There are many beautiful things in this world. The waterfalls on the cliff that my Academy sits on. The sunrise over the thick forest to the east. Even the ruins where battles take place between kingdoms nearly every week. But nothing in the world can compare to the beauty of the fey.

Lean, muscular bodies, fit for war. Long sleek feathers on powerful wings. Powers beyond what a mere human could ever imagine.

And I am one of them.

Humans have the story of Maleficent. People depicted her as an all-powerful being with a fatal aversion to metal.

Wrong.

Metal is not poison for us. In my world, Maleficent would simply be able to create storms, and not much more. We have fey with much more powerful abilities, such as my own. I am a shapeshifter, as my pale violet wings tell the whole fey world. I can shift into any living being, be it animal, plant, another fey, anything alive.

These powers are important for us. We have been locked in war with another kingdom, led by Queen Zilla Nyx, for decades. Once a fey turns eighteen, they are assigned to a troop. There are eight fey in a troop. Each troop has one fey with each power. Mindreader, shapeshifter, futureseer, songhealer, stormguider, earthmover, waterwinder, and airbender come together to form a sort-of family that trains and fights together.

My troop is one-of-a-kind. Well, actually, two-of-a-kind. For one, I'm not eighteen. I'm actually fifteen, and so is every other fey in my troop. For another, we're one of only two under-eighteen troops in our kingdom. We were picked for one of the only under-eighteen troops because of our incredibly advanced abilities.

Levian is our mindreader, and our leader. His dark silver wings are a rarity for someone not even at adult age yet. Most mindreaders can only read minds, but Levian has figured out how to do things usually only heavily trained and mature mindreaders can do, like communicate to others through their minds, allow non-mindreaders to communicate through his mind channel, and camouflage himself from others through persuasion of their thoughts. He specializes in close-hand fighting, and prefers to fight using his sword, Kaiaca, named after the goddess of battle, the same goddess I'm named after.

I am Kaia, Levian's second-in-command. My shapeshifting abilities are perfected to the point that I can copy exact details of other creatures, and acquire the traits of others without completely shifting. Levian uses me to scout and help strategize. I prefer using my bow and arrows to fight, as well as other long-range weapons, such as my throwing stars and throwing knives. I do, however, like using my daggers in close-hand.

Penelope, or Pen, as we call her, is our futureseer. Her ability to see the future in extreme detail has saved our wings in training and examinations more than a few times. She only fights fey that get too close to her, so she can keep an eye on the future. Contrary to many fey that think she can't fight, I have seen her slit the throats of quite a few training holograms. She's ruthless when she needs to be.

Arabella, or Bells, is our songhealer. She is a quiet, delicate creature with the purest white wings I have ever seen. She never fights, as we don't allow her to. Axton, our airbender, is especially protective of her, and we would all die to make sure she lives. Her healing song not only brings health, but a feeling of warmth and comfort, something I have never experienced from any other healing song.

Bea is our stormguider, Slate is our earthmover, Rai is our waterwinder, and Axton is our airbender. Their positions are less important, by order of the government, but I believe they matter much more than our academy commander says.