Protector of the Flight Read online

  She stretched, long and slow. Her mind caught up with her body. No pain! She rolled over to her back, eyes wide open…

  And saw a bunch of strangely dressed people standing around her whispering, and not in English. Her insides clutched and she was suddenly afraid to move. These folks were armed. Those who wore richly colored poncho-like robes had chain mail underneath and a sheath on each hip. The people in leathers had swords at their sides.

  She gulped, realizing they looked a lot like the people she’d glimpsed in the crystal on the hill for years. Riding flying horses—like those winged horses who’d come to look at her, speak to her in her mind.

  She remembered falling through the face of the hillside—how could she do that?—and…and…being greeted by someone.

  Glancing around, she saw that same someone, a small woman with silver hair, smiling at her from the right side of her bed.

  “Hi, welcome to Lladrana.” Her face clouded. “It would have been better if you’d told us you were hurt as soon as you came.”

  “Urgh,” was all Calli could manage.

  A woman’s laugh came. “Give her a break, Alexa. Don’t you remember how it was?”

  Calli struggled to sit up, strong hands grasped her shoulders from behind and lifted her easily. She heard a tinkling song. She eyed the people around her. They were all tall and beautiful, with golden skin and dark hair and eyes, not quite Asian looking. Other.

  “You’re not in Kansas—well, Colorado—anymore,” the other woman said.

  Alexa chuckled and patted Calli’s hand. “You’re not in Oz, either. This is Lladrana, another dimension and I’m Alexa Fitzwalter.” She beamed.

  Calli must be dreaming.

  A tall, auburn-haired woman, plump and pretty, came to stand next to Alexa, the second woman who’d spoken in English. “Hi, I’m Marian Dumont, late of Boulder, now a Circlet of Lladrana.” She touched a golden band she wore around her forehead. The hammered design showed clouds and lightning.

  Sticking out a hand, Alexa said, “I came from Denver in the spring. Pleased to meet you, Ms.—”

  Letting her gaze roam, Calli figured out that the rest of the folks were watching intently and not talking because they didn’t understand English. She wondered what language they spoke. She looked at Alexa’s hand, put her own in it and received a surge of warmth that flooded her and left her fingers tingling. She licked her lips and tried her voice. “I’m Callista Torcher. Calli.”

  The redhead jostled Alexa aside in a teasing manner and held out her hand. There was something about the gesture, maybe the way Alexa and Marian stood, that warned Calli that she was being tested somehow. Besides the incredible little surge of…something…she’d felt from Alexa, the smaller woman’s grip had been firm and strong, her hand callused.

  Calli shivered and slid her fingers against Marian’s. This time she felt a heady zip that made her head buzz. She shook her head to clear it. Marian released her fingers and chuckled, a richer sound than Alexa’s.

  Large hands squeezed her shoulders, making her aware of them once more. Man’s hands. Thumbs brushed her shoulder blades, then the hands vanished as a man to her left circled the bed she was on. He wore leathers the color of butterscotch that were obviously expensive. He made a flourishing bow to her. “Faucon Creusse,” he said, and she decided that was his name.

  Never in her life had a guy bowed to Calli. She nodded at him, but too-handsome men made her a little wary. They usually had great expectations of a woman and didn’t return much. At least the rodeo cowboys she’d known tended to be that way.

  “So, how much French do you know?” Alexa asked briskly, drawing Calli’s attention back to her right.

  “Uh, none,” Calli said.

  Marian nodded. “How good are you at languages?”

  Calli shrugged. “Pretty fair. I have quite a bit of Spanish.”

  Alexa made a face. “I’m terrible. I’ll have a bad accent for the rest of my life. I chose to stay here on Lladrana.”

  Calli froze. She wasn’t ready to accept she was in a different place—who would? And if, by some impossible chance, she was somewhere else, she wasn’t ready to cope with that, either. The hurt of her father’s rejection still shadowed her heart, echoed in her mind.

  An older lady spoke, and the language was French sounding, for sure. This woman wore tough, dark brown leathers. She walked up the right side of the bed to stand next to Alexa and did a half bow. “Nuaj Hallard,” the woman said.

