of Knights thought the sacrifice would be too small a price, for such a big ask, and cursed the boy with immortality.

Arick was willing to sacrifice himself to save the planet and agreed to live as an immortal. The deities approved and created a new species. We call them Morphers.

They walked amongst us, 7 immortal beasts birthed with the powers of the Infinity, sworn to protect us. Given not only alchemic powers and energy, but also weapons to kill the silent minds.

Our world turned to peace once they arrived and defeated the silent minds, but no one has seen the warriors for centuries. It was like they vanished, or maybe never existed.

Science proved, after the so called war, Kronto as we knew it altered its gravitational force for just a second, and when it did, it allowed another to join it. Two planets, like a magnetic field so strong created the New world. We call our world, Sawan, which means roots. Two spheres entangled within each other to create something new.

But unlike those who lived to tell the tale, I was not there. I was born eighteen thousand and twenty one years later, to be exact.

My name is Harwa of The Spring Land, I was born a Starlight. I am what humans called an Ethereal, because my eyes were the color of the stars, and my skin though looked human always smelled like vanilla extract, which got stronger when my emotions heightened. When I PERSPIRED, my skin turned purple. To me, I was just Harwa, the Runic, descendant of The Starlight.

My family were born with the ability to manipulate the grounds we walked on. My ancestors mastered it, and they could grow trees from nothing but a single seed, but over the years our abilities waned, and for some reason without the secrets of our ancestors, some of us never got abilities. We were as ordinary as the humans. Obviously, this small blunder only applied to us, the Starlights.

My height wasn’t vastly different from most of all the other females, I was only a tadbit taller at 6ft 2 and although I was known to be Ethereal, I was just a girl of 26 years, with none of those special abilities given to me from my ancestors. It stood to say I was normal, a human that resembled a Runic.

But that never stopped me from joining the Forces of Sawan, a group of soldiers trained to hunt down the Runics and humans who turned bad. Not that I had much of a choice in this.

My brother, Lang and I were born from the same star. We were twins. His abilities exceeded many in strength and his mastery of fighting grew each day. Which meant he was destined to be a soldier. Where the humans merely joined from free will, the Runics were born to be soldiers, teachers, medics, and other things based on abilities. But when it came to twins from the same star, the stronger one chose the path of both.

This decision would have been easier for any other Runic as twins usually possessed the same abilities and together they were stronger. But my brother and I shared the love bond, the mental thought but not the strength or the power given to us by our ancestors.

No one was sure why this happened, but years later I didn’t mind. It made me work harder, train longer and after year's of consistent trial and error I was a force to be reckoned with.

“The tracks are still warm, so he shouldn’t have went far. I'll take the left side of the forest, you guys take the right,” Quinn orders from his bent position. Rubbing the sand between his fingers he looks at me for barely a second, but I don't miss his worry marring his features.

Quinn was what the humans called a Fae, because he had pointy ears, with glow in the dark green eyes and pale skinned. He was also extremely handsome, and could manipulate water, snow and dance with the wind. My brother was stronger, but where our abilities waned over the years, Quinn’s kind, The Sprites varied in their knowledge and abilities.

Some of them like QUINN were as strong as the ancients. His abilities came from the ancients, and although The Starlights lost most of their teachings and strengths, the Sprites kept most theirs.

But the Starlights and Sprites were nothing close to the Devine. They were what we all now called Angels. They were magnificent, glorious, our leaders of Sawan. They possessed powers greater than we even knew existed. Their abilities varied based on their rebirths, and levels of Devine. My father said there were 12 levels and the ones who managed to reach level 12 would be granted immortality.

They were the leaders of Kronto once upon a time. But after joining the spheres many of their kind died out and their birth rate decreased. So their children became far and inbetween. Some say they were born from the deities, others say they were cursed for going against the laws of the universe. However, today most of us are just glad to have them as our leaders or in our case, also friends. Some of the Angels became soldiers, others spread out as well and lived among us but most of them just kept to the mountains and close to their own.

Quinn uses the wind to soar effortlessly over the trees and head into the forest. My brother and I run, making small jumps of as high as metres at a time to head in the opposite direction. I only manage to jump 3 metres. The two moons and our sun were both out this morning. It was just after 5am. I was half asleep, my muscles aching from the endurance exercise we took part in last night.

