Ayana's eyelids fluttered open. The light was different. Harsh, almost painful, unlike the soft, filtered glow of the Eagle's Feast. She blinked, trying to focus on the blurry shapes above her. Rough-hewn wood? A thatched roof? This was nothing like the majestic structures she knew.
A gentle cough drew her attention. A woman with kind eyes and lines etched by the sun knelt beside her, offering a cup of steaming liquid.
"Easy now," the woman said, her voice soothing. "You've been out for a while."
Ayana tried to sit up, a dull ache throbbing in her head. "Where where am I?" Her voice was raspy, unfamiliar even to her own ears.
"You're safe," a man's voice added. He was older, his hands calloused, his gaze steady. "We found you by the edge of the village. Unconscious."
Panic flickered in Ayana's chest. "Leon! Where is Emperor Leon?" Her voice rose with urgency.
The woman exchanged a worried glance with the man. "The one who brought you? The winged man?"
Ayana's heart pounded. "Yes! He flew me here. He said he would return."
The man's brow furrowed. "He left, miss. Not long after he brought you. Said he had to go back."
A cold dread washed over Ayana. "Back? Back where?"
"He didn't say," the woman replied softly, her eyes filled with sympathy. "Just that he had urgent business."
"Urgent business?" Ayana repeated, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. He had held her, protected her, and then left? Without a word to her?
"He seemed troubled, miss," the man offered hesitantly. "Like he was fighting something in his own mind."
"Troubled?" Ayana scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "More troubled than leaving someone he rescued in a place they don't know?"
Tears pricked at her eyes, a stinging betrayal blooming in her chest. She, Ayana, the last of the Eagle Warriors, had faced down monstrous creatures and survived impossible odds. Yet, the thought of being abandoned by Leon, the man who was supposed to be her her something, cut deeper than any blade.
"Did he say anything else?" Ayana pressed, clinging to a fragile thread of hope. "Anything about me?"
The woman shook her head gently. "Just asked us to care for you. Said he would be back. But he didn't sound certain."
Silence descended upon them, heavy with unspoken doubts. Ayana stared at the thatched roof, the unfamiliar scent of hay and earth filling her nostrils. He was gone. The man who had awakened her powers, who had shared the skies with her, had vanished.
"Why?" she whispered, the question directed at no one and everyone. "Why would he leave me?"
The man and woman could only offer sympathetic silence. Ayana felt a hollow ache spread through her, a stark contrast to the fiery determination that usually burned within her. The surface world, so bright and full of life moments ago, now felt cold and empty. Leon was gone, and with him, a part of her hope had taken flight as well.
A sudden, powerful urge surged through Ayana. Looking at the endless stretch of land before her, and then catching a glimpse of a vast, shimmering expanse of water in the far distance, something clicked within her. It was more than just water; it was a pull, a resonance she hadn't felt in this strange, dry world.
Without conscious thought, a familiar sensation rippled across her back. Leathery wings, the color of a stormy sky, unfurled with a snap, catching the gentle breeze. Surprise flickered across her face, quickly replaced by a dawning understanding. Her connection to the sky, to flight, hadn't completely vanished in this foreign realm.
Below her, the old merchant gasped, his jaw dropping. "By the heavens! She has wings!"
Ayana paid him no mind. Her gaze was fixed on the distant ocean. A whisper echoed in her mind, a faint echo of the magical energy she had felt at the Eagle's Feast. It was calling her, pulling her towards it.
"The Mysterious Kingdom," she murmured, the name feeling strangely familiar on her tongue. "That's it."
The thought of the Lukesh kingdom, the familiar comfort of her own lands, suddenly felt distant, almost irrelevant. Leon had come from that water kingdom. The powerful Emperor, his father… that kingdom held the key to understanding him, to finding him.
A new determination blazed within her, hotter than any desert sun. She wouldn't follow the slow, winding roads. She would take to the sky, her natural domain.
"I'm not going to Lukesh kingdom," she declared, her voice carrying on the wind, though the merchant was too far below to hear clearly. "I'm going to the Mysterious Kingdom to find Leon."
With a powerful beat of her wings, she launched herself into the air. The wind rushed past her face, a welcome change from the still, dry air below. The ground shrunk beneath her, the world unfolding like a vast map.
The pull towards the ocean grew stronger with every flap of her wings. It was an instinct, a deep-seated knowing that resonated with the warrior spirit within her. Leon was there. She could feel it.
As she soared higher, the vastness of the ocean stretched out before her, an endless expanse of blue meeting the horizon. It felt both daunting and exhilarating. This was a world unlike her own, yet it held the one she now felt compelled to find.
Doubt flickered briefly. What would she do when she reached this Mysterious Kingdom? Would they welcome a winged stranger? Would Leon even want to be found?
She pushed the doubts aside. The feeling in her heart, the insistent pull towards him, was too strong to ignore. It was more than just gratitude for saving her; it was something else. Something that had begun to bloom during their brief flight, during the shared intensity of unlocking his powers.
"Leon," she whispered into the wind, her voice filled with a newfound resolve. "I'm coming."
With a renewed surge of energy, Ayana turned her wings towards the shimmering horizon, towards the vast ocean that held the secrets of the Mysterious Kingdom and the man who had unknowingly captured a piece of her heart. The journey would be long and uncertain, but for Leon, she would face any challenge the surface world, or any other, could throw her way.