A Crown Made of Air

Part 2, Chapter 13

Sky

Sky had had enough! Enough of deceitful archers, enough of trees that looked all the same, just enough. Everything felt like too much right now. She couldn't take it anymore. If she had to stay one moment longer looking at a monstrous mountain that stretched onto infinity, she would go crazy.

She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth to suffocate a scream. Her shallowed breaths added little clouds of hot air to the cold fog that lapped her ankles. Since that morning- since she had last seen Destiny Tubmun- the fog had only grown and grown like an annoying weed. She could see clearly but her lashes felt spiky and sharp, as if sand covered them. No amount of blinking could turn her eyes back to normal. But even worse than the fog, was Sky's dark thoughts. For she knew what this meant, though. Cloudiness was falling with no sun to protect it. It wasn't just the lack of natural light before the moon replaced the sun. The fog was like an omen. A warning of what could happen.

Sky sighed, fuming furious. She felt as fearless as a dragon, ready to set inflame anyone who dared to cross her path. After her enlightening conversation with Destiny Tubmun, she had marched defiantly to Jai's house, demanding a meeting to the two archers who stood at his door. They merely looked down at her once, scoffed and gazed to an invisible point above her head that suddenly seemed extremely interesting. Sky had turned her head back. It was a white birch.

Sky had waited for Jai to no avail. He had simply disappeared, right when she needed him. Sky wasn't sure why she was still surprised.

She had decided to clean her head by wandering through the hideout, smiling at the people she saw. She could use more allies while she stayed here, could gather more information about the Highlands for when she returned to Cloudiness Court. Truly, Sky wanted to learn more about her unknown kingdom. But all her kind efforts and nice words were met with disdainful whispers and half-shrugs. Or even worse, when she tried to offer help to a lonely cooker, the man had turned her aside so rudely she had lost all her interest in whatever he was doing. Both the archers and people of the Highlands trusted her as much as they would a hungry eagle. Only the children seemed eager to answer her questions, show her around and demonstrate their magic.

Thanks to Halvor, Sky met some of his friends who stayed with them at the Children's House. It was a small house, considering the amount of people who actually lived there, but Sky liked it enough to feel safe and comfortable inside a mushroom. The air always carried an earthy and damp scent and she had grown used to it. The other children had led her to a secret garden- as Halvor had called it- where giant flowers and plants grew. Then were even bigger than the mushrooms, which Sky had considered to be an impossible feat to accomplish. Sky was sure Halvor had used his magic to make them grow so tall and strong. It had seemed magical, and Sky loved the place from the start. One girl showed her a small stream, making salmon fly in the air while some boys sang a cheery tune. They told her they had been practicing a little show for her, as she was the first girl from Cloudiness Court they had ever seen. At the very least, someone is welcoming around here. Sky had thought happily.

"You look just like a real princess!" A singing boy had said, placing a crown made of leaves and flowers in her head. "I made this for you yesterday. It seems fitting that you wear a tiara."

Sky smiled at the memory. The children had no idea how much it meant to her that they cared. Now, as she walked alone near Jai's house, she mulled over how it was possible that from all the people she had met in The Highlands, children were the only ones who had been born with magic. The girl who could hear the water humming wasn't the daughter of any of the Water Gods. Halvor's claimed best friend- Sky pretended not to notice the way the Halvor's cheeks turned pink when they were near- wasn't the son of any Animal God. And still, from the children she had met, they all possessed magic. In Cloudiness Court, the magic was passed through generations, a particular type of magic belonged to one family. A child could only yield the magic their ancestors had yielded. She had creation magic because her grandfather, the First God, had creation magic. The same happened with all her other powers. The same happened with her sister. And yet, here lived these children, stuck in a forest when gods who could teach them about real power, about themselves, hovered above them, in clouds she could see but not reach. Sky didn't like this pointless division because of something that had happened over a decade ago. When she became queen, she would make sure to create a bridge to connect the Highlands to Cloudiness Court.