A/N: Media is a real black fire opal.

'Lumina?'

The voice was familiar, but I did not turn my head.

I knew that it was Hanna, the closest figure to a mother I'd ever had. Stern but kind, and treated all of the children with equal affection, she was said to have been a nobleman's daughter, before giving up everything to take care of children that needed her.

'I know you're awake. You're holding that rock again.'

Finally, I turned my head away from the window, where I had been lying and watching all morning. Two days had gone by, exactly in this way. I was not conscious when I was found; everyone thought I was dead, with my eye covered in blood and my clothes ragged. They had carried me to the village doctor, who had calmly cleaned my eye and said there was only bruising. I only awoke once I was back in the orphanage, being cared for in my own bed, and immediately began screaming in terror.

After that first day, I soon realised that nobody believed my story of Reia the angel— and how could I blame them? I was the most logical person of all; if I hadn't seen the wings and horns with my own eye, I would be laughing at my own story. And to make matters worse, my own story didn't match. How could I tell them that the odd stone that I kept looking at had been taken from my eye, when my eye was physically intact, with nothing but a purple hue to suggest damage?

No, I couldn't blame people for not believing my story. What I disliked was people thinking I was attention-seeking, or hiding where Reia had gone.

I, more than anyone, would love to find her, but I had a feeling that angels were a little out of my reach. A part of me had always known that Reia was far above me, but I hadn't realised quite how far.

Reia was gone. She wasn't with me when they found me. They had searched the woods, and found no trace. 

My sister had vanished, possibly forever.

I ignored the shuffling sound of the children stood around me, trying to cheer me up. They had been trying for days, but their attempts, along with the hours, passed around me without my notice. If they hadn't reminded me that it was my eighteenth birthday, I certainly would never have remembered.

Hanna knelt by my side. Her eyes were dark circles, filled with strain.

'What is it?' she said quietly. 'Why do you not help the search?'

I swallowed, a lump rising in my throat. It burned from the number of times I had retched, and vomited, and screamed, from being restlessly awake to haunted nightmares. My voice came out a hoarse whisper.

'You won't find her,' I said, for the umpteenth time. 'She's gone. She's an angel.' It was always at those words that the adults stopped paying attention.

'She's hiding something,' the policeman said.

'She's a hysterical child,' said the orphanage's benefactor, Robert.

'There are no such things as monsters and angels,' said the village major, when he was told about the disappearance, 'she's a liar.'

But I just stared at Hanna, stared at her so hard that I prayed she could see inside my thoughts and memories, and see the horrors retained there.

'It's true,' I breathed, desperate for them to understand. 'Reia was an angel—'

I realised that even the youngest of the children were exchanging glances. They thought I was mad.

My mouth closed with an abrupt snap. I glowered at them all, and then clutched the little black stone even harder.

'It's your birthday,' Hanna said. 'Get up, get dressed. You're going to see the priest. If anyone knows about these demons of yours, they will there.'

She sighed as I ignored her, turning the stone over in my hands. She had asked about it three times already, but I knew if they didn't believe the first half of my story, they wouldn't believe the last.

Hanna looked at me again; I had shrunk back under my bed covers, unable to move.

'Start by taking a few small steps,' she said quietly, 'return the tenacious Lumina to us.'

Then she was gone, the flock of children jumping over my bed, demanding to be told stories of monsters.

An hour later I found myself at the door of the shrine, dressed in a mint coloured tunic that Hanna had left out for me. I normally wore black, and would have disregarded the tunic, if black had not reminded me so much of mourning. After being surrounded by annoyingly cheerful children, taking a trip alone in the summer air was better than staying for questioning. Hanna's idea to visit the shrine was as good an excuse as any to leave the orphanage. I had clothed myself monotonously, strapping my feet into my sandals without being conscious of doing so, and winding my dark hair into a plait behind my head. When I saw myself in the communal mirror, I looked gaunt, and grieved.

I walked slowly up the path to the shrine, where the wooden building stood, with two great wooden doors, opened by two metal rings.

I opened and closed them behind me with a clatter, and the light was shut out. The wind, which had been blowing breezily, was cut off inside the shrine and the air became still. The priest watched me with unreadable eyes as I stepped up to the dais.

'I came to say a prayer for my sister,' I said, my voice loud. My hands shook.

