Sky Riders: The Rising Sun

Eliana woke early the next morning, before the sun had fully risen. She slipped from beneath the covers and leaned on the edge of the window near the bed. Outside of it was one of the balconies of woven branches she’d seen before. Carefully, she slipped through the window and stood on the balcony, looking out over the high, white walls that surrounded the courtyard.

She could see nothing but trees from her to the horizon. The sun turned the green canopy an orange hue, as if fall had already come to Paerolia. She took a deep breath, drawing in the cool, fresh morning air. The peace she felt was strange. She was in a foreign place, among a race that she knew little about, and yet she still felt at home.

Perhaps it was the magic of Iterum that Caelum had spoken of, or perhaps it was because, deep down, she knew that these were her mother’s people, and she knew that her mother would have wanted her to come here. Whatever the reason, Eliana knew that something tied her to this forested city, no matter how little she understood the people who lived in it.

With a sigh, she slipped back through the window and crossed the room to the carved wardrobe. She extracted a pair of breeches and a tunic and slipped them on, then pulled on her own, dirty boots. She returned to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, unsure of what to do with herself until Caelum awoke and took her to this teacher he’d promised to introduce her to.

She took the golden egg from its shelf and unwrapped the fabric sling from around the shell. She cast the dirty fabric aside and ran her hands across the smooth, shining surface of the egg. Eagerly, she pushed her mind towards the egg. Ever since she’d first touched the egg’s presence on the bank of the river, she’d had a constant desire to do so again and again.

The unborn dragon’s mind touched hers almost immediately, warm and welcoming. He seemed more aware of her than was normal, and she saw a stream of light across her mind again, a sign of his happiness. She smiled to herself and tried focusing her thoughts into words, as she had done to the horses on the top of the cliff.

“I’m going to take care of you, little one,” she promised silently. “You are safe with me.”

She thought she felt the egg shiver slightly in her lap, and the infant’s mind seemed to pulse with a contented happiness. Eliana sighed and pulled the egg to her chest. How could she already feel such love for something that had not even been born?

There was a light knock, and she looked up to find Caelum standing in the doorway that opened to the bridge. He had a small smile on his lips. “Good morning,” he said. “Been up long?”

Eliana shook her head and rested the egg on her pillow. “Only a few minutes.” She stood.

He nodded at the golden shape. “How’s the egg?” he asked.

“He’s fine,” she said. “I’ve been practicing touching his presence and he feels… happy, I suppose.”

Caelum’s smile widened a little. “You’ve already begun communicating with him?”

Eliana shrugged. “I suppose you could call it that. It’s not as if he speaks though. I just… feel his emotions. Like I can see his happiness in my mind somehow.”

He chuckled. “That’s wonderful. Now, are you hungry? They’ve just delivered breakfast to my quarters for us.”

She nodded and followed him across the bridge. His bedroom was furnished in a similar fashion to hers, and he led her down the spiraling stairs into a matching sitting room. A platter of fruit, bread, and cheese rested on a low table in front of a comfortable-looking sofa.

They sat, and Eliana ate quickly and silently, eager for them to be on their way. He laughed at her haste.

"If I didn't know any better," he teased, "I would think you were in a hurry to get away from me."

She looked up at him, leaning back comfortably on the sofa beside her as he bit into a pear. He seemed utterly relaxed, which on its own was unusual to her. Everyone in Vegrandis became immediately tense when she approached. She realized as she looked at him that the very last thing she wanted was to be in a hurry to get away from him. He made her feel... accepted.

Eliana just gave him a small smile and replied, "The only hurry I am in is to get the answers that you promised me."

“Well,” he laughed, “don’t choke in your attempts to get them.”

They finished eating and she stood. He stood as well, and gestured to the open doorway. “After you.”

He led her through the palace and into the city. A few elves were already in the streets, and they waved and called greetings to Caelum and welcoming words to Eliana. They crossed the city square and continued between the trees until they reached a building unlike any other Eliana had seen in the city.

The building was comprised of four trees, which grew closely together so that their trunks actually joined one another. Their branches tangled together high above her head, and there was a wide, open doorway at the base of one of the trees.

