Lyra

News of the attempted assassination traveled through the isles like lightning. Last night, as I slept in the hayloft above, I heard Father and Mother whispering about it. I know that war is coming. The Obsidian Sovereign claims that all is still under control and that farmers and other low-class workers

"shouldn’t concern themselves with matters of the upper courts,"

and that they,

"should focus on stockpiling their resources"

for the upcoming tax walk around each island. The village elders know better than to trust the words of the Sovereign, who just twenty years ago experimented on the very people it claimed to protect. I trust their judgment and have been secretly practicing my wild magic while I’m supposed to be fixing the far fences. Mother hasn’t noticed yet, and when she asks why, I’ll blame it on Kaelen’s sloppy craftsmanship. He won’t mind the excuse to be shoved back into the kitchen—anything to get him back to working on his grand recipes.

I release the thoughts of unrest and focus on my breathing. Sleep is important, who knows how much I will get when the ball finally drops.

******

Birds sang joyously in the late morning sun, weaving through the air as they gathered materials for their nests-to-be. Twigs, leaves, and bits of fur dangled from their beaks, carefully placed and shaped with meticulous care.

Amidst the cheerful birdsong, I stood patiently with my hand raised, offering a tuft of griffin fur to the winged creatures above. A soft smile graced my face as sparrows and doves swooped down to claim the soft strands, their delicate movements a dance in the spring breeze. Spring had always been my favorite season, when the birds returned to fill the air with their melodious songs, accompanied by the twin suns that blessed the isle with longer, sunlit days.

Shaking my hand to rid it of excess griffin fur, I turned to face the sprawling pasture ahead. I had finished fathers list of chores for the morning and knew I could slip away once my parents went to tend to other matters in town.

“Thalion, my love! Where is my satchel?”

My mother Elowen called out while closing the gap between herself and my father. Her long green robe danced lightly across the wild grass, only getting caught for a second before being pulled along with my mother. Her silver white hair, once a deep brown like my own, was tied back into two braids that married behind her head, two strands peeking out from behind her elven ears. I could only hope to be as beautiful as her, but at 27 I feared my adult looks had come to stay.

My father, Thalion, stopped his work and turned to my mother, his hard eyes softening only for her.

“The last time I saw it you had it in the carriage. Check there, my bird.” He turned to me and gave a head nod.

“Lyra, you can finish this up. I am going to go help your mother and then we have to go. I believe you can keep this place running just fine while we are at the gathering.”

I nodded and gave a sly smile,

“I’ve got this, you two go, enjoy the bureaucracy.”

The monthly village gathering was mostly just the elderly complaining about children playing too hard near their gardens, or why we all need to raise our taxes to get the mages to cast a stronger protective spell around the isle. Neither were worth my time or energy, but a great excuse to get myself into the forest and to practice my shape shifting. Hopefully, Father couldn’t read my subdued excitement in my voice. I try my best to be honest with him, but this was just for me. Well, me and Zephyra, maybe Kaelen if he had more of his dried meat.

Luckily, it seemed that my father was distracted by the news I had overheard last night. The villages on each isle would face the wrath of the Obsidian Sovereign, the Queens of the realm seemed powerless to do anything against the faction, and the people have been worked and taxed to the bone that any thought of revolution or revolt was met with tired sighs or secret police raids. The plan now was to survive. It had been the plan since I was born.

******

“You two have fun! Don’t stay out too late!” I yelled out at the carriage. My father raised a hand, gave a half wave as they rounded the bend and vanished into the forest. I looked both ways and then made my way to the back gardens. There hunched over a patch of struggling faeberries and summer squash was a human with curly brown hair and dirty chef whites.

“Kaelen, get your head out of the dirt and go wash your whites. You’re starting to blend into the herbs.”

I slapped him on the back, a cloud of soil coming off him, as he gave an audible gasp and then looked up, displeased by the now reddened mark on his back most likely forming .

“You made me lose count. If these berries get eaten by pests, it’s your fault if your father doesn’t get his favorite autumn pie.”

Kaelen was my oldest and dearest friend, but that was mostly because of circumstance. When he was younger he was part of a traveling circus, but eventually found his way into the stockrooms of my parents compound. Caught with his mouth around an apple and arms full of dried goods he was taken in by our family and taught how to be a chef instead of a thief. The circus never came looking for him, so he must have been a poor clown, and was now a mediocre chef because of a few twists of fate.

He was a year younger than me, so for the first part of our lives we schooled, trained, and cleaned the compound together. Eventually he was put into an apprenticeship in the kitchen, but we remained close.

“I am going into the forest, I need you to come with me with Ember and watch my back while I practice my shape shifting.”

He gave me a disappointed look.

“You know this magik practice is going to be found out eventually. You can’t even use it right. What if we get caught? We almost got caught last time. I do not like hiding in the trees, Lyra. Heights are a big fear of mine and I won’t climb them again for your sake!”

His words were pointed as I remembered him climbing the thorn trees because of a wandering doe that startled us. I shrugged, I could go by myself if I needed to. He got up, dusted off his apron, and gave a heavy sigh.

“Fine, give me five minutes. I’ll meet you and Zephyra then by the back fence with Ember. Let me go give myself an excuse to go into the forest. I’ll tell the chef that I am gathering chanterelles for dinner. That should buy us at least three hours.”

******

The stables were my home. When given the chance, I would sleep in the hayloft, I often did. Mother would try to get me to stop when I was younger but once I hit my twenties she had accepted that she had raised a feral half-elf, and that I had taken after my fathers wild ways. She even taught me how to build my own studio there, and that soon became my room. The stables smelled of old wood, saw dust, and hay. I could feel it warm my senses as I slid open the door.

“Hey baby girl,” I cooed as I looked into the third stall. My beautiful griffin, Zephyra, looked up from her preening. I had had her since she was hatched in my bedroom when I was six. Golden feathers covered her upper half and grand wings rested on her torso, a face of a golden eagle looking at me with yellow eyes. The lower part was of a mountain lion, golden and flecked with darker hues. I reached out my hand and scratched under her chin as she gave a few purrs of approval.

“Come with me, you’re going to keep me safe in the forest. More than Kaelen can anyways.”

I opened the stall and slipped a lead over her face. We made our way to the back fence and could see Kaelen and his mount Ember, a manticore of small stature with leathery wings.

“Let’s go before we lose daylight.” The both of us slid onto the backs of our mounts and slipped over the back fence into the dark forest beyond.