Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Thunder rolled across the sky.
“Oops.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m late. Tristan said I could blast the resident gargoyles if I didn’t kill them or sever any limbs. Indigo said she’d help so that I could go a little wild. The Guardians deserve it, honestly. I better get to it.”
She stripped off her muumuu, handed it to John, shifted, and launched into the sky. Her fire warmed his face as she took off, trailing after her.
A phoenix. He had just talked to a phoenix and was about to watch that legendary creature participate in a routine training. His sisters would not believe the turn his life had taken.
Another presence grabbed ahold of his awareness, this one not dangerous. Not at present, anyway.
Nessa walked up wearing a warm coat and fuzzy pants. Her hair, highlighted by the sun in golds and reds, was hanging down along her beautiful face. Her bloodshot eyes and the sluggish way she moved indicated she was feeling the effects of last night.
He remembered her confessions to Tristan, and the pain that had laced every word. The haunted way she had laid bare her past. It could’ve been him recounting some of the life he’d endured. Some of the experiences he hadn’t created but had been forced to handle.
And you chose, and choose, to be a hero.
He hadn’t felt like a hero at the time, but his sisters would say he was. His pack.
“I came out to watch the training and saw you standing here on your own.” She took a sip of something steaming in the mug she held between her gloved hands.
“How’re you feeling?”
She scoffed. “Like I got run over by a truck. I didn’t want to ask Jessie or Indigo to heal me before the battle.”
“Battle?”
She did bunny ears with one hand. “Training. It’ll probably get rough. Jessie seems very sweet, but then that gargoyle gets involved and she…isn’t so sweet.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets. A comfortable silence fell between them. The sound of wings rode the breeze, and then a beautiful, sparkly pinky-purple creature rose into the sky. Light trailed its movements.
“Is that…” He furrowed his brow, looking at the wings. They were almost dainty in comparison to the enormity of the gargoyles, especially as she got closer to the biggest of them all, Tristan.
“Jessie, yeah. Pretty, right?”
He nodded. Very. “Can’t fly as fast, I take it?”
“No. Nor for as long. She has to get help. That’s one of the things outside gargoyles look down on her for. Her team flies her around, essentially. You’ll see. But it’s a small price to pay for what she can do with magic.”
The companionable silence drifted between them again. He let it lengthen as certain movements from Tristan’s wings elicited sound. The gargoyles took shape in the sky, almost forming little pods within a larger web structure. John could immediately discern what Tristan was going for and marveled at the organizational dexterity.
“Have you ever seen gargoyles battle?” she asked him.
“No.” Another wave of gargoyles came in, this faction clumsy by comparison.
“They’re fun to watch, graceful when they soar and bank, but then they ram into each other, and it’s so incredibly brutal.” Her lips formed a smile against the edge of her mug. “It’s cool.”
Tristan’s wings made different sounds, directing the newcomers, but these didn’t seem to be getting the idea. Most of them were bigger than the convocation’s gargoyles, and probably faster fliers, but they weren’t as well trained. They didn’t have the discipline.
“Tristan came from another cairn, right?” John asked.
“Yeah. We did a raid on them a month or so ago—it’s like a mock battle with no casualties. Kinda like what this will probably become but they won’t steal anything after. Jessie made a show of knocking them out of her way, and then Tristan and his team hammered them. Hammered them.” Her smile was jubilant and her body language conveyed pride. “They made that cairn leader eat his words after all the crap he’d talked about Jessie and Tristan.”
She explained that Tristan’s mysterious past made him seem less reliable in gargoyle culture, which reduced his status. Jessie was the same.
“Except he had status with that other cairn leader, right?” John confirmed.
“Yes. And somehow didn’t after he’d left.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s all bullshit, this status thing. I get the merits of stability within a cairn, or pack for that matter, but the politics are so obviously dragging Jessie down. She has to break through that glass ceiling.”
“Austin does, too, but in a different way,” John murmured. “Same sort of politics, there.”
“Bullshit,” she murmured again.
And they were doing all of this to help others. They were going through all this hassle, putting themselves out there time and again, getting talked about or laughed at, to create a safe place for magical people at large. It was noble. Selfless.