The Wright (Friday Updates)

Ch. 40 Death

If I extended my awareness, I could feel the beating hearts, nearly see the white-gold light of life through the walls. The single staff member I passed in the stairwell would see me sprint by as fast as I could, taking the steps two at a time, and tell the king when he followed. It would have been faster to leave from Kinnut's balcony, but this was necessary. At the main level, I opened the door to the Vaults and left it so, more breadcrumbs in the trail.

Finally free to use my magic, it was the slightest effort that thickened the ear drums of the other two people I encountered as I sped to the back of the house, and interrupted the signals in the optic nerves. They would feel like they stood up too fast, but would neither hear nor see me.

With nobody in the garden to witness, I pulled energy from the great well of magic, organizing bone cells to collect and keratin to grow over thin skin, creating wings that erupted from the back of the quick-release shirt.

Kinnut had discovered my passage as an owl unexpectedly. Flight saved so much time each night as I traveled up the mountain, but I could not carry the Haling Orb in that form.

Green feathers that matched my eyes caught the air and I let myself lift weightlessly. Flying was one of my few escapes, but I was only able to do so as a bird to avoid suspicion. It was why I was so fond of hiking. Only in remote locations was I able to practice my true designation, manipulating plant material and honing in on the tiniest lifeforms. What beauty could be found in butterflies, swarming and moving like schools of fish, ants collectively joined to move weight that should be impossible, and a fox or rabbit that might let me touch its silky pelt.

Kinnut had taken those gifts and experience from too many of our kind, deprived them of the experience. I meant to change that.

I had counted sixty-four stair steps to the basement door, another twenty-one to the basement. Once he realized that the orb was missing, disguised to appear still within its vault, it would not take much more time for-

"CLIA!" Kinnut's voice echoed out from Height as he took chase. I had a head start that he would be unable to close. "Clia, no!"

The reverberations bounced off the mountains, ringing in my ears and battling the drumming of my racing heart. The crypt was within view. I was certain he had seen the key to it dangling from my necklace beside the crystal.

My boots touched down, wings receding just as quickly as they had arrived, and I tore the pack off my shoulders. Casting the purple bead against the ground, the Portaling Bead shattered, a fissure of light appearing above it.

Without waiting for everyone to arrive, I shoved the key into the hole and nervously watched Kinnut's growing form shooting toward me like a bullet. He was still out of range, unable to try to paralyze me and I forced my body between the slowly-moving stone. I rushed into the crypt and snatched up the thin leather sheath with a strap and tied it around my waist.

Just as he came near enough for me to feel, I rushed up again and removed the key from the necklace, hiding it in my pocket. The crystal, I would still need.

Kinnut landed, his face tight and livid. Fine gray dust covered his body and his shirt was torn. His gaze drifted to the tear in the veil of reality, shimmering and waiting until it was manually closed.

"Clia, give me the Orb. There is no need to do this here. Whatever you were led to believe, it is not true. Talk to me," he pled.

I could tell that he wanted nothing more than for us to resolve everything peacefully. "I cannot. It is too late."

"It is never too late," he protested, vehemently. He fisted his hair. "What could you possibly want? What could I possibly give you greater than being High Queen? Have you been so brainwashed that you still believe what you were told over what you know and have seen for yourself."