Chapter 66: A True Desire — The Starry Sky Kite
The silver-white radiance contracted sharply into a blurred sphere of light, then gradually elongated, unfolded, took shape.
Wings spread from either side — every feather wrought of silver light, their edges dusted with starlike motes.
The body condensed into a streamlined form brimming with latent power. The head rose; the beak was keen. Two brighter points of silver burned where eyes should be.
Last, the tail-feathers fanned out — trailing like a comet.
A silver-white bird hovered before Regulus.
Its frame fell between a hawk and a kite. Plumage composed of countless fine slivers of silver that flickered and pulsed like stars with each subtle beat of its wings.
The feather-tips were purest silver-white, refracting the dying sunlight into rainbow haloes.
Its eyes were a luminous silver-grey — uncannily close to Regulus's own — sharp and profoundly deep.
It spread its wings. Without a single flap, it hung motionless in the air, as though gravity had simply let go.