Chapter 1

Despite her weariness being bone-deep, Bette pressed on.

The tears had long ago dried on her pale green-grey cheeks. The straps of the pack that was slung across her chest dug into her tired shoulder blades and rubbed the muscles that she used to control her wings. The waist strap of her pack pulled on her lower back, making it ache.

A sudden updraft was strong enough to push her flagging body higher, to her relief. She flapped and pushed herself higher still, as she used the updraft to gain just a little more altitude. The light was fading fast and she needed a safe place to rest. Her wind-dried eyes sought a place to land in the lower canopy of the forest.

Bette glanced down and estimated she was at least twenty meters from the ground. She would have liked to be higher but the vines and plants that used the massive trunks as their supports started to become more numerous at this height, as did the lowest limbs of the smaller trees.

She knew that many of the carnivorous animals in this forest had difficulty climbing the smooth trunks to the lower branches unless a vine was thick enough and it twisted around or between the trees so that it gave the animal purchase. The dangers that were above her were mostly from the giant sliders that lived in this forest and the carnivorous plants called snappers.

Snappers were sneaky and often grew under the bell-berry bushes that grew in the crevices created by the tree’s limbs. The fat bell-shaped blueberries were a favourite food of the Faeries. The bushes fanned out some of their roots under their widely spread branches. Dropped leaves built up on top of the roots creating a mat of decaying matter to provide more nutrients and a home for the snappers.

A healthy snapper plant could have five or six leaf-shaped heads that could grow to thirty centimetres in length and width when open. A light touch on the leaf activated its jaw. The plant could fold in the serrated teeth on their lips and strip flesh from the bone if the victim tried to pull free.

The snappers could even spit flesh devouring acid at the unwary from their central chamber, for several metres. The acid was deadly to the skin and eyes of the Faeries and the other birds and animals that lived in the forest. The pain was so intense that the victim often then stumbled onto another set of waiting jaws.

Trying to retrieve a trapped limb was not an easy process as vigorous hacking was required and the spit was to be avoided at all costs. It was best to throw pieces of fruit or some other item into the jaws to make them snap shut before you tried to harvest the berries, as the leaves took several hours to open again.

Sliders were of a similar form to the snakes found on Earth; they often preyed on the Flicker and the Faerie people. Flickers were similar to small simians that had short bodies with long tails and limbs, and a furless face. Bette had been told that they were quite intelligent and were known to help Faeries if they were in trouble.

Bette didn’t know if this was true or not, as she had never seen or met a live flicker. Flickers didn’t live near the section of forest that the Faerie people claimed as theirs or their town called Eitleoir. Eitleoir was close to the city called Fire Mountain and the Faeries often traded with the other old Keltrian races that now lived on Tara.

Bette sniffed, no; they were no longer her people. Her half-brother, Roux, had forced her to leave her home. He had convinced the council that she was an abomination and not fit to rule or even to live amongst them anymore. Faeries didn’t stand one hundred and forty-five centimetres high. Being three times the height of her tallest brethren had been a source of great embarrassment to her.

It had only been after the death of her father, five years before, when she was sixteen, that Bette had found out that her mother had been a Shifter. This at least explained why she was more than twice as tall as her family at the time. Since then, she had continued to grow at an alarming rate of five centimetres a year.

Bette had been given to her father to raise since she was born with wings and she took after her father in looks. She had also not shifted-shape by the time she was two years of age. Her own mother had considered her an abomination and she gave her away.

While the Faeries were a matriarchal society, her father had been the younger brother of the Queen at that time. For reasons she didn’t fully know, the Queen had no living children before her death the year before. Bette’s ten years older half-sister, Ella, had been named the heir.

Ella had fallen prey to a snapper only the month before. Bette still believed something sinister had happened to her sister, as she had no reason to have gone berry picking since she was the new Queen. As they didn’t have any other sisters or close female cousins and Ella had not yet decided on a mate, Ella’s death meant that Bette became next in line for the throne.

Her brother, however, by having Bette discredited could now take the throne for himself. Bette didn’t have any friends in court. Her abnormal height and the fact her mother had been a Shifter and not a Faerie, also worked against her. Many of the other Faeries considered her bad luck or simply strange. Not a single person stood for her against her brother’s charges.

So here she was, with a small pack of possessions strapped to her chest, flying away from the only home she had ever known.

As Bette flew near one of the large tree trunks, she noticed a small platform made of dried branches.

With relief, she dropped down to the platform. Although tired, she did make sure the platform was stable and able to take her weight, before she folded her wings and dropped down to her knees in exhaustion. The platform was two meters long on its longest side and only about a metre wide from the trunk to along the living branches. Several dead branches had been laid across the two limbs and tied with vines.

Large leaves had been snapped from the bushes below. They were then woven into a mat to cover the platform. The platform sloped slightly towards the trunk. Bette decided that in the past, some other industrious Faeries had tied the longer branches in place. It wasn’t going to be the softest bed but it was a safe place to be. Bette was too tired and sore of back and heart to care at that point.

