Discovering Destiny

Chapter 1 – Wings of Expectation

1567 June 12th, Summer Solstice, Island of Naturae

Hope cut into the sky too fast. She knew it the moment she jumped – the updraft caught her wings awkwardly, lifting her higher than the formation allowed, scattering the careful symmetry of the soldier fae below her.

Someone shouted. Someone else swore. They should have been on either side of her, but, with wings twice the size of others in her troop, leaving her enough space to fly was always an issue whenever she was assigned a position in the middle.

As the soldier fae hurriedly flapped to reach her lofty heights, they panicked. Wings fluttered, collided, further unbalancing what was supposed to be an ordered block arising as one.

Spear tips pricked her calves. Hope twisted instinctively, letting the wind roll her instead of fighting it, her red wings flaring wide as she corrected.

“Take off is everything,” Captain Rúan roared. “If you can’t rise together, how will you fight together?” He growled, “Return.”

Around her, the soldier fae dropped in clean, disciplined lines to the new training platform. Six, eight, twelve of them, a mixture of brown and grey wings snapping shut in perfect unison. She landed, just not where she was supposed to, and on the edge of the group. Her wings folded a second too late. Sloppy.

The Captain turned slowly to face the troop. He didn’t need to raise his voice. He never did.

“Again, Sigma squad,” he ordered. “And this time, Princess…”

“Hope,” she cut in before she could stop herself. “I know the formation, I mean, I… we know this formation, I just…”

A ripple of noise ran through the trainees. Both the Naturae fae and their European counterparts, who were supposed to be learning to work as a single unit, rustled and fidgeted. All of them were destined, created, for soldiering, and despite superficial differences between both factions – from language to appearance – the troop struggled to accommodate the oddity which was Hope.

Rúan’s eyes flicked to her cheek, to the faint red birthmark she couldn’t quite hide, no matter how flatteringly her hair fell, then back to her wings. Blood-red, catching the morning light like embers.

“Again,” he repeated. “And this time, stay in your assigned airspace. Slow down, control your lift, Hope.” He glanced along the line. “And give her wings enough space, for your own safety.” He repeated the order in Latin, for the benefit of the Europeans who had yet to get to grips with English.

She swallowed as the group awkwardly shuffled down the planks.

The flight training platform was nestled in the canopy, at treetop height and with a limited view. It had been built during Henry Fitzroy’s brief rule, she’d been told, hastily erected to prevent people landing on the ornate stone tower he was so proud of. His statement of dominion jutted rigidly above the treeline in an almost human fashion. Few people went there now, although from its lofty heights, one could see all of Naturae spread outward in layers – the treetop dwellings and the Palace stitched together with walkways and bridges, down to the distant glimmer of the protective veil-mist clinging to the island’s edge like a second horizon. Beyond, the coastline blurred into shadow.

“Lift!”

The command came while she was still distracted by the view. She jumped and flapped.

This time she counted. One, two – wings open, catch the current cleanly. She matched the formation as instructed, held her turn tight, her speed measured, her altitude exact.

Flight with a hand at her throat.

The spiral completed, when the whistle blew, she landed precisely where she was meant to.

No one spoke.

Rúan nodded once, his gaze lingering just a second too long on her. Approval, thin as paper. “Better.”

Hope bit back the urge to say no, it wasn’t.

***

By midmorning, her shoulders ached and her wings burned, not from effort, but restraint. Army drills weren’t so much about strength or endurance; they were instructions in obedience: to air, to order, to each other. Flight as function.

Hope understood, after weeks and months of training with the newly integrated army, that the acrobatic, eye-catching wheels and turns, the twists and lethal spins which thrilled her in ceremonies, were not the result of freedom. Techniques were honed with endless practice. The Europeans followed each other, flying instinctively like birds, whereas the Naturae fae perfected their formation with repetition. In theory, the fighting styles of both tribes of fae were similar, but refining the swirling cyclone which could cut through a land or air-borne army as easily as a hot knife cuts butter required complete trust and collaboration. They were supposed to act as a single unit – a terrifying, deadly and purposeful swarm.

