Defy (5 page)

“Who’s Zachariah?” Skye asked. She started
wringing her hands, causing Caleb to put his arm around her waist
and pull her against his side.

“He was my second commander more than five
decades ago,” Gabriel replied with a puzzled frown. “But I thought
he was dead.”

“We all did,” Uriel said, looking at each of
the sisters, who had only been on the Estilorian plane for nineteen
years. “Zachariah was among a group we believed had been
slaughtered by Mercesti raiders. There has been no sign of him in
all this time.”

“Could she have been mistaken?” Olivia
wondered. “I mean, she was significantly wounded. What if she
wasn’t completely coherent?”

“It is possible,” Jabari acknowledged. “But
it bears investigating and warrants caution by everyone on the
mainland. Even if it turns out she was mistaken, someone certainly
did kill her.”

“There’s more,” Malukali said. And here, she
exchanged looks with the other elders. Her dark green eyes came to
rest on Uriel.

“Yes,” the Waresti elder confirmed. “My
patrols on the mainland have heard tales of a group of Mercesti
living by rules of their own making. We haven’t verified these
rumors and I’ve been attempting to reach Kanika to find out what
she knows of this. Thus far, I haven’t been able to locate
her.”

Caleb frowned. The acting Mercesti leader for
the past eighteen years, Kanika had experienced her share of
struggles attempting to bring her class under control. After
centuries under Grolkinei’s evil guidance, the red-eyed class was
still decades away from possibly integrating with the nine other
classes. Even with the help of the other elders, Kanika’s
leadership was, at best, tolerated by the majority of her class.
Caleb found it quite feasible that a group of Mercesti operated
outside of her knowledge or control.

“The fact that these disappearances and
likely murders are occurring at the same time that these rumors
have surfaced is a coincidence that can’t be ignored,” Knorbis
said, making Caleb realize he had been applying his Wymzesti powers
of insight to the situation. “From what we have been able to
determine, this group is hunting someone or something. I sense a
connection between Luvania’s death and the rise of these rumors
regarding the rogue Mercesti.”

There was a pause as they considered this.
Caleb glanced at Gabriel, who looked between him and James. They
all shared the same thought.

“Do you think Zachariah is in league with the
Mercesti?” Gabriel asked at last.

“I’m afraid it’s a distinct possibility,”
Knorbis replied. “It would certainly explain his absence these many
years.”

The words didn’t sit well with Caleb. He had
deeply respected Zachariah as a second commander and considered him
a model Gloresti. This news rattled him.

“What could these Mercesti be searching for
that would drive them to such extremes?” Amber asked, her golden
eyes reflecting the concern they all felt.

Jabari sighed. “That’s another reason we’re
here. The fact is…we don’t know.”

Sophia hadn’t considered the fact that Quincy
would have to carry her up to the top of the cliff until they were
out of the forest and standing at the cliff’s base. Even then, at
first she just paused and looked up, remembering how her dad had
carried her up to the top for her first flight lesson about a month
ago.

Her parents had been so excited. So had her
aunts and uncles, who came along for the trip. She had wanted to
share that excitement, but the fact was, she was scared to death.
She couldn’t help but worry about something going wrong.

Still, she listened obediently to all of
their instructions. She knew Clara Kate had just the month before
managed to bring forth her wings with little effort after her
eighteenth birthday, which meant their class could fly. According
to everything her parents and aunts and uncles so eagerly imparted
to her, all she had to do was have faith and she would be on her
way.

After weeks of attempting to fly, she
determined that the only one who didn’t have faith in her was
her.

“I’ll take you to the top,” Quincy said a bit
hesitantly, pulling her thoughts back to her current
circumstances.

She glanced at him and frowned in
consideration. She supposed there was really no getting around
it.

“Fine,” she said coolly.

