BE THEY PHYSICAL BODIES or sparkly ones, after such an ordeal, what people needed was a chance to rest and recover. Most needed food. Others might have been guilty of sulking for a short while as if the scent and presence of nectar could trigger appetites she no longer experienced, before Chenixipi threw a bit of threatening white dust about the place and forced her to rest.

  To her surprise, Allory slept the afternoon away.

  Dreamlessly.

  She awoke in the early evening, muttering, “The greatest secret of our people … the Scinntarinae …” Clear as the sparkle in Jhoranyal’s crystal eyes, she recalled the unknown Scintillant adding, “One day we shall see each other again, I promise, o beloved sparkle of my soul.”

  Beloved sparkle of my soul? Why that wording?

  Could that Scintillant have been a relative? An ancestor?

  Half-expecting her mind to shift and discard the memory, astonishment flourished within her as it remained as lucid as a cloudless Centresky. First time? She suspected so. She could go back and relive it again … and again? Phew, shiver her sap!

  Could that have been her ancestor – travelling hundreds of years into the future from the time of the pogroms – or had Allory as a Faeling travelled back in time? No. Aye. So confused, for now she remembered a fragment of another impossible conversation, something about a Scintillant Traveller. Perhaps time acted as another mysterious dimension of reality which Ashueli had addressed in such lucid yet mind-bending terms? Might she need to go back and start exploring those memories, painful as that experience might be?

  Life. Death. The flow of time. The quintessential nature of existence. Eternity.

  Only the smallest questions.

  Too much. With a sigh that vibrated through every aspect of her being, Allory decided to go discover what the evening held for her.

  She noticed first that despite it being the normal hour of sundown, the ambient light was far from as dark as normal. The shroud of Dragons surrounding Middlesun must have thinned considerably. She found the effect surreal; eerie enough that she sought out Yaarah for comfort and ended up berating herself for slipping back into her scaredy-Fae guise. Rattled by the day’s events? Aye. Yet this girlfae could only be what she was. No more, no less.

  If ever Spheris should be set to rights, who or what could ever supply strength enough? Middlesun herself? How could Soul Blossom do that work when she had been so wounded?

  That said, she herself had a minor issue with her own wounded body.

  Allory floated over to Zzuriel, who spoke intently with Xiximay beside a towering, blossom-festooned trellis Amazas must have erected – or, rather, perhaps he had grown it somehow using his Elven magic? Allory’s Elemental sight served up the entire structure as organic and alive. Plus, one Elven Seer lurked just out of sight of the pair, behind the foliage.

  What was Amazas up to?

  As Allory approached with her usual excess of timidity, berating herself with a litany of self-directed annoyance, she heard Xiximay say, “Look, the handholding business doesn’t come naturally to me, alright? My kind – my people, we don’t touch … not much, anyways. Girls holding hands? Absolutely not.”

  “To us, it’s a sign of friendship,” Zzuriel replied earnestly. “We hold hands all the time – some do.”

  “Except for you?”

  “Except … for me. Aye. Never me, obviously. I’m an idiot. Sorry.”

  Allory’s heart went out to the Diamond Faerie. That curse, or could this Scintillant envision a widespread corruption of powers somehow related to the Wraith’s intentions? At least she herself had enjoyed parental and sibling love, flawed as it had been. Perhaps all families were flawed in some way?

  Some more than others.

  “You aren’t!” The Phoenix sighed, “Look, I apologised for acting kind of allergic to you, didn’t I? Having a boyfae who comes complete with all his touchy-feely Chameleon friends is a bit of a cultural shift for me – in my case, singleness being assured when you’re basically the local bonfire. Party of one. Lights are always burning.”

  Awkward chuckle.

  Clenching her smoking hands, Xiximay added, “Snuff my fires, girlfae, I do get that this is a touchy subject for you – you’re radiating cold right now. Look at my fingers burning. What a pair we are.”

