Those that support Luna’s parents would say she’s a genius. Those that seek to uproot her family’s kingdom would say she’s too smart for her own good. But it’s the words of her eldest brother Flint that she finds her comfort in.


    “It’s like even the brightest Mallanms are dim when they’re next to you.” He once said, as he stood on the edge of Oblivion. “I’m a lucky guy to have such a brilliant sister.”


    One step after another, she trudges, powering through knee-deep snowfall in the wake of a waning blizzard. Snowflakes, small particles of fragile ice, fall silently down from the clouded heavens above, sapping the color of everything across the unseen world far, far beneath her. Against the wind, she treads, carrying a contraption of crossing Titanium bars and Carbon plates over her shoulders, which catch in the wind like a sail, threatening to throw her over.


    Through the puffs of her own breath, she keeps her squinted eyes forward. It’s not the first time she’s come to the top of this mountain, and it surely won’t be the last. But this peak is riddled with sudden drops and cliff edges, and it’s a long way down. It’s a dangerous venture, and in weather like this, it’s nearly impossible to see where you’re going.


    Yet Luna follows a lone set of footprints, which stay clear of where the ground meets the sky, trailing up to the summit like a noble guide in even the darkest hour of the night. And when she comes to the mount, when the clouds begin to break and the winds die down, when the lingering snowflakes turn from blanketing currents to lone wanderers, she finds the end of the trail.


    Up here, where the horizon stretches on unhindered, where the sights of their kingdom are nowhere to be seen, where one believes they can truly meet the sun; she finds a lone figure, standing at the beginning of Oblivion. His boots planted inches from a sudden cliff edge, rising winds revolve in waves about the black flight suit he wears. His dark copper hair sways in the breeze, kept messy and short-cut despite his royal heritage.


    “Flint.” She calls out to the figure, and he turns, looking upon the young princess with his set of brilliant vermillion irises. His face is stricken with a quiet form of sadness, numbed grief swirls around in those sunset eyes. “A little help?” She asks.


    The grief abates for but a moment, and Flint smiles.


    “Of course.”


    Slowly, with methodical steps and a stalking gait, he joins her, taking a half of the contraption over his shoulder. Together they drag it up the rest of the way, until the flattened ground falls away, and the obscured world below comes back into view. The morning sun has decided to finally join them.


    The two siblings stand atop Oblivion, the tallest mountain for miles around. Here, at the brink of the Great Ridgeline, which stretches from the top to the bottom of the Northern Continent, winter lasts for a great portion of the year. The weather can be unpredictable, and the wind almost never abates completely. Yet, this mountain, and the valley beyond, is a familiar sight for Flint and Luna, just as familiar as the towering castle and expansive kingdom that rests below.


    Helsone Kingdom, wreathed in its frigid glory. Buildings upon buildings inventively designed in elliptical rows, composed of carved Ironwood and grey bricked stone. Larger structures like the stadium and the grand library rise amongst the streets and winding rivers, towering over the homes and businesses like Sallems amongst young children.


    But even they are dwarfed by Helsone Castle, which reaches toward the heavens, piercing the sky like a circular spire. Wrought in colors of silver and crimson, twisting and swirling about to a needle tip. It glints in the morning sun, like polished crystal drenched in blood. Luna finds her eyes on it. She can’t help but set her jaw.


    Their reasons for coming here have already been set in stone; this will be the 31^st test. Yet the rate has been turned on its head, and they have arrived on Oblivion far ahead of schedule. Flint awoke Luna early this morning with a fire in his eyes, practically unable to keep still. He’s dragged her out here today before even the night watch was through, saying little and seemingly lost in his thoughts.


    She’d like to ask him why, but she can already guess. It is today, after all, of all days.


    She catches Flint staring solemnly at the stadium.


    “Honestly,” Luna sighs, taking the meager weight of the contraption off Flint’s shoulder, sticking it into the snow by the two poles jutting out of the bottom of it. “We don’t need such a windy cliff. Any spot would do.” The gentle breeze howls quietly in her ears; Flint rips his blood-orange eyes off the stadium. She meets his gaze, shrugging. “We could just have you jump off the top of the castle. It’d save us some legwork. Does it have to be this one? Every time?”


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Flint chooses his words carefully, as he always does. Men like Crown would think he’s scheming, but Luna has come to know her brother. He’s making sure he won’t say something he might regret.


    “Sorry to make you come out this far all the time. For making the time for me in general.”


    “I don’t have much else going on.” She counters.