  Again Calli nodded. Who knew what they did as greeting here? From the long robe with no armor that Marian wore, they might even curtsey. Like bowing, curtseying had never been an item in Calli’s life.

  “Lady Hallard’s right,” Alexa said. “Callista doesn’t need to know Lladranan to get a tour of the Castle.”

  Lady? Castle? Uh-oh. Sure didn’t sound like Colorado.

  With glee in her eyes, Alexa smiled at Calli, and Calli braced herself for a zinger. “How would you like to see the winged horses again?”

  The flying steeds couldn’t be real, could they? She just stared at the grinning Alexa, the smiling Marian and the serious Lady Hallard. After a minute, Calli said, “Say again?”

  “Winged horses,” Alexa said.

  “Flying horses,” Marian said.

  The words rang in Calli’s ears, but she could almost see a big question mark hovering above her head with the word duh?

  “It’s true,” Alexa assured. “We have flying horses here, called volarans.”

  “From the French word fly,” Marian said.

  “Uh,” Calli said. She did want to see them again.

  “So,” Alexa said, “do you want to humor our madness?”

  Once more, Calli scanned the room full of men and women—some in robes and armor, some in leathers that looked to be for fighting. Caution, deep and strong, swept her. Weapons. Armor. These people were at war. If they were being nice to her, it was because they wanted something.

  If they were really here at all and she wasn’t crumpled on the ledge of the hillside from cracking her head hard—having a dream more imaginative than ever before.

  A man said something and Lady Hallard withdrew and Alexa and Marian stepped aside. Another guy, this one not as tall but more solid and with a gleam of devil-may-care that Calli knew all too well from her rodeo days, bowed in front of her and offered his arm. Alexa circled his other biceps with her fingers. “My husband, Bastien Vauxveau.”

  He was married. Good. But to Alexa? She’d married a guy here? Then Calli noticed a strange thing. They both had a golden color pulsing around them, merging where they touched, sparkling with glitter. Wow. And they looked really good together. Happy.

  A bolt of yearning for such love struck Calli so hard she nearly doubled over. She’d thought she and her dad were partners. She’d loved him, ignoring some of the offers for sex and a serious relationship with rodeo men. She’d had her plans to build up the Rocking Bar T to a fine horse-training ranch with Dad and when she was successful look around for a man.

  All gone.

  Bastien quirked a brow at her, wiggled his elbow. Alexa grinned. Yep, a happy couple. Partners. Calli turned wide eyes to Marian.

  “Yes, I’m married, too. To a sexy Sorcerer. A Circlet like myself.” Marian answered Calli’s unspoken question.

  Oh, wow. The back of her neck tingled. Slowly she turned her head to see Faucon Creusse smiling at her.

  “He’s unmarried and available,” Alexa provided. “But we need to talk a little.”

  “We need to talk a lot.” If she weren’t dreaming. From the corner of her eye, she saw a woman bobbing her head.

  “She’s available and unpaired, too,” Marian said. “This culture has no bias against homosexuality. There are different levels of commitment, here, too.”

  “I’m straight,” Calli said absently, doing another scan of the people in the room—different colored and worn leathers—some people wore bands around their arms. Did that mean anything? Fr
om the gazes she met, she thought about a third in the room were “available.”

  “Marian’s right,” Alexa said. “She and her husband were married in a formal, long, magical ceremony that bound them together, hearts, minds and souls.”

  “Not to mention bodies,” Marian murmured.

  “Bastien and I haven’t done that yet. But we’re Paired. The guy, here—” Alexa poked him gently in the chest “—is commitment shy.” Bastien winced as if he got the gist of Alexa’s words. Calli didn’t doubt the statement.

  “I see,” she lied, turning back to the women and Bastien. She looked at Marian, dressed in a long linen dress of beige with a deep over-robe of dark blue, remembering her words. “You’re a Circlet, a Sorceress?”

  “Yes,” Marian said. “I’m only visiting the Marshalls’ Castle, to help in the healing spell and to aid you in adjusting to Lladrana. Alexa called me by crystal ball,” she ended blandly.

