Realm of Wings

Inside the castle, at the ballroom, right before the ritual:

“So, what kind of talent do you suppose you get, besides all the ‘normal’ magic that you will acquire?” Trixie asked me, inquiring about my thoughts about the matter.

It was going to be high likely that I was going to receive the same as my father’s as we both have the same black, veiny wings. In comparison to other Fae wings, mine, as well as my father’s, were near to squared, angled in tight lines and curved in tight corners.

The shape of our wings wasn’t that rare, but the combination of them being black was. Most wings were that of a bright arrange of colours, like red, pink, purple, yellow, light blue and light green; around ten percent had black wings; and on rare occasions there were some with silver wings. And all the wings had their own special talent, where the red resembled the element of fire, blue meaning water and so on. But there were also some Fae that could create illusions, make others do their bidding just by looking them in the eyes, make plants grow faster and what not more.

But in combination with how your wings coloured, the shape was the give-away of how strong your power would be. There where the wings were all round and nearly fluffy looking, the Fae wouldn’t be strong at all; and where the wings were squared, sharply edged even, like my father’s, the power would be abundantly present.

And as the more power you possess, the more respect can be earned from lower ranked people. That’s why my father was the King, as thus his mother was the Queen and hers before that. But our history books didn’t go further back than three generations, not knowing why, I had asked my parents several times, but never received a sufficing answer. Nor did I get a proper answer to other things that were strange and questionable in our piece of this realm, but maybe when I would become the King, things would be explained to me.

“Are you writing a book in your mind?” Trixie chuckled as she had heard my elaborate thoughts, at which I grunted.

“I’m glad I can read your mind soon too!” I pushed her shoulder at which she laughed softly. “But to answer your former question, I guess it would be the same as my father’s.”

“Nahh, you’d think?” She chuckled as she poked my pectoral muscles, right through my golden inlaid dress-robe.

In the old days, the Fae weren’t muscular or had a strong physique at all, as their magic would be enough to repel any dangerous element that would enter our realm. But ever since my father became King, almost six-hundred years ago, he changed that. He himself was the embodiment of strength itself, and thus also the talent that he had received at his ritual. Black, as that is the power of rocks and mountains, made him to be given the talent to make his skin as tough as a brick wall, which enabled him to fight against others in his ‘human’ form.

At first it was unheard of, that Fae should be able to fight in their simplest form, but knowing that the other worlds, of which they didn’t know that we existed, had resources that were being used to replenish ours, we needed to be able to defend ourselves without giving away our powers.

So, ever since he embedded the controversial law of creating an army and specialized Fae forces to be send out to go on missions, into our way of lives, there were buffed up Fae. Including me.

The ancient songs started, signalling the start of the ritual.

Both me and Trixie walked inside, where the guards closed the doors behind us. She took a seat at the front row of benches and sat herself down next to my youngest brother. I then took upon the small stairs that led me up to the stone bowl where our cathedral’s grandmaster was standing next to.

The choir of yellow-winged Fae, that floated above us, as their sun-touched skin glowed brightly, ended their song with a few lengthy notes and drifted to the sides of the stage. Their soft glowing runes, from using their power to shine, dissipated shortly after.

The grandmaster began his speech, using our ancestral tongue in a long-winded monotone tale. He of course, could read my mind too, just as the rest of the royal family that had been ‘forced’ to attend here. My uncle chuckled softly and the grandmaster looked at me with a discerning look, that made me want to shut up my thoughts immediately, just for now.

Just a few more minutes and then I would receive the power to be able to not only read other’s minds, but also to be able to block my own.

You might think that it wouldn’t be useful to be able to read minds, if the other can block theirs, but at the first hundred and thirty-nine years, you are not able to do so, until you had completed the ritual. This was to teach yourself some humility towards your elder royals, knowing that they can act upon whatever you wanted to try against them. Not that I cared for one single moment, as I couldn’t care less what others thought of me.

Besides that, only royals and highly attained figures, such as the masters, generals, high casters – like Trixie-, were given the power to read minds. Hence the ritual today is somewhat more elaborate compared to the rituals of our commoners, which only received a small blessing to uproot their elemental power according to their colour of wings.

The grandmaster now started to chant the ancestral words, rather than just spewing them out, and the stone bowl started to hum with a deep reverberating sound. The swirling silver liquid within, started to move according to the deep tones of the religious singer, making it bubble and wave in circles until a singular black diamond rose from the mercury. The silver liquid swirled around the diamond, touching it, but never sticking to it, awhile the diamond kept floating upwards until it reached my head’s height.

I stepped right next to the bowl, held my hands in front of me, with my palms upwards and then closed my eyes. The volume of the grandmaster’s song started to elevate, making the assumedly black diamond buzz with energy. And then, while I kept my eyes closed, the object of magic burst itself right through my frontal lobe and buried itself within my brain.

