Jordan simply stares with his mouth hanging open.
I twist round, angling my head this way and that to see them for myself. ‘Oh, wow.’
When I was eight years old Mum took me to the village community centre to watch a performance by a local ballet ensemble. Taken with the dancers’ beautiful costumes, Mum purchased the fabric and made me a similar one to wear at home. The dancers were dressed as fairies, their outfits created from a fabric called gossamer. This is what my wings resemble. They’re delicate and transparent and they shimmer like gossamer.
I tug one down for a closer look.
Startled, Nathaneal cries out, ‘Easy, babe.’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll be gentler next time. That kind of really hurt.’
He grins and we all watch as a tiny white feather the size of my littlest fingernail falls into my palm.
While Nathaneal inspects the feather, Amber and Jordan examine my wings with gentle, inquisitive fingers. And it’s so strange because I can feel their light touch. ‘My wings are sensitive.’
After a few minutes of close examination, we agree there are eight wings in total, and they’re all feathers – thousands, maybe even millions. Some are transparent, though most are white or opaque. The largest ones are as long as a pigeon or dove’s tail feather, gradually decreasing in size all the way to the outside edge where miniature gold feathers appear seamless and so tiny I would need a microscope to pick out a single one.
Nathaneal is overwhelmed. He can’t seem to stop staring, his eyes open wider than usual, his fingers trembling. Like now, as he holds his hand beneath a wing, he marvels at its sheer diaphanous texture.
And it strikes me then, somewhere deep inside, that these are my wings. They don’t just belong to me. They’re not simply a means to give me flight. They are me. Nathaneal stands still and silent, watching my expressions change as I take in my wings, so different from any others I’ve seen. ‘They really are beautiful, aren’t they?’
‘That they are.’ He smiles.
‘How do I put them away? Can you teach me? Would now be a good time?’
He takes my hands and clasps them between his. ‘Now is a perfect time, or you might find it hard to sleep with those wings in your bed.’
‘Oh. Ha ha.’
He grins, enjoying teasing me. ‘But first we should work on your glow.’
‘Yep,’ Jordan calls out, ‘sleeping across the hall from a lighthouse could prove difficult too.’
Amber digs her fingers into his ribs playfully. We all laugh.
And everything is just how it should be.
Nathaneal tugs me down to sit cross-legged opposite him. ‘Look at me.’
I do, and he says, ‘Breathe.’
As if by example, he inhales deeply. I follow. He says, ‘Again. In. Out.’ He smiles. ‘Good. Now shift your thoughts to your secret room in your inner core and search for that singular precious thought that’s always there for you when you reach for your power, or need to calm down and centre yourself.’
I frown and he makes a fist around my hands, bringing it to his chest. ‘In here.’
I close my eyes. ‘OK, I’m there.’
‘Good. Now, what do you see?’
‘Is this a trick?’
I open my eyes and see his frown deepen. ‘What do you see?’ he asks.
‘You.’
His mouth curves into an adorable sheepish grin. ‘It’s not a trick. I just had you shift your subconscious to something that makes you feel safe. Look at your arm.’
‘Wow, it works.’
Jordan laughs. ‘Yep, you’re not a lighthouse any more.’
Gradually my skin goes back to normal. I glance over my shoulders. ‘Will that work with my wings? There are so many. What will everyone think of them?’
‘Ebrielle,’ Nathaneal says in his calming voice, ‘your wings are spectacular.’
Jordan turns to the house and cups his hands around his mouth to make a pretend loudspeaker, and even though no one is in there, he yells out, ‘Someone bring this girl a mirror!’
Amber jokingly calls him a moron.
‘I’ll feel more confident when I know how to use them.’
Nathaneal swings straight into action, first helping me stand. ‘Wings use muscles, ligaments and tendons that you control with your mind. With time the messages you send to launch and withdraw your wings will become subliminal and immediate. You don’t tell your feet to move when you need to walk, or your hands to reach for a glass, when you want to drink from it, but for the first few attempts at moving your wings, you will need to do just that. It’s called conscious concentration.’
