As she neared the ledge, she angled her wings. The crystals caught the dim, ambient light of the chasm, glowing fiercely. She flared her wings at the last possible second. CRACK.
Her wings erupted in a blinding, breathtaking display of pure, radiant light. The scars and fractures from her ordeal didn't look like damage anymore; they looked like brilliant facets of a diamond, scattering golden light across the dark valley. Alas de Cristal - Carol S. Brown.epub
Lyra could not fly. To catch a thermal was to risk being shattered by the sheer pressure. To land too hard was to risk splintering into a million pieces. For twenty years, she had been grounded, a flightless bird forced to watch her kin soar among the jagged peaks. She was kept in the lower caverns, assigned to the delicate task of polishing the tribe’s glow-stones, sheltered from a world that was deemed too rough for her existence. As she neared the ledge, she angled her wings
Kaelen wrapped his arms around her waist, extending his massive, injured wings to catch the roaring rising wind. Lyra locked her crystal wings in a wide, rigid V-shape. Lyra could not fly
Lyra looked down into the dark abyss. She could see the faint glow of Kaelen's scout beacon far below. The heavy, dark fog was crawling up, suffocatingly slow. She stepped to the edge of the cliff. "Lyra, no! You will shatter!" the Elders cried out.
Lyra looked up at the narrow strip of grey sky far above. Then, she looked at the fractures in her wing. She realized that the crystals were not just glass; they were a living part of her. She focused all her will, sending her energy into the damaged wing. The fractures didn't disappear, but they fused together, creating a scarred, jagged edge that was thicker and stronger than before. "Hold onto me," Lyra commanded. "Lyra, you can't carry us both," Kaelen protested.
The wind in the Obsidian Valley did not blow; it cut. In a world where the sky was perpetual grey slate and the ground was made of jagged, dark stone, Lyra was an anomaly. While her people possessed wings of sturdy leather or powerful feathers capable of weathering the brutal gales, Lyra had been born with wings of pure, translucent crystal.