To Soar

Kestro would not simply walk.

He grimaced as he entered yet another excessively long hallway. They seemed to be a trademark of the Palace of the Amethyst Court, as if the Queen wanted her subjects exhausted whenever they attended to her.

Kestro pitied those shackled to the terrestrial; to never leave the soil, in his opinion, was no better than to lie beneath it. To be damned to eternal incarceration upon the ground, left to stare ever upward and long for the sky above. It seemed all too maddening.

No, Kestro would not be mad, nor would he walk.

Kestro would soar.

Ghal’Mon has always argued against this. He insists, because Kestro lacks wings and uses his feet to stride upon the ground, that Kestro does indeed walk. Kestro considers the whole argument ridiculous for two reasons.

First, it’s common sense that whether or not one can soar is determined by their perspective, not their ability.

Second, Ghal’Mon doesn’t fully exist and therefore has no room to speak on the matter.

As Kestro soared down the palace hallway, his bare feet padded swiftly along a soft floor runner. Viciously plush and arrogantly purple, it was smothered with depictions of the royal crest: a sparrowhawk, wings spread wide, golden ferns in its talons. The rug stretched onward, ending just before two colossal iron doors.

Just in front of the door, a pair of armor-clad guards leaned casually against the wall. They stood quickly as Kestro approached, eyeing him cautiously as they brought up their halberds from against the door. One grunted something to the other in a language Kestro had never bothered to understand.

Kestro rolled a coin between his fingers. He likened the discrepancy between walking and soaring to that of the coin’s faces: while both were constrained within the edges of a singular form, they were wholly different in their manifestations. In fact, soaring was indistinguishable to the untrained eye; it took one who soared to know what to look for. As Kestro always said, mostly just to Ghal’Mon, “only those with wings can truly feel the wind.”

Kestro knew two things today: he was one who soared, and these guards were not.

As he began to close the gap, Kestro looked deep into the guards’ eyes. They neither shook nor rattled in their armor. They made no nervous movements nor loosened their grip on their weapons. Hidden beneath the shadow of their helmets, however, he could just make out the dilated pupils and reddening edges of the sclera. Their eyes, wide and unblinking, confessed all:

These guards certainly did not soar.

The guards began to yell at him in unison. Kestro palmed the coin, slipping his thumb underneath the side depicting twin overlapping moons surrounded by stars.

The guard to Kestro’s left burst into motion, thrusting his halberd toward Kestro’s abdomen. The metal sang through the air, hailing a promise of rent flesh and a ruined rug. The other guard followed suit, aiming for Kestro’s neck.

Kestro flipped the coin. As it sailed through the air, he soared another few paces, feeling soft midnight sand beneath his feet and a cool breeze to his back. He caught the coin with his hand, then began to look around the throne room.

He was dismayed to find the dark reign of decorative purple had continued. lavish fixtures adorned the walls, lacking any sense of artistic sensibility. There were various seating arrangements spread throughout the chamber, ostensibly for guests and attendants to use between court sessions. However, he assumed the layer of dust atop the furnishings would be obvious even to pedestrian eyes.

While always locked tight and guarded, The Queen rarely used these chambers for anything aside from ceremony. Kestro had counted on this; while he conceded that the Queen was undoubtedly one who soared, he found her highbrow nobility almost as repulsive as her taste in furnishings. He also assumed she would take issue with tonight’s endeavor, and thought it best to avoid encountering one of the few individuals in this world who could actually prevent him from his task.

Everything in the room was blanketed in a chaotically chromatic glow, cast down by the massive stained glass windows that spanned the entirety of the back wall. The glass depicted tales of myth and legend: The Vile Hand, the Sundering, the War of Crowns. However, even Kestro could spot the inaccuracies: for one, Akinnosh never once fashioned The Flame to a hammer; he was always far too fond of blades.

Continuing to roll the coin between his fingers, Kestro’s eyes continued to pilfer the room. He couldn’t help but seize a small amount of pleasure imagining the guards he left just outside. He imagined the stories they’d tell their families in the evening: that they’d witnessed a bare-footed ghost appear in the middle of the palace. Maybe they’d go as far as to claim they’d defeated this spectral assassin, valiantly defending Her Majesty’s empty throne room from death itself.

Despite Ghal’Mon’s protests, Kestro considered himself generous: he loved giving others stories to tell.

His eyes found purchase on his prize. Not on the gold fixtures or lavish decorations. Not even the large amethysts encrusted into the edges of the throne.

His eyes fell upon a small chalice, seated atop a side table next to the throne. It contrasted the rest of the room in its mundanity, seemingly designed to honor function and dishonor form. While others would miss its presence entirely, to him it stood out like a beggar in a ballroom.

Kestro couldn’t help but laugh; not because of the irony of Ghal’Mon wanting a chalice, but because of course the Queen insisted the chalice have its own table. This glorified shelf no doubt cost more than twice the annual wage of any worker residing in the streets of the city below. Despite its lavishness, however, the table looked misplaced, strangely practical alongside The Seat of Storms.

Unfortunately, a large, empty, stone-walled chamber lends itself to the amplification of noise. Kestro’s laughter was trailed by sounds of shouting and shoving as the guards began trying to open the throne room doors. To not trust your guards with the keys seemed a rather ironic oversight.

Kestro quickly held the coin up to his eye, faced the window, and through it gauged the height and distance of a tall dune just beyond the glittering glass. As he pondered which part of history he would deface, the doors burst open as more guards poured in, assumedly having rushed over once they heard the shouting of the guards he’d left behind.

Kestro moved toward the window, stealing a glance backward as he brought an arm up to shield his face. The guards fanned out through the room, weapons raised. Their faces were furnished with rage and embarrassment, as well as a little bewilderment. Kestro was quite fond of that bewilderment.

The evening sun scintillated off thousands of small glass shards as Kestro burst through the window, right through Akinnosh’s hammer. He felt good setting the record straight. As he soared into the warm evening air, he stole one last thing: a view of the city below, glimmering beautifully as many of the townsfolk had begun lighting lanterns for the evening. It was a view he just couldn’t get anywhere else.

Kestro envied the sparrowhawk: the most ordinary moment of its existence brought him instantly to the pinnacle of exhilaration, and he had only a fraction of a moment to experience it before the jealous ground would try to bring him down again.

As the guards undoubtedly watched in awe from behind the broken window, and gravity endeavored to pull him into an eternal embrace, Kestro flipped a coin.

…

Shaking glass shards and sand from his trousers, Kestro opened his sling bag and inspected the chalice. While it bore no markings of wealth or luxury, he could now see the intricate lines and glyphs that traveled from base to stem, resembling no style he recognized. It almost felt like the etchings were there before the chalice, as if it had been fashioned out of whatever drew these lines. It made no particular sense at all, which of course intrigued Kestro wildly.

The otherwordly designs seemed to beckon to Kestro, both plain to the eye and whispering of the unknown. An ember of curiosity started to glow within him: what importance could a queen’s drinkware possibly possess?

He looked up to gaze across the vast sea of sand dunes resting quietly under twin crescent moons. The cool breeze continued to dance at his back. He wiggled his toes in the sand, glad for a reprieve from solid ground.

He sighed and, after gently returning the chalice to his bag, held up the coin between his fingers, looking upon the face with a blazing sun.

“One down,” Kestro whispered.

Eleven to go, Ghal’Mon replied.