“Speaking of which...” I pointed to the east. “That wasn’t there before. I’m 100 percent sure of it.”
Rising from an island cluster about two miles away was a bizarre artificial structure. Its shape reminded me of a Roman coliseum, though it was built from a clear but sturdy material that glistened in the moonlight.
“Looks like it’s made of diamonds, doesn’t it?” Dmitri breathed, using his long-distance binoculars. The lenses weren’t able to cover as much as my True Sight did, but for the two miles between us and that structure, they did the job.
“It’s definitely new,” I said, then pulled out my tablet and opened one of the maps I’d stored on it. We’d previously marked all the islands with artificial structures and building ruins. The nearest one was supposed to be over ten miles away from our location. “It wasn’t there when we surveyed the area. Look,” I added, showing them the map.
“Who the hell built that, and when?” Dmitri scoffed.
I could see the rows of arched windows on the coliseum’s five levels. Whatever material it had been built with, it had an iridescent sheen that made it look otherworldly and eerily beautiful. But something clawed at my stomach as I stared at it. Something was off here. Terribly off. My instincts were flaring.
“What if the pod people built it?” Dmitri added, genuinely stunned.
“You sound like a conspiracy theorist from Area 51,” I muttered.
Nevis didn’t catch the reference, which explained the furrow between his eyebrows.
“Well, how else can you explain it?” Dmitri replied with a shrug. “It wasn’t there before. Then the pod people came out. And now, lo and behold, it’s there!”
Just then, Rose’s voice came through my earpiece. “What can you see from up there?”
“The weirdest thing, that’s what!” Dmitri blurted.
“There’s a structure just two miles east of our location. It’s in a neighboring island cluster, and it looks like a coliseum. Its walls and arches are clear and shimmering, like it’s made of diamonds or crystals or something similar,” I said. “You won’t see it from down there because it’s lined by a thick wall of palm trees. It has about five levels, and it measures approximately six hundred yards in diameter.”
I heard Rose gasp. “What the hell… I’m looking at the map now. There’s no artificial structure marked there.”
“I know, I was telling Dmitri and Nevis the same thing,” I replied. “Something’s off here. It wasn’t there before.”
“Do you think the pod people built it?” Ben interjected.
In that precise moment, Nevis looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. I hated the concept of “pod people.” It reminded me of tabloid headlines from Earth, dating back decades, back when UFOs were the fad. There had always been rumors about aliens coming down to Earth in their super-techy space pods.
“Can we find another name for them? Seriously,” I muttered.
“Lenny, can you see any activity in that… coliseum?” Rose asked through the earpiece.
I used my True Sight to get a better look. The diamond structure was complete and seemed fully functional, with dozens of chambers and staircases. The central area could be reached via the enormous circular steps that went around it, and it had been built lower into the ground. There were no doors, just wide archways connecting each room.
My heart skipped a beat as I noticed a figure moving somewhere on the fourth level.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “Hold on.”
I leaned into the icy half-wall and narrowed my eyes, doing my best to naturally zoom in on what I was seeing.
“I see someone,” I said. “Moving… Wearing white…”
It was difficult to describe the creature I was seeing, at least from that distance. The image was distorted as the figure moved between rooms—the diamond walls were clear, but their fractal structure still broke the images of anyone inside.
“Is it one of ours? Mom or Dad? Corrine? Anyone?” Rose replied.
“I don’t think so. I can’t see very well, but whatever that thing is, it’s about as tall as us, I think… Wears white… Has long, blond hair… And that’s about everything I can tell—”
Something fluttered above us, cutting me off.
Nevis, Dmitri, and I instantly looked up. There were white clouds gathering overhead—just wisps of cotton drawn together by the nocturnal winds. But the fluttering sound persisted, like dozens of wings flapping.
“What’s wrong? Lenny?” Rose’s voice came through, but neither of us was able to speak.
Shadows darted somewhere beyond the clouds, growing bigger and darker. Then, a sonic boom ripped through the night sky, nearly blowing out our ear drums.
We instinctively ducked and covered our ears.
“This isn’t good,” I barely heard Dmitri say.
“Ya think?” I shot back.
A second boom thundered right over our heads.
My muscles stiffened. My body instantly prepared to fight for survival.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t friendly.
Kailani
(Granddaughter of Corrine and Ibrahim)
“What the hell is that?!” Vesta croaked, pointing up.
We all looked upward and froze. My heart jumped in my throat.
Sonic booms erupted, thundering above. Shadows shot across the sky, beyond a layer of clouds. They had no precise trajectory. Instead, they crisscrossed and exploded into flashes of light, each burst followed by another bang.
“They’re the same phenomena we saw earlier,” I muttered. “Only much, much closer.”
The jumble of shadows and flashes began converging on the top of the ice tower, moving dangerously fast. The booms got louder, too, chilling the blood in my veins. I instinctively pressed the talk button on my earpiece.
“Lenny, get down from there, now!” I shouted.
“Oh, no—” Rose managed, but it was a split second too late for any of us to react or do anything.
One of the flashes broke from the strange aerial phenomena and shot toward the tower. It rammed into it, so hard and with such force that the top of the ice tower exploded in a blinding flash of white light.
