Heirs of Merlin: The Hidden Princess and the Tree of Life

Chapter 5

Aunt Valeria was happy to help the children pack for a few days of camping. It would give them something else to think about for a while. There were naturally some wild animals in the surrounding woods, but by far more magical creatures that would defend them if needed. They'd be fine on their own – even though they were city kids and hadn't spent most of their childhood in the middle of wilderness like she and Luis had. They could always come back to the house anytime too.

Lana wrote a short letter telling her where they were really going and left it on her own bed. Aunt Valeria would find it eventually when they didn't return the next day. In the meantime, Veka "borrowed" the stone crest needed to open the portal. Since he had been born in Ildathach, he could certainly return on his own – he didn't know exactly how, though -, but the others would need it.

They didn't walk far into the forest, just far enough that Aunt Valeria couldn't see them from the house anymore. Then they stopped. Samantha, Alex and Lana each had their own backpack with a sleeping bag strapped on it. As the oldest, Samantha also had a tent big enough for four. Veka had insisted he get his own bag to carry his canned dog food too, and Valeria had quickly sewn straps that fit him into an old cloth sack.

"What do I do?" Lana asked, holding the crest nervously. "I didn't do anything last time."

"Think of sky wolves like me," Veka advised her. "Then say, 'Ildathach'."

Lana closed her eyes in concentration and took a deep breath. "Ildathach."

This time the portal opened to reveal a scenery. Mountains and forests and clear skies.

"That's it! I remember that place! That's where my pack lives!" Veka barked, excited. "Let's go! Everybody, hold on to Lana."

As they stepped into the magical doorway, Lana noticed something big soaring in the sky. A dragon? No, it looked like-

"Waaah! Focus!" Veka screeched as the portal shifted.

The next instant they were all falling through air and landed on something soft. Something big and bouncy. Kind of like a mat, but not quite. Roughly diamond-shaped and at least twenty feet by twenty feet in size.

"It's a manta ray," Samantha breathed out, awed. All around them, other gigantic fish swam through the sky like they were in the depths of the ocean.

"Well, yeah," Veka stated. "Wind fish are always on the move." More importantly, they were being taken to a wrong direction.

"Veka, what happened to Lana?" Alex asked.

Lana looked herself over the best she could. She didn't feel any different.

Tiny white feathers covered her arms left bare by her T-shirt. Same with her legs. And there were feathered wings at her back, yellow like the sun. She could even move them a little!

Veka shrugged. "Nothing. Bird Clan and Dragon Clan take human form in the human world. She's the child of the Dragon Prince and the last of the keepers of the Tree of Life from the Bird Clan. That's what she really looks like."

"What does all that mean?" Samantha questioned him. "Who's the Dragon Prince? And what keepers?"

"I don't know!" Veka exclaimed. Why was Sam always accusing him like that?! "That's just what Mariana told me!"

"I'm half dragon too?" Lana was more curious than anything.

"You have horns," Alex pointed out and guided her hands to touch the small bone spirals right above her ears. "Otherwise, all bird."

Veka breathed a little easier. He padded to the other side of the manta's back they were occupying. "That giant tree over there is the Tree of Life. It's the heart of our world. A special group of people from the Bird Clan always tended to it before...the war started."