    He continues unhindered, turning back to the cliff edge. “But I don’t know. I can’t help but like this place.” He slowly raises his arms, taking in the breeze. “If only for a moment, I can already feel like I’m flying.” He glances back at her. “Do you get what I mean?”


    It means more than that. It’s a chance for Flint to get away from the scornful eyes and gnashing teeth, to spend few precious hours free, when his borrowed days have him locked away with his expendable bodyguards. It’s his chance to not be feared or hated. A chance he can be human again.


    Luna can’t help but smile. “Well, shall we make it official then?”


    He nods.


    A minute later, Luna is helping to strap Flint up to the contraption, tying him and the rigid pieces together. She fastens leather belts through the jangling rings on his flight suit, shifting about the harness around his legs. She designed this piece herself; she knows just how to operate it. It’s not her best work, on account of its rushed construction. But after 30 designs and reworks, she’s gotten a hang of what works and what doesn’t.


    Titanium bars she Fabricated herself rest snugly against Flint’s tall back, crossing over one another and providing the stability of the contraption. Two bars just out from the sides, which reach far and become bent nearly an arm’s length away. On those bars, fused together with thin silver lines, overlapping black plates of Carbon that Flint provided catch in the breeze like sails, spanning wide and ending in sharp angles.


    Paired with the bars Luna ties to Flint’s legs, and the boy who some call the White Prince stands tall, with jet black wings jutting out from behind his shoulders. He stays quiet during it all. The answer is obvious, and yet, the question is eating away at Luna. She has to be sure.


    “So,” She begins, messing with the straps at Flint’s feet. “Why today?”


    She feels his posture stiffen up; his voice practically filters out his mouth. “What do you mean?” She tugs on one of the straps, giving him a jolt. “Well, I had to weld the final plates for the wings into place atop this very mountain not even five minutes ago.” She moves to his other boot. “If we were planning to stick to the schedule, then we’d have a few more days at least.” She pauses, staring holes through his boot. “But here I am, shaken awake this morning by an adamant prince, who wants to move the test flight up to today.”


    She rises to the buckles on his chest, pressing her hand against him. “What’s the rush, Flint?” She raises her head to meet his gaze, which he doesn’t return. “Why does it have to be today? Of all days?" She can see the pain in his eyes, how it torments him. These recent years have been hard on him, and it has only compounded with time. Yet, she can see as he buries it, meeting her gaze.


    “I’d just rather not be home today. That’s all.”


    Six years since he split the kingdom in two, since lightning flashed from his hand and ancient law was enacted to have him executed on the spot. Luna was eight when it happened; she can scarcely recall that day. She can remember that night though, when she wandered into her parents’ bedroom out of curiosity of a strange noise she’d never heard before. She remembers it then, seeing Mother’s head pressed into Father’s shoulder, weeping. Illuminated from a burning hearth; It was the first time in Queen Ember’s life that she ever cried.


    Luna tugs the final strap harder than she meant to. She backs up, and Flint gives himself a once over, presenting himself to his silver-haired sister as she picks him apart with her amethyst eyes.


    “How do I look?”


    Luna nods to herself, shaking away the sour memory crawling around in her head. At first, she resented her brother since that night, modeling him out to be a villain and a bastard. Crown’s passionate speeches might’ve wormed their way too deeply into her. But, when Flint returned a mere three years ago, weighed down heavily by his own self-loathing and conscience; he looked Luna right in the eyes as they stood in that expansive hallway, surrounded by wary soldiers and new faces that she’s never seen before, and she saw a glint form in his lifeless eyes.


    “Can you help me fly?” He asked her then.


    “Like I’m going to find you in three pieces at the bottom.” She tells him now.


    He chuckles at that. “Well, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


    She gives him space, prepared to make the long trek back down. In the wake of the rising sun, her eldest brother faces that cliff edge, black wings spread out far from his two shoulders. It’s this moment, and the similar times before, that she can admire this young man for a handful of precious seconds. The air he carries about him, it’s one of a fallen warrior. Time and time again, she’s felt that same presence before.


    The living legend Revinen carries it, generals and veterans carry it. Mother and Father carry it. Flint’s twin brother Steel and Crown, they don’t even hold a fraction of it.


    And as Flint hunkers down, taking in heavy breaths; his second heart activating in a thrum, and visible cyan light traveling through his veins…


    Crimson flames rupture from the palms of his hands, flooding out and carving into the ground in two bright pillars of rushing heat. Clouds of steam kick up, Flint’s boots drag forward in their place, and he takes off, running dead ahead without even a spell of hesitancy.


    He leaps, and with an explosive show of power, becomes nothing more than a blur of a trailing fireball, speeding off, gliding high into the bright pale-white sky.