The shockwave that followed was equally violent, smacking into us and throwing us backward. I tumbled across the white sand and landed on my belly, looking up in horror as the ice tower came down in large chunks.
That was Dhaxanian frost. It wasn’t supposed to break or melt!
“Lenny…” I croaked, horror clenching at my throat, then found the strength to scream. “Lenny!”
As the flashes and loud bangs continued overhead, the frost tower collapsed altogether. Out of it emerged a ball of bluish ice—Nevis had caught Elonora and Dmitri inside it, to protect them from the frost debris and the actual fall.
Ridan growled as he moved to get up and out of his combat suit, hell-bent on retaliating in dragon form, but Ben pulled him back.
“Don’t! Stand back! Everybody, stand down!” Ben shouted. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, but if they’re capable of breaking Nevis’s ice, it’s safe to assume they can tear you a new one, too, Ridan!”
The ice ball rolled out of the tower’s ruins. It cracked open, revealing Nevis as he held Elonora tight in his arms, and Dmitri with his arms wrapped around the both of them. I rushed to help them, accompanied by Ridan and Vesta. All three of them were dazed by the blast, but okay.
“Nevis was able to cover us,” Dmitri managed as he got up.
Another bang, this time louder.
“How many of them are there?” Ridan scowled at the sky above us.
“Three,” Elonora replied, her eyes glimmering gold as she used her True Sight. “I can’t see what they are; they’re moving too fast.”
“They’re powerful, though,” Rose said.
The flashes got brighter. The booms were louder. I figured it was only a matter of time before my ears started to bleed if they kept it up at that rate and in such close vicinity. My
throat closed up when I saw the first fiery ball hurling toward us.
“Watch out!” I shouted, then muttered one of the swamp witch defense spells that I was most comfortable with and put out a shimmering gold shield made of pure energy. It was big enough to withstand the fireball’s impact. Flames erupted outward, then vanished. The hit took a toll on my joints, as the energy shield required my arms’ physical strength to hold it up.
“They’re attacking!” Ridan hissed. “I should do something!”
“We can’t! Not yet!” Rose replied.
A second fireball came down from the sky. This time, it rushed at us in an arched trajectory. Elonora shot to the side and released one of her sentry barriers with full force. The air rippled as it struck the fireball and forced it to dissipate.
“We need to take cover,” Ben said. “We can’t risk an attack if we don’t know what we’re up against!”
The hits increased in frequency. It was impossible to catch a clear glimpse of the light flashes. All we could to was gather in a circle, back to back, and put our defenses up. My energy shield and Elonora’s barriers were sturdy enough to withstand the following round of fireballs, but the booms were starting to give me a headache, making it difficult for me to concentrate.
As a result, my shield started glitching, shooting sparks out whenever a fireball hit.
Ridan and Vesta fired back. The dragon, though in humanoid form, could still spit fire, so he released a thick column, aiming it at the incoming attacks. Having a bipedal flamethrower with us certainly came in handy. Whatever those flashing creatures were, they now knew that we weren’t easy to take down.
Vesta threw some well-targeted fireballs back. She’d observed the flashes’ movements for long enough to accurately estimate some of their angles. Two of her fireballs managed to smack into a shadow, seconds before it flashed and released another sonic boom.
Everything was happening too fast.
I looked around, desperate for a way out. Ben and Rose were right. We were in over our heads at this point, and couldn’t afford to get injured—or worse, killed—without knowing what we were fighting.
There was a small, bushy island on the other side of the atoll. It was a mile and a half away and was covered in tall palm trees with broad crowns and giant, waxy leaves. It was good enough for cover, if I got my magic right.
I hadn’t tried a teleportation with living creatures before, but it was our best shot at survival, given the dire circumstances. I took a deep breath, then looked at Nevis.
“I need you to cover for me,” I said to him. “Shield them for a few seconds and take my hand.”
He frowned but didn’t wait to be told twice. He put his hand out. His fingers glimmered blue as a massive shield made of thick ice expanded from his palm. It stretched out above and around us, but it wasn’t going to last for long. Every fireball that came down sizzled through and caused dreadful cracks, threatening its integrity.
Nevis then took my hand, but stayed focused on the ice shield, rapidly pushing out more of his Dhaxanian frost to fix the fireball damages. I grabbed Elonora’s hand, too, then looked at the rest of our crew.
“Everybody! Hold hands!” I shouted. “We’re getting out of here!”
They did as instructed, startled by every bang erupting above.
I muttered an additional spell under my breath and envisioned the little island with its thick palm tree forest. Once I finished the incantation, I felt my skin sizzle. I was suddenly weightless, as I disintegrated in a flash of light.
For only a millisecond, a microscopic slice in time, everything was black and nonexistent. Then, the entire world reappeared. I exhaled and looked around. Relief washed over me when I saw everybody alive, in one piece and right there with me, hidden behind the palm trees.
Elonora
(Daughter of Ash and Ruby)
I had never experienced something as extraordinarily troubling before. For a moment, I’d lost control over my body and mind. I’d disappeared—or the entire universe had vanished, with me in it. The second I blinked, however, we were all somewhere else, surrounded by palm trees.