“This is the library,” Caelum said, with a gesture at the four trees. “This is where our history lies. We have records that date back to the time when humans first arrived in Paerolia. Everything you could wish to know about the elves lies here. And,” he added, “this is where we will find your teacher, and all those answers that you seek. Shall we?”

Eliana nodded, and Caelum led the way inside. The inside of the library looked as if it were made entirely of books. She look around in wonder at the shelves, which were carved into the tree’s rounded walls and reached up as far as the tree’s structure would allow. The only places that did not contain books were the places where the trunks grew together, connecting the four trees.

Where the trunks connected, there were large archways, leading to the adjoining trees’ interiors. There was a doorway directly in front of her, and one in the wall to her left. From the doorway in front of her, a dark-haired, female elf entered the room.

Unlike most other elves, who wore their hair loose, the woman had her hair twisted into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a long, blue dress, and her face was open and friendly. She smiled at them as she approached.

“Caelum!” she called cheerfully. “Glad to see you again so soon.”

He nodded. “And you, Mara.” He gestured at the girl beside him. “This is Eliana, the one I told you about. Eliana, this is Mara. She’s the archivist here. She knows all you will need to know about our history, traditions, and even our magic.”

The woman held out her hand to Eliana, and they shook briefly. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Eliana. Everyone is very curious about you, especially me. Caelum visited me yesterday, before the feast, and told me you wished to learn as much as you could about your mother’s people.”

“So… you know?” Eliana asked hesitantly. “You know that I’m not an elf?”

Mara laughed. “Of course I do. Why do you think I was so eager to meet you?”

Eliana shrugged her shoulders slowly and uncertainly. “Frankly, I still do not understand why you’d be so eager to meet me.”

The archivist smiled. “You will soon. Now, let me show you around.” She gestured at a shelf low on the wall and said, “Our histories begin here.” On the shelf were several loose papers, which had been gathered together with a leather string tied in the corner. “Our earliest records are from a few loose pages of an unknown elf’s personal journal. In the ones that we have, he describes the appearance of humans in Paerolia.”

“You mean humans weren’t always here?” Eliana asked.

Mara shook her head. “Not at all. We don’t even believe the elves have been here forever. Our legends say we crossed here in a great ship from another land. We call it the Far Land, for lack of a better name. We were here for many centuries, by our estimates, before humans arrived. The author of those pages describes them as being rather primitive. They arrived in very small, rough boats, and they did not speak our language. The elves welcomed them and helped them to settle into a part of the land.”

She gestured at the rising shelves, which were filled with scrolls and a few bound volumes, and continued, “The histories continue, becoming more recent as you move upwards in each room. Follow me.” She led them through the door on their left into another round room, identical to the other. The shelves here contained more bound books than scrolls.

“This room,” Mara said, “contains a history of the centuries of peace between humans, elves, and dragons. They also speak of a group of people—men and women, humans and elves—that they called Sky Riders, or more often, simply Riders. It does not explain how, but these people were each bonded to a dragon. They rode them through the skies, and they had great magic. They acted as the peacekeepers in Paerolia, and they were revered as kings and queens.

“Remember these ones, Eliana,” the librarian said, smiling at her. “They will be important to you.”

The girl’s interest had already been piqued by Mara’s descriptions, so she simply nodded in agreement. Mara continued on to the next room, and they followed. Her cheery expression darkened as her eyes settled on a large, empty portion of the shelves. Eliana spotted the gap immediately.

“Where are those ones?” she asked, nodding at the empty shelves.

“Gone,” Mara sighed. “Those books contained records detailing the beginning of the wars between elves, humans, and dragons, and the disappearance of the Sky Riders. Shortly after the war began, the volumes vanished, and now, nobody can remember why this war began, and so we don’t know why we continue to fight this bloody war or why our people hate each other so deeply.”

“And nobody knows who took them?”

Mara shook her head. “Not for certain. It is rumored that a boy, under the commands of the human emperor, snuck into Iterum and stole the books from the archives. But how a single boy could enter the city and escape with all of those books is beyond me. Personally, I don’t believe the old story.”

