Let Me Fly Free (2 page)

Instead, I find it all strangely
fascinating. I’ve never encountered anything Infernal before—not in
real life, anyway. All I know is what I’ve read, and I’ve only seen
the beasts depicted in illustrations.

An odd kind of excitement
glitters in my chest as I continue toward the water, hoping that
whatever killed the plants left some kind of footprint … an
Infernal
footprint.

Reaching the riverbank, I crouch by the
water. The skirt of my green dress, which is secured by a knot at
the nape of my neck and leaves much of my back exposed, pools on
the ground and nearly blends into the grass. Anyone—or
anything—looking at me now would think me vulnerable, with my
girlish appearance and flimsy clothing. An easy target for an
attacker.

They’d be so, so wrong.

I take a moment to summon
my powers, feeling them spark to life within me, and suddenly
invisible flames ripple through my torso and flow into my limbs.
Until I call upon them, they will remain within me, and no one
looking at me from the outside would suspect that beneath my bronze
skin, a conflagration waits. If the mysterious monster is waiting
in ambush beneath the water, it won’t know that I, too, am
dangerous, until it’s too late. A perverse part of me hopes
it
is
there, and
that it
will
attack, so I can unleash my powers and defeat it. Though I
know how foolish the notion is—how could I best a creature that
overcame the magic of the unicorns?—I can’t stop myself from
thinking it.

Slowly, I peer over the edge and into the
water, looking past the white clouds reflected in the shimmering
surface and searching the gray rocks below for anything
unnatural.

A sudden splash sends my heart leaping, and
flames surge instinctively from my hands as I jump back with a
gasp. I’m about to release the blaze when my gaze lands on the
cause of the disturbance.

A little frog, brilliant blue and speckled
with yellow, sits on the riverbank beside me, its two bulbous
orange eyes staring up at me. Its type is common along the river,
and I close my fists to extinguish the fire. I almost laugh at my
own foolishness, though my heart is still racing.

“
Silly frog.” I kneel
beside it. “You should know better than to startle a fire
nymph.”

But it doesn’t react—not even to twitch its
little head—and its stillness puzzles me. Discomfort rises in my
gut.

Then I spot a stream of red oozing from
where its two front legs should be. It takes me a moment to realize
what I’m looking at, and when I do, I find myself shocked into
motionless silence.

Nothing ever attacks anything here, and yet
something has ripped the front limbs from the frog, leaving it
bleeding and helpless. The horror that was missing before hits me
now with full force, and I scoop the frog up with my hands,
shuddering at the slippery feel of blood in my palms. Just then,
its back leg twitches, sending a hint of relief through me; as long
as a single shred of life remains within its tiny body, the power
of the unicorns can heal it. I can’t stand to see it suffer and die
like this.

The magic I summoned before still crackles
under my skin, but now I direct it toward a different purpose. Like
my element, I can travel through air, and I feel my legs dissolving
into flames in readiness. Though I blaze bright, I hold the frog
tightly to my chest. My fire wouldn’t burn a leaf unless I told it
to, which means the frog is safe in my grasp. I must get it to a
unicorn, and quickly. A life is depending on me.

I’m about to leap into the air when I
realize I have no idea where I’m going. Kristakai is a vast domain,
and the unicorns are few. Even in flight, searching for one would
be like combing through an enormous pile of black sand in search of
a single white grain.

I don’t have time.

So I return to my solid form and throw back
my head. “Cyim!” I scream, calling for the one unicorn I know will
always hear me—the one whose magic created me. My Terrene Father,
whose power flows in my veins, and who is inexorably connected to
my very being. “Cyim! I need your help!”

I call again, certain that he’ll materialize
before me at any moment and set everything right. Cyim always seems
to be hovering nearby, keeping an overprotective eye on me and my
sisters—the other nymphs his magic created.

But he doesn’t appear. Where the blazes is
he when I need him? I can sense the little life in my hands
slipping through my fingers, and frustration grinds my gut. Nymphs
possess great powers of destruction, yet not one iota of magic that
could heal or create. That’s why the unicorns confined my kind to
their realms after the Age of Unicorns—the great era during which
enchanted beings roamed the entire world alongside the
humans—ended, thousands of years before I was born. Somehow, the
plain and vulnerable humans rose to power and sought dominance.
Rather than fighting them, the ever-peaceful unicorns divided the
land and erected the borders, which keep humans out and nymphs—only
nymphs—inside, while other creatures are free to come and go as
they please.

For we are the race the humans feared the
most … and, if what I’ve read is true, with good reason.

But, though my abilities, by their nature
alone, are among the most lethal, I have no desire to kill. And in
this moment, I wish I could reverse their impact and have them
restore instead. I hate having to stand here, helpless, while an
innocent being dies.

“
Cyim!” I call yet
again.

This time, my cry is rewarded by the sight
of golden sparkles materializing before my eyes, dancing over the
grass. A second later, they explode into white light. Most would
shield their eyes from the blinding glare, but as a being of flames
I’m accustomed to such brightness, and I stare directly into them.
When the light fades, Cyim stands before me, a majestic presence
with a coat so dark it seems to absorb all light. His white mane
and tail billow under the gust of lingering magic, in sharp
contrast to the rest of him, and his gilded horn gleams above his
sharp amber eyes. Though the unicorns have always been equals to
each other, the ignorant look upon my Terrene Father and, because
of his imposing appearance, assume he’s a king among his kind. He
awes most—even those who know him well—but to me, he’s a familiar
and safe presence.

Towering over me, he meets
my gaze.
What distresses you so,
Elaia?
His deep voice resonates in my
head.

I extend my arms, holding the wounded frog
toward him. “Can you save her?” I ask desperately.

