Sky Riders: The Rising Sun

The four spheres spun in front of Eliana's face, which was flushed and beading with sweat. She could feel her energy flagging, despite her efforts to draw more from the earth. With a concentrated effort, she sent the spheres flying back at Mara one by one, in quick succession—wind, water, earth, fire. Mara stopped them in front of her briefly, then, with a flick of her wrists, sent them soaring back to Eliana once again. For the hundredth time that day, Eliana brought them to a stop before her, her hands shaking as she held them in the air.

"Now, keep them there," Mara instructed.

Eliana obeyed, keeping the four spheres spinning in front of her, side by side.

"Keep all of them under control, but move the water sphere. Weave it around the others."

She pressed her lips together and focused with great effort as she caused the swirling ball of Water to weave up and down, between the other three spheres. Mara instructed her through several paces, making her weave the balls through one another, causing them to orbit one another like planets, juggling them through the air. Eliana began to feel like a trick-performing monkey in a street circus.

Finally, Mara said, "Bring them back in line."

Eliana did so, with a sense of relief.

"Hold them all, but cause the wind sphere to grow."

Eliana focused on the ball of whistling wind. It grew until it was twice the size of the others.

"Now, shrink it as small as you can without letting it disappear."

She obeyed until the wind sphere was a tiny knot of a hurricane.

"Now, dissipate it, but don't let the wind disrupt the other spheres."

Eliana closed her left hand, and the sphere at the left end of the line vanished with barely a rustling of air.

"Now, repeat that with the water sphere."

She did so, causing the liquid ball to grow, shrink, and then vanish. The air around her became unnaturally humid for a brief moment as the moisture seeped back into the air.

"And earth."

Eliana now focused on the ball of soil in front of her. Particles of dirt from the ground flew up to it, making it grow. Then, they fell away again, and the sphere shrank. She clinched her fist briefly, and the earth sphere fell to the ground in a small pile of dirt. This left only the fire sphere before her.

For some reason, this was Eliana's favorite element. Mara had told her it would be a challenge to control, but it didn't seem so to her. The fire sphere hung in the air in front of her right hand, casting its light on the flame-shaped mark on her palm.

Eliana smiled to herself as she made the ball of flames grow to a greater size than any of the others had been, relishing the feeling of magic that radiated from its burning form—her magic. She let it shrink but, unwilling to part from the beautiful flames just yet, she made it grow again.

"Extinguish it now," Mara instructed her.

Reluctantly, Eliana closed her right hand and the fire sphere disappeared with a hiss and thin tail of smoke. With a sigh, she leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs out in front of her. Despite her exhaustion, Eliana felt pleased with herself. Over the past several weeks, she had mastered the four basic elements. Though she knew there was much more for her to learn, for now, this was enough.

"I know you're tired, Eliana," Mara said, "but we should continue your training. You still need to learn to combine the elements, attack with it, defend yourself with it..." She let the sentence trail off, giving Eliana a sense of how much more there was to learn.

"I know," Eliana sighed, lying down on the warm earth. "Just give me a moment."

"Try to draw your magic from the animals nearby this time," she told her.

Eliana grimaced inwardly; she was always wary when rejuvenating herself this way. But she obediently reached out with her mind and found the trees around them filled with creatures. Mara had also spent time instructing her on sensing the presences of the things around her. She could more quickly sense a presence nearby now, and had learned to identify what those presences were. She had even practiced speaking to several animals' minds and, just like the horses in Vegrandis, they had obeyed her.

She let her mind reach farther outwards until she sensed a small cluster of animals deeper in the forest. She recognized them as a pack of wolves. They would do. She relaxed, and drew the magic from the wolves towards her, feeling it strengthening her weary body. She sensed the pack becoming drowsy and weak, and she stopped, leaving them to fall asleep in the forest.

She sat up, feeling revived by the wolves' energy. Mara smiled at her. "Kill anything?" she teased.

Eliana made a face, knowing full well what Mara was referring to. When she'd first attempted to draw life from an animal a week ago, she had taken too much and had killed the rabbit she was drawing energy from. It was an unsettling feeling, being connected to the creature when its life disappeared. It had reminded her of feeling Oriens' mother slip away.

"No," she answered bitterly.

"Good. It means you're getting better at controlling yourself. Now, let's try combining the elements. You've seen the light orbs that light the paths of Iterum at night."

Eliana nodded.

