Sapphire

  The visions were fading. She blinked her eyes. Dark tree trunks were blurring past.

  “Ouch!” snorted Mira. “Don't yank my mane out, I'm rather vain of it.”

  “Huh,” Shawna said, still recovering from the visions.

  She frowned, trying to remember the voices, but the long-forgotten memory was fading. Rays of early sunlight set the hills ablaze as they galloped into an enormous field. The cold darkness of the forest was quickly dissipating like her memories. Morning's warm glowing arms wrapped around her face and hands while Lula stirred from inside the pack. Mira slowed to a canter and finally to a walk far from the forest's edge. Her sides were heaving, and Shawna realized they must have been galloping half the night.

  “Why’d you do that?” Shawna said, touching her temples. She whirled around. “Where did it go?!”

  She expected to see the monster leap from the shadows, but everything was still; only birds chirped their morning greetings.

  “I had to blind you from it.” Mira’s legs trembled for a moment, but she kept walking.

  “Did I faint?”

  “You did. I nearly lost you once, but I kept you aware enough to hold onto me.”

  “I don’t like it when you do that. It makes me feel so—”

  “Vulnerable?” Mira rolled an eye back at her.

  “Um, yeah. Can you also see what I see?”

  “Only if I open my mind to yours as well. In this case, I did not.”

  Relief washed over Shawna, stemming more from the embarrassing memory of Jarred than the mysterious one with the apparition. “Just don’t do it anymore. Please.”

  “I give you my word. I felt it was necessary in that moment. You were both giving it too much power. Molochs feed on another’s energy, in this case your fear.”

  Shawna glanced back at the receding forest. “That’s what came for me at my house. Why? Tell me what they are.”

  “Not now,” Mira laid her ears back. “What did I just tell you? Keep your thoughts away from it. I will explain later in a safer location. We’re nearly there.”

  “What?” said a drowsy little voice before Shawna could ask where.

  Lula emerged with something wiggling on her head. “What happened? Is it gone?”

  “Um, Lula,” said Shawna, pointing at her. “I

  think there's a worm on your head.”

  Lula looked unconcerned. She slowly raised her hand, grabbed the worm, and flung it into the tall grasses.

  “I told Capella nobody likes worms except her.”

  She settled down between Mira's ears and blinked a few times.

  “I fell asleep. What did the fuzz-ball have to say?”

  It seemed Lula had remembered everything but the race for their lives all night.

  “You don’t re—” Shawna started to say before Mira laid her ears back at her.

  “Say nothing,” she privately said to Shawna. “I don’t like to use such power because using memories to cloud one’s mind can be dangerous. You never know what might be brought forth, but in this case it was best.”

  “Hello?” Lula said directly into Mira’s ear. “Can you hear me?”

  “All too well, Lula,” Mira said, twisting her ear away. “The LorLor warned us of the risen molochs. It sensed the dark intent in their souls, so we left. And yes, you fell asleep.”

  Shawna wondered what kind of memories were buried deep in Lula’s mind. It was hard to imagine that any of them were bad.

  Mira turned an ear back at Shawna. “Do not dismount, just in case.”

  “No problem.” She nodded and looked at the ground like it had become molten lava. “What aren’t you telling me? Why can’t you just explain everything? What’s the big secret?”

  Mira snorted like a parent exasperated with their child’s tantrum, then said so only Shawna could hear, “You are impatient, angry, and afraid, three reasons it would be unwise to tell you anything right now.” She went on before Shawna could spout her frustration again. “Simply being told certain knowledge is useless. Discovering it for yourself makes all the difference. You were told that souls exist but did you believe it? No, you didn’t. There is more at risk here than your own self. The molochs are growing stronger since you have come back.” It seemed like she wanted to say more but fell silent.

  Something in the way she said that last phrase chilled the words on Shawna’s tongue and she let them drop, unspoken, like icicles. Mira turned her head to look at her.

  “Woo!” shouted Lula, waving her arms. “Tell me when you're going to move your head next time. I almost fell in your ear.”

  Mira tossed her head, and Lula flew head over wings into the air.

  “Hey!” she glowered, fluttering above their heads. “You want a pink mane? I’ll do it. I will.”

  “You want six legs to go with those wings?” Mira bantered back. “I’ll do it.”

  Lula suddenly found something very interesting on her dress and started fiddling with it. Shawna looked behind at the receding forest again. There was no sign of their pursuers. Only a large hawk circled in the distance then disappeared towards the mountains.

  “By the way,” Lula said, flying over to Mira. “Where are we, and how in flapping-arms did we get here?”

  “I galloped all night because there’s something I want you to see that happens here only at sunrise.”

  “Wow,” said Lula, “that’s, uh, spunky…and nice of you.” She gave Shawna a look of and-you-thought-you-were-crazy.

  Shawna tried to keep her features straight and not tip Lula off to Mira’s blatant lie. She was spared the effort when they stepped to the hills summit and beheld what lay in the valley below. She gasped in amazement.

  Giant spires of crystal, some as tall as sky scrapers, dominated the land as far as she could see. They glittered and shimmered in the early light, shivering for the sun's touch. The magnificent mountain range hunched its huge shoulders, allowing a few spears of light to fly and glance off crystal towers, splintering them into shards of color. The sparse trees dotting the landscape were completely overpowered by this fantastic spectacle. She first thought it was a natural phenomenon, beyond any world wonder she could ever conceive of, then noticed the crystals seemed to bend and lean, forming castle like structures.

  “The Monoliths of Kryos,” Lula whispered. “I thought they were a myth.”

  Shawna cough-laughed and decided not to say something sarcastic to the mythical fairy's remark. She watched breathlessly as the sun finally rose over the regal mountain range that bowed before the marvel below. A million spears of light collided with the crystal citadels, shattering them into waterfalls of rainbows. The colors arced skyward in bridges of flaming hues and created a web of fractured light.

  “We found it,” said Mira. “The first realm.”

  Her black coat was tinged with morning fire as they descended into the valley.