The Netherling Curse

Chapter Four

"They're glowing," Talon whispered with a smirk. He cleared his throat and turned away, furrowing his brows a little.

"Really? Well what color? And what does it mean?"

Luke came up in front of us and groaned. "Yeah they're glowing. Freaking fireball orange."

Talon glared at Luke. "It means that the Netherling in you is recognizing it's home and is coming to the surface. Come on," he stood up and held out a hand to help me up. I reluctantly did and he pulled me up to my feet. "We need to keep moving." He started walking back towards the dark forest.

"Ugh do we have to go through there? Why can't you fly us over the trees?" Luke asked.

Talon sighed and turned to face us. "One, because I can only carry one person at a time. Two, we could be spotted by an Etherling and that means we either fight till we die or are imprisoned. Three, I don't feel like dying so dark forest it is." He quickly turned from me and started back into the forest.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. Aravut started walking next to me on all fours. "Don't worry about it. It isn't anything personal against you."

I stared at Talon's retreating figure. "I sincerely doubt that." Honestly, it took me back to a time where I only knew Talon in my dreams. This was when I was probably still in the hospital. We had been sitting on a rock over this bluff, listening to the waves crash on to the rocks. Talon was illustrating a story for me with magic, illuminating the night air with the wind, fairies, and leaves.

One hand was conducting the whole show as he held me close with the other. His hypnotic voice captivated every living creature around as everything was eerily silent as he spoke. A new scene flashed before us, one where the fairies and leaves created a scene of the clearing we'd been in before, with the gnarled tree and the world was split in two. Only in the scene, it wasn't split just yet. A beautiful woman in a green hooded cape knelt before the tree. Blonde hair escaped and whipped the air behind her as the hood slipped off. In her hands was a satchel bag, seemingly full.

"This is Iris," Talon whispered, "sister to the good queen, Nephertiti. She is here to change history as we have known it." Iris mumbled words under her breath as if uttering a curse as she hitched her hood back up over her head. Her utterances grew louder and she started rocking back and forth. The world grew quiet: no insects chirping or fairies singing. The wind had stop it's torrent and everything was waiting for what was to happen with baited breath. There was a palpable coldness that filled the air as we watched, like we were truly there. Everything got hazy around the edges, darker almost. Her mutterings had turned into screams as a bolt of black light shot through her. Her head shot up to the heavens as a bloodcurdling scream left her lips. Her ocean blue eyes clouded over to a milky grey and her blonde hair turned white as snow. As she kept screaming, her curse filled the air and the satchel bag shot up into the sky, moving as if a living thing, breaking apart the ties that held it together. Red spirits flung from the air, one right after the other, blasting into the tree, the prison. More screams echoed Iris' as the souls became imprisoned in the tree of life and death. When the last soul slipped into the roots, all screaming stopped and Iris collapsed to the ground. She shuddered a breath and then stopped breathing altogether as the scene vanished and the night air went still.

"What happened?" I asked Talon.

"That was the beginning of the Etherlings. Maybe it would make more sense if I started from the beginning," he breathed. He flicked his fingers and a new scene started dancing before our eyes but as soon as it came to focus, the memory faded.

Luke bumped my shoulder and smiled down at me. "Where'd you go just then?"

"Just an old memory of a dream," I said. Talon stiffened up for a moment before he kept walking.

"Look, I wanted to talk to you about earlier, or last night, whenever it was. It's so hard to keep track of time here."

"That's because time works different here than it does on your plane," Aravut explained. "A moment there is a month here. There is no definite sense of time since our light source never sets". I looked up at the half moon-half sun ball in the sky.

"What do you call it?" I asked him.

"It's Athanasia. The name literally means eternal life since it never sets or wavers."

"Anyways, Sera, I really need to talk to you about that night," Luke went on.

I sighed. "Really Luke, it doesn't even matter. It was all just a joke to you and to Savannah and to everyone else involved. It was a prank from the start and that's all there was to it. Honestly, I should have known better. I don't even care about it anymore. What's done is done."