‘And this conscious concentration will control all eight of them simultaneously?’
‘I believe so.’
‘You don’t sound so sure.’
‘I have two sets, not four, but the principals should be the same.’
‘What works for Nathaneal,’ Amber says, ‘will work for you too.’ She takes my hand. ‘You can do this. My God, if anyone can, honey, it’s you.’
Jordan takes my other hand. ‘I don’t know how, but your time in the dark world has changed you.’
My pulse races in terror. My time in Skade was anything but pleasant. Is there a glimpse in my eyes of what the Dark Prince did to me?
‘You have grown more beautiful, Ebrielle.’
Tears run out on to my lashes. I blink them away. It’s the first time Jordan has used my true name.
‘And your wings are like … butterflies and fairies all in one. They suit you.’
‘I couldn’t have put that better myself,’ Amber says.
‘Thanks, guys. OK, I’m ready, Nathe. Teach me how to use my wings.’
As the stars shine down with that crisp luminescent brightness you only seem to get on a cold night away from city lights, Nathaneal gives me my first lesson on operating my wings. It takes a few attempts. With eight wings it’s not so easy, but eventually I grasp the concept and learn the skills needed to engage and withdraw my wings in a relatively smooth fashion.
But I’m soon struggling to keep my eyes open. Jordan yawns wider than the front door of a house, which sets the rest of us off and we unanimously decide that since it won’t be dawn for a few hours yet, we should all head back inside and catch a few hours’ sleep. Tomorrow will be soon enough to tackle the big step of actually flying.
Amber hooks her arm through mine and the boys walk ahead of us. Jordan says something funny and Nathaneal tousles his hair. The nightmare of the last few weeks fades a little as new, brighter memories begin to erase the dark ones.
44
Nathaneal
Ebbie is exhausted and I have no intention of leaving her to sleep on her own this time. Apparently, she has the same idea. She slips into bed, her hand reaching for me. ‘Don’t leave, Nathe.’
‘I’m not. I’m going to hold you and make sure you sleep well.’
As I move to get in she flattens her palm on my chest. ‘It’s not sleep I need right now.’ She locks her eyes on mine. ‘It’s you.’
‘Ebbie …’
‘Come here, Nathe,’ she says, her voice low and gravelly and spilling over with need. It pulls at my skin, slams my heart against my ribcage, makes my fingers clench and unclench. I brush my knuckles under her chin and she shudders, cupping my face with her hands. ‘Even before the High King gave me back my memories I had remembered fragments here and there, but one especially lingered. It was the first time you sang to me.’
‘Really? That’s the memory that stayed with you?’
She nods and it takes me a moment to speak again. ‘That was the night –’
‘I know,’ she says, and tenderly wipes away a tear trickling down my face. ‘Nathe,’ she says, ‘before that memory I didn’t understand why you were drawn to me. And every minute since we met in the school car park I wondered how … why such a beautiful being could possibly love me. It was beyond my comprehension. But the emotion that spilled from your voice in
that memory showed me that the love I was seeing in your eyes then – and the love I see now – are real.’
She is so mesmerising, so vulnerable in her honesty that my eyes want to devour her. That night in the spirit world when I first sang to her ended in our first kiss, a kiss that had so much passion it left us speechless and gasping for breath. ‘And now that you have all your memories back, do you understand why there could never be anyone else for me? Why I needed you back no matter what it took?’
She gets a teasing glint in her eyes, her head tilting to the side. ‘Ah, well, you could remind me.’ She slides her hands round the back of my neck and pulls me down so that my face and hers are only millimetres apart. Pliant and moving to her will as if I have none of my own, and to be honest I don’t right now, my mouth hovers over hers.
She sinks deeper into the soft pillows, bringing me down with her. ‘I need you to kiss me, Nathe. I need you to kiss me now.’
I lift myself on to my elbows and feel the flames of her desire whip out of her and meet the waves of mine washing into her.
