*ON HOLD* The Airborne Oracles [Book I - Breeding the fire]

Chapter One

First Edit: 30/06/2017

[Hun]

one year earlier

Nixie choked on the smoke-filled air, her lungs desperate for clean air to aid her forward through the forbidden forest.

Her stomach churned with bitter ash and smut, prickling her tongue and left her mouth parched. She forced her aching legs to sprint forward and ignored the frantic rhythm of her heart pounding in her chest.

Her foot stumbled over an unforeseen rock, she wobbled and fell to the ground.

From behind her, her cousin came to his own stumbling halt, his eyes bloodshot with dark smears of ash and sweat coating his features. "Are you-" he heaved, his voice hoarse. "Hurt?"

Nixie remained quiet. Nothing but the prospect of escaping mattered until now. She compelled her eyes to look back. In the distance, a smoke sphere hovered over their kingdom.

In a matter of hours, an abrupt fire had grown and raged over their kingdom, consuming everything in its wake. She and her cousin barely escaped with their lives.

I can't believe it's all gone.

Everything she once held dear was crumbling to cinders. Happy childhood memories tugged at her heart but the heartache pressing down on her flushed the slight smile on her face away before it grew any broader. Confusion twirled with her emotions as small embers of the burnt kingdom dropped to the ground around them.

With a deep breath she pulled her gaze away from her home and took a moment to recompose herself for the task at hand.

"I think," Nixie panted, swiping away her sweat drenched locks, "That we've put enough distance between us and them." She rolled on to her back, breathing heavily. With a wave of her hand she signalled her cousin to join her, "Sit down Oldaff."

He held his chest and plonked down next to her, "Thank goodness, I thought you were never going to stop!"

Nixie could sense Oldaff shared her mutual feeling of defeat as they stared at the soot rising in the sky. To worsen matters, they had no idea where they were, but she was determined to seek refuge for the both of them.

"I don't understand why someone would attack our kingdom. We are a peaceful kingdom. Not once since my father became king, did we have any threats or rebellion."

Oldaff's words echoed in Nixie's mind making her flinch. The White King was... dead. His rule brought to a shattering halt along with his kingdom. Would they be able to rebuild the demolished kingdom to the respected empire it once was?

Nixie pursed her lips, and reached for a bag she scavenged before they had to run. The contents was all she had left as evidence of a royal life in Ithuicoral. She extracted a pouch of water and gulped down some water before handing it to Oldaff. "We need to find your sister."

Oldaff's trembling hands tightened around the pouch before he downed its context. Oldaff sighed, "Do we genuinely have to find her?" the agitation was evident in his voice.

"Regardless of her distaste of our family, she is an Eaglefire by blood and next in line for the throne," Nixie reminded him, knowing no one showed excitement when discussions of Lethia becoming queen took place. She would know, since Lethia disliked her the most. Lethia never accepted her as a true Eaglefire because of the unknown identity of Nixie's father.

Oldaff huffed, "How do you propose we find her without any resources or protection?"

"We just need to stick together Oldaff," she huffed and weaved her dampened hair into a loose braid.