Sapphire

  Appearing from thin air, a giant white paw with black claws the size of scimitars, materialized from the lightning. When the muzzle of the creature began to emerge, Shawna turned and ran behind Mira. Snarling lips pulled away from yellowed fangs that were nearly as long as her body. A massive feline head, with eerily pure white eyes rimmed in black, peered down at them. The rest of the body slowly flowed from the invisible doorway as the monstrous creature stepped through. Mira pranced backwards to avoid being crushed from the huge paws while Shawna scrambled with her.

  A low rumbling was vibrating their bodies to their very bones. Shawna backed against a stalagmite of crystal. Tiny slivers were actually breaking and tinkling to the ground around her from the slight quaking. As the ground shook, the air itself sounded like it would shatter apart from the monster’s deep growls.

  Having fully emerged, it now towered over them by more than thirty feet from paw to lethal fang. Its pallid eyes glared at them. It was tiger in form, but that was where the comparison ended. Its neck was thick like a bulls, and lightning sizzled and writhed around its entirely albino coat, giving the illusion of glowing blue stripes. Along with black claws, black-boned armored plates covered its back from nose to tail tip while razor-like spikes protruded from its spine. What she at first thought was the tuft of a lion’s tail was actually a knot of concentrated energy, occasionally sending tentacles of lightning in every direction.

  “How did you find this gateway?” the beast thundered.

  Shawna’s mouth and eyes grew even wider, and Lula shivered violently in her backpack. It was Mira that challenged him.

  “Guardian,” she shouted in everyone’s minds. “Kryos, I bring Ava!” She reared looking just as intimidating as Kryos, though barely higher than his foreleg. “I am Mira, Arch-Mare of the Lord Lesath.”

  “I remember you, unicorn,” he said, the words rumbling in his throat like boulders. “I see you have thus far managed to escape your fate.”

  Shawna glanced over at Mira wondering what ‘fate’ the soleon-lord was referring to.

  “So, this is one of the guardians? This scrawny little human?” He sniffed and curled a lip.

  The tip of a canine longer than Shawna’s arm glinted in the flickering light. She held her breath. Kryos turned to lower his head towards her, and she choked back another scream.

  “You are weak,” he sneered, light sparking along his whiskers. “Good sport for my clan, perhaps, but a guardian?” More crystal splintered and shattered to the ground with his laugh. “She’s barely challenge enough for our cubs.”

  Weak? Shawna’s eyes narrowed.

  Kryos peeled dark lips away from teeth that protruded like jagged stones. He lowered his gigantic form till he crouched in front of Shawna, and she could feel the foul warmth of his breath.

  “I could devour you like a tiny fly.”

  His blood tinged breath was so overwhelming that she nearly fainted.

  “Don’t you try it!” yelled a little voice. Lula shot out of her hiding place. She looked very fierce, even though Kryos could have accidently inhaled her through his nostril.

  Lula’s courage awoke something within Shawna. She straightened her hunched shoulders, stood tall, and glared at Kryos, even though he made a bull elephant look like a kitten. He looked shocked for a moment, then amused as his pure white eyes reflected them all. Whips of lightning suddenly shot out from his tail, entangling them in ropes of energy. Mira cried out and reared.

  “She is the one, Lord. I demand that you see her!”

  Shawna and Lula also cried out, but neither of them could even twitch a finger. Kryos filled the cavern with laughter again.

  “Demand? What powerful words indeed.” His laughter faded. “You are not the one to challenge Lesath, girl, much less me.”

  The lightning coils did not burn, only tingled, but Shawna felt them sting her like eels, twisting her life into a pathetic end.

  “You are weak,” he whispered through a snarl. “How dare you enter this realm unbidden. You will live, unicorn,” he said as Mira thrashed in her bonds. “I thank you for your offering. As for you human and fairy.” Their chains began to tighten. “You shall feel your bones incinerate from within.”