She hated that her pulse quickened when he
touched her…hated that she wished his hands were on her for a
reason other than obligation. A flush of heat built in her neck and
cheeks as he scooped her off the ground and she registered the
strength in his upper body. She deliberately focused on the cliff
face as they lifted from the ground. She was absolutely not
interested in his piercing silver gaze or the poetic curve of his
lips. And she wasn't at all affected by being pressed against him.
Definitely not.

When they landed a moment later, she didn’t
look at him or speak as she quickly and purposefully pulled off her
sundress to reveal her bathing suit underneath. She didn’t want to
see his repulsion or his pity over her waif-like build. She
carefully folded her sundress and set it aside, then crossed her
arms and stared down at the water below, fighting the urge to jump
just to put space between her and Quincy.

“Flight is about—” he began.

“Faith. Yeah, yeah. I get that. That doesn’t
help.”

“Actually, I was going to say that flight is
about aerodynamics,” he corrected, surprising her into looking at
him. “Your mind works differently than most of your kin. You need
to understand how something works before it makes sense to you.
That is in complete contradiction to faith. So we’ll need to try a
different approach with you if you are to fly.”

She opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of
anything to say, so she closed it.

“You can assume the form of most any animal
about your size—except for those that fly. Don’t you want to be
able to change into those forms, too?”

She hadn’t ever thought about it that way.
And why hadn’t she? she wondered in bemusement. But now that he
issued the suggestion, she felt her first real surge of interest
and excitement over this lesson. So she nodded.

They spent a couple of minutes discussing the
mechanics of flight, which she found reluctantly fascinating even
though she already new most of it. And then she allowed him to
touch her again so he could toss her off the cliff.

It didn’t work. Disappointment sat like a
bitter morsel on her tongue as he flew down to fish her out of the
water. Her only satisfaction was that he got soaked as a result of
his efforts.

He set her on her feet back at the top of the
cliff and she fought the urge to kick him out of sheer frustration.
This had been a perfectly awful day, and it didn’t appear as though
things were going to improve. How could she face disappointing her
parents yet again?

“That’s okay,” Quincy said patiently. “Let’s
just go over it again. There’s probably something you don’t—”

“I understood you perfectly well, Quincy,”
she snapped, reaching up to re-secure her hair as it started
slipping from its knot. “I’m not an idiot. As you’re the one who
assisted me in my first physics lessons, you know I’m familiar with
these concepts.”

“You’ve heard of them, yes,” he agreed,
irritation now filtering through his tone, “but you haven’t
experienced them first-hand. You need to actually sense what it
means for the air to hit a wing at a certain angle, how it feels
when a current of wind creates a lift—”

“And just how,” she ground out, “am I
supposed to
do
those things when I can’t extend my
wings?”

“Let me carry you,” he suggested. “But
instead of you sitting in my arms sideways, you’ll wrap your legs
around my waist and face me. You’ll be able to see my wings better
from that perspective, and you can reach out and touch them to see
how the air passes over them.”

The very suggestion of herself pressed
against him in such a way had her heart racing, and that pushed her
right over the edge. Suddenly furious with the circumstances that
put her in this position—having these feelings for someone who
couldn’t stand her—she actually growled.

“I have a better idea,” she shouted over the
wind that whipped his black tank top and pants and pressed them
torturously close to his gorgeous body. His eyes widened in
surprise as she advanced and she had a split second to wonder
exactly what went through his head as he registered her ferocity.
“Why don’t you see how it feels to swim, so you can experience what
this is like from
my
perspective?”

And using her fury to give her added
strength, she shoved him off the cliff.

Tate felt the astonishment on her face as she
watched Sophia plummet straight down into the lake after Quincy
tossed her off the cliff. Her mouth hung open even as Quincy flew
down to lift Sophia out of the water.

She registered that her cousin wore a swim
tank and shorts. And she understood then that this was all part of
the training process. Obviously Sophia had to learn to fly with a
fairly safe landing zone. The lake seemed logical enough, Tate
supposed. Though if Sophia knew that the lake would break her fall,
would she really need to have the faith in herself required to
bring forth her wings?