‘Oh, wooohhh,’ she murmurs, closing her eyes, stretching her arms above her head, and breathing deeply of the heady atmosphere we’re creating together. ‘When you kiss me,’ she says, her eyes still closed, her face turned up to the glass ceiling where the night stars look down on us, ‘you lift me to heights I can normally only imagine. You make me feel as if I’m on the edge of a high cliff, breathing in purer-than-pure air, every cell in my body flourishing with life.’ She opens her eyes and looks at me. ‘Nathe, I need you to clear my memories of him. He only took me to dark places.’
‘If I had the power to erase those memories, Ebrielle, I would have done so the moment I saw you in his palace. But I can give you new memories. We can make them together, ones you will never want to forget.’
She nods, accepting that this will do. Biting down playfully on her bottom lip and with a teasing glint in her eyes, she whispers, ‘Nathe, let’s start now.’
Shivers race down my spine and I shift on to my side, lift myself up on one elbow and put the palm of my free hand on the flat of her stomach. Sliding it under her top, I move my hand across her silky-smooth skin in unhurried circles. She gasps at my touch, and the whispery sound stops me thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this and I move my hand with more purpose round her waist and up her side, and under her arm. She trembles and moans and arches her back to shorten the distance between her body and mine. ‘Now, Nathe. Kiss me now.’
I lower my mouth to hers and slowly, gently, savour the texture of her soft, moist, hot, hot lips. She opens her mouth and breathes me in. Both of us sigh as our tongues meet. The way they fit together – always have – always will – makes us crave more of each other. More and more and more. She tugs on the hem of my shirt, releasing buttons as she runs her hands up and over my chest, pulling it off my shoulders.
‘Ebbie,’ I call out. ‘Ebbie.’
Breathing hard, she looks into my eyes and waits, her own eyes now smoky, her body languid, her smile bewitching. She runs her tongue over her top teeth and murmurs in that low, ultra-husky voice, ‘Your turn, my love.’
It is my undoing.
Oh, we had loved each other in the physical sense before in Peridis, but this … this is the first time in this reality, with these highly perceptive corporeal bodies.
My hands tremble and, noticing this, Ebrielle sits up. Facing me, she lifts her singlet top over her head, dropping it to the floor. I look at her with so much awe and love bursting out that I realise I could go on looking at her forever and never tire.
But she grows impatient. ‘Come here,’ she orders, and putty to her will, I do as she commands. Moving my hands through her hair, I cradle the back of her head and kiss her mouth. I kiss her hard and long and deep. Over and over and over.
Her lips move beneath mine and then mine beneath hers as we roll across the bed, our passions rising, our hands discovering secret places, touching, soothing, exploring, igniting fires that will undoubtedly prove impossible to put out.
‘Nathe …’
Her voice. The urgency. Oh, stars!
I pull up for air and attempt to realign my senses. I shake my head to try to adjust to reality. Soon there will be no going back, no control over anything we say or do or feel.
She sees. Of course she sees. And she frowns and starts to toss her head. ‘No … Nathe …’
She pulls me down and we kiss. But then, with the greatest of reluctance, I disengage my mouth from hers, lift my head and in a hoarse whisper I gently remind her, ‘You do know that we must –’
‘Don’t say “stop”. I don’t want to stop.’
Trembling with the effort, I gently lift off her. ‘Then I’ll have to. For as long as I can.’
As we lie side by side, our pulses having a difficult time slowing down, she curls under my shoulder, her bare skin igniting fires everywhere our bodies meet. ‘You do know,’ she says, teasing me, ‘there is still a year and some weeks before I turn eighteen.’
‘It will pass.’
‘Oh, right. Easy, huh?’
‘I didn’t say it would be easy.’
She laughs, but her voice quickly turns serious, ‘Nathe, if we can’t wait until I’m eighteen, what do we do?’
‘Ebbie, I have no idea.’
45
Ebony
I sleep soundly and well into the morning. I only stir when Nathaneal’s arms unwind from around me. I watch him leave through heavy lids, waking again sometime later when he returns and sits on the edge of my bed holding a breakfast tray with one hand, stroking the side of my face with the other. ‘Good morning,’ he says with a smile. It warms my heart just to see him looking so contented.