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The Forces of Sawan were recruiting its new detectives soon, and as we did every year, the ones who were already chosen, fought with the new comers. Our goal was not to beat them but to see if they could stay fighting for 6 hours straight.

It was a tiresome exercise but one that proved necessary, especially when we were hunting Sprites and Apollyon’s. The Apollyon’s were defected Angels, fallen and punished for eating off Sprites and Starlights. Luckily for us we haven’t had any Apollyon’s for 4 years but the Force made sure we were prepared should one ever cross our paths.

Lang takes a low stance, as we hear the ruffles of the trees, feel the texture of the wind and smell the stench of iron on our tongue. All Starlights’ were born with good senses. Our emotional response to anything was heightened. But mine though not as potent still worked, and so did my awareness of being watched.

We were hunting a Sprite who killed a human girl. Our job was to tell if insanity had taken her, or not. To taste the blood of the living was completely forbidden with Sprites as it caused them to go insane. I am not sure why this happened but it made them lethal and dangerous.

If she was sane and well then she would go to trial, and if not then Quinn would hand her over to the Angels, and one of them would remove her life force and bottle it, and take it to her family. The Sprites kept their dead in bottles and on the red moon released it into The River of Mage.

We called this the Sprites reclaiming.

Many could watch them from afar but unless you had a special invitation only Sprites were allowed near the River of Mage

The River of Mage was guarded by the Sprites and only given to consume by some of the inhabitants in Sawan when they got sick. For the humans it cured cancer, sicknesses, skin ailments and other stuff. It also gave them longevity to live up to 300 years. But the Sprites didn’t give it to all.

There were tests that had to be done and passed, a method that needed to be carried out for the humans to be able to consume it. Some died, some grew mad, so the Sprites had to be certain. So although the possibility of it working was great, many didn’t take the chance unless necessary.

The Starlights hardly ever seeked out aid from the Sprites because we owned the vines of Infinity. My father was one of the keepers. The vines weren't rooted to the ground, or hidden, they were intertwined within our veins. The ones who were chosen to keep it's life force had a red tattoo plastered to their skin. The Vines of Infinity healed our kind, and the Angels. It never worked on any other.

I feel it, the thinness in the air, the heaviness of the wind, as my breathing deepens. My body stops, as I focus my senses, a knowing overcrowding me. My body becoming one with everything around me.

‘She’s close. Stand still Harwa. One wrong move she’ll absorb your oxygen.’ My brothers voice crashes into my mind and I remain in one position.

He spins in a blink of an eye, as the Sprite with long green hair grabs my arm. She twists it, my arm folds behind my back as my neck extends when her strength over powers me. Her front comes in contact with my back and I use it to drop my knees and push my body up head-butting her.

She curses in Kroton, when she takes a step back I extend my arm, throwing my full weight on her. She falls to the ground and my brother grabs on to her neck. As I lift my body unceremonously off of her.

My hair doesn't glow like my brothers as I turn my angry glare at the perpetrator knowing I am a few shades of purple by now.

Lang cuts off her air supply and she loses focus enough to release the space around us, so we can breathe properly.

A gush of wind and leaves rise up as hard feet hit the ground beside me.

“Maleal, what are you doing here? I thought you were put off duty?” I ask the Angel who was one of the leaders of the Force. He had an issue when it came to taking orders and it always caused worse issues when one of us had to go down with him. Fortunately this time he was on his own.

Maleal's wings were made of a kiss of light and touch of sand, he was a level 4 Angel, who could summon the light, and manipulate sand. His features were on the softer side, but I knew he hid his lethalness inside a pocket cloud, pretending that he was just an innocent angel. But no one innocent joined the forces of Sawan.

A howl interrupts us as Quinn drops down near us. Maleal uses the sand from the ground as a wall when we hear a second howl from a wolf. A warning.

"I heard that, and came to see if you were alright,” Maleal states as he pulls his long sword from his side.

"Besides, I doubt our Captain is going to be too concerned about my 'time away', as he would be if one of you died."

I twist in a circle, a smooth flowing motion, grabbing onto my long hair, pulling it up into a ponytail.