Well, what did she know? It had worked for
Clara Kate, after all.

Shrugging, Tate decided to climb to a higher
vantage point so she could see Sophia and Quincy on the top of the
cliff. She hoped she might learn some tips about flight that would
allow her to extend her wings with more ease in a few weeks. Tiege
would be so jealous of her.

Reaching up, she grasped another chunk of
rock, trying not to think about the cramps forming in her hands.
Using her boots again for extra leverage, she pushed herself up a
couple more feet. She made good headway with a few more careful
maneuvers. But when she stretched for an awkward handhold, she lost
her grip and slipped. She barely stopped herself from a forty-foot
freefall.

Her heart hammering in her chest, she clung
to her perch and took several deep breaths. That had been a close
one.

She heard Sophia yelling something then, and
strained to get a better view of the top of the cliff. Much to her
surprise, she watched her cousin shove Quincy over the cliff
edge.

“Sophia!” Tate shouted before she thought
better of it, and clamped her hand over her mouth.

The movement cost her dearly. She felt
herself sliding and couldn’t react in time to brace herself. In a
cascade of dirt and rocks, she tumbled free of the cliff face—

—and found herself plucked from the air, all
of the breath stolen from her lungs as something squeezed her body
like a vise.

It wasn’t until excruciating pain radiated
through her chest and she tasted her own life’s blood as it filled
her mouth that Tate’s confusion vanished and terror took hold.

Mercifully, by then her heart had almost
stopped. She only had to suffer the fear and deadly pain for a few
more gasping heartbeats before it was over.

Jabari’s admission that they didn’t know what
the rogue Mercesti sought as they killed innocent Estilorians had
Caleb’s Gloresti instincts surging. He wanted to be helpful…wanted
to stop this group from harming another being. And when he looked
between his brothers, he knew the same held true for them.

A sound behind them had him turning in
concern. When he spotted Tiege clutching his chest and kneeling on
the ground, Caleb’s heart plummeted. Even as he hurried toward
Tiege, his son turned and looked behind him, his head moving
frantically.

Only when Tiege sprinted for the forest like
demons breathed fire on his heels did Caleb understand.

Tate was gone.

Sophia’s anger morphed into embarrassment
right after she shoved Quincy off the cliff. For all holy sake…the
guy could fly. It wasn’t as if he would actually hit the water.

The sound of her name echoing up the cliff
face as Quincy fell had her looking around in confusion. That had
sounded like Tate.

A noise echoed from across the lake, like a
pile of rocks coming loose from their moorings. Sophia watched with
astonishment as her cousin slid off the cliff almost directly
across the water. She had the numb thought that Tate couldn’t fly,
and if she didn’t get far enough away from the rocks, she would
bounce like a child’s toy all the way down the cliff and cause
herself serious injury.

That thought hadn’t even had time to fully
form before the kragen erupted from its cave within the cliffs and
snatched Tate right out of the air with its tail.

Sophia watched in frozen shock as the huge
black beast took flight. Its wingspan shadowed half the lake. And
when its long, curled tail whipped Tate away from the cliff, a
spray of something wet and warm flew at Sophia, coating her like a
mist.

She could only think,
Quincy
.

Her throat wouldn’t work. Her body wouldn’t
cooperate. It all seemed like a dream. Until she caught a brief
glimpse of Tate’s face and watched as the life leeched out of her
cousin’s eyes.

Just as the kragen surged away with Tate
wrapped in its tail, Quincy reappeared.

“Sophia!” he cried, landing and hurrying over
to her. “Holy light—are you okay? You’re covered in blood! Was that
kragen injured?”

“T-t-ate,” she managed.

Why was he just standing there? She wanted to
scream at him to go after her cousin. The kragen was getting away!
They might still be able to help her if they hurried.

When he continued to stand there clutching
her arms and checking her over as though she was the injured one,
anger replaced her shock. She shoved him away and focused on the
quickly retreating kragen.