“Fár eternelth lumn al eibin”, read the strange glowing slab suspended in a vortex of sand and ash. Having stood there for centuries unknown, it was quite a popular sight on the borders of Esperanore and Fahdur.

***

It was a quarter to six, the beginning of dawn in the floating town of Samada, when a young Adime woke up as usual on the first day of spring. This was going to be her first year at the Towers of Wind, the place all young Fahduris went after having seen five full blue moons.. That was the youngest age they were allowed to take the Skritivi, the rider’s test. Although tradition didnt speak if they would be strong of body and mind, it did mention this was the minimum age at which they could survive to try again.

Adime went about her morning as usual. She woke up by taking the leap of faith, followed by a perimeter run and back to taking a leap of faith again, before heading to make breakfast. She felt extremely pleased at the time of her run and it could be seen reflected as she went about making breakfast, humming the tune of the winds of time. “You seem chipper today”, remarked Forve, her dad and only other current occupant of the house. “Clocked 45 mins on the run today” she replied smugly, while gnawing at her breakfast. Forve, dropped the patch of armor he was cleaning and looked up. “But that’s a full 5 minutes”.. “I know”, she stood interrupting, “..before you say anything, I ran it again and the result was the same. I can feel it Dad!”.

Forve stood stunned, not knowing what to say. His youngest daughter had just beaten the kingdom’s record by 5 whole minutes, twice in quick succession. She was ready. He nodded and put the armor back into its box. “I will get back to this later. First, I have something for you. It belonged to your brother”. If Adime was startled at the mention of her brother, she didn’t show it. She looked curiously at her father. Forve went down to his chambers and came with an old dusty pile. “He wanted you to have this, when the time came”, he said as he laid it in front of her. “No one expects you to take it today, you know!”, he said as he went back to cleaning the patch of armor he had taken out today.

Adime didn’t hear her father. She had unwrapped the pile in front of her and was fixated at the object in front of her. The pile had revealed itself to be a scrappy piece of paper, a bow and a vambrace. It was the vambrace that had stopped her in her tracks. It looked exactly like the one she had found that last blue moon when she had messed up her leap of faith but somehow survived miraculously thanks to the lightning shaped vambrace that she scrapped of the tree trunk, while clawing desperately to stop her fall. A shiver ran down, prickling the scars on her left arm. No one knew about the incident. She had taken to wear long arms to make sure of it. How did it? What was the meaning of this? “What is the meaning of this?” she screamed at her father. “You bloody knew all along, didn’t you?” “Calm down youngling.” said her father, with his eyebrows raised as he scanned the pile. What had gotten into her? His eyes landed on the vambrace. “Ah, that was the vambrace he used when he took the test”. “I am not talking about that. That day.. Why did you give this to me now?” she questioned him.

Forve let a sigh. He thought he had been careful to not leave any presence. “You brother wanted it to be so”, he replied nonchalantly. Keep calm he told himself. She mustn’t suspect a thing. She slammed her hands on the table, “Stop lying to me. You know very well what I am talking about. You were there that day, weren’t you”. “Calm down youngling, as I said, I am just passing on your brother’s wishes and nothing more” snapped her father. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Like I said before, you don’t have to take it today. No one will think less of you for it. Stop trying to turn this into a fight for an excuse. That isn’t the way”

Adime looked, still glaring at her father’s calm face. Her father was lost in his work again. Maybe it wasnt him. She closed her eyes, trying to recall. She had woken up at dawn like usual and had jumped straight out of her bed, housed atop a giantwood tree, 1000 feet atop the floating piece of a small cloud that was part of Samada. That morning something felt wrong as she took off on her jump like normal, but mid-leap, she couldn’t feel the void. She grew frantic as she was quickly closing in on her landing. 600 ft down and still no hold of the void. She tried maneuvering closer to the trunk, squinting through the blast of air to find something to cling for support. Something to slow her down. Nothing. Down she went another 150 ft, before her arm struck something but it slowed her only for a tiny fraction of a second. Whatever it was, came off the trunk and she plunged further down. Realizing it was a vambrace, she shoved it on her left arm, hoping it would hide the scratches on her arm from being noticed as she prepared for death 100 ft from her landing. Her left arm tingled. She tried to ignore it until she realized what it was. The void was back! But it felt different. Not having enough time to muck around, she quickly seized it and stumbled, rolling on her back and coming to a halt. Not the most graceful landing, but I will take it, since I am alive! she thought to herself. She looked at the cracked vambrace and then into the sky not knowing what to make of it.

Leap of faith, as they called it, was the Fahdurian training to become a skyborne. It meant leaping to one’s death at first breath every day and using the inner void to break the fall and land on the sailing clouds. Timing was everything. A little too early and she would not gain enough control of the void to land her jump, and a little too late, meant parting of the inner clouds. No one would trust a skyborne with that kind of a record. And trust was everything. 

Ever since then, she had taken to wearing the vambrace covered by a long-arm sleeve and switching to her left arm for accessing the void. It had been about 2 years since then and it still felt weird. But it was the only way she felt assured that the void would always be there. 

The second vambrace in the pile looked exactly like the one she had found that day. Except there was no crack. She carefully studied it before putting it on her other arm. An immediate surge of the void, brought her to her knees. ‘frikzbad’, she winced kneeling, she felt more of the void than she had held up-to the sum of her life so far! Ecstatic and scared, she snatched it open to stop the surge. What was that? Did he not notice? She looked up to see her father undisturbed and continuing to work on his armor. “Flying fish in a cup of tea”, she cursed. She had to put it back on and figure this out. She was now sure that the first one belonged to her brother. That differing sensation of the void was no more. It was as though the connection was complete. Had it been him? She dismissed the nostalgic thought. How could it be him? No one had seen him for the last 2 decades, ever since that cerulean night, the One Prince stood timeless.

She gathered the pile and took it up to her room. “Make sure they honor the closeout period” she shouted to her dad as she put on the new vambrace again and jumped out to try something.

The day was off to a bizarre start.

***