From her pack, Bette removed the blanket that she had been given. She rolled herself in it and wedged her back against the broad trunk. She pulled the now flatter pack under her head and settled down for the night.

She had thought that she wouldn’t sleep but that proved not to be the case, as she dropped into a dreamless sleep within mere minutes of settling down. She didn’t stir once until the soft light of morning filtered through the trees.

Bette woke to a strange chittering noise. Upon opening her eyes, she found another set of eyes staring at her. The big brown eyes in the fur surrounded face had a quizzical look upon it. She noticed the muzzle and nose of the creature, was free of hair and not that pronounced. The creature had a distinct humanoid shape to the face.

The long limbs and tail that were covered in fine reddish-brown fur were decidedly not in proportion to other humanoids. Bette frowned when odd images seemed to appear in her head. She looked at the creature that was close in size to a regular Faerie if it had been sitting and looking at her.

She then giggled when an image of a faerie sitting on her shoulder and hugging her neck came into her head. The Flicker chittered and the small Faerie was exchanged with a picture of itself on her shoulder. Then itself straddling her neck and holding her long hair as she flew. It chittered as if it was laughing at the image it had sent her.

“Where is your family?” Bette asked as she slowly sat up and looked around the branches to see if other flickers were also watching her. She glanced back at the Flicker and it was shaking its head and had a sad look. “So you are all alone like me,” she stated rather than asked.

The flicker nodded and still looked sad, making Bette frown. “I’m going west to find the road to Green Bay and then I hope to get a ride to the big city, Avilla, to the south-west. If you wish to travel with me, we can see if we can find a tribe who will adopt you,” she told the flicker.

She tried to send the flicker pictures of travelling towards the sun and then added a road. She then added pictures of houses and the market in Fire Mountain to represent a town. It gave her an odd look and then chittered at her. She also received the image again of it flying on her neck and guessed it wanted to go with her.

“Are you hungry?” she asked the flicker. Not waiting for an answer, she opened her pack and retrieved a metal box. After carefully opening the lid, she showed its contents to the flicker. The flicker glanced at her and back at the box. Bette removed one of the three centimetre cubed squares and bit into it before offering the contents to the flicker again.

She had been surprised when Ina, the families cook, had handed her the box. She had guessed that it was meant to get her to Fire Mountain but she decided not to go there. Too many people knew of her and she hated going to that city. It was predominantly a mining and logging town. The looks she had gotten from the men when she went there had creeped her out.

Her brother’s parting words had also put her on a different path. He had sneered at her and told her she should be able to get a job as an exotic whore. He had warned her not to take any of the jewellery or other fine objects that her father had given her, as they all now belonged to him.

He had let her pack the two sets of clothes that she often used when gardening and one old dress that barely fitted her since her last growth spurt when her breasts had also grown bigger. In reality, she didn’t have any fine dresses to take even though she was a princess.

She knew that while she was twenty-one, she might not have finished growing. While Shifters were considered adults at her age, she was still half-Faerie. Faeries were not considered mature until the age of twenty-five years. If she had been a full Faerie, her age meant that her brother had kicked her out while she was still under-aged. She was still very hurt that the Elders let him do it.

Bette was very tall for a person of the Pix race but shorter than the average Genteli and most Shifters. Ella had told Bette that her mother was barely taller than a metre. She probably had more Pix blood in her genes even though she looked Genteli as most Shifters did. The Faeries had all been surprised when she had kept growing to her current height of one hundred and forty-five centimetres tall.

While being tall enough to pass as one of the other Keltrian races, her large double set of cicada shaped wings marked her as different. She could fold them down and close to her body and use a glamour to hide them but she couldn’t maintain the glamour more than a few hours.

She still wasn’t sure if going to Avilla, the Capital City of Ant Island was the right thing to do but she suspected she could hide for much longer in the big city. She was tempted to stay in the forest but being alone in the forest could be just as dangerous. While she knew of the predators in it, she would still be alone.

Roux had not allowed Bette to take her bow, saying she wouldn’t need it to be a whore. She was glad that he didn’t know about the bag of coins Ella had given her. Ella had noticed her clothing didn’t fit her and had planned to take her shopping.

Ella had intended to buy a new wardrobe for them both, as she couldn’t have her sister looking like a servant at her up and coming wedding. She had received an offer of marriage only a few days before her death. Bette had thought it was a good match and Ella had been excited to get the offer as Maxim had been courting her for several months.

The marriage would have strengthened an alliance with Maxim’s clan, who owned the forest on their eastern border. Bette knew that Roux had wanted Ella to marry his friend Romano but Ella had agreed with the council that Maxim was the better choice. While Romano’s family was very influential, Ella had not particularly liked him, most of all because of the way he had treated Bette.