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Chapter Fifty-One: A Flawed Plan
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2024-10-29 19:42:56“So how will you get there?” asked Miasma, her eyes were wide and frightened in dim room. The noises from the street had subsided a little but it felt like only a pause. Like the quiet in the storm between thunderclaps. “You cannot go out there.”
Ilyria looked at Astrapi.
“Miasma is right. I need help getting to the Palace,” said Ilyria.
“Can’t you just,” said Flame, standing and stretching her back with a crack. Fierce looked up drowsily from where she was now sleeping on the floor. Flame waved her hands around, “I don’t know, make magick to get there like you did to get here?”
“It only works if I know the place I’m going to very well. I must be able to visualize it clearly. That’s why it’s always easiest for me to come back here. It’s the place I find most easy to think of.” Especially when she was scared or sad or angry. When does a place become a home? And when does love turn to deception. Was Suluu a deception?
Ilyria stood and walked ove
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Three: Five Days to Twin Moon
“Suluu,” she said. Though her mind was racing she could not find the words to say to the man who had spent intimate days, weeks with. The man who she had even considered having a baby with. The man who she had betrayed Astrapi with. “Ilyria,” said Suluu. His voice cracked and she saw his need. Why do you stay away from me, his grey eyes seemed to ask, why do you not run toward me? She remembered the feel of the water against their skins. It was the last true memory. The water at the oasis. The feel of his mouth catching the water droplets that ran down her skin. The cool night air on their bodies. And then he was gone. She could not bring herself to recall the time lost in Utzed. That was an illusion that felt unfair. A conjuring of the twisted minds of the sirens. Not what she had wanted, Madame Skia had been wrong. The sirens had taken her loves and turned them all into physical desire only. There was so much more. She looked at Suluu standing in hi
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Four: Astrapi's Story
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Five: Menos
Astrapi was shouting something at her, but she could not hear him over the sound of the sandstorm. Her ears were filled with the shifting, sighing sand that felt as if it coated every inch of her. Beneath her scarf she licked her lips and her tongue came away coated with it. So far, Menos was more like the City of Sand than the City of Earth. Astrapi was still shouting and she turned her head, to see him, irritated as the tiniest exposed parts of her skin were strafed. He was holding up his arm and pointing at it. His arm? He wanted to show her something on his arm? Her arm. Of course, the codes. It would be impossible to bring out the map in this storm though so what good would the codes be. She held up her arm, shaking her head and as she did so, the sleeve fell. Something bright red and blinking shot out from her arm and hovered directly in front of her face. Astrapi was nodding and gesturing with his hand to move forward. She took a step and the b
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Six: Benguzi
Ilyria and Astrapi rose higher and higher as the ground beneath them churned. The garden was gone, the changing city made of sand was gone. Even the sandstorm that had swirled around the city building and rebuilding the spires and domes and craters, had dwindled. Where once there had been buildings there were now only waves blowing across the desert sands. With Astrapi’s hands around her waist, and her feet tucked around his, she pushed up her sleeve. The skin there was smooth and pale and absolutely blank. She turned her head in a panic. “Astrapi,” she said, “Look!” But Astrapi was struggling to hold both her and the harness. The bag holding the seedling swayed wildly and Ilyria was afraid it would fall. If it fell to the earth below, it would be lost. Astrapi nodded. He had seen it too. They had to find somewhere safe and soon. Either of them would be able to conjure a path back to the aerie. But then they would lose time travelling to the n
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Chord of Life
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Eight: Two Nights Before Twin Moon
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Fifty-Nine: All is Lost