"Those are a combination of fire, wind, and earth."

The girl frowned in confusion, trying to imagine how those elements could combine to make a floating, glowing light.

Mara demonstrated as she spoke. "First, you create a fire sphere. This provides the light itself, obviously. Earth provides the color. Just pick a color, focus on it, and it will change for you. The earth can provide you with any color you can imagine. Wind encloses the sphere, protecting the light from anything that might extinguish it." The archivist now held a glowing orb of gold in her hands.

"How do you keep it glowing when you're not focusing on it?" Eliana asked.

"You don't have to," Mara answered with a shrug. "It's like lighting a fire and walking away. It can burn for hours without you having to attend to it. The Wind protects it and the Fire continues to burn without you having to focus on it."

"Huh," she grunted. She did not fully understand. As far as she knew, a spell required your constant focus to keep it going.

"Just give it a try," Mara said, releasing the golden orb and letting it rest beside her on the grass.

Eliana sighed and held out her hands before her, forming a fire sphere between them. Then, she focused on changing the color. The flame changed to a vibrant blue. The wailing animal inside her, which had been mostly caged over the past two months, clawed at her chest again. She dropped her hands, feeling short of breath, fighting back tears. The orb vanished in a small explosion of blue flames.

"What happened?" Mara asked, watching the Rider with some concern.

Eliana didn’t seem to hear her. She pressed a hand to her chest, staring at the grass in front of her and listening to Oriens’ quiet, gentle voice in her mind.

“It’s okay, Eliana,” he said, giving a deep rumble of understanding in his throat. “Just keep training, and he will come home.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, looking up at Mara. “I’m sorry, I… I just lost control.”

The archivist tilted her head, surveying her disbelievingly. “Can you try again?” she asked uncertainly.

Eliana nodded and raised her hands again. She rekindled the flame, then tried to force her mind to think of another color, but the orb changed back to the same, vibrant blue—the same brilliant color of Caelum’s eyes. She pressed her lips together and focused on putting a shield of wind around the orb. After a few attempts, the wind held, and she clasped the orb between her hands, staring into it.

The creature in her chest was howling furiously, ripping open the raw edges of the same old wound. He never even said goodbye… The feeling of loneliness burrowed its way deeper into her heart as she stared into the blue flame, remembering the way that color had looked when he had smiled, laughed, the soft look they had given her the night of Oriens’ hatching…

“Try setting it down.” Mara’s voice was quiet, still tinged with some concern at her pupil’s suddenly odd behavior.

Eliana forced herself to look away from the blue orb and set it on the grass in front of her. She slowly removed her hands, expecting the ball to disappear as soon as she stopped focusing on it, but it remained. It continued staring back at her until she pulled her knees into her chest, hugging them tightly, trying to cage the snarling, howling animal inside of her.

Oriens rested his nose on her shoulder, and she reached up with one hand to stroke his cheek. “Be brave, little one,” he said gently in her mind. “Just hold on a little longer.”

“Thank you, Oriens… I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“And you never will know. I will always be here.”

She looked up at her teacher. “I don’t think I can do anymore today, Mara,” she said quietly. “I’m… I’m very tired.”

She nodded slowly, not entirely understanding, but not pressing her. “Very well. You should take tomorrow off. There are some things I need to get done in the archives.”

The two women and the dragon stood and headed back towards Iterum, leaving the two light orbs glowing, blue and gold, beside each other in the middle of the empty meadow. Oriens and Mara walked on either side of Eliana in companionable silence, the dragon shaking some of the trees as he tried to wind between them.

Her little hatchling was now unable to fit inside of Eliana’s room at all. Queen Ivi had instructed two of the elven guards to conjure a large stone building, just inside the courtyard wall, below Eliana’s quarters. Sometimes, she would slip out of her bed and into Oriens’ cave to sleep beside him, comforted by his warm companionship. Somehow, she knew this would be one of those nights.

Iterum was bustling with activity as they entered the city. Elves flitted in and out of their trees, running up and down the streets. Something seemed to have excited them. When they saw the dragon and Rider, the commotion stopped. All eyes nearby turned towards them, and every head dipped low, their lips murmuring in unison, “Veholum.”

“What’s going on?” Eliana asked the group that was now facing her. “Is something wrong?”

The elves looked at one another, as if deciding who should address the dragon Rider. She rarely spoke to any of them, because their reactions to her made her uncomfortable, and it seemed that no one wanted to be the one to speak to her.

