Free Sapphire by Elayne Griffith

and defying their
captor. The energy field holding her vanished along with the snarl
on his face. She was as stunned as the three pairs of eyes now
turned on her. He stared at the necklace like it would suddenly
swoop up and strangle him. She saw her opportunity. Furious at the
predicament she and her friends had now found themselves in, she
did the first thing that came to mind. She grabbed a blade of
shattered crystal and yelled.
    “Let us go!”
    Kryos stared down at her, then one massive paw
stepped back.
    “I am not weak, and I am not afraid!
Let us go!”
    Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, she chanted
to herself.
    The ropes of lightning vanished, releasing Lula and
Mira, and Kryos took two very long steps away from her. The
necklace slowly drifted back down, feeling warm upon her still
intact collar bones. She was shaking with fear, but she tried to
hide it, tightening her grip on the shard. Lula flew over and in an
instant transformed the crystal splinter into a sword. Shawna
stopped shaking and nearly dropped it. Lula looked, if possible,
even more amazed at what she’d done.
    “I was just going to make it longer,” she whispered,
looking at her hands like she’d just noticed they were hers.
    The foot long piece of broken crystal had elongated
into a yard long transparent crystal blade, while an intricately
carved black iron handle appeared in Shawna’s palm. She did not
have the time, nor the interest, to look closely at the carving
with a three-ton electrified feline fixated on her. Mira cantered
over to stand with them, shaking her mane and brandishing her
horn.
    “It’s not pink ,” Lula said, still
open-mouthed at the sword.
    “Do you doubt now?” said Mira, tossing her head
high.
    The tension that once saturated the cave began to
dissolve, and Kryos slowly lowered to his haunches, then spread his
paws before him while he lay down Sphinx-like. Lula was still
staring, dumbfounded, at the non-pink sword.
    “My apologies. It would have been a shame if you
were torn to pieces,” said Kryos like the thought had never been
his. “We have waited a very long time for a spirit such as
yours.”
    She looked down at herself like she would perhaps
see her ‘spirit’ glowing, but only saw dirt caked all over her.
    “I must inform you that we were visited by one other
merely a day ago,” Kryos said. “He did not come with the intentions
that you possess.” Kryos flexed his enormous claws and growled. “He
came to try and destroy the realm.”
    Mira struck her hoof against crystal at these words,
sending sparks. “Tell us who he is, and how he escaped?”
    “I do not know the human’s name. He came with malice
and arrogance.” He rotated his head towards Shawna. “And dark intentions.”
    He swished his tail and light crackled in its wake.
“He vanished with his tricks, slipped away, but not without first
using a powerful spell and releasing the rest of the creatures we
have helped guard.” He looked severely offended at being thwarted
by a mere human, even if he was a sorcerer. “If you are truly a
daughter of guardians, Ava, they will come for you.”
    “What will?” she asked, dreading what he might say
next.
    “Molochs. We have contained a number of them for
hundreds of years, but over the last sixteen years, more and more
have been escaping. Now that one of the guardians of the fourth
realm has entered the world again, everything will change. Your
birth-right, is your curse.”
    Guardian? Birth right?
    Before she could let his words worm into her
thoughts, lightning shot forth from every crystal in view.
Materializing out of the electrical storm, came the other soleons.
They were nowhere near the size of their lord and guardian, but all
could have looked Mira in the eye. Their coats, also striped in
electricity, were an undulating gray wave of varying shades. The
sparking crystals ceased their performance when all the soleons
stood before them. Lula flew closer to Shawna. She smiled