Wings of Deceit

Chapter Fifteen

For the rest of the day, I couldn't stop the terrorising memory of the twisted way the girl from the Temple had laid on the ground, devoid completely of life. The haunting sound of her screams, both as she was stabbed and as she fell to the ground, made me jump each time they pushed into my mind.

She hadn't deserved such a cruel death. What would the children she taught at the Temple think had happened to her? Was the Temple even standing now that the Dragon-borns had reached our village?

I hoped our mother was okay. Throughout the endless walking in the forest, I wondered what her reaction could have been to the note we left her, what her expression would be when she found her two daughters gone alongside the enemy that threatened to end the human race.

I promised myself I would make it up to her however she wanted when we returned.

Darkness settled over the sky when we reached the foot of the mountain, night falling much quicker than I had expected it to. Climbing without the light of the sun to show us which rocks we needed to grip or place our feet on would be the equivalent of signing a death sentence, so we decided we would wait until morning to start making our way towards the Lyre.

We just had to hope the queen or her royal soldiers wouldn't get there first.

As Larc rested his back against a tree, his dinner rations beside him on the cloak he sat on, he flicked through the pages he had taken from the tower. He wanted to make sure he hadn't missed some sort of detail that could be the key to our success, but his searches through the words written on them never proved to be useful.

"Are Dragon-borns born with different coloured wings?" I asked, hoping to distract myself from the lingering memories of earlier, pulling Larc away from his reading.

"Dragon-borns aren't born with wings at all," he explained. "They start to grow once we reach the age of ten and don't reach their full wingspan until around the age of twenty-five, so they don't take too long to grow."

"Not too long to grow?" Haera repeated. "That's fifteen years!"

"It's not long in terms of Dragon-born years," he corrected, placing the papers carefully back in a satchel.

"Do they grow to be different colours then?" I adjusted my question, placing my last piece of bread in my mouth.

"Most are dark, either black or blue in colour, but the monarch's wings are grown gold. The royal guard's wings are stained red in the ceremony of their service — a promise that they will spill the blood of the queen's enemies." Larc laughed, the dark sound coming from deep within his chest. "I find that part to be a little demeaning."

"How so?" My sister questioned with genuine interest.

Larc shrugged. "I don't see the point of their wings being permanently stained. If they ever want to back out from the job or find the role isn't for them, they will have a constant mark with them for the rest of their lives."

I attempted to stifle my yawn as I listened to the Dragon-born's explanation, hoping nobody would see so I could learn more about the Nusal Empire, but nothing could get past Haera and Larc.

"Get some sleep," Haera insisted. She had taken off some of the weapons she had strapped to herself when the other Dragon-borns had flown over our heads earlier, but she still kept enough to be alert if we were attacked by another shadow creature.

"I can take the first watch, if that's okay with you, Haera," Larc offered.

My sister's lips narrowed as she thought. "Sure. You have three hours at most, then you wake me up. Got it?"