Steel Flight [Completed]

Chapter 10: Beanstalk

-Jack

At first I had felt numb. Things were happening too quickly. Before I'd known what had happened, everything was different.

This is true of much of my recent life: the fire, their deaths, the funeral. However, the most relevant of the recent catastrophes were the events and conversations that had taken place since we'd reached the Edge. I'd only spent a few brief minutes there, but I had learned time and time again that anything could happen in the period of just a few minutes.

It wouldn't have been half as bad if it weren't for the expectation. I had felt a longing for magic that was by no means new to me, only this time it had had an indescribable strength, along with the assurance that it was actually possible. Then had come the crushing reality that while magic was, in fact, not only real, but right in front of me, it had been the vice with which I had been caged, and Skai along with me. How was that for ironic?

Now, after hours of climbing, of going through the motions that should have sent small jolts of joy and illusions of freedom zipping through my blood, all I could feel was guilt. Guilt at what I had done, how easily I had been duped, and guilt because I was secretly glad. Did you hear him? We were retrieving Flight.

I could envision it now, already so high the rest of the world had long since dropped far below me: zooming through the clouds, barrel-rolling and diving and doing loop-the-loops, able to fly wherever and whenever I wanted. I would no longer be tethered to the ground, stuck within my own life. I would be free.

There was only one complication- Skai. You only met her this morning, a quiet voice whispered in my head. It's not like you owe her anything.

I looked down at her, not far below me. Brown and blonde streaks of hair whipped in the wind, concealing her face, but not the slump in her shoulders proving the weight that rested there, nor the hesitation before each step upward. My brain caught up to what the rest of me already knew. I couldn't leave her like I had my family.

Skai seemed to sense my gaze, or at least, she looked up, and her lips parted, storm-gray eyes staring past me.

I looked over my shoulder at what held her gaze, eyes narrowing. I almost couldn't believe what my eyes were telling me, but my disbelief didn't change what was there. Somewhere between here and the horizon, along an edge of endless blue, dark black marks had appeared. Not smudges, but sharp and distinct lines. As I watched, the lines seemed to thicken and creep further into blue, creating shapes of forked lightning. Had the sky cracked?

"What-" asked Skai.

I shook my head, heedless of the fact that she couldn't see it. Something else was happening. Again, I couldn't make anything of it. It looked like dark objects were dropping from the cracks. As I watched, several glinted. I guessed parts were lighter than the general deep black, and reflective. Finally, after these objects had poured steadily from the cracks and now finally seemed to run out, the black shrank, and the sky fit back together. The objects, however, were far from gone. Instead, they were flying our way, even now slightly bigger.

"What are those things?" I asked.

"I don't know," Skai said. Then I heard the rustle of her climbing. "But I think we'd better move. Like now."

I nodded. She was probably right. So up we went.

Our progress was faster now, as those objects filled me, at least, with a feeling of deep foreboding. Every once in awhile, I would look over, and more and more of the sky would be blotted out by deep darkness and glints of light. Then I would go faster. Whatever those things were, they weren't natural.

This time as I stopped to look, it wasn't just the colors, or idea of them that held me there, watching. Finally, they were close enough that I could begin making out details. The first that struck me was the form of their movement; I detected no wings, and they weren't soaring or drifting- they were moving. I watched as hundreds of dark, partly reflective things waved, like strips of fabric in the wind. Only, their waving brought them closer to us- propelled them forward. Were they riding the wind?