The Cleansing (Book One: The Folara Chronicles)

020: Crevan

A storm was coming.

Crevan saw Rion glance at the weather and a grim smile lit his eyes. He tried to penetrate Rion's inner wall and found desire to meet a challenge, cause a death, scourge another warrior. He was rebellious tonight.

As they left the castle proper, their heels grinding the rocky pavement of the outer courtyard, Rion seemed not to notice. "Do not test me, Brother. Wait till we get past the confines of this place."

Crevan sensed Rion's urgency. They cleared the outer bailey and made their way to the furthest stables. Crevan expected Rion to turn inside, instead, he kept walking toward the large rocky cliffs where the indigenous bird population often migrated. 

The wind whipped his hair uneasily.

First the summons from Quildor and the sight of the young searcher girl being treated not as an enemy, but as a Princess. Now, Rion leading them to the Aerie, having lied to their commander. His senses reeled with the magnitude of rebellion in Rion's step. His animosity toward his father was coming to a blistering head.

Rion went to the back of the Aerie and climbed a small rock retaining wall. Crevan glanced once behind him, tried to 'feel" any distant eyes, and when he didn't, leaped the rock wall to join his brother.

What he saw was the sharp talons and black scaled legs of a giant bird, a bird so majestic he couldn't comprehend it. He scrambled back. Rion's grip on his shoulder slammed him up against the wall.

"She's not going to hurt you. Hold still and let her see you." Rion's voice was calm. Crevan stared at the beautiful creature, easily twice their height. Looking up from bird body, Crevan viewed the magnificent shape of a female, long white hair, and a twenty-foot wingspan above her slender human looking arms, her face that of an angel.

"Wh-what is she?" Crevan hugged the wall with his back, wishing he had brought more than an ornamental sword with him.

Rion's laugh rang out. "She is a Harpyiae."

"My name is Kahlest. You have nothing to fear from me, Crevan." The most angelic voice he had ever heard.

"How do you know my name?" Crevan stammered. He had never seen anything so breathtaking. No words could adequately describe her.

"Rion has given you his highest regard." That same musical voice literally brought tears to his eyes with its sweetness.

Rion smiled placidly.

"You've seen her before? When? How?"

"Earlier. In my dreams. She came to me."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Rion shrugged. Inside his mind which was now open to his brother, he heard the gentle reproach. "Would you have told me?"

"Kahlest is from the City of Valdemar." Rion told him. Kahlest folded her wings into a perfect symmetrical frame around her body and her bird talons closed in a sign of peace, she retreated a step, still ready and waiting. "She is a human adaptee. There are more like her there. The people are adapting."

"It is an adaptation, not an assimilation."

Kahlest's beautiful hands twisted against her gauze laced bosom. "I am not indigenous, nor am I Kai. I am half-woman and half-bird. The power that allows melding and assimilation of life force also adapted land based original female settlers. But we have discovered that some have been born in the last two generations to your people, the people from the undersea domes. One such woman is kept prisoner here, in Quildor's castle." She smiled softly as Crevan stepped forward, longing to touch her.