Equinox (Book One of the Firebird Chronicles) WATTY AWARD HIDDEN GEM WINNER 2015

Chapter Three: Into the Depths

‘What?’ I yelled. ‘She’s alive? Are you sure?’

The wind howled harder; it had picked up considerably, and the plane took a buffeting for it. We lurched downwards, and I gripped by seat in fear. My hair flew behind me, a tangle of black webs. We were rising again, but a mist was descending upon us.

‘What in heaven’s name…’ Arianna swore from the front seat as she flicked gears and spun the steering wheel. We tore lower, away from the mist, and fell further towards the town; people were below, pointing up above. I looked over the edge, seeing the vast drop below, and the large houses we’d once envied looking no larger than those for dolls. When I looked back, beyond the propellers, I could still see the large orphanage, sitting at the edge of the forest, watching us forlornly. I wondered when I would be noticed missing, and when the shrine would be found burned to the ground.

My hand wandered to the stone, which Arianna had called an opal. As far as I knew, opals were a very expensive stone that could have bought the entire market that we stole from. How it had gotten into my body, and the irony that it had been there all along, was lost in the amazement that my eye had miraculously healed; so rapidly that it didn’t seem human. I hadn’t lost any sight. The only difference was my left eye now seemed a little brighter; as if it reflected slightly more light than it had when the opal had been absorbing it.

When she had given me the opal, Reia had said to trust no one. But how was I going to find answers, if I didn’t know whom to confide in?

Arianna had saved my life. I was placing my trust in her now, taking me to the island, where I had sworn never to go to. Perhaps, once we were there, I would tell her that I really didn’t know anything. That I needed all the help I could get.

That I had nowhere else to go, nobody to turn to; a dismal fact that still brought tears to my eyes that my home had been wherever Reia was.

‘I think this weather is being controlled!’ Arianna screamed from the front as she manoeuvred the plane as we were hit by a fierce wind. ‘The mist is following us, and this wind is ridiculous!’

‘Controlled?’ I shouted back. What did she mean?

Apparently, Arianna didn’t catch my drift that I had no clue supernatural powers could possibly exist. She continued to explain it in terms I didn’t understand.

‘A storm mage knows you’re alive!’ she cursed. ‘This is bad. Do you have your powers back yet? Even if you did, we can’t stop this storm…’

I remained uneasily silent as the mist swirled around us. Arianna pulled a gear, and the plane’s wings angled and retracted. We shot through the air, and tunnelled out of the mist.

‘We’re going to go as fast as we can,’ Arianna told me, ‘When we get to the island, I’m dropping you off first. I’ll distract whoever it is.’

I hoped she didn’t literally mean dropping me off the plane.

As we left the mist behind us, and the plane stepped up into a much higher gear, the island came into view in front of us, by the harbour.

It was different.

The sun was not setting this time; it was mid-morning. The island was no longer surrounded by large stone walls, but cliff faces formed from the jagged rock of the island. Built into the cliffs was a wonderful array of white buildings forming the walls of the island. They were beautiful, with ocean-blue tiles on their turrets, and medieval windows along the longest, thinnest towers. Stretching between them were arched walkways and bridges, with the sky their only background. Green land gave way into two trees, forming the outer gates of the island; the trees curved and bended, until they met in the middle like two outside sentinels. Their branches met and entwined, like guards joining spears; bright green leaves threw serenity onto the image, quietening the monstrously sized tree into an idyllic giant, bending shafts of morning light through the gaps in its foliage.