Blood Bond

The moon stood, bright and alone in a clear, starless night. Only a few trails of cloud trespassed between us as my wings lifted me upon the currents of air rolling over Aethelgard's outer walls.

Below, soldiers patrolled the battlements; dots of moonlit steel roamed over the long stretches of walkways that marked the beginning of streets and rooftops from the dark rolling meadows beyond.

Glowing street lamps lit the cobble roads swelling with nightlife: wagons drawn by horse and cattle, workers laden with packs, and couples strolling hand-in-hand past stalls where peddlers shouted. Children chased each other into the side alleyways while a couple of hooded figures watched over them from the dark shingled roofs.

I flew further in, and the dark, cobbled stones gave way to pale, smooth gravel that drank in the moonlight. The dark shingles turned glossy, reflecting the silver light of the night. Well-dressed servants and nobles weaved past each other, a steady flow punctuated by the occasional group of guards in armor. Every now and then, a hover carriage cut through the crowd, humming over the pale gravel.

I pulled up higher over the inner walls surrounding the main keep, where banners stood fluttering in the wind, some of which were still Aethelgard blue. And I soared even higher, past the white spires, now ghostly and pale as they stretched to meet the clouds. Behind and below me, a sea of lights blanketed this vast, beautiful city.

I let out a shriek into the night sky, and felt the city answer my call, gazes pulling upwards toward the cry of a lone Aethelwing circling above.

This is my city.

My eyes found the light spilling out of a bedroom onto a balcony and I dove toward it. A figure stood silhouetted against the light, the waves of her red hair gleaming obsidian-black under the moonlight. Her green eyes flashed as she looked up at me.

I stood in the wind, my hands gripping the cold marble railing as I watched my Aethelwing form swoop down. There was double vision: one of me looking up at the night sky, and the other of air howling past me as I streaked toward the figure shadowed against the light.

My wings spread, covering the full width of the balcony as I came to a stop just before my standing self. I beat against the air, hovering as my claws deposited a large red crystal into my outstretched hands.

I pulled my consciousness back from the bird. Surprisingly, just as with Key, the connection severed cleanly, returning me to a single vision. The large, round pupils of the Aethelwing fixed on me, but it didn't attack. I thought of it sitting on the balcony, leaning its head down, and it followed my suggestion.

Reaching around its large neck, I retrieved Theron's pouch. The beads inside jiggled against the leather in my hand. In my other hand was the red crystal. It was faceted but irregularly shaped, unlike the perfectly symmetrical Soul Seeds, and the light of the bedroom cast a glow of fiery-red from it onto me.

This time, I had my Soul Seed and I viewed the stone through the molecular view. Deep within the lattice of atoms, I sensed a bright, pulsating energy: mana with a red hue. There was definitely magic here. I thought of the circuit board in Astrid's bindings. Those mana lines running up to the crystals; could I draw upon it in a similar way?

I rolled the crystal in my hand, fingers feeling over its smooth facets. Astrid's shackles seemed to be self-powered, without the need for a Soul Seed. I thought of my spell casting failures. Perhaps I can cast different affinity magic through these stones, instead of my own Soul Seed.

"Your highness, step away from that thing." Meris's tense voice called out to me. A thin dagger was in her hand. "That's no normal Aethelwing."

I moved in between them, shielding the large bird. "No, wait. This is…" I racked my mind for the right thing to say, and then Theron's words echoed, "my familiar."

Anya's voice came from the other side of the doorway. "I don't sense a link." She took another ginger step forward, her eyes wide with fear. "That thing has a Magic Stone. It's a monster! Please, Ela, get away from it."

A Magic Stone? My eyes darted back to the giant, white, bird perched on the railing. My fingers brushed the soft plumage over its chest. As I connected with the blood flowing within, I sensed the stone nestled deep inside its body. It was smaller than the one in my hand, the color of the energy coming off of it felt yellow: air-affinity.

I wanted to see what it could do, and thought about it using its powers. In response, wind swirled around the creature, forming a shell of air around it. The arcs of electricity crackled, and one of them zapped my finger. Pain jolted up my arm, causing me to flinch back.

Meris's outline wavered. The Aethelwing's head swiveled, and the image of a hand stabbing forward with a dagger exploded into my mind. My hand snapped out, catching Meris's wrist mid air. "Stop! It… no, she's mine!"

Meris's eyes bulged. She looked from my hand gripping her, to me, then to the raptor eyes fixed upon her. She slowly lowered the blade.

The shell of air and electricity dissipated as I turned back to the majestic beast. She loomed over me, her down, ghostly white blending into the full moon. I traced over her talons, curved hooks that had torn apart hides beneath me. My hand hovered over the long feathers that had carried my wings upon the updrafts. And then my finger pressed against her sharp, pointed beak that had pecked away at flesh. Her eyes regarded me. Those oversized pupils surrounded by yellow irises, reminded me of another fearsome figure who had stared at me this way. "This… is Hope. She and I are one."

How did I know the gender? Like Annie, somehow. I just knew.

I sensed hunger within Hope, and was about to ask Anya for food, but then realized it truly needed: the vibrant, pulsating blood essence of something living.

"Go," I commanded.

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Hope spread her wings and leaped into the bright moon lit sky.

I watched her silhouette disappear into the dark horizon, and weighed the Magic Stone in my hand. Monsters… That demon-beast from which this stone came from, I had managed to drain blood essence from it, a decent amount of it. Maybe that's how I can feed my hunger without killing people. But where would I find a lot of monsters? Tanner the former adventurer's words came back to me: There are dungeons in this world.

"Your highness, what are you planning to do with that?" Meris asked, her voice steeped with concern.

