My Lady Moon soared like I did. I soared with her, through her, sharing my sensations of flight. I channeled them through to her, trying to help her find her release. Together we flew, melancholy powering our spirits. I felt for her. I mourned for her. When she unwillingly slowed to a stop, I slowed with her. Only vaguely was I aware of my own location, high up in the snow-capped mountains, until I came to rest in a high branch far above and away from Snow Melt.
Lady Moon kicked the tire of her machine and cursed a profanity. The night around her was dark and confining. She was a good distance away from Burling. She was alone, with nothing but a desolate Highway and cornfields around her. I was alert for her, for she was careless and reckless. As I allowed her melancholy to fade from my own being, I found myself angry with My Lady Moon. She could have harmed herself by driving so recklessly on that machine of hers.
The Hylander was coming for her. She did not know this, but I did. I was, without choice, linked to my brothers and father, in much the same way as I was linked to Luna. By Blood. The Lanchester blood.
I knew what my brother's plans were for her. I knew what he would do next, and it angered me far more than anything ever had before in my thousands of years of life.
But once again, there was nothing I could do, but watch.
Rancor boiled beneath my flesh and seared through my veins, pumping through the hallow bones of my wings and erupting into caustic flames that lashed out at the sky from my contour feathers. Each and every barb spat fire, as I leapt from the tree top and dropped into a stiff dive. Down toward the mountain top, I dove. I grazed the snow as I soared over the mountain peak, leaving a spray of ice crystals at my sides. Snow popped on my hot flesh. An avalanche broke free of the mountain's face and went crumbling down the mountain side. I threw my self into a deep drift, trying to cool my self down. With snow up to my waist, I sat in the pitch night, aware that the dampening of the inferno within me was useless. The putrid stench of my feathers cooling in the snow filled my nostrils, their sizzling and popping the prelude to a deplorable silence.
While in My lady Moon's world, the Hylander drew nigh to her. He was not in a form that she would recognize. Like the wind, he moved. He was the darkness himself, cloaked in the very essence of what my father ruled.
She would not see him coming. And even if she did, there would be no escape from him this time.
I tipped my head to the black, starless sky and I roared like the beast I am.
****
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Luna