Wings Over the Wild

The sun rose like a golden wound over the Andes, streaking the icy peaks with blood-orange light. Kira Thorn tightened her gloves and checked the instruments on her ultralight glider, The Peregrine. Altimeter steady. Wind to the northwest. Everything ready.

Today wasn’t about records. It was about legacy.

Her father, an eccentric pilot and explorer, had vanished on this same mountain range twelve years ago. He left behind a journal filled with cryptic sketches, impossible coordinates, and one recurring phrase scrawled in the margins: Sky Temple.

Most called it the ramblings of a madman. But Kira had always believed him.

With one last breath of thin, frozen air, she kicked the throttle. The engine growled. The Peregrine leapt from the cliff’s edge like a bird of prey taking flight. The world fell away beneath her. Mountains stretched for miles in every direction—icy, ancient, and unknowable.

She soared over glaciers that looked like shattered mirrors, traced the paths of rivers that shimmered like serpents, and followed the old Incan markers etched into the stones below. Her heart beat in rhythm with the pulsing wind. She was getting close.

Hours passed. She flew deeper into the Cordillera Blanca, into uncharted airspace where even satellites failed to see. The terrain below grew more brutal, unforgiving. But then—something glinted in the distance.

A glimmer in a cliff face, subtle and wrong, like a mirror reflecting a sky that didn’t exist.

Kira leaned forward, squinting. “There you are.”

She angled the glider into a dive. The air turned treacherous. Buffeting winds threatened to flip her wings. For a terrifying moment, she spiraled. Snowflakes streaked past her face like bullets. But she gritted her teeth, stabilized, and dropped into a narrow canyon of ice and stone.

It opened suddenly, like the jaws of a giant beast, revealing a hidden valley bathed in perpetual twilight. At its heart, suspended between two cliffs with no visible support, was a platform made of obsidian and etched gold. It floated silently in the air, like a dream.

Kira gasped. She had found it.

The Sky Temple.

She circled once, the glider trembling with strange vibrations. She could feel it—some kind of energy pulsing from below, as if the air itself was alive. Against all reason, her radio crackled to life.

“…Kira…”

She froze. The voice was soft. Familiar.

“Dad?” she whispered.

There was no response.

Her hands shook. Slowly, she brought The Peregrine in for a landing, touching down on the floating platform with barely a bump. The moment her boots hit the surface, she felt warmth. Despite the icy air, the platform radiated a gentle heat. Patterns lit up beneath her feet—lines of soft blue light that flowed toward a central spire.

It was made of crystal and metal, humming faintly. As she approached, it began to spin, slowly at first, then faster. A projection appeared in midair—stars, planets, orbits… Earth. Then, another planet, further out. Not Mars. Something no one had seen before.

A soft chime echoed, and the projection shifted to a message, ancient glyphs flickering into readable text. Kira’s eyes widened.

“The Watchers left this beacon. A bridge to the stars. Not all temples point to gods—some point home.”

Her breath caught. The myths weren’t just stories. The Inca, and perhaps civilizations before them, had made contact with something greater. And now… so had she.

A soft breeze picked up, swirling around the platform. The spire pulsed once more. A low rumble vibrated through her bones. From beneath the temple, something massive began to rise—an ancient skyship, its surface smooth as water, its engines thrumming with life.

This was never just a temple. It was a launchpad.

Kira stood on the edge, heart pounding, eyes wide with wonder and fear. For the first time in her life, she realized her father hadn't disappeared.

He had taken flight beyond Earth.

And now, it was her turn.