The change was so sudden that it knocked the air out of my lungs.
“Whoa…” Dmitri gasped, coming to terms with what had just happened.
“Did you just teleport us?” I blurted, my entire body shaking.
Kailani nodded. “We’re a mile and a half away, on another island,” she said, then made her way between the trees, headed straight for the edge.
“Kale, you just zapped us all away from there!” I replied. “That was incredible!”
She gave me a weak smile. Her aura was strange, mixing a variety of colors and glowing brighter than ever. It seemed to me that its intensity increased whenever she performed a swamp witch spell. Something had definitely changed in her, but this wasn’t the time or the place to address it. We had bigger problems on our plate.
We reached the edge of the woods. The sky was pitch black over the pier. Lightning flashed above, and thunder ripped through the night, repeatedly. Whatever those creatures were, they didn’t follow us. Instead, they continued to shoot around like manic falling stars, releasing fireballs at the ice shield that Nevis had left behind.
They battered it with fire until it all came down, crashing and spreading over the white sand like watery snow. They then shot outward and spread over a wider radius. There were definitely three of them. The farther apart they were from one another, the easier it was for me to count and confirm.
“They’re looking for us,” I muttered. The palm tree forest offered us good coverage, given the circumstances.
Rose shushed us, just as one of the flashes passed above our little refuge island. We all stilled and waited, but nothing happened. The lights went away, releasing the occasional sonic boom whenever they increased their speed and moved farther out.
“We should stay here for a while, until they’re gone,” Rose said.
“I know I’m asking this again, but what the hell were those things?” Dmitri replied, wiping some of the blood off his face. He’d gotten scratched across the forehead and cheeks, most likely when the flash tore into the ice tower.
Rose scratched the tip of her finger, then dripped some of her blood into Dmitri’s mouth. This wasn’t the first time the wolf had been injured, nor was it going to be the last. Vampire blood was good to have handy at this point.
“Whatever those things are, they can fly at incredible speeds,” Ben said. “Being able to break the sound barrier like that, over and over… That’s not easy.”
“They can shoot fireballs, too.” Vesta sighed. “Like me. Like the fae, in general.”
“Yeah, but no fae is capable of melting a Dhaxanian prince’s frost,” Kailani replied.
Nevis nodded, visibly concerned. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Dhaxanian frost can be destroyed. Our strength lies in numbers then. The more of my people behind an ice wall, the harder it is to break. But my frost is indestructible. It’s in my royal blood… I don’t understand how they did it. Only I can destroy my ice creations.”
Ridan grumbled, crossing his arms. “I would’ve loved to take them for a spin, though. Give them a run for their money. I could’ve handled it!”
“Save your energy for later, Ridan,” Rose told him. “You’re one of our most precious assets. And, judging by how those things move and react—”
“They would’ve handed your ass back to you, my friend,” Hunter cut in.
Ridan scoffed but didn’t engage any further. Deep down, he knew Rose and Hunter were right.
“We’ve clearly struck a nerve with someone, somehow,” I said. “There’s no way those attacks were unintentional. There’s no way those creatures are part of the wildlife. Something is incredibly fishy here.”
“What if they’re connected to Derek and the others? The capsules, too,” Kailani replied. “What if it’s all linked in some way?”
Rose exhaled sharply, then ran a hand through her lon
g black hair. “There’s more going on here than before. At least that’s clear,” she said. “Something we missed.”
“We spent months casing this place.” My exasperation was bubbling back to the surface. Guilt was beginning to gnaw at my insides. “There was nothing off. Nothing strange going on. No aerial phenomena. All clear and no reason to worry…”
Dmitri then froze for a second. He pressed the long-distance call button on his earpiece.
“Team Calliope, anyone there?” he called out.
We all listened quietly. Nothing came back other than static. That didn’t bode well for us.
“Harper! Jovi! Phoenix! Anyone!” Dmitri tried again, visibly frustrated. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, in desperate need of releasing some of the tension that had gathered over the last day. I groaned, no longer able to contain my ragged nerves.
“This can’t be Neraka all over again,” I said.
“It isn’t,” Ben replied firmly. “The comms might not work everywhere.”
“Or they might not work at all beyond Strava.” Dmitri scoffed.
“Either way, they have eyes on us,” Ben said. “There’s a blood spell linking the telescope to us. They know where to find us.”
Kailani took a deep breath, then cleared her throat.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked.
“We do what we came here to do,” Rose replied. “We’re going to find our parents, our grandparents, and our friends. We’re going to head back to the resort and try reaching out to Calliope again. We’re going to investigate, as per protocol.”
“And if we find ourselves in need of assistance, one of us will fly back to Calliope and bring back help,” Ben added. “But until we figure out what it is we’re dealing with here, there’s no point in requesting backup.”
I nodded, even though my first instinct was to bring back an entire army from the whole of Eritopia, plus a fleet of daemons and dragons, just to be sure. “Ben’s right,” I said. “Until we identify the enemy and their full range of abilities, we can’t devise an effective retaliation. Besides, our people are still here, somewhere.”