  Zzuriel hugged herself self-consciously. “Sorry. Being the local Frostbite and all … I’m so sorry to be this … damaged.”

  Had she hurt Zzuriel by sticking her with that nickname?

  Then, a precious moment unfolded. Despite that she shook visibly, the Phoenix Fae put her arms about the taller girlfae and murmured, “Who cares if I can hear my ancestors screaming, anyways? Who’s listening except for me? Mores and customs are for fools. I’m meant to be a tough, fiery warrior and I can’t handle one flaming touch even if it’s for our mutual good?”

  Heat and cold sparked between them, quickly restoring equilibrium.

  Both girlfae sighed.

  Elemental eyes watched the interaction on many levels, seeking to learn all she could. Something in this was for her, Allory sensed. Something fundamental about the juxtaposition of elements and powers. Something essential, even beautiful …

  Behind Zzuriel’s back, a dark finger crooked at her. “Get over here, Sparkles. You don’t hide very well after twilight, or haven’t you noticed?”

  The frosty one smiled, “No, she doesn’t. Thank you, Xiximay.”

  “Anytime. I mean that. Dreadful warrior duties.”

  “Worse than shovelling garbage?” Allory put in. Her friends stared at her in confusion. “Oh, I suppose you’d have to visit a Human city to truly understand. Never mind. Can we … uh, talk about my body? I’ve been trying to work out what do with myself, apart from just hanging about being a nuisance.”

  Zzuriel touched the burden upon her back. “Truly an awful nuisance.”

  Wince, even though the joke was gently advanced.

  Xiximay flexed her fingers again as if warming up for combat before charily – imagine that from the dark warrior – slipping her hand into the white one beside hers. The Diamond Fae nearly jumped out of her wings, but clearly made an effort to say or do nothing untoward. Instead, she extended her free hand toward Allory Fae.

  “We’ll have you holding hands yet, girlfae –”

  “Dragons!”

  Everyone jumped or jerked about, searching for the source of the outcry.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Allory spun about her unfamiliar being in confusion, trying to fling out her senses, to ask of the forest what might be amiss – what Dragons indeed – but all she could sense of the Deepwoods was tranquil. Did she believe it? Maybe if she just asked nicely? No, still nothing. Hardly a leaf out of place.

  “Dragons dashing dangerously!” With another wild screech, the Seer Amazas tumbled through a screen of mauve flowers onto the grass, appearing to take a heavy fall but somehow discovering a spring in his knees that snapped him back upright, unharmed.

  Waving his hands in one direction while his feet capered off in quite another, he somehow found a supportive Dark Elf arm to help him complete a diagonal dance as he yelled, “Dragons with flagons are coming to grabons my ear flapons! It’s … haw! Haw-haw-haw!”

  He coughed violently and spat up a thick, yellow gobbet of something that Allory did not want to think about.

  “Dragons, great-grandfather? Where?”

  “Who’s blind around this neck of the leafy bough, my sweet little Blushueli?” he cried, cackling as if this were the funniest joke ever cracked beneath Middlesun.

  Ash coloured on cue. “Amazas!”

  “Ah, but one defect, a lack of respect!” he snorted. “What do you call a Dragon lashing its tail lots of times?”

  “Great-Grandfather, now’s not the time!”

  “Not another word until you play my way. For a bright young thing, you can act rather dense at times,” he advised. “I advise immediate marriage. Very good medicine for young people. Solves all kinds of angsty-pangsty issues.”

  “Fine!” The Princess folded her arms with an infuriated hiss. “What do you call a Dragon lashing its tail?”

  “Lots of lashings?” he prompted.

  Ash growled, “Lots! Aye. What do you call –”

  “A wag-on! Ha ha ha! A Dragon-wagon! Wasn’t that a complete crackerator?”

  Ashueli’s expression clearly who she thought the local so-called ‘crackerator’ happened to be, but she did manage to produce a dutiful, fooling-no-one chuckle.