The archivist sighed again. “But, moving on now, the rest of the room contains records of the early battles of the Great War.” She walked through the room and into the fourth, final section of the library. “As does this room. Centuries of wars, the successions of kings, and our few interactions with the dragons since the beginning of the war are all contained here, up until the present day.”

Eliana noticed that this room had only a few shelves filled. The majority of the upper shelves, from just above her head to the top of the room, were empty, waiting to receive more records of the elves’ history. Through one of the doorways, she saw the room in which they had started, and the doorway to the city beyond. She started towards it.

“Hold on,” Caelum called, amusement evident in his voice.

Eliana turned and looked at him. Mara and Caelum were standing beside one another in the center of the room, looking at her with secretive, excited smiles on their faces. The archivist made a quick motion with her wrist, and a disk of wood lifted out of the floor where they were standing, raising them about a foot in the air and hovering there.

She stepped towards them cautiously, eyeing the wooden disk, which looked as thin as paper and incapable of supporting their weight. Caelum held out a hand towards her, obviously asking her to step up onto the disk.

She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow uncertainly. “Are you sure it’s strong enough?”

He just smiled, still holding his hand towards her. “Trust me, Eliana. Some things are far stronger than you would ever believe.”

She took his hand, and he pulled her up onto the hovering disk. As soon as her feet were on the thin piece of wood, it began to move rapidly upward, startling her so that she gripped Caelum’s arm tightly. He just smiled and patted her hand reassuringly. She didn't loosen her grip.

The disk came to a halt high in the air, just above where the shelves stopped. Above the highest shelf was an opening, which revealed a small room at the center of the four trees. The disk slid sideways and came to a halt in front of the doorway. Caelum stepped off the disk and into the room, then offered his hand first to Mara, then to Eliana, helping both women into the room.

As soon as Eliana stepped off, the disk slid back to the center of the room, then dropped rapidly to the floor of the archives, where it disappeared seamlessly into the wood below. She watched it until it vanished, then turned her eyes back to the room. She froze, staring at a massive, bejeweled mural in the far wall.

Mara spoke. “When the Great War began, Astrum gave a prophecy. He prophesied of the end of the war between the races—an end that we all continue to wait for with great hope.”

In the wooden walls of the little room, there were intricate carvings of great armies. Eliana recognized the shapes of men and elves, charging towards each other, weapons raised, arrows and magic flying between them, frozen in the wood—two armies that would never meet their foe.

“He spoke of three who would end the war,” Mara went on. “He predicted that they would unite the races of this land, and return it to what it once was. The first would be a woman, an outcast among both humans and elves. She would raise a great, golden dragon, and the two would be the first Sky Riders in five centuries. The third would be an elf, one of our own, and he would offer sanctuary to the woman and the dragon when they needed it most.

“The woman would unite humans and elves, bridging the divide between our two races. And with the dragon at her side, she would unite the third race of the Great War, bringing peace to Paerolia again.”

Eliana stared at the mural, at the three figures that stood between the two armies, towering above the carved wooden figures. These three were carved of precious metals and glistening jewels. The dragon drew her eyes first. It was carved of solid gold, carefully detailed with scales, glistening claws, and wings outstretched over the other two jeweled figures. Its eyes were shimmering emeralds that seemed to shine more brightly than any other jewel in the carving. It was both terrifying and beautiful, and it seemed to glare down at her with those captivating emerald eyes.

She had to force her gaze away from the beautiful dragon to look at the other two figures. Under the dragon’s right wing was a pale-haired man, who was clearly an elf. He had smoother, angular features and sharply pointed ears. His stood in profile to her, and his eye was a shining sapphire.

The elf stood with his back pressed to the third figure, each of them facing one of the charging armies as they stood under the shelter of the dragons’ wings. Eliana moved her gaze to this third figure. It was a woman, with long black hair. Her eyes was a pale amethyst, which seemed to indicate an elven ancestry, but her ears were not pointed—or at least, not enough that it was noticeable in the mural.