Unfortunately, Hope was the one who most frequently broke ranks or caused the entire vortex to crumble.

As they paused for a rest break, she edged toward the training platform’s outer edge, staring north. There lay hidden groves, territory which had been forgotten. To fly there wasn’t forbidden, but discouraged. Even the Europeans avoided claiming those spaces with their tents. All patrol routes, farms and working areas were displayed visually on maps for those who could not read, which was most of the army, but nothing showed what was there.

“You fight the air,” snapped a voice behind her.

She turned to see Lethar, an older European fighter assigned to Sigma troop, with wings a muted moss colour. Like his fellows, he was built for endurance rather than display – tall, narrow-shouldered, and sinew’d like a drawn bow. His skin held the pale cast of northern winters, but it was the fine tracery of dim, threadlike scars across his hands and throat that drew the eye, reminders of battles which had once tried to unmake him. His eyes were a cool grey. Hope didn’t know if they softened when he smiled, because he almost never did. His hair, white as hoarfrost, was worn unbound more often than not, falling in uneven lengths that suggested he cut it himself, and rarely.

“You drift,” he went on, his guttural tone complicating the pronunciation of words foreign to him. “That why Captain keeps correcting you.”

“I don’t drift,” Hope said. “I listen. I feel.” As if in response to herself, her wings rose to catch the breeze.

Lethar frowned. “Air not something you listen to. It something you command.”

Hope looked back out over the island.

Below, near the lower boughs, movement caught her eye: fabric flashes, wingbeats out of sync, a loose spiral of figures lifting and settling again. The European worker fae had shifted camps overnight. Again. “Why do you shift your tents all the time?”

Lethar followed her gaze, his expression tightening. “Not lucky to stay too long in one place.”

“Not true,” Hope said, before she could soften it. “You’re supposed to settle here. To join with us.” She stopped herself; her mother and father had explained the plan to everyone in the community time and time again. It wasn’t her place to…

“That the problem,” he replied. “We never stopped moving before. Journey, flight, is what we are used to.”

Hope thought of how it felt to hold a turn too long, to deny a current its shape or direction, but said nothing. Her wings sensed a disturbance in the air and her head whipped around.

Her father, Prince Joshua, alighted on the upper walkway, flanked by Thane, the Leader of the Worker Fae and her parents’ most trusted advisor. Even at rest, Joshua looked like a fortress given form. As his huge black wings dropped behind him, his gaze swept the platform, pausing briefly, on her.

“Training ends early today,” he called, addressing the crowd. “The mist has coloured, warning us of ships sailing close by.”

Thane added, “No unsupervised flight, and increased patrols please, Captain. The workers will also be advised to return to the safety of their dwellings.”

Dismissed, the European fae, including Lethar, darted into the air and scattered over the forest. They never hung around to talk or polish their armour and wind down like the Naturae fae. The remaining members of her troop slapped each other on the shoulders and joked about whose turn it was to fetch the cleaning supplies, and whose accommodation they’d gather in later.

Hope’s chest tightened. She folded her wings and tried not to look bothered by the lack of invitation to go with them.

“Hope?” Papa walked towards her. “Your mother and I would like you to join us in the pupaetory. Leave the patrols to observe and we’ll learn more at the council meeting later. A good opportunity for you to observe statecraft.”

“Yes father,” Hope said. He never ordered her, but her education was expected.

“And then Nemis has asked if you can help her with restocking our medicinal herb supplies tonight, if you’re not too tired.”

Hope nodded. A moonlit walk to gather herbs was always a welcome end to her day.

“I’ve already drained you some fresh rabbit blood,” he whispered, reaching for her hand. “Can’t have you going hungry and getting grouchy while the Council meets.” He smiled at her. “Sorry it’s not deer, but we’re still replenishing the herd.”

There were few enough advantages of being royal–and her particular requirements for blood as sustenance meant she alone was provided with a supply of rabbits and other warm-blooded beasts, whilst the other soldiers and the workers made do with fish. Come to think of it, she was starving. “That sounds wonderful.”

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Releases Sept 2026