  Lula struggled, Mira tried to cut the light with her horn to no avail, and Shawna felt enraged. How dare this creature think such things about her. How dare this over-sized kitty-cat play with their lives. The stones on her necklace rose from her chest, defying gravity, and defying their captor. The energy field holding her vanished along with the snarl on his face. She was as stunned as the three pairs of eyes now turned on her. He stared at the necklace like it would suddenly swoop up and strangle him. She saw her opportunity. Furious at the predicament she and her friends had now found themselves in, she did the first thing that came to mind. She grabbed a blade of shattered crystal and yelled.

  “Let us go!”

  Kryos stared down at her, then one massive paw stepped back.

  “I am not weak, and I am not afraid! Let us go!”

  Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, she chanted to herself.

  The ropes of lightning vanished, releasing Lula and Mira, and Kryos took two very long steps away from her. The necklace slowly drifted back down, feeling warm upon her still intact collar bones. She was shaking with fear, but she tried to hide it, tightening her grip on the shard. Lula flew over and in an instant transformed the crystal splinter into a sword. Shawna stopped shaking and nearly dropped it. Lula looked, if possible, even more amazed at what she’d done.

  “I was just going to make it longer,” she whispered, looking at her hands like she’d just noticed they were hers.

  The foot long piece of broken crystal had elongated into a yard long transparent crystal blade, while an intricately carved black iron handle appeared in Shawna’s palm. She did not have the time, nor the interest, to look closely at the carving with a three-ton electrified feline fixated on her. Mira cantered over to stand with them, shaking her mane and brandishing her horn.

  “It’s not pink,” Lula said, still open-mouthed at the sword.

  “Do you doubt now?” said Mira, tossing her head high.

  The tension that once saturated the cave began to dissolve, and Kryos slowly lowered to his haunches, then spread his paws before him while he lay down Sphinx-like. Lula was still staring, dumbfounded, at the non-pink sword.

  “My apologies. It would have been a shame if you were torn to pieces,” said Kryos like the thought had never been his. “We have waited a very long time for a spirit such as yours.”

  She looked down at herself like she would perhaps see her ‘spirit’ glowing, but only saw dirt caked all over her.

  “I must inform you that we were visited by one other merely a day ago,” Kryos said. “He did not come with the intentions that you possess.” Kryos flexed his enormous claws and growled. “He came to try and destroy the realm.”

  Mira struck her hoof against crystal at these words, sending sparks. “Tell us who he is, and how he escaped?”

  “I do not know the human’s name. He came with malice and arrogance.” He rotated his head towards Shawna. “And dark intentions.”

  He swished his tail and light crackled in its wake. “He vanished with his tricks, slipped away, but not without first using a powerful spell and releasing the rest of the creatures we have helped guard.” He looked severely offended at being thwarted by a mere human, even if he was a sorcerer. “If you are truly a daughter of guardians, Ava, they will come for you.”

  “What will?” she asked, dreading what he might say next.

  “Molochs. We have contained a number of them for hundreds of years, but over the last sixteen years, more and more have been escaping. Now that one of the guardians of the fourth realm has entered the world again, everything will change. Your birth-right, is your curse.”

  Guardian? Birth right?

  Before she could let his words worm into her thoughts, lightning shot forth from ever
y crystal in view. Materializing out of the electrical storm, came the other soleons. They were nowhere near the size of their lord and guardian, but all could have looked Mira in the eye. Their coats, also striped in electricity, were an undulating gray wave of varying shades. The sparking crystals ceased their performance when all the soleons stood before them. Lula flew closer to Shawna. She smiled faintly at Lula, and tightened her grip on her new sword. Its weight and razor sharp edge comforted her. She noticed Kryos was staring at her neck, and she covered it protectively with her free hand.

  He laughed. “Do not fear me, daughter of destruction.” She frowned at his last word. “If you are truly the one we have been awaiting, those black shards will protect you.”

  “All the realms will open when the five shards, or stones, hold power once more,” said Mira. “Most importantly the last realm. Shawna, there is one that could help prevent a devastating fate. Pray it is you.”

  Shawna stood paralyzed into silence.

  “Pray?” she whispered. She grit her teeth at Mira’s distressing and cryptic explanations.

  Kryos turned his attention to Mira. “You put your hopes in this human?”

  “I do not doubt her,” Mira said, looking at Shawna.