She stepped closer to this mural, narrowing her eyes at the woman, unable to determine what she is. She looked towards the two elves, who were studying her with interest. “Is she human or elf?” she asked.

“Perhaps you could tell us, Eliana,” Caelum answered quietly.

She frowned and looked back at the mural. Then Mara’s words came back to her. She looked sharply at the archivist. “Say that again,” she said hurriedly. “The part about bridging the divide.”

Mara tilted her head curiously but repeated, “The woman would unite the two races of humans and elves, bridging the divide between our people. And with the dragon at her side, they would unite the third race and bring peace—.”

Eliana turned abruptly to Caelum, not allowing the archivist to finish. “That’s what you said to me by the river,” she said quickly. “Caelum you can’t actually think— You can’t actually believe that I—!” She could not even find the words to express such an absurd idea.

“You must see it, Eliana,” he said insistently, that irritating, amused smile on his face, like she was foolish for not believing this insanity. “You have the blood of both races in your veins, just as the prophecy says. You even have a golden dragon’s egg!”

“You do?” Mara interrupted suddenly. Apparently, Caelum had not told her that much yet.

They both ignored her, and Caelum went on. “Do you even realize that a golden dragon is unheard of? It’s not something that just happens. Do you really believe that could be a coincidence?”

“I am only going to protect that egg until the hatchling can fend for itself, like I told you. Then, it can go on its way and find its… Sky Rider, or whatever your people call them, and they can save the world together.”

Caelum ran his hands through his pale hair in exasperation. “How do you not see this, Eliana? You are a half-blood—an outcast among humans and elves.”

Eliana drew back at the words, scowling furiously, feeling inexplicably wounded by the simple statement. She’d been called far worse than outcast during her life, but for some reason, his use of the word hurt. After all of his insistence that her blood didn’t matter, after treating her like she was more than just some mongrel… She had thought she belonged here, that Caelum, at least, did not think of her as something so different from what he was.

But now the truth had come out. This was what he had been keeping from her. He believed her to be an outcast, a rogue oddity who could free his people from their hiding. That was all. Anger boiled inside her, threatening to bring bitter tears to her eyes, but she pushed that aside, and allowed the fury to burst from her mouth instead.

“Outcast?” she repeated furiously. “So that is what I am, is it? I shouldn’t have expected anything more from you. Humans hated me for what I was. Why should elves be any different?”

He blinked, evidently surprised by the sudden shift in this conversation. “No, that’s not… Eliana, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded!”

She ignored him and raged on. “I followed you here blindly, faithfully, prepared to trust you. But you only brought me here because you hoped your people could make me into a weapon—a weapon to end this war for you. Well I will not be anyone’s weapon, Caelum! I will not have my life and my future decided by a group of superstitious creatures who worship a carving on a wall. And I will not allow you to tell me who I am!”

She shoved her way past him, only to find herself encountered by the empty space outside of the small doorway to the room. She repeated Mara’s hand movements without thinking, making a small circle with her right hand as she stared at the wooden disk below, wishing, in her anger, that the disk would come and take her away from here.

Almost immediately, the wooden circle raced upwards, then slid across the open space and came to a rough halt in front of the doorway. She stepped onto it and stamped her foot, thinking, “Get me away from here!” The disk sped outwards, then downwards.

It descended halfway to the floor before coming to a sudden halt, nearly making her tumble over the edge. It shuddered briefly, then started upwards.

“Eliana!” she heard Caelum’s voice call to her as the disk rose towards the doorway again. “Eliana, will you just listen to me, please?”

She stamped her foot furiously on the wood. “Go down!” she demanded in her mind. The disk jerked, then descended, but immediately shuddered to a halt again before rising upwards once more.

“Eliana! Please, let me explain!”

She stomped on the wood like a child having a tantrum and snarled at it, “Go down, you cursed thing!”

The disk quivered as if it wanted to obey her, but was unable to. It continued upwards, then began sliding sideways, towards the room with the mural. Eliana turned her back as Caelum stepped onto the wood and stared at the opposite wall. She felt his presence beside her, but he said nothing as the disk descended to the floor once more.

