A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 16

HAYVALA

Evyriaz, have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon the downtrodden, the struggling. Hear the song of our people, how they cry out for your deliverance, the carrier of the once and future king of kings. Lost, alone, she knelt underneath crystal chandeliers of the Volaris Cathedral. Flames bounced between the jaws of the flying wyverns etched upon the white walls of history. One sole dedication to one sole deity. Naveerans knew naught else but the fading song, ignoring all else around them. Others pointed and whispered when their princess found herself among them, with only a single, uneasy Sentinel at her side. Her traveling gown spread out over her knees, a bundle of furs and feathers. Many would whisper. Many have, but Hayvala begged for the mercy the world refused to give. Essence dripped through the tiny glass aqueducts swirling into the center of the massive glass dome. I am not one to pray to you, as you were never one to expect prayer — ever the Echonic Traveller, but though we beseech your name... can we be anything else but what we are? Are we doomed to lose our very souls? Head raised to the one who ruled their firmament, Evyriaz held his wings outstretched into a loving, but no less distant embrace as the flames curled out of his mouth on the trails of flowers.

Silver rippled stars fluttered the essence behind the glass.

Each flame echoed the same.

People mumbled at the odd reaction of magick with no source to speak of.

"Mama!" Near the window, a child bounced and pointed with both arms, their downy feathers puffed out in glee. "Lookie!"

"Shush, child. You are interrupting others, it is improper." The mother sent an apologetic glance her way. Perfect in prose and propriety, but the child's truth drew her attention out the arched window. Others, broken out of their ritualistic prayer, shuffled over for their own look of the burst of power. Hayvala took her Sentinel's hand when she held hers out, drawing closer to the child as their mother widened her eyes, and their long pale-gold feathers stretched outwards in disbelief in a place of faith.

Golden stars swung across a distant aurora, a pillar of silver songs. Enchanted, Hayvala shuddered at the flow of aura whispering a soft voice full of Mother's stories. It twirled and mixed with her people's deep love through stubborn traditionalism. Snowroses bloomed along the blizzard clouds, a continuous storm of the past brought to the present. Stars sparkled downwards, falling, falling into the snow before disappearing. Hayvala left mother and child to head outside, with her Sentinel at her heels as the streets clamored and found themselves drawn to the far off spectacle. Others stood on the high catwalks to get a better glimpse, but the song remained out of their reach.

"What direction is that?" a man whispered to another.

"Your Grace?" her Sentinel questioned under his breath.

"Isn't that where Irimount is?" another younger man piped up, his own adult feathers tangled with left-over down.

"That's impossible." An older woman scoffed at his wonder and belief. "It's just a bunch of ruins now, there's nothing left over there."

Hayvala knew the truth, accepted it though everyone else denied it. "May I borrow your compass, ser?" He wasted no time in tugging it out to place it into her hands without touching her fingers, tucking his ones covered with armored scales on his upper leg padding. Before the lilies disappeared on an auric breeze, she put a single name into her mind, then followed the frozen hand of direction. It swung in a circle, before halting into a sudden stop in the direction of the golden stars.

Irimount.

Hayvala handed the compass over to her Sentinel and tucked her gloved hands into her double layer of furs, standing there until the light in the endless wastelands disappeared in full in a scatter of snowy starlight. Thoughts drifted, and nearest her, two young ones turned to each other, wide-eyed and curious in contrast to their ruffled elders. Her despair fluttered on the edges of hope when the taller one leaned closer to his friend. "You could say that—"