  The Seer cried, “They rise from the dark, the child and the lark – it’s an invasion! It’s … haw! Haaawww … it’s … haw!”

  “War?” Sabline hissed.

  Allory froze. No. That was not possible, surely? How long had they been on the run in the Suylas Deepwoods? Surely not long enough for whole armies to gather – not that she was any kind of expert on the subject. These kingdoms had been described to her as being at each other’s throats for decades, if not hundreds of years. If the Wraith’s power had been able to turn the Giants to his bidding, then it did not seem too much of a stretch to imagine that it could drive entire Human armies to march to war. Had she not seen this in her strange past-Allory memories? Somehow, she had thought that war was long past; that the advance of that aberrant storm phenomenon was the real or the only issue they faced.

  Clearly not. She needed to get to grips with the timeline of her memories. Fast.

  Amazas sorted, “That’s what I said! Clean out your ears, kitty!”

  Sabline’s lips peeled back from her fangs.

  Jhoranyal spun upon his heel. “To the trees! Defensive positions. Scouts, report!”

  Two seconds later, everything and everyone whirled around Allory as their group sprang apart like a zurribus spring-seed pod, appearing to fly in every direction. Dark Elves swarmed up into the trees; steel sprang up around the edges of their clearing as if the trees themselves possessed talon-sheaths. Sabline coiled upon her haunches but then paused as Ashueli called out and sprang for her back in the same instant. As Yaarah looked on somewhat forlornly, the warrior pair seemed to glue themselves together by some magic of mutual understanding and whizzed skyward with exquisite timing.

  Allory nipped over to the golden prowler. “Well?”

  “Warriors,” he groaned.

  “You aren’t going to chase the lashing tail of your favourite wag-on?”

  As best she could tell, he said something like, ‘Argle-snort grumble scholar-murder mrrr-trrr furblastit!’

  Perhaps a touch hazy on the details?

  No mind. Splatting her sparkles upon the general area of his head, she tinkled in his ear, “Who’s a pretty Furball, then? Sweetie-whiskers can’t catch his precious Dragoness? Aww … shame!”

  SSKKKRREEE-SSSS!! he howled, taking off as if shot from a bowstring.

  Wickedness incarnate, this Scintillant.

  All in the motivation.

  One second, she lay on his head. The next, Allory found herself fairly much plastered inside his flattened left ear as the Golden Purrmaine hurtled upward, the acceleration pressing down with relentless force. He jinked lithely upward through the huge boughs in pursuit of a departing sable tail, his fires growling hungrily deep in his belly as he realised how the trees parted before them to create a tunnel within the foliage. Yaarah burst out right behind Sabline and actually vaulted ahead of her in the heat of the moment, causing the Sabrefang’s flight to hitch as she perhaps reacted first to a perceived threat, before realising that it was her mate who flew overhead.

  Hard to miss a furry flying ingot, even when battle-primed.

  With a brief stutter-flurry of wings, the Dragons arranged themselves in a close echelon, soaring above the heads of Jhoryanal’s warriors as dark male and female heads popped out of the sea of greenery that was the Deepwoods to survey the horizons far and wide.

  Below the sun-spinward direction or away from her old home in the Russet Jungles, Allory saw the Deepwoods rising in mighty, serried ranks of forest giants, so tall that it was impossible to discern if it was the land that rose or merely the Elven forest giants themselves. The view made her feel oddly at home. The evergreens might be quite the wrong colours – despite one’s awareness of the incongruity of growing up amongst the stubbornly russet hues of her evergreen jungle homeland – being a vibrant palette of greens in emerald, jade, mint and many lighter variations of the green theme, but it all felt homely nonetheless. A Fae could hide here; hide herself deep.

  Trunks up to a mile tall could and did hide whole worlds beneath their mighty boughs. A miniature Fae longed to explore all of its secrets, to know its depths and heights, to linger in its majestic halls and play beneath shady boughs. Besides, this forest liked her. One day, she might even work out why.