Anya quickly closed the gap between us and draped the fur cloak around me. I looked down at the large red Magic Stone in my hand. Judging from Meris's tone, this thing was obviously dangerous. Which made sense given that batteries were also dangerous on Earth: I had seen enough online videos of them exploding. "I need to know more first."

She nodded, but as she sheathed her dagger under her dress, a thought occurred to me. "Meris, I need something from you. Back then, when I was caught." I closed my eyes, focused my mind and breathed. I couldn't find the right word to say and settled on something safe. "I was nearly… compromised."

Anya gasped. I patted her hand before gazing back at Meris. "I know what my father must have said, but things are different now. I will be in even more danger in the coming days. Teach me how to defend myself."

Meris's face grew taut, but she nodded. "What weapon will you be using? Some ladies keep a stiletto in their sleeves, or a long metal hair pin."

I raised my right hand, palm open. A rupture of flesh and blood and my palm-fang bursted out into the cool night air.

"This."

—

I was exploring another side corridor in the facility as Key. My mouse-self stumbled over some potato chip crumbs someone had dropped, and I couldn't help but stop to stuff them all into my mouth.

A foot fell nearby, and the shoe immediately caught my attention. It was the same polished brown shoe I had seen in the cafeteria. The man smelled the same, a subtle pine scent that was perhaps some fancy cologne. And now that I could see him, he had an equally suave face to match his impossibly smooth voice. His blonde hair was slicked back, but his eyes darted nervously up and down the corridor.

He was up to something.

I scurried up to the edge of the wall beside him, and followed along till he came to a stop at a blank section of wall. Another quick glance up and down the corridor, and the man pulled out a card, tapping it against the wall. Lines of red laser light shone out of a point that appeared in the wall, and the man held his phone up to it. Then the wall slid open: a hidden door!

He stepped inside, and I trailed after his heels. The room was bare and inanimate: just a simple black desk with a flat-screen monitor on top. Behind it, a wall was filled with stacks of humming computer systems, their dark surfaces a constant cascade of blinking green and blue status lights.

The man pulled a pair of leather gloves out of his grey jacket and snapped them over his hands. Then he retrieved a thin piece of metal out of his pants pocket: a thumb drive. He reached over the top of the desk to insert it somewhere out of sight.

I backed up but could still only see the top half of the display over the edge of the desk.

A few warning screens flashed. The man's arms moved, and the sound of fingers tapping furiously on keys echoed against the low, ambient hum of the room.

"Got it," he breathed.

The image of a blueprint appeared on the screen. The lines and small print were blurry to my mouse eyes, but I could make out several floors going downwards. Is this a schematic of the facility?

More images flickered past: portraits of human faces mixed in with pictures of creatures—mice, dogs, a tentacled squid—and other monstrous, unrecognizable organisms. They blurred by too quickly to tell what exactly they were, and forget reading the mountains of text lines.

The man kept looking over his shoulder as he flipped through the screens. From the glint in his wary eyes, I could tell this wasn't something he was supposed to be doing.

He's a spy.

He was stealing all these files, and putting them on his thumb drive. And that woman he was with before; he was definitely sweet talking her into giving up information. Did he do something to her? Is that how he got in here?

"Jackpot," the word jerked my attention back to the screen. At the top of the display were words large enough for me to make out.

'Patient: Leonard Vega'

There I was, staring glumly back from the screen. The spy scrolled through page after page of charts, graphs, and text. Just how much data do they have on me?! After a moment, he closed the file and stored it. Then another name popped up that made my fur stand on end.

'Dolores Vega'

I scampered up the leg of the desk, needing to see more. They had all of Mom's information on file: her job title at the hospital, her salary, her bills, and even her medical info—blood pressure, resting heart rate, past surgeries…

"Here we go." The spy's cold words gave me chills, and the name I dreaded most showed up on the screen.

'Maya Vega'

A line on the screen caught my eye, 'Note <S. Herbert>: Prioritize extraction for baseline comparison against primary specimen.'

No, no… They can't do this. Julia agreed!

"Ah, the consortium will be interested in this," the man murmured, rubbing his chin. Panic seized me. The cursor on the screen was hovering over our home address! At least I'm here at Blackwood. If this "consortium" gets a hold of Maya or Mom, it'd be totally out of my control. I won't be able to save them!

My beady eyes darted about and I spotted it. The thumb drive, sticking out of a slim desktop computer sitting on the desk. I ran for it and grabbed it, yanking hard with my small paws. The device came loose, and my jaws clenched on it.

A warning popped up on the screen.

"What the—" the man yelled as he spun toward me. I dodged a massive hand trying to grab me from above and dashed across the keyboard.

"Stop!"

A hand slammed down on the spot I had just been, snapping the keyboard in two. Keys flew past me like shrapnel. The screen flickered red, and then the entire room was bathed in the same color. A loud buzz blared out: an alarm! The door to the room slammed open.

"Shit!"

The man's head snapped up toward the flashing lights above, and I made a break for it. The edge of the desk rushed to greet me and I leaped into the air.

A moment of freefall, and then my small legs hit the hard ground, followed by my body. I rolled, my teeth clenching desperately on to the plastic drive. Then I popped back onto my feet and kept running.

"Got you!" Large fingers brushed my fur as a massive hand swiped the air above me. The floor shook as the rest of the giant crashed into the ground behind me. I kept pumping my legs, sprinting with all that I had. My tail just barely slipped out of his grasp.

"Get back here!" his pained, angry cry chased after me, but I kept running.

A mad dash and I skidded over the slick, tiled floors of the main hallway. A few men in black uniforms rushed past overhead. Their boots clanked hard against the floor as I huddled up against the edge of the wall.

When I looked back the giant spy was nowhere in sight.