The room was very dark, lit only by a few fire-lit brackets along the walls. It felt cold.

'As you wish,' said the priest, and he motioned for me to step up to the shrine. I wavered in front of it, uncertain how to proceed.

'I have seen you many years ago, I believe,' the priest said. 'What was your name again?'

'Lumina.'

'I do not recall you ever attending services?'

'I do not believe in the gods, sir.'

'Then my dear, why do you come to pray?'

I took a deep breath, where I knelt down to the altar.

'My sister believed,' I said out loud, to both the priest, and to any god that might be listening. 'My sister Reia was the greatest, purest soul that could have ever lived. She believed in you.'

My hands shook harder as I clasped them together, my knuckles white.

'She was taken away from me,' I said, louder this time, 'she was killed by something so inhuman that until I saw it, I would never have thought it possible. I would like to know why, and what this monster was.'

'That is not a prayer,' the priest said quietly. 'Your sister Reia has been harmed?'

'Murdered,' I said, feeling my eyes welling up.

The silence in the room built.

From the lining of my tunic, I drew out the black stone and placed it down in front of the altar.

'I don't know what this stone is,' I said. 'It was inside my body when Reia took it out.'

The priest shifted in the corner of my eye, as if craning to look at what the stone was. I ignored him, continuing on with my vow.

'Reia said that she had been protecting me. I don't want to be protected anymore. I want to find out who and what killed my sister, and I want revenge upon it. Please grant me that revenge.'

The priest was shifting very uncomfortably. I suppose nobody had ever used his shrine to declare murderous intent. Certainly, I had not realised that was what I had been going to say when I sat at the altar, but as the words came from my mouth, I realised that it was what I most wanted. I could feel, beneath my grief, anger, and desperation.

Bring back the tenacious Lumina.

I had been tenacious because Reia had been my support. Without her, I did not feel the ease that being around her had cast over me, a confidence that as long as we were together, everything would be okay.

But then, Reia had lied to me my whole life; she had never been human, but she had pretended that she was. She had known some secret that she had hidden from me, and our memories together would never feel the same.

I could not bring back the old Lumina. That would take something impossible— I would have to turn back time. But I could find answers, and perhaps then, I could find who my sister really was.

The priest let out a curdling cry, and this time I did turn to look, and regretted having not done so sooner.

He hadn't been craning his neck, or shifting uncomfortably.

No, his neck had grown, twisting and deforming until his head lolled onto its side, popping eyes blinking towards me. His bones had been growing, causing him to shift and stagger, jolting him onto all fours where he howled in pain. He dug his nails into the wooden shrine floor until they bled; his fingers were splitting, forming sharp claws.

His back legs were lengthening, his feet widening, until I noticed he had six clawed toes that matched the previous footprints.

The monster let out an inhuman shriek, and lunged towards me, his mouth gaping with sets of teeth, and a black, pointed tongue.

I snatched up the black stone— the last clue left by my sister— and tried to run. I hit the altar as the monster crashed into it, blowing the sacred dais into smashed bits of gold and wood. I fell as the wood beneath me splintered, slipping into the claws of the monster. The stone dropped from my hands, clattering to the corner of the shrine.

I was trapped, defenceless, and for the second time within the space of a few days, I was facing something unearthly and deadly. The monster was leaning down towards me, but I was completely frozen, numb with fear.

I heard the door bang, and a gunshot tore through the room. The monster on top of me shuddered and screeched, but released me for a split second enough for me to scramble away. Thick, black blood splattered over me.

I raced for the doorway, where the priestess stood, her gun ready and cocked.

The priestess of the shrine was normally very quiet. In the times I had seen her on my few visits, she had always been praying, away from the public and helping to tend to the shrine. Most of the time, people forgot she was there.

I gaped at her. She had a short bob of red hair, tied into a ponytail at the back of her head. Her eyes flickered towards me, a similar elfish green to Reia's. Behind her, tiny blue wings with diamond shaped feathers blew in the open breeze.

Angel.

And she nodded her head, telling me to run.

The monster roared again, back on its feet, and raising its claw towards the priestess. She ducked nimbly and shot again, hitting it in the neck, and the bullet did not reappear from the other side.