Ilyria stared up at the sky. Impassive and beautiful, it was streaked through with magenta where dawn’s light broke through the darkness. Yet it augured no hope in her, only sadness as to what would become of them all. Astrapi, if he were even still alive, would he be condemned to life as the Lightning Bird, forever at the outskirts of life and love? Zlo would rule with cruelty, of that she had no doubt. Her mother’s destruction would be complete. Madame Skia? Thassa? Nicos? They had survived since the One World. But would they survive this? She shook her head, thinking of the companions. Bonbon—did she even know what Thassa was? Loulou and the Mogul would never have a chance to fight for a love that the Palace would probably never tolerate. From what she now knew of the Princess, Ilyria felt certain that she would never allow her son to marry someone she herself had not selected. Ilyria had glimpsed the cold cruelty that lay beneath her enchantment. Miasma? Miasma could not survive
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Ilyria woke to the smell of warm bread and blossoming plants, and another damp salty smell she could not recognize. She sighed and turned over. Her eyes flickered half-open as she felt Suluu’s warm body lying on his back next to her. Her hand lazily traced the contours of his smooth chest, delighting in the way his skin puckered beneath her fingers. He turned to look at her, his lips parted in a smile and his eyes hooded with his desire. “Hello,” he murmured, pulling her toward him, “You’re awake.” “I am,” she said, tracing her fingers over his lips. Then her stomach rumbled noisily, “and I am so, so, so, so hungry!” She sat up trying to recall when last she had eaten and suddenly a rush of images flooded over her. She sank her face into her hands. Astrapi, impaled. The Princess and Zlo’s blood dripping from the spines of The Shackled One. Madame Skia’s wounded body lying shrouded by the shimmering moon dust. The monster’s final moments. She looked up
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy-Three: Moon Dust
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Astrapi fell, Bonbon fell. Sidian, Flame and Loulou, they all fell. But it was not with the bone-rending shatter that Ilyria, Miasma and Thassa anticipated. Thassa, with his arms outstretched was surprised to find them filled with soft, warm, living, breathing Bonbon. Ilyria cried out as Astrapi landed with the thud and slap of flesh hitting floor. Likewise, the other companions, released from their marble prisons, fell to the rumbling, caving floor with cries of surprise and pain. Except for Bonbon whose tears were of joy to be in her lover’s arms. Ilyria had no time to feel bad about her inaction for the white roof and shattered walls of the reception chamber fell away as easily as if the marble had no more substance than eggshell. The smell of the garden filled the space but instead of the intoxicating perfume of earlier, it smelled as over-sweet and rotten, like over-ripe fruit. She held her hand up to her nose. The marble floor beneath their feet dissolved into the dark
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy-One: An Old Friend
Ilyria kept her eyes on Astrapi even as she felt Zlo feeding off her pain. Her limbs grew numb and heavy as Zlo drew all that heartache from her. Ilyria willed Astrapi to open his eyes. Just show me you are alive, she thought, If I know you are alive, then I can do anything, I can … A soft hand on her arm and she groped blindly for Miasma. Miasma took her hand and stood on her one side and as she did so, Thassa took her hand on the other. She was not alone. Somehow, miraculously, she was not alone. She felt the blood return to her limbs and they tingled almost painfully with the returning pain. She would claim it back from Zlo. It was not his to steal. A rumble and the marble walls and floor shook. The three stood firm. “Look,” whispered Miasma, “They are all here.” Ilyria tore her eyes from Astrapi and looked around them. On the walls were each of her friends. Captured in attitudes of struggle, their faces bore the signs of their to
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy: Early
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Palace
A woman at the back of the procession gave a long guttural howl. Every hair on Ilyria’s body stood on end. “Use the glamour,” said Miasma, “Help me, use the glamour.” “And do what?" said Ilyria, "Where do we even go?” Aerie? No then they would be too far away. They had to be in the Palace. Palace? What part of the Palace? The Princess’s chambers? The Princess’s garden? She felt for the token in her pocket already knowing it wasn’t there and that she wouldn’t use it even if she had it. The Princess, she decided, could not be trusted. Vatra? Yakip?No. They had to be here. “Make a run for it,” said Thassa, readying himself as if to do just that. The procession moved with purpose now, bearing down on them. Their fac
