COF 3: The Fallen Dynasty

8 | Family (II)

2412 Iclis 9, Kindreth

"Let's place these around the plateau," Elred had said to Reeca before glancing at the shooters.

Reeca had frowned. "And risk it hitting a random citizen who might be climbing?" she shook her head. "How about no? Besides, you wouldn't be able to finish it in time. You could only work in the dead hours of the night and we don't know when the Sovereign would attack."

Elred had braced her hips with her hands. "How do you propose we use these, then?" she raised an eyebrow.

Reeca had opened her mouth only to close it again. Yeah. How would she use these? Elred scoffed, a smile playing on her rosy lips. "Thought so," she had scooped all the finished shooters and disappeared out of the room.

Now, Reeca laid on her stomach atop the table now void of its clutter. Elred was still out since their conversation days ago and would only return by the first quarter of the first sphere, just in time for the rest of Helinfirth to wake up.

Reeca glanced back at her wings and flexed her back to stretch them. She flapped them. Once. Twice. It's odd that she could move them now after weeks of being cooped up inside the bandages. She even had to admit that she had gotten used to not flying. No mind how sacrilegious that sounded.

Flap, flutter, flap, left, right, stretch. She moved about the routine in slow succession. Good. Still working. She edged off the table and stood on her feet. She blew a breath. Alright, here goes.

She jumped, priming her wings to flap at the same time. As if timing was a foreign concept, her wings flapped a second too late. A yelp sped out of her throat as her boots slid against the glass floor, sending her tumbling back. For a moment, she was weightless. Then, her back slammed into the floor. Air went out of her throat, choking the afterlife out of her. She hacked, clutching her throat as she sat up wheezing like a dying dagrine.

A chuckle and the door opening were the noises that followed and greeted her ears.

"Having trouble using the fliers?" Elred rounded the table and offered Reeca a hand.

Reeca shrugged it off and braced her knee instead. She pushed herself up. "Needs a bit of work," her eyes landed on the dirt splashed all over Elred's skirts like paint. She knitted her eyebrows. "Where have you been?"

Elred shrugged. "A vorkee chased me in the ravines. I'm okay."

Reeca rolled her eyes. Like she was going to ask if Elred was hurt. "Any news?" She stretched her wings once more and test-flapped them.

Elred stared at Reeca practicing her routines. "No Xanthiene turning up at the gates, if that's what you mean," she crossed her arms and propped herself atop the table. There wasn't chairs in this room except the floor. "Unless we do something crazy like cloning a substitute, the Sovereign will be marching here sooner or later."

Reeca nodded. She flexed her back once more and jumped. This time, her wings flapped the right time and she floated a few inches off the ground. She blew a breath and folded her wings once more. One more time.

"We have to evacuate the Upper Cities now," Elred said. Reeca paused halfway in spreading her wings. Forget about the flying exercises, then.

Reeca walked towards Elred and drew out a vial from the folds of her armor. "We could use this sleeping potion I stole from Nyxis," her eyes widened. "Don't tell him I did it."

Elred laughed. "As if he didn't know it already," she shook her head. "Don't underestimate that human. He's too smart for his race."

The fact that Elred just implied that humans were dumb was lost on Reeca. People had prejudices and there's nothing Reeca could do to change that. Elred untangled her arms from her chest and jerked her chin on the vial in Reeca's hand. "Keep the potion," Elred jumped down from the table and drew a roll of parchment from the folds of her dress. Reeca raised an eyebrow. Did this shard fairy carry plans in her skirts all the time?

Elred flattened the roll against the table. Reeca peered down to discover scrawled out lines with labels written in hurried Keijula koset. She squinted at it. "What in Pidmena's name is this?"

"A layout of the emergency tunnels," Elred retrieved an empty mold and propped it against the corner of the parchment to help it stay flat. "I built it as a contingency plan. Still, I never knew that the time to use it would come sooner or at all."

Reeca traced a finger through the mess of lines over the smooth parchment. Elred tapped her chin. "I was thinking of going to Gingow first then moving west from there," Elred was saying. "We have multiple entrances in each city. The only problem would be in convincing them to follow you."

Reeca nodded. Elred did promise her information in exchange for this evacuation mission. "You did tell me you'd give me something that would get them to follow me," she stared at a vague box marked with a cross on the east side of the map. Was that supposed to be the entrance in Gingow?

"Did the Queen know of this?" Reeca asked. Blurting the title made the memory of her meeting with Anahel all the more vivid in her mind. She shook her head before Elred could glean anything from her face. She had to keep secrets too.

Still, her heart wrenched whenever she thought of refusing to help Anahel when the Queen had indeed asked nicely. It's one of the things that Reeca would like to remove from herself. She's always helping people, always too nice for her own good.

Elred had shaken her head in Reeca's periphery. "No," the shard fairy sighed. "Let's not inform my mother of anything."

Reeca regarded Elred, past the shard fairy's multiple glamours and calculating gaze. It's decided, then. Reeca would set Elred to follow her own path, be it right or wrong. Perhaps, Anahel could tell her more things if Reeca did this as a favor.

"When do you propose we start?" Reeca crossed her arms and peered back down at the map before her.

Elred's answering smile was void of humor nor of anticipation. "Now."