“I wouldn’t squirm if I were you,” the first guard said and then smiled. Rows of pointed teeth filled his mouth.
If I’d been in panic mode, he might have frightened me. A loud, zipping noise filled the air as they flitted their wings. Pixie wings didn’t flap as a bird’s would have, but rather beat like a hummingbird’s. They lifted off the ground with me stuck between them.
My first thought: squirm. Try to break free. There wasn’t a chance on this planet or the other that I would let them take me this way.
My second thought: hold on.
We crossed the grass field and traded it for a clear, dark sky. Wind rushed past us. The sound of beating wings filled my ears as the lights of the pixie city drew nearer. Thousands of stairways and bridges interconnected the massive root system, reminding me of the tunnel system in an ant bed, all lit with bauble lanterns that glowed in various shades of orange and blue and green. It was an amazing sight. Had I not been pinned between two warriors with Herculean grips, I might have enjoyed it.
A full moon glowed over the city. The guards dropped, and my stomach dropped with them. They were going to kill me. I was certain of it. They were going to drop me to my death and be rid of me.
Instead, they lowered me toward a wooden platform. When our feet touched, they released me, though they stayed close enough to grab me if I decided to run. In all honesty, I couldn’t go anywhere. There was only one exit off the platform, a narrow, wooden-planked bridge that was guarded. The edges of the platform dropped off, and we must have been fifty feet up. This was a place created for beings that controlled flight—falling to their deaths wasn’t something they took into consideration. It was evident in the stairways without handrails, the bridges that were little more than a rope strung with wood. I was out of my element here.
The distant sound of beating wings drifted toward us. One of my guards barked something at the pixie by the bridge. He gave me a curious stare, said something back, and then took off. The guards marched me to the bridge.
At least they held my arms as we crossed. I wasn’t sure my balance was good enough to keep me from plummeting to the bottom. As we crossed, the pixie kingdom sprawled before me. My mouth gaped.
I could describe it in one word: huge.
From the outside, I’d expected it to be large, but this was mammoth. I felt like an insect. Bridges and staircases wove around the petrified root system. Pixies darted from one branch to the next, their wings glossy under the colorful baubles.
We stepped off the bridge and onto a narrow stairway that wound up a branching root. As we climbed, I wondered why the pixies had bothered with stairs or bridges, but then I realized they probably weren’t the only species living down here, and after a long day, I’m sure they grew weary of flying.
Amber light glowed from the baubles along the stairway. I wondered where they were taking me. To their leader as I’d asked?
We reached the top. Instead of finding the pixie king, I found a walled-in room with a row of prison cells.
Really? They’re treating me as a prisoner? Even after I’d asked nicely?
Fine. If that’s how it would be, then I could play this game.
“You shouldn’t lock me up,” I said to the guards.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the one on my right replied.
“You’re making a mistake.”
He ignored me as he marched me to one of the cells. The roots had been artfully crafted to make prison bars. The door flowed so seamlessly with the bars that I didn’t even notice it until my captor opened it up.
I stared inside the dark room, barely larger than my bathroom back home, and I lived in an economy apartment. I hadn’t expected a warm reception, but this was harsh.
They shoved me in and clicked the door shut behind me. An acrid scent of feces came from the room and threatened to make me gag. I wondered who the previous occupants had been, and if they’d been lucky enough to be set free.
My pixie captor stared at me through the bars, the orange lights making his face look more threatening. “You are fortunate we haven’t killed you. Most outsiders don’t make it this far.”
He pointed down. The platform we stood on stretched high into the air. From my vantage point in my cell, I could only get a partial view, yet I was able to follow his gaze to the very bottom.
It was so dark I might have missed it, though a few lights reached the bottom and illuminated a tiny space of the great tree’s sprawling floor. White dots peeked from the darkness. Large mushrooms of some sort or…
“Skulls,” the guard explained. “Bones. The remains of those who did not prove their worth.”
My eyes grew wide. I peered more closely. Though it was too high for me to tell exactly, the white objects could have easily been human remains.
My stomach sank.
I should have listened to Kull. When he’d warned me about the pixies, I’d honestly thought he had said it just to make me not go. Looked like he was right. Ugh.
“Those who do not prove their loyalty are executed. Their remains serve as reminders to those who are not worthy.” He leaned closer. “Like you.”
Both guards laughed, an arrogant sound that was devoid of real emotion. I’d only met a few pixies in my lifetime, but they hadn’t acted like this. I supposed, being in their territory, they viewed me as a threat.
Albert provided me with a mental note—never deal with