‘I missed my ride.’
‘He’ll forgive you.’
‘Will he?’
He puts the tray at the foot of my bed, crawls in between the sheets and holds me. ‘He will. There’s only so long you can stay mad at someone you love.’
I’m always excited to see Shadow, but since I returned from Empyrean there’s an added sense of desperation in our time together, as if we need to make every minute last twice as long.
After a shower, I go down to the stables. He picks up my scent from outside and makes unhappy noises until I’m in his stall and wrapping my arms around his long arched neck. When I release him, he prances round his stable in a circle, lifting his front legs like a dancing show pony.
Nathaneal grins from the stable door. ‘He’s certainly happy to see you.’
‘He’s trying to impress me so I’ll take him with me.’
‘Oh, babe.’
Wiping the tears from my face, I make a clicking noise and jerk my head. Shadow trots over, neighing and snorting like a frisky foal. I nuzzle into his neck and draw in a deep whiff of the scent that usually calms me. But not today.
How am I going to leave you behind?
I wipe away a fresh crop of tears and slide a glance at Nathaneal. ‘He looks well. Who’s been taking care of him?’
‘That would be Amber.’
‘Of course.’
‘And Brothers Timothy and Colin, who pitched in with exercising and keeping the stalls raked out.’
‘Please thank them from me.’
He nods with a small sad smile. I hold his gaze. ‘Nathe, can I have a minute?’
His eyes soften. ‘I’ll be outside.’
Once I’m alone with Shadow, I stroke his face with one hand while he nibbles the fingers of my other. ‘You know I love you, right?’ He gives me a lovely soft nicker, moving his ears forward as he listens. ‘We had fun together over the years, didn’t we? All those exhilarating rides, I’ll never forget them. You knew I needed to move fast, feel the wind in my face, and you gave that to me. It was the closest I came to flying. Thank you, baby. You brought comfort to a very confused little girl.’
He gives a tremulous high-pitched neigh, his ears flickering back and forth, eyes roving. ‘Shadow, o
ne day soon I … you know I have to go away. I would do anything to take you with me. I just can’t, baby.’
He lifts his head and makes a shrill sound of distress. Nudging me backwards, he stomps around his stall.
‘Whoa, boy, whoa, whoa down. It’s not today. OK? Not today.’
I calm him and hold him, stroking his head, his neck, the shoulders that I love and know so well. I soothe him until his heart – and mine – slow to a more normal pace. Then I turn my head sideways and lay the left side of my face on his warm coat. Taking in all the scents and smells I can detect, I lock them into my memory.
When I go outside, Nathaneal watches me walk over to him. Frowning, he opens his arms. I walk into them and he holds me.
Amber turns her mum’s Honda into the driveway, and by the time we walk back to the house Jordan is coming out the front door with a picnic basket in his hands. We decide to drive to the ridge together and we all pile in.
‘Are you excited?’ Amber asks, catching my eye in the mirror.
‘I will be when I know it’s possible to fly using all eight wings.’
‘You’ll be fine.’
‘Hmm, I hope so.’
Beside me in the backseat, Nathaneal squeezes my hand.
‘Well, whatever happens on the ridge today, whether I sail, or … sink, I’m glad you’re both going to be there watching.’
‘You mean, you’re glad you’re gonna have witnesses,’ Jordan teases.
‘The only thing I’m going to witness today,’ Amber says, ‘is my best friend flying like a bird.’
I love her optimism. It helps to settle my nerves. I’m going to miss Amber. I could not have had a better friend.
There’s no one on the ridge, no sightseers or hang-gliders or lovers looking for a secret place to be alone. It’s a relief. And to give me a sense of the distances involved, the four of us walk around the edge together, starting with the cliffs facing west that overlook the Cedar Oakes Valley and a patchwork of farmlands stretching back for as far as the eye can see; then north to the abrupt drop over the Windhaven River; and lastly south to the mountains that hem the valley in like a box. It was in the south-west foothills that I grew up, knowing without understanding why I wasn’t where I should be, neither in place nor in mind.