Misfits of Aquila (Aquila's Originals 1)

Chapter 27: Snow, Part 2

ORLA HAD THOUGHT her flight in the bullwing boats had been terrifying. Turned out she didn't know what terror was until Rhiddyl plunged over Aquila's falls with her friends clinging to her back.

Everyone screamed. One moment the world was the right way up, the next they were falling straight towards the Cloud Sea three hundred feet below, with nothing but a slippery dragon and far too many sharp rocks between them and oblivion.

The wind roared in their faces, trying to rip them away from each other. Orla tightened her grip around Zett's solid waist, clinging as hard as she could. Taryn's arms were wrapped around Orla, doing exactly the same.

Over the screaming and the roar of the wind, air rushed over Rhiddyl's slack wings, making her scales hum and chime.

There was no part of her to hold onto, just Zett and a fast-fading hope that they would survive.

Rhiddyl opened her wings and swooped away from the falls, skimming low over the frothing clouds, whooping with joy.

"I'm going to be sick," Zett groaned, leaning to one side.

Orla shifted with him and felt Taryn begin to slide behind. With nothing to grab onto, there was no way to stop slipping once it began. Rhiddyl's scales were shiny and perfectly aligned. They were going to fall.

A solid weight thwacked Orla's side, pushing her and her friends back into place.

"Careful!" Rhiddyl called, her voice like whistles and flutes. Her tail swung back behind her, the feathers on the end fluttering in the wind. "I don't like losing passengers."

"Maybe she shouldn't dive off cliffs with them then," Taryn grumbled in Orla's ear.

Still too breathless to speak, Orla nodded, then moaned as Rhiddyl tired of gliding and flapped her wings, swinging them around to face Aquila.

It looked beautiful bathed in the stark light of the winter sun. Grey cliffs fell sheer into the cloud sea, but everything else was draped with white: forest, citadel, lake. In front of it all the frozen falls sparkled.

"Magical," Zett breathed, and Caelo laughed.

"That's not magic," she called over her shoulder. "That's nature. The most beautiful thing there is."

"Magic can be pretty spectacular too," Rhiddyl argued, beating the air with her wings and rippling her back to lift them higher. "Shall I show you some."

"Yes!" Caelo cried, while Orla's stomach was still in her mouth. "Show us what you can do, Tempestfury!"

Chuckling, Rhiddyl began to spiral, winding herself up tighter and tighter, her body tight with tension. White, grey and blue became a colourless blur as Rhiddyl spun and spun. Static crackled, making Orla's bones ache as she gripped onto Zett with renewed strength.

Lightning flashed with a sound like torn cloth, shattering stones and clattering metal all at once. It felt like the world had been ripped in two as they lurched forwards with the force, staring down the shaft of the lightning spear.

Time stopped and Orla saw every detail of the lightning in perfect clarity, as it spooled away like a thrown rope of light, tiny tendrils flying off in all directions. The colour was sharp and indescribable, somehow white, yellow, pink and purple all at the same time, with hints of blue and a brightness that seared into her brain. A shade that was and only ever would be lightning.

The tension snapped, the bolt hit the promontory to the left of the citadel and the world came rushing back to life.

Caelo whooped. "That's was amazing! Do it again!"