That’s fine. Two can play that game.
I had to admit, I was loving this a little too much. The adrenaline rush was incredible. Ideas and possible outcomes sparked through my brain like accidental fireworks. Everywhere I looked, there were trees. Below, the earth cracks were beginning to fade. They couldn’t keep up with us, it seemed.
And the city wasn’t that far away, now. We’d been at it for a while, running as fast as we could. My thighs burned. My calves throbbed. But I knew we couldn’t stop yet. Whoever was coming after us, we couldn’t let them catch us.
My single most important objective was finding the Cerixian soil samples. No matter what happened, I had to get my hands on some. Period.
I glanced to my right and spotted Raphael running alongside me. It baffled me, since he was designed to move at supersonic speeds. He gave me a confused look.
“You should be flashing all the way to Perillyn!” I breathed.
“I’m not leaving my team behind,” he shot back.
“You could at least go after those suckers and rip their heads off,” Eva hissed.
It made Raphael laugh. “They’re earth fae, and they’re trying to stir stupid trouble. I’d rather make a run for it than paint the forest red with their blood.”
“Raphael’s right,” Taeral said. “If these people are part of a cult, like we suspect, harming or killing them won’t get us anywhere. We need to cut the head off the snake.”
Eva rolled her eyes so hard, I thought they’d snap and fall off. “I’ve heard that one too many times before.”
“It’s true,” Riza interjected, panting as she ran, her boots barely touching the ground. I had to give it to her—she was equally fast, with or without legs. “Engaging them will only waste our time and their lives. We can do better than this. Let’s just get to Perillyn and find the damn soil samples—”
“And get the hell off this planet!” Herakles snarled.
I had to admit, they were all absolutely right. This wasn’t a cut-and-dry type of conflict. These were our people getting themselves hurt. They weren’t complete strangers from some faraway land. We knew many of them. We hosted them in The Shade whenever they came to visit. We helped them whenever they needed us. These were fundamentally good creatures, and we had to find a way to stop whatever was turning them into these mindless killing machines.
Twenty minutes later, we seemed to be in the clear. We’d left the earthquakes behind, and the city of Perillyn opened before us. It was eerily beautiful, with dozens of houses mounted on every sequoia-like tree, interconnected by wooden stairs that swirled down the trunks. There were hundreds of them, spread out on a five-mile radius, lights glimmering yellow here and there.
It was close to midnight on the Emerald, but there were plenty of earth fae out. Most of them wore expressions of concern as they stopped in the middle of the path leading deeper into the city—watching us as we cautiously approached them. One of them, a young female fae, came forward, her chin up in some sort of adolescent defiance.
“You’re not from around here,” she said.
Taeral drew a deep breath, then gave her a polite smile. “No, we’re not. I’m Taeral, the—”
“Crown prince of the Fire Star…” The young fae gasped as her eyes popped wide with a sparkle of recognition.
The others listened quietly but didn’t move an inch. Our presence seemed to put everyone on edge, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why. I knew the fae were more or less reclusive in these parts of the In-Between, but, still, they were known to be kind and hospitable. Instead they were looking at us as if we were fresh out of a slasher movie.
“I’m sorry to come here like this, so late and unannounced, but we need some help,” Taeral said. “I would love to be able to just sit down and tell you all about it. However, time is of the essence.”
“The earthquakes. We heard them,” the fae girl replied. “Did you have anything to do with them? It’s why we’re all out, now.”
Taeral shook his head. “We don’t know. We felt them and ran. Listen… What’s your name, if you don’t mind?”
“Polette,” she murmured, her cheeks catching an adorable pink hue.
“Polette, we understand there may be some Druid artifacts hidden somewhere in Perillyn. Do you happen to know anything about them?”
She thought about it for a minute, then briefly glanced back at the fae behind her. One of them, an adult male, nodded. “The boxes with Persea’s sigils,” he said. “How did you know?”
“Oh, that’s a bit of a long story.” Taeral chuckled nervously, while I felt hope surging through my chest and setting me alight on the inside. Maybe we were finally on to something here. “Are they here?”
The male fae nodded again. “They’re in the jade building, on the north side of town. It’s the only construction that was kept separate from the trees. You can’t miss it.”
With no time to waste, we thanked the crowd, then made our way up the path that led us deeper into the city. On the other side, the jade building awaited. Still, I couldn’t help myself, so I had to ask Polette and the male fae:
“I’m sorry, but how come you’ve had this stuff for so long and didn’t think to tell anyone about it after peace was restored in Eritopia?”
Polette shrugged. “No one thought to ask us. And we didn’t think they were worth anything. It’s just jars of dirt and old rocks.”
“You’ve been there? You saw them?” I croaked.
“Yes.”
“Wow…” I mumbled, then caught up with the rest of our crew and left Polette and the others behind. “Sitting on a freaking treasure trove and doing nothing about it. Sheesh.”
“Well, they probably thought they’d have no use for them,” Raphael said. “Think about it this way. Most of the fae don’t leave their home planet. The ones that do tend to be GASP members. I’m pretty sure this shipment just slipped through the cracks and got lost in time. There probably just weren’t any fae around to ask the right questions, like you did.”
I found myself blushing, much like Polette before Taeral—the handsome crown prince, in her ingenue mind. Fortunately, there was no second left for me to ponder why Raphael stirred me the way he did.
We rushed across Perillyn and eventually found the jade building. The earth fae dude was right. You simply couldn’t miss it. It wasn’t the only structure on the ground, as there were plenty of public squares, meeting and banquet halls, and administrative buildings and such around. But it was the most beautiful, made entirely out of polished jade bricks.
It was the prettiest shade of green, and it sat proudly in a small clearing. The moon cast a splendid glow over it. I felt a tear coming to my eye. Rarely did I see something so stunning, whose design and aesthetic could generate such emotions inside me.
Taeral smiled, then headed to the double doors. They’d been boarded up with a pile of wood, but nothing nailed in or difficult to get out of the way. We got to work and quickly cleared the entrance, throwing the wooden chunks aside.
“Probably too many kids venturing here at night,” Riza said. “I know this is where I’d be if I snuck out through my bedroom window to hang out with the cool guys,” she added with a chuckle.
