Aquirya
Chapter 2

A few days had passed. Niko had brought Aeyla to a cabin near the woods near where she had been first “Attacked”. She was still bandaged up and in pain. “Who are you?” She turned to him suddenly as he was handing her some kind of stew. “…and why are we in this remote cabin away from everyone. Are you going to kill me?”

“No, Aeyla. I’m here to bring you back home, like I told you. You do not belong in this realm, this world. It has taken me five years in our time to replace you. I will not lose you again. When you are able to walk we will leave.” He set the stew in front of her then walked out the door shutting it gently.

What the heck was going on? Again? She couldn’t remember anything before the day she was at the rest stop in this “world”. She couldn’t remember this Niko person and he didn’t look exactly human, or maybe he was, he wasn’t all the way human at least. Then again she didn’t remember what she even looked like. Her captor or protector, as he had said, was a good looking being though. He had straight dark brown hair with blue streaks in it, he had blue eyes that dazzled in the sunlight, he was taller than Aeyla, he had fair beautiful skin, which you could tell was darkening, and he had an accent she couldn’t quite place. He seemed nice, level headed, he kept watch on her and wasn’t trying to do anything to hurt her. He protected her. Still, she felt she had to get away from him. He could be pretending to be nice to her. All her instincts told her to relax but she didn’t feel that was the right thing to do. Fighting her closing eyes wasn’t helping since she fell into a deep restful sleep. As she slept she dreamt of a different land. It was gorgeous, orange sky, blue and green trees, lush gardens, a castle of white and silver. She smiled as she slept. Niko watched her for a few minutes to make sure the sleeping spell had worked, he only had so much magic in this human world called earth.

When he was satisfied, he went to work preparing, now that Aeyla was sleeping, this was the only way he would get her back to their world. Hopefully the dream spell would keep her asleep and dreaming peacefully of Aquirya, Wingston, and Grazia. He didn’t want to deceive his princess but he had no choice at this moment. She didn’t remember anything about her world and it would be easier to do the spell if she wasn’t resisting it, she would at least get a glimpse of her home. He started praying to the Father of their world, knowing that he, himself wasn’t allowed to pray to him for such a thing. The Father hadn’t been answering people lately either. That’s why the world they were from was such a mess. Hopefully this one time it would work, Aeyla was needed on her home world and this world was draining them of the power and magic they both held. From what Niko could tell it was also making the princess not remember she even had it too.

“Father of Aquirya, if you can hear me this is Niko, the High princess of Aquirya’s protector, Princess Aeyla is in my care please help us get back to Aquirya so we can save your world and our Kingdom.” Niko closed his eyes tightly and held onto Aeylas’ hands. A warm feeling came over him and he felt them lift up off the bed words came to him in a whisper in the wind. “Shula Kashie Vrar.” Niko recognized the tongue, an ancient language used by the good people of Grazia. He spoke the words the Father had whispered to him. A mist appeared, it was white and swirled around their heads, then engulfed them. Niko opened his eyes and hoped this was The Father and not another one of Craceeris tricks.

Finally, and abruptly the swirling stopped and cleared. Niko had put his hand and his face and over Aeylas’ face in order to shield them and protect them from anything that may happen. He had also drawn his sword just in case there was trouble on the other side of this short journey.

When he felt a hard surface and heat coming from all sides that he hadn’t felt on the human earth he opened his eyes and brought his hand down slowly. He wasn’t sure what he’d see and was really hoping they weren’t where he thought they were.

They were on the top of a volcano mountain. It would be treacherous trying to get down from here and if you fell, you’d fall right into the flowing spitting lava. The Father had gotten them to their world however, he’d brought them right into Tephra Mountain, one of three volcanic mountain ranges in Aquirya. This being, the smaller one of the three, but still just as dangerous. Niko sat down and thought for a couple minutes on how to get out of this without waking Aeyla and alarming her. Would she remember how to do protection spells and water spells? He’d soon replace out.

Aeyla was stirring.