'Go!' she shouted to me, and she pulled me out of the monster's clawing reach. 'I have a flying machine, behind this shrine. Find it, and take it to the island. Trust nobody, and look for—'

I did not hear who or what to look for, because the monster swept the priestess into the wall with the force of its swing. She screamed briefly and then tried to inhale, rasping. I forced myself to move, but the image of her trapped against the far wall reminded me too greatly of Reia, and the girl's gun had been dropped out of her reach.

But, the oddest thing floating through my head was, I can't fly.

So I grabbed the gun, and aimed it as best I could. It was a bulky thing, and I was certain if I had a few hours to work on it, I could have had it much more efficient. As I pulled the trigger, it took a few seconds for it to fire, and those few seconds nearly cost my life as the monster reared back towards me, its mouth opening to swallow me, limb from limb.

The gun finally fired, and I wasn't ready; I hit the wall behind me, and my aim would have been askew if the monster hadn't been so close anyway. The bullet shot through its face, throwing bits of muscle and skin across the room. I stared at it, finding it horribly intriguing, and more like a nightmare than reality.

Somebody snatched my arm, and tugged me away from the monster, which had collapsed to the floor.

'You could have died!' the priestess hissed at me. As she dragged me towards the exit, I had one last thing remaining.

'I forgot the stone!' I yelled, and I broke free from her grip. The monster was shifting already, and the priestess was firing the gun at it to keep it down. I skidded to the corner and grabbed the tiny stone, where it seemed strangely aglow with the blood being spilled.

I could almost sense its contentment.

As I made it back to the exit, the monster clawed the back of my tunic, tugging me back down. I screamed and clutched the stone as I fell. All I could see was its colours gleaming a rainbow of red, blue, green, yellow and pink, shifting in the firelight. As I hit the wooden floor, sparks flew from the stone, sending a wall of fire blazing to the corners of the shrine, and setting it alight.

The monster caught fire, and had the priestess not grabbed me once more and hauled me from the shrine, I may have too.

She tossed me outside and grabbed the main door.

'Help me close it!' she shouted at me as she pulled hard on the metal rings keeping the doors shut, and the monster trapped within. I grabbed the heavy bolt used to lock the shrine up, and heaved it across as the monster's teeth snapped one final time at the priestess.

For a moment, we both stared at the door, breathing heavily, and waiting for the monster to return. After a few seconds, the building went up in flames, and we staggered away.

'Let me see that stone...' the priestess said, staring at the flaming building in shock.

'No,' I said, flinching away from her. 'I don't know if I can trust you. That thing was the priest...'

She shook her head. 'The priest was possessed. There is a terrible power at work here, and I've been looking for that monster for a long time.'

'Looking for it?' I said, a giggle springing up immediately at exactly the wrong timing. 'It was right next to you the whole time!'

The priestess went very red. 'I'm not very good...' she said, and my guilt flickered.

The priestess had saved me. And then I'd insulted her.

Damn, I was insensitive. I tried to imitate Reia's friendliness, but my hands brushed by hips and fell awkwardly across my body. I had to say something insightful, something to give her some confidence.

'What's your name?' was all I could think to say.

'Arianna,' she replied, and we both stared at each other for a few seconds. 'Can I see the stone?'

Carefully, I handed it over. In Arianna's hand, it looked black and dull once more. I frowned.

'It was really colourful before,' I said pointlessly. After all, Arianna wasn't looking at it for its beauty; she was looking at it because it had just set fire to a building of its own accord.

She held it up to the light.

'Legend tells of a stone that can conjure flames. The Black Fire Opal,' she breathed, and she looked at me properly this time. Her entire face seemed to glow red; and she dropped to one knee.

'I'm very sorry for my rudeness, my lady,' she apologised, bowing her head.

I shrieked, stepping away from her as she held the black stone above her head, back out to me. I took it gingerly from her.

'What are you doing?' I whispered. 'Stand up, please.'

Arianna jumped up, still blushing. 'My lady, what are we going to do?'

I was flustered. I was covered in blood after a fight with a human-turned-monster, we had set fire to a shrine, and now, worst of all, I was being called a lady.

'Stop calling me that,' I muttered, short-tempered. She yelped and turned even redder.

'But what shall I call you, my lady?'

'Lumina. My name is Lumina.'

'Alright my lady, Lumina, ma'am—'

'Just...just Lumina, please.'

'L-Lumina.'