  Calli let that one go. She stared at Alexa, who wore a blue-green robe over chain mail, had a sword at one hip and a short, cylindrical sheath at the other—and a nasty scar on her face. “You’re a…” Calli didn’t know what.

  Alexa dipped her head. “I’m a Marshall.” She tapped the short sheath. “This is my Marshall’s baton.”

  Calli vaguely remembered the words from long-ago history lessons, but the concept still eluded her. “And that means?”

  “She’s the crème de la crème of magical warriors in this society,” Marian said.

  So Alexa had landed on her feet. Calli wasn’t surprised. The woman had an air of complete competence about her. Calli gestured to Lady Hallard. “She doesn’t wear the same sort of clothes, so she’s a…”

  “Very observant,” Marian said.

  Calli didn’t think so. It was just natural curiosity.

  “She’s a Chevalier,” Alexa said.

  Now, that word Calli knew. “French for horseman.”

  “Right,” Marian said. “In this instance it translates to ‘Knight,’ and in this culture, it means those who ride volarans or, if no volarans are around, horses. Lady Hallard is the leader of the Chevaliers, with men and women under her.” Marian gestured to a tall, lean man who wore the same yellow and green as the Lady. At Marian’s wave, he nodded, unsmiling, to them.

  Again a tinge of wariness slithered up Calli’s spine. Warriors. Knights. She sensed there was a lot no one was telling her, even these seemingly welcoming women who said they were from Colorado. What was going on?

  Bastien joggled his still-extended elbow. “Ven?”

  “What could a tour hurt?” asked Alexa.

  “You will certainly confirm that you aren’t in Colorado anymore. And once you see the volarans—”

  “You’ll know you aren’t even on Earth,” Alexa said cheerfully.

  Calli shuddered.

  Marian touched her shoulder. “It takes some getting used to.”

  Ignoring the banter, Calli swung her legs around, pushed off from the high bed and jarred to her feet. Bastien caught her hand in his and placed it on his arm, steadying her balance. There was a faint spurt of warmth from his touch but it felt unlike the women’s.

  She should have shrieked in pain at the combination of movements. Instead, she felt almost as good as new. There was still a tenseness about her muscles, a sense of the fragility of her mended pelvis, something she didn’t think would ever go away, but she moved as if the fall had been a year ago, not months. That, more than anything, scared her into believing she was “somewhere else.” She didn’t want to think about that, though. She cleared her throat. “What did you do to me?”

  “We healed you,” Alexa said.

  Marian said, “We have magic. All of us have magic, and you do, too. It’s called Power here, and the culture is an aural one—more based on sound than vision. They call the Supreme Being ‘the Song,’ and use singing to channel their magic.”

  Yeah. Right. Calli narrowed her eyes. Marian looked like a woman who would call the Supreme Being “Goddess.” Calli hadn’t often run into that religion, except the time when a pagan group held some sort of retreat on a campground near town.

  She licked her lips.

  “Want some water?” Marian asked. She went to an elegantly carved wooden corner table topped with marble and poured water from a pitcher into a heavy glass goblet, then brought it to Calli.

  Calli sniffed, it smelled minty.

  “Only water with peppermint,” Marian said.

  Calli didn’t drink.

  Alexa heaved a sigh. “On my word of honor, only minty water.” She touched her baton sheath.

  Marian nodded. “On my word of honor.”

  Alexa was from Denver and Marian from Boulder. Both city types. Would their words be good? Calli considered them and decided to trust them. It might just be a dream, after all.

  As the water slid down her throat, leaving a tang of peppermint on her tongue, Calli thought it tasted awfully good and was pretty damn wet for a dream. She finished the glass and handed it to Marian, who put it back on the table.

  “First things first,” Alexa said, starting toward the door. Bastien tucked Calli’s hand in his elbow and he and Calli followed Alexa.

  Alexa continued. “This is the main healing room in the Keep of the Castle.”

  “Keep?” asked Calli. That didn’t sound too familiar.