Then she spotted a familiar face moving among the silent crowd, his violet eyes looking distressed. When he saw the dragon standing in the middle of the road, he looked surprised, then relieved.

“Eliana! Oriens!” Denio called, emerging through the crowd, which parted for him. “I didn’t think I would find you. I thought you would still be training.”

“We ended early today,” Eliana replied. “Denio, what’s going on?”

The young prince looked at the crowd around them, then back at her. “We should discuss this elsewhere.”

Eliana said a brief farewell to Mara, then followed Denio down the crowded streets towards the palace. He led her through the building and past Domus while Oriens flew around and over the wall. He was waiting on the other side when they exited the palace into the courtyard.

She turned to Denio and repeated, “What’s happening? Why is everyone so excited?”

His face was grim and anxious, and a sense of dread gripped her stomach, momentarily suppressing the emptiness in her chest.

“There’s been an attack on Amiscan.”

Her breath caught in her throat, trapped by panic. “Caelum,” she breathed, her voice tight. “Is he—?”

“Caelum is fine,” Denio answered before she finished the question, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It was just a small attack from a group of travelers. It appears they spotted Amiscan and wanted to take it for their own to settle there. I doubt they realized what they were going to be up against. But they were quickly overcome and none of our troops were seriously harmed.”

Eliana’s panic scattered as she sighed with relief. “Then what is everyone so excited about?” she asked.

Denio frowned and shook his head. “It just makes everyone uncomfortable—a group just chancing upon Amiscan. No humans have come near the outpost for decades. The fact that many of our troops, including Caelum, were out on a scouting expedition at the time disquiets them even more; they fear that Amiscan was being observed, that the humans were waiting until some of the troops had left.

“They want to bring the soldiers back to Iterum for protection, in case something similar should happen here. If someone were to happen upon the city and reveal its location…” He trailed off, running a hand over his face, then went on. “All of the citizens, mothers and children, our archives, the palace… my mother… they could all be destroyed.”

She looked at the young elf’s lined, anxious face. “I can’t believe everything that falls on him,” she said to Oriens. “He is my own age, and yet he has so much responsibility. How does he handle it all?”

“He’s been bred and raised for these responsibilities,” the dragon answered. “He knows what is expected of him and what he should do. The responsibilities we will face will be much greater.”

“Thank you for that reassurance,” she grumbled in his mind.

Aloud, she said to Denio, “So what’s going to happen? Is your mother going to bring them home?” Inwardly, she was thrilled by the idea. Caelum might be coming home.

The prince’s youthful face looked decades older as he pulled at his hair in frustration, the same way his brother did. “She wants me to decide,” he cried in exasperation.

Eliana raised her eyebrows slightly, surprised that the queen would relinquish control of such a vital decision. She tried not to let the surprise show as she gave Denio a smile. “I’m sure you will do what is best for Iterum, Denio,” she said reassuringly. “You will be a good king.”

He smiled a little, his face looking young again. “Thank you, Eliana.”

“If there is anything we can do to help,” she said, gesturing to herself and Oriens, “please let me know.”

“Actually…” He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“How?” she asked warily.

“By… advising me on what I should do.”

Eliana gave a short startled laugh. “Advising you?” she repeated. “Denio, I really don’t think I have the right to have an opinion on this matter. I’m not even from Iterum and—.”

“Eliana,” he interrupted, “you’re a Rider! All of our records from the time of Riders say that the leaders of both the human and elven nations sought the guidance of the Riders in any great decision.”

“But Denio, I—.”

He cut her off again, looking down at her with pleading eyes. “Please, Eliana… I’m not… I’m not ready to make this kind of decision alone.”

She sighed and pressed her fingertips to her temples, which were beginning to throb. He was giving her the chance to advise him on whether or not to bring Caelum home. Though he didn’t realize it, he was asking for a very biased opinion on a very important matter.

“You cannot use him for your personal gain,” Oriens said in her mind.

“I know,” she answered irritably. “But how can I advise him when what I want may not be what is best?”

“You must do what you can. Denio already knows the wisest decision. But he looks to you because of your position as my Rider. He wants your permission to lead. Let him talk it through. He will know what Iterum needs.”

She dropped her hands and looked at him seriously. “Fine. I’ll help. But I won’t make the decision for you. That is your responsibility.”

He smiled brightly, reminding her so painfully of Caelum. “Thank you, Eliana,” he said, relief evident in his voice.

