“Yes! We’ll be safe here!” Silverstream ducked with every burst of lightning magic. “Our saviors will come, and they’ll fight them off!”
Sandbar patted her shoulder. “Whatever happens, you need to breathe. You’re hyperventilating.”
Starlight barely put up a shield in time to intercept a lightning bolt.
A loud crack and blinding light kept Silverstream from seeing anything. She screamed and started running the other direction. By the time she could see anything again, her feet had taken her down the familiar roads to the gate of the city.
“Yona! Sandbar! Starlight! Where are you?”
The grunts of nearby storm creatures was the only response. Lightning from the storm in the night sky flashed, and Silverstream saw several airships anchored at the edge of town. The storm creatures guarding them pointed in her direction. Silverstream saw some bushes and dove behind them before the soldiers could investigate. She squeezed her arms and wings around herself, trying to be as small as possible.
“Okay, you have to be strong,” she whispered to herself. “My friends are out there in this fight. You can do this. For them.”
Silverstream repeated the line to herself many times. Cold rain slid off her feathers, but she couldn’t seem to move. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she hid. She took a few deep breaths quietly. A huge flash of light at the palace lit up all of the city. Silverstream remembered that flash from her childhood. Queen Novo had used the pearl to drive off the intruders and change all the hippogriffs. Maybe her younger self was already sliding down into the ocean depths, but that didn’t help her here.
She peeked through the leaves. The storm creatures were distracted by the sudden flash. Silverstream hopped and glided behind a pillar. The stomp of boots on the road made her go back to crouching low.
A dark purple pony in thick armor plates cursed and blasted a fence to pieces with the magic from her broken horn.
“Damn it. All our work for nothing. The Storm King isn’t going to be happy that they slipped away. Search the city. See if there are any prisoners or treasures we can bring back to make up for missing the pearl.”
The group walked closer. Silverstream grew hopeful as they almost walked past her, but one of the storm creatures grunted and pointed right at the pillar she was hiding behind.
Silverstream wanted to run, but her body locked up. This had to be some nightmare. She covered her eyes with her wings. A hoof pulled one wing back. Tempest Shadow scowled at her.
“You didn’t slip away with the rest of them. Come with me, now. Unless you want to do this the hard way.”
Tempest pulled her up and gave her a push toward the airships. The group escorted her up the loading ramp of the largest ship.
“You saved yourself a lot of pain by coming easily. You two, take her to the brig. I have many questions for her later. But I need to go check on something in the city right now. Squall Squadron hasn’t reported in.”
The two storm creatures shoved her if she went too slow as they marched her into the depths of the airship. It was almost better once they finally left her alone in a huge metal cage. At least that didn’t remind her of the most awful event in her life, but now she was captured and her friends didn’t even know where she was. She thought carefully. She had to find some way to tell them. The guards had been in a hurry and had left her with her things, so she looked through her bag. She pulled out the magic paintbrush and thought over what to do. If she had something small, like a messenger bird, it could get out through the bars of the cage.
The more she thought about a cheerful little bird with a message tube, the more clear its image became in her mind. She painted from the image in her mind, and the magic of the brush brought the idea to life. The bird chirped, and the shroud of fear suddenly weighed Silverstream down less. She pulled out a paper and quickly wrote a note about what happened and where she was being held.
“Okay little birdie, make sure this message gets to my friends.”
She explained how to get to them. The bird nodded and patted the message tube with one wing. It was a small hope, but Silverstream knew she could always count on her friends. She hoped they would get here before Tempest returned.