Defy (6 page)

“What’s the fastest bird?” she asked.

“What?” Quincy shook his head in bafflement.
“Are you okay?”

“The fastest bird, Quincy!” she demanded.

“Well—the peregrine falcon,” he replied.

“Too small. Something bigger. At least a
five-foot wingspan.”

“Sophia, what—?”

“Quincy!”

“Damn it.” He thought quickly. “The harpy
eagle,” he said.

Nodding, she ran for the edge of the cliff
and jumped.

Caleb followed Tiege at a sprint, the rest of
his family right behind him. Although he had no way of knowing
whether Tiege knew where he was going, as they didn’t fully
understand the connection between the twins, he had to believe they
were heading in the right direction.

As he ran, scenes from the dream flashed
through his mind. He saw Tate’s face as her terror overtook her. He
felt the life draining from her.

Cursing the fact that they couldn’t extend
their wings within the area of protection because of the many
levels of dampening protections in place, he pushed himself to run
even faster. Within minutes, they burst from the edge of the
forest.

As they cleared the tree line, Tiege pulled
his blessed kamas from the special harness he wore strapped to his
back. Caleb drew his sword, his gaze flying along the landscape,
his brain registering things on a subconscious level that he didn’t
even have time to process: footprints on the muddy bank, pebbles
trickling down the cliff face, ripples circling out along the
lake’s surface, a turquoise tank top splayed across the rocks, a
single, light blue feather fluttering toward the ground.

Then he caught a flash of silver in the far
distance. Quincy. He knew he had to take flight after him. He also
knew Tiege wouldn’t be able to follow.

Catching his son’s gaze as everyone else took
flight around them, Caleb said, “I’m sorry.”

Swallowing hard, Tiege nodded. “Just bring
her back, Dad. Please…just bring her back.”

In the form of the eagle, Sophia shared as
much of the mind of the animal she resembled as she did her
Kynzesti self. She instinctively knew how to judge the wind
currents and adjust her wings for more effective flight, something
most Estilorians had to train to learn. The large and powerful
kragen moved farther with each stroke of its wings than she could.
But she was smaller, more aerodynamic and gaining ground.

Fighting against the other instincts of the
eagle, she resisted the urge to scan the ground and her
surroundings for prey or predators. She focused only on the kragen.
She had to stay with it so she could see where it landed and try to
get Tate back.

She lost track of time. When her wings tired,
she pushed past it. Bringing forth the image of Tate’s lifeless
gaze, she ignored the warning signs that usually meant she was
losing her hold on the shift. If it had been Tate tracking her—Tate
trying to get to her to offer her aid—she knew her willful cousin
wouldn’t stop, regardless of how exhausted she got. She had to
press on, and she pushed her powers to their limits.

But kragens could fly without landing for
days, whereas the eagle was built for speed, not endurance. She
never really stood a chance.

Still, she flew until the kragen was nothing
more than a small dot at the edge of her vision and the sun had
shifted many degrees in the sky. She flew until the ground came
closer and closer, and she absolutely couldn’t hold the shift
anymore.

When her power failed at last, she couldn’t
even care that she was going to crash spectacularly. She welcomed
that pain over the other, deeper one that awaited her.

But Quincy caught up with her. As she had
slowed, he had been able to catch her and pace her. So when she
lost the shift, he only had to dive to pluck her out of the sky and
carry her safely to the ground.

She didn’t want him to save her. She wanted
him to go after Tate. She wouldn’t be able to live with the fact
that he was choosing to save her instead. But the words sat
unspoken in her tight, aching chest. And when her eyes closed
against her unavoidable exhaustion, two tears trailed down her
cheeks.

Just before the sun rose on the tenth day
after Tate’s death, Tiege leaned on the waist-high wood fence
surrounding his mother’s flower garden, gazing at the cherry tree
his Aunt Olivia and Uncle James created in his sister’s memory. The
garden was a peaceful place, planted not long before he and Tate
were born. The two of them had shared many adventures among the
brilliantly colored blooms.

He supposed it had been a fitting place to
have her funeral, an event he had endured only a couple of days
before.

The search to find and rescue Tate had
continued for more than a week. In the end, although no one wanted
to give up hope, they had to face the reality that there was little
likelihood she had survived the kragen attack. Reaching the only
conclusion they could, they held a memorial service for her. All of
the class lieutenants, commanders and elders attended with the
families.

In point of fact, this was the first time
Tiege had been alone in a number of days. He found it an immense
relief. If he had to address one more
“How are you feeling?”
he would absolutely lose his mind.

He twirled a light blue feather between his
thumb and forefinger, waiting to see the dawning sunlight burnish
the thin membrane. The feather had fallen out of Tate’s hair when
she died. He had been so close to saving her that the feather
hadn’t even touched the ground by the time he got there. As
everyone else took to the sky in chase of Quincy, he stood
powerlessly on the ground, watching the feather flutter to a stop
at his booted feet. It felt as though his heart stopped then,
too.

His mother possessed the ability to
physically transport herself from one location to another. But she
couldn’t transport herself into the middle of the sky, and she had
no way to know where the kragen would land. If she didn’t know
where she was going, her ability was useless.

Similarly, his Aunt Olivia and Uncle James
could communicate with animals and control them with their minds.
But kragens were almost as intelligent as humans, making them
immune to the abilities of Tiege’s powerful relatives.

His Aunt Amber and Uncle Gabriel could heal
any wound. Aunt Amber once brought his mother back to life. If they
had reached Tate, they could have healed her.

His parents as well as his aunts and uncles
all had the ability to control the elements, traits that had become
a fundamental skill for their children. The Kynzesti were
elementals, beings with the ability to in some way manipulate the
elements.

And even that hadn’t saved Tate.