Cyim glances at the creature in my hands,
and understanding dawns in his eyes. Without a word, he bows his
head, aligning the tip of his horn with the frog’s now motionless
body. A gentle beam of light streams toward my hands, and a
comforting warmth envelops them; though the healing spell is meant
for the frog, traces of it brush my skin, and each spot it touches
sends energy pulsing up my arms and into the rest of me.

I did not need restoring, and yet even that
small dusting of magic breathes life into my body—an exhilarating
sensation. I watch the frog, whose blue form glows under the spell,
expecting to see its lost limbs regrown and its dull eyes spark to
life.

Instead, it dissolves into sapphire
sparkles, which dance like a thousand tiny fireflies before
spilling from my palms in a glittering shower. They vanish as they
hit the ground, and the warmth from the magic disappears, leaving
me to stare in surprise at my empty hands.

I’m sorry, child.
Cyim’s voice rings through my mind.
The creature’s life was already lost. There was
nothing I could do but to return its body to the earth and air from
which it came.

“
You mean … something
killed her?” A cold fist closes around my heart. Nothing is ever
killed in Kristakai… In fact, I never imagined it would be
possible. I thought the barriers would keep us safe, or, if
something
did
infiltrate them, that our magic would guard us. But evidently
that is not true.

I’d thought finding a creature that had been
attacked would be the worst I’d ever encounter … but clearly I was
wrong.

Beneath the fear, a barren emptiness sits in
my soul, as if a piece of me is now missing. I suppose in a way
that’s true, since I’m a part of this land, and it’s a part of me.
I don’t know if the void I feel now is because of that connection
or because I just watched something die. Or maybe it’s because I
should be experiencing some kind of sorrow over the death, but
instead feel only shock. “What could have done this?”

I do not know.
In my mind, Cyim’s low voice is heavy with
grief.
But that frog was not the only
victim of this new danger. I sense the loss of many others, whose
bodies were consumed by the beast.
He
lowers his head, a pained look in his eyes.
There has been a massacre here, and though the frog was the
only physical trace it left behind, I feel the loss and
devastation.
This should never have
happened; violence should never have entered this domain.
Subtle anger flickers through his
tone.

“
So it
was
a beast?” I widen my eyes. A
massacre—I wonder how many creatures the monster swallowed whole,
leaving not even a drop of blood as evidence they ever lived. And
to my surprise, though hearing of so much death should cause me to
mourn, all I can think about is the thing that
caused
it. There’s no time for
grieving when the attacker is still here and could strike again at
any time. Yes, what happened is horrible—I know that, of course I
do—but the need to learn more triumphs over my ability to grieve.
“Something from the Infernal Realm?”

Most likely.
Cyim’s eyes sweep across the riverbank, taking in
the dead plants that first drew me here.
Evil has breached our borders. In the nearly seven thousand
years that have passed since we built them, such a thing has never
occurred. I dread what this means.

I stare at him, the fear tightening its
grip, but I find something strangely exciting about the sensation.
Up until now, my world has been completely safe—too safe for my
liking. But now something new is happening … and I’d rather be
afraid than bored. In fact, I wonder if I’ve ever truly been afraid
before today. Living in Kristakai is like lying on your back upon
the calm surface of a lake, floating serenely under a nourishing
sun with only the occasional ripple troubling the water. Every
disturbance I’ve felt before has been but a splash to the face.

And now, a great wave is rushing toward me,
threatening to crash upon my body and bury me in the depths. It’s
frightening, yes. It’s a danger, yes. It could even drown me…

Yet, in the most honest
core of my heart, I know I don’t want to stop it. I want to
discover what it’s like to be tossed about, to have to fight for
something, to unleash my magic for an actual reason, and not just
to see what they can do. I find it maddening that I’m unable to use
the great power I possess, since everything is so peaceful, and
there’s been nothing to fight. I asked Cyim once why the unicorns
bothered creating the nymphs at all if we weren’t going to be
permitted to live out our full potential. His reply was that part
of the unicorns’ duty was to ensure the continued existence of
every living race created by the Divinity, and that just because
we
could
do
something—like burn trees to the ground—doesn’t mean we
should
. The wisdom in
his words has done little to temper my frustration over the years.
But now, because of this monster, I have a chance to be the
greatest I can be.

I want this unseen evil to return when I am
present so that I might become the blaze I was born from and feel
the thrill of triumph.

Cyim’s eyes harden, and a
slight twinge runs through me as I realize he might have read my
thoughts. Though the unicorns have the ability to probe minds,
their pacifist philosophies and moral codes forbid them from doing
so except under extreme circumstances. Therefore, they only read
thoughts when someone
wants
them to be read—when they’re sending out a
psychic message, as most animals do since they cannot speak. Still,
this wouldn’t be the first time I’d accidentally projected what I
was thinking.

And it wouldn’t be the first time I’d told
him something about myself that I would rather have kept
secret.

So what if I did?
I straighten my spine. All I wished for was a
chance to protect my homeland, to defeat that which would bring my
friends and neighbors harm. There’s no crime in that.

I meet Cyim’s gaze and give him a cool look.
“What are we going to do about it?”

You will do nothing.
Cyim’s tone is stern.
I
shall convene with the other unicorns to discuss this matter. We
will protect Kristakai, as we always have.
He turns his face toward the sky, tossing his snowy
mane.
Hopefully we will discover and
eliminate this threat before it causes any further harm.

“
That’s not good enough!” I
cross my arms, irritated by his lack of anger. I should be
accustomed to the fact that, like the other unicorns, he never
shows much emotion, but still, how can be so calm? Doesn’t he care?
“The unthinkable has happened here, and all you’re going to do is
talk?”