A few steps taken back, made me realise that I had been granted with the power, noticing that my whole body was shivering in the acceptance of the abundance of energy that was soaring through my veins. My wings appeared on their own, without my mind being the one that summoned them, and pushed me up in the air. I let this all just happen, as I knew that I shouldn’t fight the riches that were ready to explode in my honour. My wilful magic, that was completely new to me, even though felt rather familiar, made my body curl up in a ball, only to be able to release itself in ecstasy as my limbs stretched out to all the corners of where I could reach.

A loud bang was heard, at which right after I had opened my eyes, seeing the last remnants of the magic that had exploded from within my body. The whole room and its contents, including its people, had shifted their presence as they had either leaned back or were thrown aside.

I smiled as my wings made me levitate right above the ground and then eventually my feet took base again. Voices and gasps that I couldn’t have heard before, were booming through my head as soon as I looked around me towards the people that were present now.

My father gleamed with pride, upon looking towards me, but not only towards my eyes. I gazed downwards, to where my father had looked, and while lifting my hands up I saw the glistening black surface, like the black diamond from earlier, glancing around the skin of my body. I felt it on my face, neck, chest and legs, and when I looked at my bare feet I saw that it was also there.

So, now I had the power to read minds, shoot energy bolts and turn my skin into a protective obsidian shield which would be hard to penetrate by anything, since I got the same, albeit still smaller, wings as my father.

My parents, all of my seventeen brothers and sisters, Trixie and all the other attendees, clapped in celebration of their oldest prince to have obtained his magical power.

The party that was followed after, was a complete drag, as I was anxious to try out my energy bolts and power to protect myself. I even wanted for Trixie to shoot her purple orbs towards me, to see if a high caster like herself would be failing in penetrating my shield.

“And use my amethyst illusions to shoot at you?” Trixie followed my thoughts by replying that to me. “You should be training your brain-blocking abilities, first.” She flicked my head with her fingers, at which I grunted.

“Only because you’re my best friend and the high caster of this realm, it makes you invulnerable to be punished by me. But mark my words Trix,” I shortened her already short name to annoy her. “you will be losing a duel against me, when I’m trained into my magical arts.” I smiled to her.

“We’ll see about that.” She smiled back to me and walked away.

She knew that eventually I would become stronger than her, as her wings weren’t that squared as mine. She had edgy points at the bottom and top of her wings but the rest was just as flowy as other Fae. Not that she was one to be underestimated, as where her wings flawed, her agility and skills in combat matched that to make her a completely dangerous assassin. Hence the reason she had risen to become the high caster of the purple winged Fae, and with her young age, she wasn’t bound to be thrown off that chair in a long time to come.

Luckily the party came to an end, at about one in the morning, and I had awoken seven hours later, to find some of my mother’s maids already packing my bags for my year of wife-searching. “She really didn’t want to spend any time wasting, for me to find myself a wife, does she?” I said out loud, rhetorically, as I didn’t want the maids to answer the question.

As usual, as I just didn’t care of what people thought of me, and I had fucked half of the staff that was in my room right now, I stood up naked and went to the bathroom to take a shower. When I left the hot steamy curtain, I had relished my body in, one of the maids already stood there along with a plush towel to assist me in drying my skin. Well assist me? Rather robbing me of my absolutely normal capability of doing that on my own. But for today I let it happen as this will be the last day that my mother can smother me, using all her maids to take care of my needs. Because after today, while only in the company of Trixie and a few guards, I will be on my own for a whole year.

Required to come back with a suitable wife at the end of the year, that is, but I’ll be on my own nonetheless.

The carriage with four white Pegasi at the front, landed in front of the castle’s entrance, for us to get in. I had said my goodbyes to my parents and siblings and followed Trixie inside.

“Where do we start?” I asked Trixie, while taking a seat at one of the velvety purple seats inside the carriage. Of the numerous worlds we could go to, I was genuinely curious as to where Trixie had her mind settled upon first.

“I don’t know, maybe where the amazons, mermaids or witches live?” She asked me with a smile on her face. I furrowed my brows by the mentioning of witches at which she started to chuckle. “What? They don’t have all crooked noses! They use magic to make themselves look young and beautiful, and they are gifted with their fingers as well.” She continued while whistling a low tune and twirling her own fingers in the air.

Some of our guards started to chuckle as well, knowing perfectly well what this jinx opposite of me was referring to.

I sighed deeply and slouched down in my chair. “Whatever, just go.”

A/n: Enjoying it thus far? Great! Let me know what you think and I'll be waiting impatiently for your amazing comments! But as these chapters are big and I am carefully trying to work out the information and history and such, don't expect me to update on a daily base, please. I know that it's my trademark to do so, but I'm trying to get this story a bit more detailed. Thank you for your patience! 💛