Gabriella fiona's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Gabriella needed her celestial blade back, but she could not fly to find it. She lay on a bed of moss and watched the sky she used to own. Her right wing bent at a wrong angle. The fall from heaven had snapped it. Every breath pulled the break tight, and pain shot down her spine. The blade had fallen with her. It landed somewhere on this island, and until her wing healed, she could not scout a single mile of it. She forced herself upright. Salt wind stung the raw feathers. Below the ridge, a fisherman's smoke rose from a cove. She had watched the locals for three days. They feared the ridge and never climbed it. She was alone, grounded, and hunting a weapon she could not see. Gabriella tried her wing once more. She spread both wings and pushed off the rock. The good wing beat hard. The broken one buckled at once. She dropped, hit the slope, and rolled through gravel to the bottom. The pain white-flashed behind her eyes. When it cleared, she lay staring straight up. Above her stood a castle she had not seen from the ridge. Dark stone rose in tiers. Brass pipes wrapped the walls like veins. Gears turned in the towers, and a great clock face stared down from the tallest one. Smoke curled from thin stacks. Colored glass burned red and green in the low sun. The place hummed. Something inside it moved. She had crawled to the one structure on the island. Its front doors were iron, taller than three men, studded with rivets. Gauges lined the frame like watching eyes. Gabriella climbed to her feet and pressed a hand to the cold metal. Warmth pulsed under it. Machines ran deep inside. A blade like hers gave off heat. Angels felt it the way a hand feels fire. She had trusted that pull to find it. Now the whole castle throbbed with heat and drowned that thread. Her weapon could sit ten feet past these doors, and she would never sense it through the noise of gears. Gabriella pushed the left door. It did not budge. She braced her shoulder and shoved with all her weight. The iron held. She could not fly over the walls. She could not break the doors. She could not even feel her blade past the machines humming inside. A slot in the door slid open at eye height. Two eyes looked out at her, then dropped to her broken wing. The slot snapped shut. Bolts scraped. Chains rattled. Someone inside was unlocking the door. Gabriella stepped back and set her feet. She had wanted a way to search the island. Instead the island had opened a door, and she did not know what waited behind it.