  “Uh, the Marshalls’ Headquarters,” Alexa said. They exited into a wide hallway made of gray stone. Rustling behind her told Calli that others would be leaving, too. Now that they’d healed her. Huh. She wondered who would accompany her on the “tour.” She had an idea Marian and Faucon would come along.

  “We’re on the second story of a five-story building, near the front that faces the Temple Ward. A ‘ward’ is a courtyard, and this one has a big, round Temple at the end. That’s where we Summoned you and where you came through the dimensional corridor this morning,” Alexa said.

  They turned left and walked to the end of the hallway to a set of stairs.

  “We’ll give you a map,” Alexa said.

  “When we brief you later,” Marian said. “In private.”

  That might be good. So many new faces were a little intimidating. Calli really hadn’t believed she had such an imagination to populate this dream. All of her other dreams—until recently—had been of simple stuff.

  She suddenly recalled the dream that had woken her that morning. Alarms. People needing help…like several she’d had lately.

  They tromped down the stairs and sounded like a bunch of people clattering down a stone staircase. The floor was hard under the soles of her boots, too.

  “My tower’s diagonally behind us.” A smile flickered over Alexa’s face. “I have a whole tower to myself, here at the Marshalls’ Castle. I also have an estate of my own. You’ll get one, too.”

  “A spread of my own?” Calli pounced on the statement.

  “Yes.”

  “Are there mountains?” Even walking down the large hallway, Calli could tell the air was more humid, felt different in her nose and on her tongue than the air she was used to. All her senses fed her unfamiliar information. She had to be dreaming, or there was a really big catch.

  A shadow passed over Alexa’s face and for the first time she answered hesitantly. “There are mountains, but I don’t think you should live in them.”

  “I can handle anything the mountains throw at me,” Calli said. She’d been through blizzard and fire and drought. But that was Colorado. If she was in some other dangerous place, she didn’t want to stay. She wanted her land, her ranch.

  They reached a door. Alexa threw it open.

  And Calli saw dozens of winged horses. Once again a flood of affection came from them.

  Bastien urged her forward, but as soon as she took a step outside into the yard, the horses trumpeted in greeting.

  She couldn’t help herself. Fascination at their beauty mesmerized her. She threw off Bastien’s hold and strode into the yard and was immediatel
y surrounded by horseflesh. No, volaran flesh. Warm and fragrant and strong and just completely marvelous.

  They pushed against her, noses snuffling at her hair, her shoulders, everywhere.

  She was buffeted and…passed around.

  What was even more fabulous was that she heard—whisperings—brushing her mind.

  Our Exotique.

  Our Calli.

  Our friend.

  She reached out and stroked a neck, patted a nose and finally touched the wing of the dappled gray stallion.

  The volarans moved several lengths away from her and the gray. The courtyard fell silent. Quietly, with infinite grace, the gray stretched out his wing for her to study.

  It was simply the most beautiful thing Calli had ever seen. Huge and soft with feathers. But this was a big horse. She didn’t know how it could fly.

  Magic. She heard the word clearly in her mind. And our bones are strong but hollow.

  She swallowed.

  Quick, small footsteps advanced and Alexa joined her. The woman’s face was alight with wonder.

  “They love you,” Alexa said. “You’ve only just met them and they all love you.”

  Once more Calli became aware of the delight emanating from them. This time it wasn’t words or just a feeling. This time it was a Song of welcome, blended of harmonies that sang of wild flight with the wind, of running, of pirouetting and playing in the air.

  Like the sound that she had heard as a child when riding free and fast across a mountain meadow. A sound so sweet it made tears sting her eyes.

  There were quick notes that skipped like her pulse before a barrel-riding competition.

  The tune changed, became a song of fighting in battle.

  An alarm clanged, echoing around the stone castle walls, pounding danger into the silence, breaking the mental song into a hundred fragments.

  “Horrors invading through Arde Pass!” Alexa shouted.

  Suddenly Bastien was there, running past them and grabbing Alexa. Saddles appeared on the backs of many volarans. Calli goggled. Had to be magic.