  Something stirred in Shawna’s chest at these few simple words, but she couldn’t say if it was determination to prove herself, or fear of complete disastrous failure, or perhaps both.

  “Do you believe, Lord?” Mira said, stepping closer. “Do we have your allegiance?”

  Shawna and Lula looked first at Mira then at each other. Allegiance? Was he coming with them?! She didn’t have to read minds to know Lula was thinking the same thing.

  For a moment Kryos didn’t answer, then he inclined his head.

  “Thank you, Lord Kryos.” Mira inclined her own head as she stepped back.

  “Antares!”

  Shawna jumped at Kryos’ bellow.

  A handsome soleon loped forward. He reminded Shawna of a young lean lion with the first scruff of mane, though he was probably twice the size of any lion she had ever seen in the zoo. His coat was a dark grey, his scruffy mane black, and his body was surrounded by fiery-red streaks of light that constantly curled around him and culminated into an orb of fire at the tip of his tail. He had dark red cat eyes very unlike his Lords.

  “Antares will help you on your journey.”

  Lula gaped as if he had added, and most likely eat you for breakfast.

  Mira swished her tail, seemingly at perfect ease now. Shawna looked between them, and her knuckles turned white around the sword hilt.

  “Thank you for your offer, Kryos, and thank you, Antares,” said Mira.

  Antares bowed his head, and Shawna noticed he had no natural armor or spines like Kryos.

  “You must leave now,” said Kryos. “The sorcerer means to destroy the other realms.” He glanced at Shawna. “He also may be able to control the molochs. He is your greatest threat right now. Do not underestimate him, for he escaped even our claws.”

  She was about to ask how he was controlling the molochs, but the rest of the soleons began roaring and slashing the air with crackling lightning. They created such a cacophony of sound that Shawna had to throw her arms over her head to protect herself from falling pieces of crystal. Lula shot into the backpack. The uproar abated, and Shawna saw that her arms were cut and bleeding a little. She looked up at Kryos, or at least at the underside of his jaw.

  “The man,” she yelled. “The one who came here, who is he? How will we know who we’re looking for?”

  “Be assured he will find you.” His upper lip curled. “He is most likely headed for Karuna, so you must get beyond the Monoliths before next sunrise. Take the ravine through the Agonian range. I would give you the aid of my entire clan, but our power has been diminishing since the massacre. Antares alone remains the strongest of us. I fear there are others at work against you, against all of us. You must succeed, girl.”

  “We understand,” said Mira. “On my back,” she commanded a befuddled Shawna.

  “We do?” she said as she clambered on, holding the sword carefully.

  “Wait,” Kryos said, and Mira pranced impatiently. “He was wearing a shard of golden light. I am sure of it.”

  Mira stopped prancing and a shiver rippled across her hide.

  “A golden shard?”

  “Yes. I am truly sorry.”

  Mira tossed her head, baring her teeth. “We will find him. His entrails will hang from the end of my horn…along with hers.”

  Shawna wondered if the unfortunate her was her mother, but knew now was not the time to ask. Guess I was wrong about unicorns being all pure of heart and sparkle-farts.

  Lula poked her head out from the pack’s flap and sneezed. “What? More running? Towards monsters?”

  Mira ignored her, pivoted, and dashed away from the Guardian of the Monoliths. Her hooves clattered down the crystal path towards sunlight, and Antares was right on their heels, ruby lightning flashing all around him.

  “Ah!” gasped Shawna when something flared on her chest.

  She looked down and quickly lifted her necklace up, amazed. Where one of the dull stones had been was now a black star sapphire. It looked like the sun itself was radiating from within the gem.

  Just as they galloped into the open, the volcanic roar of Kryos erupted from the monolithic crystals. Giant pieces cracked off from the spires and crashed to the ground.

  “Warn Karuna!”

  The last word he said was a tremendous roar, but Shawna was sure it had been, ‘run!’ Mira neighed in response and veered for the vast mountain range before them.

  Deep within a distant crystal canyon, dark forms, dormant for ages, crept from shadowy fissures. Their eyes burned like fire as they snarled and slavered savagely, drawn to the black sapphire.