My brother holds the Sprite by her chest, effortlessly as she whines, trembling in fear of losing her life. We were known to kill at times and some feared us, others tried to challenge us but we always won.

The Sprite was a water Sprite which meant soon she would dry out if she didn't return to her swamp. She wasn't insane at least and there was no smell of iron on her clothing or sign she had killed. But the mask she wore hid her face.

“Let go of me,” She screeches and I role my eyes recognizing the voice from anywhere.

“Ashley Waterland,” I announce in exasperated annoyance as my brother pulls off her mask. The howl in the air comes closer and Quinn’s stance becomes rigid as he gets ready to summon the wind.

“How do you know her?” Maleal questions, looking at me in the way that makes my heart flutter. I had the biggest crush on him since I joined The Force of Sawan.

“She was in four of my classes when I was attending school in Aura Academy.” My eyes don't look too deep into his as he always had this way of seeing too much into me.

“She’s an annoying Sprite, and way too far from her home for comfort,” Quinn voices, sounding irritated.

“But harmless,” Maleal interrupts as we hear another howl from the wolf. I jump at the sound. I didn't like wolves, especially ones in this forest. They killed too many of our kind.

“And also not the killer we were looking for,” I summon up the response we were all thinking as the wolf draws closer.

It’s alone, my brothers words filter in my head.

“Are we going to go or stay? Because I didn't dress for wolfblood.” My statement has Maleal sheathing his sword, but my brothers eyes still glow, so does Quinns. It amazed me how alike yet so different we all were.

“What are you doing in the forest? Don't you know there's wolves here? and a killer ? we put it on the Glib last night.” Quinn is the one to talk and my eyes voluntarily goes to Maleal.

He was wearing his Angel attire, which meant he was going home to see his parents. The clothes consisted of red and gold robes, each robe on an angel were made of different symbols. Maleal explained that the robes told them who you were, and your level. It spoke for themselves. Angels didn't chit chat as much as the rest of us. While we adapted a lot over the years with the humans, the angels didn’t.

“I saw the Glib, but I had no choice,” Ashley confesses as her light green eyes glare at Quinn.

The Glib was a visual recording that showed up all over Sawan, it was where the forces put our messages and the news. People also reported stuff that were important. A bit like the T.V but without the actual T.V. Unfortunately many chose not to listen at times, especially the younger ones. I know cause I am one of them.

"I had a dream of this place. The wolf calling, all of you here now." Her words cause the frown to crease my forehead as my brother and I share a contemplative look.

Quinn uses the wind to soar over to her, stopping in front of her and Lang. Maleal drops the sand wall he produced and also steps closer.

I turn my head, moving as I hear another howl emmanating the air, like a warning, only closer this time. The wolf is here, waiting for something.

"What dream?" Maleal asks but his voice is no longer the playful Maleal I know but now serious, deep, and demanding as he creates a shield around the five of us.

His eyes glow blue, telling me he is curious but ready to kill the wolf at anytime it treads too close.

"Let me go Starlight.” She shakes her body and my brother releases her only to pull her arm back when she attempts to flee. Not that she would get far with the shield surrounding us.

"Not so fast.” My brothers words serve as a warning to her.

“Tell me what dream!" Maleal demands as he turns his entire body toward her. His long frame is unassuming to most, but I have seen the lethal warrior he hides within. His short hair falling off his face, soft features, untouched in a way makes him resemble an immortal.

Ashley’s head bends and her eyes shoot the air, and her hands come up to her chest, then crossing at her face as she gives us a clear vision of what sent her here.

The wolf I see is 6 times larger than any wolf I have seen to this day. The wolf eyes are almost white with flecks of blue. I know this because it is staring at me.

The place in the dream is identical to where we stand. The wolf draws closer and it feels like it's really here. It is watching me. The small growl has me opening my eyes as my heart beats faster.

The ground shakes and the wolf charges toward me as it's mouth opens, the scream is coming from me in the dream, or better yet nightmare as the wolf has my actual form falling to the ground.

I scream and Maleal appears before me, lifting me from the ground so I can stand on my feet. Maleal stares at me, troubled for the first time in years.

I give him a nod telling him I'm okay. He frowns but says nothing as his wings flap out and he lifts up into the sky, leaving without a word.

What just happened?