The chilly wind and the tinkling wind chimes woke her up late at night as her naked body could no longer handle the cold. She could not lock the windows as she had passed out when the sun was still high up. The wind was now teasing the long curtains and they responded furiously like wings flapping.
She curled into a ball and tried to recollect what had happened! She wasn’t even sure how long it had been. The moon was high up in the sky. The cold was too much to bear and she slowly crawled up to the bed and slid under the warm feather filled blanket, still undressed. Although her whole body was freezing, that spot remained incredibly warm to touch. As if there was a lamp burning underneath! Surprisingly, she felt refreshed and quite energetic now. The exhaustion had vanished completely. Utterly confusing indeed.
She wanted to tell Norah all about this new development. She knew Norah would be as excited or maybe even more excited than her to see that there was maybe a potential sign now! Norah was almost a head taller and usually towered over her. Eyvah tried to imagine what Norah would look like as a fully developed Fionias lady. What kind of wings will she have? Butterfly wings, eagle wings, dragonfly wings? What if she was lucky and grew the largest type of wings! It would suit her tall figure for sure. Norah would look magnificent with her long curly hair, deep red eyes and large brown wings. The image was powerful.
She was busy picturing Norah is all her glory when there was a knock on the door! Knock knock! Before she realised, there was Arnoh, Norah’s freakishly handsome brother standing near her mirror with his eyes peeled at her half exposed body. He was almost crimson now, ashamed at the turn of events and equally surprised to find her sitting naked in her room.
He quickly got down on one knee, lowered his head and apologised for barging in without waiting for her to open the door. It was an emergency and he had to act fast. He finally found his voice,
“We are under attack and we need to move. Norah has gone to help Mother and asked me to take you to safety quickly. We must fly out of here right now. We do not have much time. The guards will not last long. Before they reach your room, we must take off quickly.”
His trembling voice managed something like that.
She tried hard to spot her dress on the floor, but without lighting the lamps in the room, this was looking like an impossible task. He sensed her hesitation and stood up.
“I must apologise in advance, but I hope you will understand my actions”
He walked up to the bed, and scooped her up along with the blanket and walked across the stone floor towards the window.
“Hold on tight, this will be a rough flight as the wind is very strong today”
and he spread his large bat like wings ready for take off. He did a quick check and ensured no one had made it to this side of the cliff and jumped out nose-diving down the edge of the mountain.
She did not even have time to react or make sense of what had happened, but she trusted her life with him and decided to ask questions later. She grabbed his broad shoulders, buried her face into him and held on tightly till he finished his sharp dive downwards, flying scarily close to the walls of the cliff and was almost parallel to the valley floor. He flattened out his flight path and after what seemed like an hour but was really a whole 5 minutes.
He shot out across the floor of the valley and once he felt safe, started gliding gently instead of soaring across the fields below. She finally opened her eyes when his deep soothing voice told her it was now safe. She let go of his shoulders and slumped into his embrace and decided to enjoy the night sky instead. The stars were truly bright tonight.
He started explaining what had happened back home. The Fionias’ were victims of another subclan who wanted to reign supreme and thus eliminate his whole family. She knew this much. Norah and Arnoh belonged to the family of the direct descendants of their species. By the law of nature, they had evolved into the strongest of their kind.
Others had tried mixing with other species in order to become more powerful. But the selection wasn’t too kind to them. They did not realise initially that just as strong genes can combine, so can weaker genes too. Their hybrid generations lost most powers or became much weaker. The only way to reign supreme would be to eliminate the pure breeds like his family.
Arnoh was strangely upset more than being angry at the situation. She later got to know the reason. Among the attackers was also his childhood mate, his closest friend, Hosul. He felt pity towards his friend as he knew how difficult it must have been for Hosul to attack the very family he grew up with all his life. He decided he would never judge him for today’s actions and they would remain best friends whenever he faced him again. He dearly hoped that Hosul would survive this attack.
They were now flying over a thick forest and the sun was beginning to come up. He had crossed over several territories and boundaries and reached new lands he had himself not been to before. Norah had made him promise that he would take her friend to the farthest land possible and find a safe place for her to wait for them. It was time to switch to supersonic mode once again and cover more distance before the sun came up.