Seriously, it waslike riding a storm.Like straddling lightning that forked through the sky.Katu fishtailed, then spun several 360s, Cha hooting with excitement, before catching his claws in the ley line and shooting past Big Betty, leaving her in the pixie dust.Big Betty trumpeted, sounding an awful lot like Dy in full mom mode.
Cha waved her fingers in the air in negligent cheer.“Toodle-oo, slowpokes!”Then she wrenched her attention back to the ley line.“Whoa there, Nelly,” she murmured, using her innate ley rider senses to help Katu keep purchase on the line.Not unlike riding a bucking bronco—not that she ever had, but she’d seen some back on the farm—except it was the ground bucking, not her steed.
Katu gradually leaned into the steaming speed of the line, finding his groove.Big Betty dwindled behind them, even though Dy had moved her fully back into the main line.The bigger cargo animal wasn’t built for speed like the sleeker sports cat.And, even though Dy was by far superior in magical ability, with the power and skills to create and move ley lines at will, Cha could ride the lines like nobody’s business.
She wasn’t a champion of the racing circuit for nothing.
Once the two of them had a grip on the ley line, she relaxed into the sensation of speed for a moment.Though “grip” was probably too strong of a term for the delicate hold she kept on the line, like keeping a steady hand to monitor a pulse on fragile skin without pressing so hard that you bruised.In this case, however, the bruising would happen to her and Katu.She had a sense of this high yellow as having that thin crust.Too much and they’d crash through and drown.Or be incinerated.Some non-temperature-related metaphor would be more apt.
But thespeed.It was beyond exhilarating.In the open-air of the convertible, she experienced the world of Citrine in a rush of pure adrenaline.It was a high like no other.If not for Azul, she’d be tempted to keep going forever, just tooling about the fae realm and discovering its mysteries.
Never mind that such exploration would be lethal.One couldn’t ride the ley lines forever.“Especially when one doesn’t know how to find ambrosia stations in Citrine,” Cha said, patting the dash.“Never mind that humans can’t eat or drink here.”
Enough enjoying the speed and better start thinking about slowing Katu and dealing with her actual reason for being out there racing the pure, high yellow ley line: getting them into that fairytale castle without becoming the fairy-cautionary-tale.
Cha snorted in laughter.At least she amused herself.
A spur off the main line led to a ley that wound around the conical mountain supporting the glowing palace.Katu made the transition with only a bit of a slide, then took the winding, steeply sloping ley line with dizzying speed.Cha sought a slower vein within the narrow ley, but there didn’t seem to be one.It reminded her of the children’s rides in Santa’s Village back in Obsidian, which seemed entirely designed to disrupt the human digestive system.Katu, with his superb handling and low profile, barely clung to the curves.No way Big Betty could handle it.
Swallowing back the nausea she refused to acknowledge, Cha tapped open the path box channel to Dy, then wondered if it would even work in the dense Citrine magic.
“Bandit here, Goldilocks.You read me?”
She came back fuzzy, but there.“Barely.Amp it up.”
“All there is.Warning: don’t ascend.Big Betty can’t do it.”
Big Betty rumbled offense loud enough to transmit through the box.
“No shade to you or Big Betty,” Cha hastily added, hoping the words all made it through.“We’re barely hanging on here.”
“Be…” Dy’s warning got lost in static—though Cha could easily fill in the rest—the path box actually kaleidoscoping helplessly through a number of flickering colors before going gray with a pathetic wheeze.The magic had just fried her path box.Hopefully not permanently.No matter what, she couldn’t think about it now with her attention fully occupied by helping Katu stay the course, the turns whipping ever tighter as they neared the summit.The circles grew so severe that in places, the cliff side curved out overhead, looking as if it could fall on their heads.Which meant Cha determinedly stopped looking.Who said she wasn’t a problem solver?
They navigated the whirlwind of the spiraling ley line, not easily, but like the pros they were.It was not unlike a super tricky trap at the end of a steeplechase—except that this lasted more than a few seconds and wouldn’t culminate in a trophy and wildly cheering crowds.
Azul is the trophy,she thought to herself.
A grumpy, brooding, ungrateful, and likely worthless trophy she’d have to relinquish in the end, but…Cha had to laugh, shaking her head.She could have picked someone uncomplicated.Several uncomplicated someones, in fact, as she’d done in the past.But noooo…
Katu fetched up around the last dizzying bend—and nearly hurled muzzle first into a wall.Cha threw all her skill into finding anything at all in the ley line to slow them in time.They barely managed it, sliding sideways, citrine dust billowing as Katu’s claws gouged the line for purchase, and skidding to a screeching stop a finger’s breadth from the wall.
She rolled her neck to get the sudden crick out of it, patting Katu’s dash.“Okay, baby cat?”
He purred a grumpy affirmative.Yeah, that was her take, too.Who put a wall in the middle of a ley line, especially one that fast and around a blind corner?Oh wait, she knew the answer to that one: Citrine royal fae.
Letting Katu cool and calm from that epic climb up twisty madness, Cha surveyed the apparently blank wall, radiating a warm buttery light that somehow came across as repellent.No gate.No guards.Just a wall.
She craned her neck back, taking in its intimidating height.From this angle, at the base of the smooth obstacle, none of the castle appeared beyond.She didn’t see any way to climb it, either, even if she’d been inclined to, which she wasn’t.First, that would mean leaving Katu behind and second, she strongly suspected the wall was made of citrine pixie dust.That is, something that would fry her brains like a gnat flying through a candle flame.Not a pretty picture.
It looked entirely possible that the wall itself was part of the ley line, which was unprecedented.Her magic sure seemed to think so.Not wanting to risk Katu’s purchase on the tiny shoulder of slow yellow he was clutching to stay steady—it would not be pretty if they got caught in that blazing current again—she edged herself back to perch above the jump seat to get a better look.
The wall, insanely high, as previously noted, curved out of sight in both directions.Other than where the ley line in intersected with it, barely any ledge of ground extended past the wall.Anyone trying to walk around it would have to cling to, or at least press up against the glowing surface.And, unless Cha missed her guess—and who were we kidding?She wasn’t wrong often and never about ley magic—the “wall” was basically a standard horizontal ley line, turned on its side and wrapped into a circle, like one of those snakes eating its own tail.
For a crazed moment, she imagined driving Katu straight up onto the wall and speeding around the castle on their sides.That would be something no other ley rider had ever done!
And for good reason.Ley magic didn’t override gravity.They’d just slide down the wall until they hit bottom—which really meant off the side of a sheer cliff in most spots and a steep, no doubt tumbling drop to the next loop of the ley line in others.
However, the longer she studied the problem, the more she considered that might be the only way in.Nobody seemed to be coming to the “door.”How was she supposed to talk her way into the Citrine Palace if she remained outside this sheer wall with no one to work her skills on?She didn’t dare step foot outside of Katu for fear of aforementioned immolation like a gnat.They also couldn’t sit there forever.Katu would tire—all that much faster for having to essentially tread water on the ley line—and she had no way to feed him ambrosia to replenish his energy.