A Flight of Broken Wings: Aeriel Trilogy #1

Chapter 15

Circling like a rather lethargic bird of prey over the dilapidated mansion under the starry Zainian sky, Shwaan cursed himself for agreeing to his sister's ludicrous scheme. The darkness of the earthly night made him twitchy and uncomfortable. He knew that it was psychological, at least to an extent. Aeriels were perfectly capable of surviving – hell, thriving – on earth. He himself had lived there for a substantial chunk of his childhood before the Rebellion, had in fact never laid eyes on Vaan for the first two centuries of his life. He could still remember a time when the perpetual sunshine of the Luminous Realms had seemed strange and alien to him. But that theoretical knowledge of his body's resilience didn't stop him from feeling the off-kilter jitteriness that the now unfamiliar darkness brought with it.

It was more than just the instinctive aversion to darkness natural to his kind, though. For Shwaan, the gloom brought back memories. Memories of earth, memories of the Rebellion. Of his home burning as hundreds of screaming, bellowing attackers set the trees and the gardens on fire, hacked at the walls with swords and spears, axes and sifblades. Of the walls crumbling against the onslaught and the barricades on the doorways giving way. Of his mother, fierce and snarling, glowing silver with unadulterated fury even as the last of her strongholds collapsed around her, sending blinding white flashes of pure energy flying in all directions, killing humans and Aeriels indiscriminately; her dark eyes – so much like Safaa's – alight with a mad frenzy. And of Maya, holding him, cradling him in her arms, whispering comforting nonsense in his ear with tears in her eyes even as she locked him in the little dark cellar before running up to the upper levels to join her husband – one of the attacking soldiers – in the fray. He had never seen her again after that night.

Shaking his head to clear it of his wandering thoughts, Shwaan adjusted his wings slightly, folding them closer to his body as he dove down towards the mansion. He had cased the place to the best of his ability, given the darkness of the surroundings, and near as he could tell the building was empty. He swooped in through an open window on one of the upper floors, left discreetly unlatched by one of the servants when the place had been locked up a few weeks ago at Safaa's request. The request was delivered through Wakeen along with a substantial amount of gold and three sterling, full Aeriel feathers, priceless in their radiant beauty, undiminished by the damage usually inflicted during Hunts. His Lordship Ashwin Kwan, 27th in the line of succession to the Zainian throne, was going to be a very rich man once all of this was over, as were some members of his household staff. Shwaan landed smoothly in what appeared to be the master bedroom.

He took a moment to regain his bearings. He was standing near a humongous old mahogany bed covered in velvet and silk sheets that had seen better days. The walls that surrounded him were covered in bright yellow wallpaper that looked like it could do with a change and the soft-wool carpet under his feet was frayed, yet by no means unpleasant. Slowly, he walked to the front of the massive chamber and stood before the full length mirror attached to the oversized dressing table, gazing at the incongruous sight of silver hair and pearly eyes that stared back at him through the glass. With one quick flap he made his wings disappear; they looked oddly jarring within the restrictive confines of an earthly dwelling.

With a final sigh of resignation, Shwaan reached into the inner pocket of his loose feather-cloak. If he was going to do this, he figured he might as well do it right. Safaa might be paranoid but she was a capable strategist. And if she was so convinced that Vaan faced an imminent threat, well, it couldn't hurt to check it out. Besides, Shwaan hadn't been to earth in over six hundred years, and if he was being completely honest with himself, the thought of exploring this new version of his old home was profoundly exciting to him, vexing as it was to have to do it in this ridiculous disguise.

He withdrew the glossy bit of paper Safaa had handed him as she all but threw him out of Vaan and towards earth, squinting at it curiously. It appeared to be a portrait – extraordinarily lifelike – of a young man with long, jet black hair and onyx eyes, his locks braided to one side with a long purple ribbon running through the intricate weaves. His pale skin was flushed with what Shwaan presumed was recent exertion, even as he smiled widely at someone not in the frame of the portrait. The picture was nothing like the ones he'd seen on earth as a child. Humans had always had a fascination for having their likenesses preserved on paper – or on any available surface, really. But this particular portrait looked considerably clearer and more realistic than anything he remembered seeing in his time on the Mortal Realms. He supposed it was another one of the humans' many formulas, vaguely impressed despite himself. Their psychotic bloodlust aside, mortals could be rather cute when you least expected it.

Putting the picture down on the dressing table, Shwaan took a seat on the plush – if slightly frayed, like everything else in this house – cushioned chair in front of the mirror. It was time to become the man whose identity his sister had paid handsomely to borrow. Opening one of the two drawers in the dressing table, he could see that his absent hosts had kept their end of the bargain and made all the necessary arrangements for his arrival. Flipping the picture over, he scrutinised the instructions – written in a clear, flowing script – on the rough, plain side of the glossy paper. It took a moment for him to get used to the unfamiliar mortal script – humans had so many of them, like they invented them for the kicks. As if calling the same thing by a million different names brought them some kind of inexplicable joy. Once his brain had adjusted to the intricacies of this particular language – Zainian, his sister had said – he began preparations for his transformation in earnest.

He withdrew a little black bottle from the assortment of what looked like make-up items in one of the drawers. Following the instructions on the paper carefully, he uncapped the bottle and poured some of its contents onto the palm of his hand, sniffing delicately at the faint scent of lavender the pitch black stuff emitted. Slowly, with not a little trepidation, he rubbed the dark liquid into his hair, applying it in long, light strokes as the instructions on the picture mandated. To his astonishment, after just a few seconds of running his stained fingers through his formerly silver locks, his hair had turned pitch black, nearly indistinguishable from the natural colouring of the Honourable Ashwin Kwan. Humans never ceased to amaze. Shwaan chuckled as he wiped his fingers on a towel hanging from a hook near the dressing table.

Flippinghis newly darkened locks back over his shoulder, he hunched down over thedrawer to look for the next item on the painstakingly detailed list. He foundthe little blue box with the two tiny red circles on it in one corner of theoverstuffed drawer. Flipping the cover open, he found inside it two identicaldark ovals of what appeared to be really fragile glass. Reading over theinstructions once again, Shwaan shrugged. Carefully, he raised one of the tinydark lenses to his eye, placing it as delicately as possible over his own iris.He repeated the process with the other lens, more confident with every step hecompleted, then blinked owlishly at the reflection in the mirror. He laughed.He was not even halfway done and he barely recognised his own image.