119 Bedtime Stories (2/2)

\”Neither have I,\” Aura admitted.

Riding atop Starlight, her head, like mine, hidden under an inconspicuous green hood, I could imagine her with a sword in hand, off to slay Smaug, the Terrible, or some other fantasy creature not found in the Fayne.

\”But they were real once… a very long time ago,\” Aura explained. \”So did the giants. There are enough artifacts left over from the age when they terrorized us to prove it.\”

\”So~~o, we had dinosaurs and you guys got dragons,\” I noted. \”What about demons?\”

Aura shook her head. \”We don't speak of them much… and I once thought them nothing but myth and legend… but\” Aura glanced over at me. \”The poison that killed my family… I was told by the shieldmaidens that it was an infernal concoction born of a demonic recipe.\”

Just like that, Aura had dropped several big reveals that made my head feel woozy.

I glanced behind me, to Luca riding Jade Shadow and was dressed in a similar getup of green hood and cloak, and said, \”Hear that, Luca… there's a chance you and I might get to see some dragon bones, after all.\”

Luca smiled wanly. He hadn't been feeling a hundred percent since hearing of Ty's abduction. Probably because it reminded him so much of his own. ­

\”But if he did all that… then why did he disappear?\” Luca asked.

It was a question I'd had forever. I mean, some fairies age to be thousands of years old. They were practically gods to us mortals, and this lost monarch sounded like the kind of dude who had enough power to reign for centuries. So why would he give it all up?

\”No one knows,\” Aura said, glancing over to Ashley and her pearl white swifthart, Moonray. \”But the shieldmaidens believed that he'd been betrayed by someone dear to him right before he disappeared… perhaps even one of his Sense Knights.\”

\”Sense Knights?\” I'd nearly put my foot on the proverbial brakes at hearing that term for the first time. \”What exactly are these sense knights?\”

Aura glanced back at Ashley. \”Would you like to take over?\”

Ashley nodded, but just for dramatic effect, it would take her another five minutes to continue the tale.

\”Even back then, viseres were common in the Fayne,\” Ashley said, wrapping her white cloak around herself like she'd felt the cold night air touch her. \”Although there weren't any human slaves then… that practice didn't start until fifty years after the lost monarch disappeared.\”

Ashley patted Luca on the shoulder. Like me, she was attuned to his mood. This was most definitely because she'd been sold off like he was.

\”Back then, serving the fay nobility was something of an honor for humans… and there were none more honored than the chosen five,\” Ashley revealed. \”Five knights, handpicked by the lost monarch to serve him as his elite warriors.\”

\”Why were there five?\” Luca asked, looking up from the gloom of his thoughts.

\”One for each of the five senses,\” Ashley said. \”Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing, and Sight…\”

\”Sight…\” I repeated while thinking what was up with this night and all these freaking bombshells

Aura laughed, possibly because she'd felt the turmoil in my mind.

\”Yes, it's not certain, but Fool's Insight could very possibly be the lost fairy gift of sight,\” Aura admitted. \”That's one of the reasons the Pavilion values your work with us.\”

\”You shouldn't have said that,\” Luca sighed. \”His ego is big enough as it is.\”

The three of them laughed. I didn't join in. I was too busy imagining it in my head, the thought of five incredibly cool warriors in multicolored costumes facing off against giants and dragons like the Power Rangers.

Another thought occurred to me. \”There are other sense viseres around, aren't there? Wonder when I'll get to meet one of them.\”

In hindsight, I really wished I hadn't said that. It was basically tempting fate to send one of these badass sense warriors my way.

Well, with all that talk of Fayne history, I didn't even notice that we were in sight of Broken Sellsword's Canyon. Some sense knight in training I was.

A short distance beyond loomed the famous iron front gates surrounded on either side by cliff-sides and their carvings of giant stone sculptures depicting the wicked act of slavery. My insides boiled just looking at them, especially now considering Ty was the third human I knew who'd been spirited away.

But as I got closer and closer to those iron gates, the clearest thought crossing my mind was a simpler one, \”Huh, I kind of get now why Zarz wanted iron gates for the entrance of Hoodwink Tower. They're appropriately imposing, aren't they?\”