Eliana drew a breath and pressed forward. “So if you did decide to bring the troops home, what could be the consequences?” she asked.

The prince frowned a little, thinking. “Well, I suppose Iterum would be safe if there was an attack on the city. But it would also put us at greater risk of being discovered. The only reason Iterum has remained hidden for so long is because half of our population is in Amiscan most of the time.”

“And if you didn’t bring them back?”

“Iterum would be virtually defenseless if someone chanced upon us and revealed our location. Most of the elves here are not trained to fight. But the chances of that happening are rather slim, I believe. We’ve remained hidden for centuries, after all, and I don’t see why that would suddenly change.”

Eliana pursed her lips for a moment, resisting the urge to try to persuade Denio away from what he had so obviously already decided. “Well,” she said slowly, “it sounds as if your options are to either risk revealing Iterum for the sake of defending it, or try to defend it by keeping it secret. If you truly believe the risks of the city being found are slim, then… it doesn’t seem to make sense to reveal ourselves and make battle inevitable.”

He nodded slowly, then sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know how the elves will receive it if I tell them I am leaving them defenseless.”

“Sadly,” Eliana said with a shrug, “their understanding is not your concern. Their safety is. It is your duty to protect them, whether they understand the way you are doing it or not.”

Denio smiled again and, to her surprise, pulled her into a tight hug. He smelled of the same rainy forest as Caelum. “Thank you, Eliana,” he said. “You have been very helpful.”

He released her and trotted back into the palace, probably to tell his mother that he had made his decision. Eliana wrapped her arms around her chest, suppressing a moan of agony. No matter how hard she tried to stop it, one word repeated itself in her mind. Caelum… Caelum… Caelum…

Oriens bent his neck and pressed his scaly forehead to hers. She wrapped her arms around his snout, hugging him tightly. “Why does it hurt so much, Oriens?”

The dragon gave a deep sigh. “I do not know, Eliana. Your reactions to that elf have been a mystery to me from the day I hatched.”

The dragon lifted his head, and she held on tightly, allowing herself to be lifted from the ground. He craned his neck around and lifted her onto his back. The muscles of his shoulders formed a hollow space at the base of his neck, and he placed her there gently. She had never sat on his back before, and was surprised by how well she settled into the groove on his back, between the spikes of his neck and spine.

She leaned forward and pressed her cheek against his warm neck, allowing her tears to finally fall and trickle down the golden scales. Oriens turned and silently carried her into his cave, where he settled down onto the grass, curling so that his nose touched his tail. Eliana remained where she was, hugging her dragon’s neck, until she fell asleep.

Almost immediately, nightmares began to plague her sleep. She was alone in the middle of an abandoned village, which she somehow knew to be Amiscan. It was dark, and a terrible fog hung about the empty houses. She opened her mouth to cry out to somebody, anybody, but no sound would come. Where was Oriens? Where was Caelum? She spun around in a circle, searching for a companion, but she was completely abandoned.

A figure stepped out of the fog to her left. She turned to face him. More figures filed in on either side of him, all with black cloaks, hoods over their heads. Dark shadows continued to appear, all standing shoulder to shoulder until she was completely surrounded. Terror built in her throat, but she still could not scream. The first figure, which she was still facing, threw back his hood and she stared at Caedis' hateful brown eyes.

"Mongrel," he hissed, his voice dripping with venomous hatred.

The figures all around the circle raised bows and arrows, all of them aiming straight at her chest. She glanced around frantically and spotted a beautifully familiar figure standing on the roof of a nearby house. Her voice seemed to find her again at the sight of him.

"Caelum!" she cried.

He smiled, but it was not the smile she knew. There was something terrifying about it, and a shiver ran down her spine.

"Trust me," he hissed. He raised a bow of his own, an arrow on the string, pointing it at her

The dark figures around her all drew back the strings of their bows.

"Eliana." It was Oriens, his voice interrupting her nightmare, drawing her away from it. "Come dream with me, Eliana."

A wonderfully welcome calm washed over her in her sleep, and the darkness of the false Amiscan disappeared. Suddenly, she was up in the air, flying. Oriens' golden wings beat on either side of her. There was a warm body against her back, and two gentle arms around her waist. There was a laugh in her ear, and she recognized it as Caelum’s—her Caelum, not the one from her nightmares. She smiled as the green forest raced by far below, then fell into a deep sleep.