She remained obstinately silent, her arms crossed over her chest like a pouting girl, ignoring his presence, yet keenly aware of his nearness at the same time. The moment the disk sank into the floor, she stepped off of it and started briskly towards the door.

“Eliana, please stop,” he said in a desperate, but quiet voice. His hand closed gently around her forearm.

She turned, jerking away from his grasp. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Alright, I’m sorry. Just, please… you have to believe me, I did not mean what I said in the way you imagined. I simply—.”

“You simply looked at me on the bank of that river, and you passed judgment on what I was—on who I was,” she snapped. “You found out that I was a half-blood and instantly set me apart in your mind. It’s been done to me my entire life. For once…” She sighed and crossed her arms. “For once I thought this place would be different. For once, I thought I belonged somewhere.” She straightened a little, her voice going hard again. “But I was wrong. I am as separate here as I was in Vegrandis. An outcast, like you said.”

She turned and started away from him again, but he followed. “Where are you going?”

“To get the egg and my sword. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Are you going to stop me?”

He was quiet a moment, following in her quick footsteps. “No,” he answered quietly. “But I intend to uphold the words I spoke by that river. I will continue to follow you. Whether you like it or not, I believe you are the girl in the prophecy, and I can’t very well let you go off on your own without knowing that you’re safe.”

He seized her hand tightly, forcing her to stop and face him. “Eliana,” he said in a soft voice, taking both of her hands in his. It distracted her from her anger, and that fact irritated her. “I believe that you are one of the most important creatures to ever be born in this land, and it is my intention to protect you from harm. Now, if that belief offends you, I am sorry.” He paused and touched a hand cautiously to her cheek. She remained still, feeling the softness of his fingers on her skin. Why did it feel as if her heart was racing with something more than anger? “It has never been my intention to hurt you. I only wished to show you why I believe you are truly remarkable.”

She held his blue gaze, reading his eyes. His expression held nothing but sincerity. He’s a fool, she thought, but he is an honest fool. She did not wish to be anybody’s prophecy, or anybody’s savior, but if Caelum chose to believe that she was, did that mean that she had to leave the safety of Iterum? Did that mean that she had to leave him...?

“Who else knows about the egg?” she asked him.

“Only you, me, and Mara. And Raena and Laevis are the only others who know that you’re a halfling.”

“Is the prophecy the reason why you didn’t want me to tell your mother I was half human?”

He paused, then nodded. “Partly. If anyone at the feast were to overhear what you told her, word would spread, and you would have been set upon by everyone in the city who still believes in that prophecy.”

Eliana paused again, considering this. The prophecy explained everything that had happened since she’d met Caelum—his sudden kindness to her, his amazement at finding out she was a half-blood, his insistence on bringing her here. As much as she wanted nothing to do with the prophecy, Iterum was safe, and despite everything, her heart told her she belonged there.

She sighed and stepped away, pulling her hands out of his. He watched her curiously, and she sought for the words to explain what she was thinking. An idea occurred to her, and she collected her thoughts, forcing them outwards towards Caelum as she did to the egg.

She felt his presence in her mind as she met his gaze again. It was a strange sensation. It made her feel vulnerable and exposed as she sensed his consciousness beside hers. She nearly withdrew, but forced herself to continue touching his mind, pressing her thoughts upon it.

She felt a strange resistance, but then, the resistance gave way and she thought, “I understand. And I will stay.”

Immediately, Caelum smiled, and he let out a loud laugh. “Did you do that on purpose?” he asked.

“So you did hear me then?” she asked, feeling excited despite herself.

He nodded. “I did. I thought perhaps you’d done it on accident, like with the disk.”

“The disk?” she repeated.

“You summoned it on your own. And when I tried to bring it back, to counter your magic, you resisted. You fought my magic with your own.”

Eliana chuckled a little. “I suppose I did. I didn’t even think about it, I just… wished for it, and it happened.”

Caelum smiled. “I think you may be ready for your lessons to begin.”