I breathed out. I wasn't even used to people calling me by my full name; Lumina was considered a pretentious name for an orphan child, and for most of the time, my name was dropped to just Mina.

Something about the stone had won me some sort of temporary respect, the kind that I needed to find the truth.

'Alright,' I said, as Arianna seemed to be waiting on my orders. 'You mentioned before a flying machine...do you really have a flying machine?'

She nodded, eagerly.

My interest flared. As a lover of machines, I had never seen a real flying machine before; they were mostly hearsay.

'Can I see?'

'Of course! Er, my l—Lumina. It's this way!'

Arianna led me away down the opposite path, away from the burning shrine and into the forest. I placed the stone— opal— back into my tunic, folding it so it was safe. Whoever Arianna thought I was, I seemed to have power; perhaps this was Reia's plan. Perhaps by going along with this, Arianna would lead me to somewhere with answers.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, we reached a clearing in the forest, where a machine was badly hidden amongst large umbrella-like leaves from a tree. Arianna began to throw them off, revealing the strangest contraption I had ever lay eyes on.

It was a two-seater plane, with an open passenger cockpit and what appeared to be a rotor on the front and on the bottom. The body was made from a coppery coloured metal, polished as if it were brand new, but clearly weathered. I wondered how long it had been since anybody had been in it.

'Hang on, it er, doesn't look very much just yet,' Arianna promised. She jumped into the cockpit, and pressed on some levers. There was a cranking noise, and the folded wings began to unfold, spreading out on both sides. It was made of canvas and metal.

She looked at me sheepishly. 'It's quite safe. I think.'

I didn't answer. I was in love.

'It's beautiful,' I whispered, and for a moment, Reia and revenge were forgotten. I could only see the plane, and the gears which would make it work. I wandered up and down it, inspecting it here and there, running my hands along the machinery.

'Um...I'm glad you like it, Lumina,' Arianna pronounced my name with a forced certainty.

'Where are we flying to?' I voiced my next question with more terror. In my heart, I already knew, but hadn't dared think.

'We're going home,' Arianna said. 'We're going back to Angelica.'

Angelica. The island. Home.

My suspicions since seeing Reia's wings were confirmed. Angelica was home to Angels, and the human race was entirely unaware. For the first time, I was curious about seeing the island; I quelled my innate fear, and told myself that if I wanted to find out about Reia, I had to go there.  

'Why do you need a plane if you have wings, though?' I climbed into the back seat behind her.

Arianna passed me a pair of goggles, and then pulled a pair over her head.

'My wings aren't big enough,' she replied, 'do you not remember?'

I shook my head uneasily. I had no memory at all of the Lumina she claimed was a lady.

'They warned me that you might not remember anything,' Arianna murmured.

I glanced at her searchingly.

'They didn't tell me very much,' she said with a sad smile, 'just in case I was captured. It's handy not to know too much, when there might be Readers around.'

'Readers?'

'Angels that can Read your thoughts.'

What?

She had to be joking.

But if a stone can create fire...what else can happen?

Arianna whirred up the engine, deep in concentration as the rotors buzzed into action, and we began to rise, wind tearing our hair and faces. I stared at the amazing machine, already wanting to fly it myself.

As we took off slowly over the forest, the trees disappeared below us and the tiny village came into view. I could see the orphanage where I had grown up and the short walk to the market square. Within a few moments we glimpsed the town beyond ours.

It was all so small. And I had felt confined to it. Reia had never lived beyond it.

Or had she? Had she come from Angelica? Why had she ended up at a village orphanage?

I sat back against the cushioned leather seats, staring at the sky.

'Are we going to find who killed my sister?' I said, 'It was one of those monsters! Where are they from?'

'Sorry did you say— who killed your sister?' Arianna shouted above the wind.

'Yes!' I shouted back. My eyes were fixed at the shore ahead, where, at the height of summer, the island was hovering near to the water. It was far away, but it looked different to what I remembered.

'Don't be ridiculous!' Arianna was shouting back, 'I can't believe you don't know! Your sister is alive; I'll take you to her!'

 Author's note: Thank you for your continued support! If you enjoyed this, please vote and/or comment! :) 

Dedication this time goes to _breezes_ for reading this novel right the way through. Check out her many works, including An Almost Fairytale for a new, modern twist on the idea of Cinderella that will make your heart sigh.

Larissa

xx