  Perhaps she longed for a childhood she had never truly enjoyed?

  A grating swear word from Sabline turned her head about in the opposite direction, however, away from sun-spinward and up toward the realm of Marakusia – or was it even still Marakusia out here? Allory did not know. What caught her eye immediately was five tall, thin plumes of white smoke rising upon the farthest horizon. Smoke? Why? Appearing in what she now made out to be close clusters of thin ribbons, their whiteness stood stark against a now-familiar background of dense, sooty grey storm clouds that hid the Wraith’s realm. Black specks circled the columns. Birds? Nay, that could not be. Not from this distance. Those would be the silhouettes of Dragons. Big ones.

  Shiver her sparkles! How many?

  They looked like a massive swarm of jungle honeybees, uncountable in number and a great deal more dangerous.

  Worse still, ahead of that phenomenon and far closer, her Elemental perception picked up the signature of other Dragons which popped out above the treeline just as they had. They varied from light green to a nutty brown in colour, were half again as large as either of the Felidragons, and despite sharing the classic draconic body shape of four limbs and two separate wings, with the sinuous neck and long tail, these were scaly beasts.

  Yaarah and Sabline swore in tandem.

  “Bad news?” the Scintillant tinkled.

  “Forestal Dragons, and they’ve just seen us,” Ashueli said tersely. “We had a few run-ins with them. Those Dragons know the forest and they do not play nice.”

  “Why would they go against the Deepwoods?” Allory asked. Even she could tell that those Dragons were on the hunt.

  “Mrrr-prrr, against the Deepwoods?” Yaarah snorted. “Whatever do you mean, Sparkles?”

  “Down!” Sabline ordered.

  The pair of Felidragons folded their wings at once and plummeted into the foliage.

  “This forest – the entire Suylas Deepwoods – is our ally,” she explained meantime, in a small voice. “I’ve even met the Forestal Dragon Elders. Surely …”

  Yet she knew the truth before it could be spoken.

  “Surely?” Sabline prompted.

  Allory said, “I was about to say, surely these Dragons wouldn’t act against their Elders’ wishes, but … maybe the Wraith and its minions have twisted their minds? The Dragon Elders said that their children no longer listen to them. Much as I hate to say it, we need to treat them as enemies until we learn otherwise.”

  “I should think so!” Ash growled.

  “Peace, Princess,” Sabline said, uncharacteristically mild of tone. The Sabrefang landed briefly among the topmost branches of a tree, apparently having spied Jhoranyal swinging nimbly across to join them. The Elf did not look best pleased by his fiancée’s abrupt departure for the heavens. She said, “We each need to learn the face of our enemy. Let’s summarise what we know. Those fires are likely rising from armies marching into the Deepwoods from the direction of Marakusia and the other Human kingdoms. The Dragons and Raptors are approaching in a wave, and they’ve sent these Forestals ahead to flush us out. With me so far?”

  “All too correct,” Yaarah said.

  “Right!” Ashueli agreed.

  “The only question being, where do they intend to strike first or what is their goal?” the scholar mused. “Ahm-Shira would be my first guess – and I wonder if there are armies on the move from other directions into the Deepwoods, armies we haven’t seen as yet. That’s always been a strategic problem for the Elves, having powerful enemies on three sides of their realm.”

  Jhoranyal said, “It has made us strong. Master Barakunal needs you, Allory.”

  “Eep … uh, I mean, me?”

  “Aye. He wants you to help us work out where the Deepwoods and the Elven settlements are under attack. He says this is a major, co-ordinated assault on many fronts. How they kept all this hidden for so long …” His head shook quickly. “And, Allory?”

  “Aye?”

  “We need to know before those Forestal Dragons arrive. As in, we’ve a few minutes at most.”

  “Eep!”

  His eyebrows shot upward.

  “Don’t worry, the squeaking is kind of a reflex,” Ash explained. “She’ll be fine.”