52. AURELIA

Chapter fifty-two

AURELIA

I hopped on Belle's back so effortlessly that it was like we had been riding together our entire lives. Scales, it had only been a few days but had felt like an eternity through Ezu 1 and back. So much had changed. I had changed.

I could feel my nerves spread throughout my body. My hands started to shake. Why was I so nervous? Damian caught my eye, and he gave me a confirming nod.

Belle lifted off the ground, her wings flapping aggressively as we slowly rose into the sky. She was just as nervous as I was. However, we were both learning what our maxz 2 was together, and that eased my worries slightly.

We were just starting with fire, I reminded myself—just fire. I've used it almost every day for twenty years. I could easily do this one. Starting easy.

We reached the clouds, the world blurring around us. "Let's have fun first," I said, feeling the nerves that we both held. This should be fun and exciting. Scales, we were learning a new ability.

Belle did the job perfectly. We filtered through different shapes of clouds and the sky. From how high we flew up, Angie and Damian looked like small specks on the ground. My hands let go of Belle's back, and I held them out, catching handfuls of fluff from the clouds. We swooped low and high in the sky. Squeezing my legs together, I grasped Belle's body as she spun upside down. I quickly grabbed onto her horns, holding myself up.

The wind was racing through my hair, my skin, and the blood in my veins. Every inch of my body felt exposed to the electricity of it–the freedom of it.

I felt ready. I lifted my hands and cast the clouds next to me on fire. They billowed out like smoke between my fingers, as the flames ignited my skin. It was normal–nothing more elevated or more advanced than my usual abilities.

"Anything?" Angie lined up and called out to me.

"No, normal," I said.

"Try wind while you are up there. Try to build a tornado within your fingertips or a gust of air powered by your mind."

With the thought of wind on my mind, I attempted to billow out some sort of gust of wind or storm. Just something, no matter how small.

A cloud next to me with wisps of white and gray holding moisture in the sky was the perfect one to attempt to move. With my right hand out in front of me, I imagined the rolling stretch of cloud being pushed further back into the sky by means of wind.

Nothing.

"Nope," I shouted out to Angie. Was I supposed to try multiple times before I got something?

We tried all the elements that she taught me.

Light, by stealing energy from the sun or replacing shadows with radiant beams. The moon, by tidal influence or lunar manipulation. The earth by attempting to grow trees, plants, or poisonous flowers. Water or Ice. Even time, force, shadow, light, and thunder.

Not one worked.

By the end of trying each ability and getting nothing, we were both worn out and beaten down.

Angie made a mental note and called everyone in. "Maybe you just need some more guidance," she said. However, gold flushed to my cheeks from embarrassment. Was there something wrong with me? Was it Belle? Were we not connected in the first place? However, my Celestialized nails proved that we had to have been.

Loker, Abner, Luella, Clemmy, Angie, and Damian gathered at the summit. All their dragons were sitting next to them as if they were about to go to war, majestically perched and waited for whatever was about to happen next.

"I thought we could all ride together. Maybe help Lia and Belle out," Angie suggested. I wasn't opposed, just embarrassed that I couldn't find the maxz in the first place.

Everyone agreed and hopped back on their dragons, and Damian mounted Belle with me. Within moments, everyone was mounted and spiraled in the sky, staying close by. "Let's just use our abilities on each other. We can see what she resonates the most with and see if it will naturally come out," Abner said, adding to Angie's idea.

Loker must've thought he was the top scale as he looped in under Belle, blending in with the sky. We could not see him or his dragon, Meiinaraux 3 , as they swooped around us at all different angles, cutting off our flight directions.

This stumped Belle, and we started to crumble, her wings locking up in fear.

"I don't think this is such a good idea," Damian yelled out, recognizing Belle's emotions.

"I agree," I called back. Belle had already had so much anxiety today with everything else going on. I didn't want to add this to her plate as well.

Right as we thought this, the sky went black. Was that a part of one of their maxz ? I wasn't sure.

"What the Haxnau 4 …" Damian cursed, and we watched as creatures flew through the sky. I could feel my own legs buckle as I made a note of what they were.

The Deathlies.

The Deathlies were right there, coming for us.

How were they able to go so far? Were they coming for us? For me?

"DEATHLIES!" Abner screamed. "GET DOWN!"

Each dragon started to swoop and fly at different angles, hoping we wouldn't get attacked. If we were flying in different directions, they wouldn't be able to reach all of us.

As they flew closer, I could see them clearer. They were exactly how my grandmother showed me, and exactly how I saw them when going into the ballroom of my castle. Their wings were brittle, with holes throughout them, flapping generously in the sky, long and thin. Their talons were outreached, stretching and curling so far that their point was sharper than the sharpest knife in the kingdom. The tips forging into a thin piece of nothingness, almost to where you could get stabbed and not even feel the venom being pumped into your veins.

Their teeth were just as vicious, made of a white bone material that didn't look real–so glassy that it must be fake. Horns were placed on their heads in an assembly of almost resemblance to a crown. Their eyes pierced with a beady deadness from Haxnau themself.

My body felt weak, and nausea rolled over my tongue. My fingers started tingling from the lack of blood pumping through my body.

We were spiraling down to the ground. Belle, not caring to race through the trees or bushes, scraping all three of us.

"There's a cave on the eastern side!" Clementine called out. I almost gasped, realizing it was on the other side from where we flew down.

Belle heard the command and started swooping low to go to the other side. At this moment, I wished we had Loker's maxz to become invisible.

"I had no idea what they looked like. They are real," Damian shared.

"You're making it sound like you didn't believe me."

"Maybe I didn't, my Queen," he confessed. I rolled my eyes, not caring about what he said.

Shrieking noises bellowed and echoed throughout the air. Oh, my scales, they were right above us. Belle stopped under a tree, hiding us to the best of her abilities. The Deathlies perched on the mountain's edge, hawk eyes out, waiting for movement.

We didn't move.

We hardly even took a breath.

It was so much scarier in person. It was so much scarier in real life.

The patches of moss and life around its talons and body shriveled and instantly died, turning the color of death itself. The disease spread a few feet from where the Deathly was sitting until it came to a quick halt, stopping all movement of the plague.

The Deathly surveyed the area one more time with its lifeless black eyes, then jumped off the edge, flapping its wings and flying off with the other two it came with.

Damian and I both breathed at the same time, sucking in fresh air. "Holy scales, that was close," I swore. I wanted to sob, throw up, and run away all at the same time.

"Let's go end those sons of Haxnau ," Damian whispered. I smiled, acknowledging that he only cared about killing them for me.

1. Ezu (Eh-ooh): Heaven

2. Maxz (Mahz): Ability

3. Meiinaraux (Mee-naw-raw-ooh): Loker's dragon

4. Haxnau (Hah-nah-woo): Hell