"But that's just it. I don't want it to be done. Why do you think I followed you to this freaking godforsaken place? I mean, I jumped through a glowing crack in the ceiling to get to you. I want to make things right." I could hear Talon scoffing up ahead.

"Well, maybe eventually, we can work on being friends, but right now, I don't really want to even think about it."

"I don't want to be friends. That's what I'm trying to get through to you." He sighed and seemed genuinely frustrated.

"You can stop acting now, Luke. If you haven't noticed, you don't have an audience anymore and don't worry, I think most of the punch is dried up now." I ran up ahead to get away from Luke and to catch up with Talon. He looked at me sideways and quirked an eyebrow. Somehow, he'd found his walking stick again.

"Do you really need that stupid thing?" I asked, motioning to the stick.

He laughed, "No.... But it sure does make me look good, huh?" He winked at me and then kept walking.

"Hmm, not really."

He stared at me wide-eyed and his mouth hanging open a little. "What? Seriously?"

I started laughing. "Yeah, you look a little like Gandolf to be honest."

"Who's that?"

"A really, really old man." He looked horrified and I started laughing harder. He threw his stick into the forest and wiped his hands off on his pants as if trying to erase all semblance of that image.

"I'm pretty sure I look better than most old men," he mumbled as he cocked his head to the side.

"Hmm, maybe, maybe not." I bit my lip in an effort to not laugh as his ears turned red. He stuck his chest out, held his head up high and kept walking to his own beat. "Talon," I laughed, "wait up!"

"Maybe you should grow some wings and catch up, squirt."

"Hey, I remember that," I muttered.

He whirled around, and cocked his head to the side. I looked behind us, and Luke and Aravut were still pretty far behind talking about something. Lunar was sitting on Aravut's shoulders, playing with his ears like some cat toy. In Aravut's defense, he pretended not to notice. "You do?" Talon asked.

"Yeah. We were swimming... somewhere, and you made me frustrated about something so I cupped my hands and squirted water out at you," I laughed at the memory and tucked my hair behind my ear. "You said 'come back here, you little squirt,' and swam towards me, wrapped your arms around my waist, and took off into the air."

Talon's smile grew wider. "I knew you'd remember the older memories. I knew it!"

"Memories? They were dreams," I said.

His smile dropped for a second and then regained it's brilliance and his eyes flashed orange. "Yeah, memories of dreams. Come on, we have a lot more walking to do before we reach the Nether." And with that he turned away from me once again and kept walking.

"Talon?" I asked.

"Yes?"

"Why do your eyes flash different colors?"

He glanced down at me for a moment, as if evaluating something. "Can we talk about it later?"

I tucked my hair behind my ear and studied the ground. "Yeah, I guess." I noticed for the first time that the dark forest was eventually getting lighter in color with every step we took. "Are we getting closer?"

Talon nodded as he stopped suddenly in his tracks. "Sshhh," he whispered.

"Why-" Talon slapped a hand over my mouth and glared at me. He moved his hand and held a finger over my lips and raised his eyebrows. I could hear Aravut growling behind us and Lunar hissing. A shadow was cast on us from overhead and my head snapped up. A whole legion of golden winged beings flew over the treetops, so quickly that all I could see was a blur of gold and white. A few moments passed as our party stopped breathing entirely. The blue ended and a few seconds later, life returned to the forest.

"Etherlings?" I asked Talon.

He nodded as his eyes analyzed the sky through the canopy of trees. He whirled around and pushed me behind him, hiding me behind one of his wings as I heard the sound of wings fluttering. A huge being landed, knees hitting the ground as gold wings encased it. It slowly stood, reaching a height of about seven feet. His wings snapped out behind him as he cracked his neck, evaluating our group. His barrel sized arms crossed over his chest and he laughed, deep and heartily as he flicked his white hair out of his black, soulless eyes.

"Well, well. What do we have here?"