Tiege’s mother had been placed on bed rest by
Quincy upon their return from the search for Tate. She had started
bleeding, and Quincy feared that even with Aunt Amber and Uncle
Gabriel’s healing abilities, the strain she was under would cause
her to lose the babies she carried. His father was alternately
trying to take care of Tiege’s siblings and his mother, leaving
little time for him to counsel Tiege. Which didn’t bother Tiege in
the least.

The fact was, he was in an emotionless void.
From the moment he reached that clearing and Tate’s feather landed
by his boot, he hadn’t spoken more than a few words to anyone.

The feather was, to him, a symbol of his
sister. She was light-hearted and fun, free-spirited and
open-minded. She was encouraging and adventurous and pushed him
outside of the boundaries implemented by their parents so they
could experience new things.

She was the light.

And now she was gone.

He sensed Clara Kate’s approach, but didn’t
stop twirling the feather. His eldest cousin had transitioned back
to the Estilorian plane along with the Corgloresti elder,
Ini-herit, so they could attend Tate’s funeral. C.K. had been
engaged in numerous closed-door conversations with the elders since
her return, so he hadn’t seen her much.

From what Tiege understood of what everyone
around him discussed in hushed tones,
archigos
Ini-herit had
retained none of his human awareness upon returning to the
Estilorian plane. That meant his attempt to relearn emotions like
his Uncle Gabriel did so many years ago hadn’t worked. Any other
time, Tiege might have felt sorry for the elder. It sucked that he
had given up eighteen years of his existence for nothing, after
all. Certainly, Tiege would normally have tried to console C.K.,
since his cousin had reportedly made more than a casual connection
with the human Ini-herit.

Instead, he felt nothing.

C.K. didn’t speak now. But she put an arm
around his waist and leaned over to rest her face against his
bicep. He knew it was an attempt to offer him support, and that she
probably needed consoling herself. She and Sophia were as much
siblings to him and Tate as they were cousins.

But he couldn’t share in her pain. Not
yet.

“No one can know what you’re going through,
Tiege. But you know we all loved Tate.”

Because her voice hitched, he knew she paused
due to emotion. He twirled the feather and waited for her to
continue. It was several minutes before she spoke again.

“I’ll always regret that I wasn’t here. I
can’t even remember the last words I said to her.”

He, however, remembered exactly what he last
said to his sister. He told her, “Your skills aren’t sharp enough.”
Those words had been realistic…as well as negative and
unsupportive.

“Tiege,” C.K. said, “if there’s anything I
can do to help, you let me know, okay?”

Though there wasn’t a thing she could offer
him, he nodded. He watched the sun crest the horizon, bathing the
flowers in an orangey-pink glow. He had been waiting for this
moment. It was Tate’s favorite time of day. She always said the
sunrise filled the day with promise.

As though sensing she should, C.K. finally
lowered her arm. “I love you, Tiege,” she said.

And left him to watch the sunrise alone.

Zachariah repacked his satchel after eating a
light meal. Though it was still afternoon, the cave where he had
chosen to make his home for a few days was completely dark. That
didn’t bother him. His life over the past five decades had been
largely spent in the dark.

He rarely stayed anywhere longer than a few
days at a time. The longer he remained in a location, the more he
risked discovery. The Waresti continually patrolled the mainland,
so the only way to avoid them was to keep moving. It was another
way of life to which he had become accustomed.

As he secured the ties to his satchel, his
mind turned again to the tracks he found several days ago. They had
rested at a crossroads, going in the opposite direction he intended
to travel. With what he told himself was idle curiosity, he had
registered that there were at least thirty unique footprints. Most
of the prints were large and heavy-footed, indicating they had been
made by males. But one set was small and made by someone light of
weight. Probably a female.

None of his business, he thought then and
reminded himself now.

Still, he couldn’t prevent himself from
reflecting again on Luvania’s tortured form, remembering how frail
she had felt in his arms as he carried her to the platform. She had
been sorely abused. But there was no knowing how long ago those
footsteps had been made, he told himself once again, or that they
were made by the same males who had done those despicable things to
her. There was nothing more he could do for her now in any
case.

He had made the right decision to continue in
the direction he intended, ending up in this cave. And that was
that.

Now, he stood and lifted the satchel in
anticipation of setting off. He forced the image of Luvania from
his mind, knowing the other Estilorians would be doing what they
could to find her murderers.

He hadn’t taken four steps when he sensed Nyx
in his mind. His companion had been gone for nearly two weeks, a
rare occurrence. Because she had done the same disappearing act
once before, however, he hadn’t been concerned to find her gone. As
he once again set his satchel down to wait for her arrival, he
wondered how successful her hunt had been this time.

They couldn’t share thoughts, but he had a
strong connection to her nonetheless. The connection had resulted
just after she nearly killed him.

At the time, he had thought that death was
what he wanted. She had managed to convince him that living was
really a better option, after all. It had been a very hard lesson
learned.

They had been together ever since. He had no
idea what compelled her to stick around. There were certainly more
stable and less surly beings on the plane. And her kind usually
enjoyed solitude and long spans of inactivity, whereas he was
constantly on the move. For some reason, though, she seemed to
enjoy the diversity.

He heard her movements as she entered the
complex cave system and followed her senses to reach him. Although
he hadn’t known when or if she would return, he had selected this
location, as he had every other one over the past forty-nine years,
in anticipation of her need for space. There was an unusual hitch
in her gait that told him she hadn’t come back empty-handed. The
realization made him groan inwardly and glance around the cavern.
Fortunately, there was an underground spring nearby in case things
got messy.

The first time she disappeared, he thought
she was gone for good. She hadn’t ever left for more than a few
hours at a time, and that time, her absence lasted more than a
week. They had been traveling together nearly twenty-five years at
that point. He assumed she’d just grown bored and moved on.