I awoke to Boojohni’s fat little hands patting my cheeks and dawn weaving its way through the trees from the east, golden tendrils tickling my lids. I was stiff and cold, my left arm numb, and in my right hand I clutched a long, black feather, tinged in red.
The eagle was gone. There was blood and a few feathers and little else left behind. Had he died? I shot to my feet, startling Boojohni, who had known better than to walk through the forest calling my name. It did him no good to call when I couldn’t answer. He’d used his nose and his knowledge of my favorite places, but he looked tired and relieved when he grasped my hand, pulling my attention down to him.
“What?” he asked, noting my alarm.
I pointed at the blood and the feathers. Eagle. Injured.
I made a sloppy sign with my hand. I didn’t know if he felt the words I pressed upon him or if he understood my hand gestures. Maybe it was the language of long-time companions or all those things combined, but Boojohni and I had our own language, and primitive as it was, we managed to communicate.
“It’s gone. Looks like something dragged it off,” he grunted simply. I bowed my head in regret. But I hadn’t heard anything! I would have heard something, I was sure. Unless the eagle had died, and the wolf was stealthy.
He squatted down low and followed the path of broken twigs and disturbed fauna, leading away from the blood and feathers.
Wolf?
“No,” he grunted, like I’d spoken out loud. He did that often. “Not a wolf. A man.” He pointed at a partial heel print in the earth. “That’s not an animal.”
Arrow.
He looked up at me. I tapped my heart and drew back my arms like I was shooting a bow. The archer had found his prey after all, it seemed. I was lucky he only wanted the bird. I’d been extremely vulnerable.
Boojohni scowled at me, obviously thinking the same thing. He stood and put his hands on his hips, abandoning his tracking.
“Yer soft heart is spreading to yer brain and turning it to mush. Ye could have been killed, Bird. Or worse.”
I inclined my head, acknowledging his words. But it didn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change anything. I would do what I was going to do, and he knew it. I stayed still a moment longer, searching for the bird, for his imprint in the air, but found no trace of him. He was gone. I sighed in defeat and settled the hood of my cloak over my hair. The fat braid that circled my head felt like a crown of thorns and probably looked like one too. I’d already removed a leaf and a downy bit of a feather. I was not vain, but I did not want to draw attention when I returned to the keep.
“Please, please, for the love of trolls and other blessed creatures, stop wandering around in the forest like yer a bat instead of a wee lady!” Boojohni was building up to some serious grumbling. He spoke harshly, but the word that rose from him was love. I didn’t hear people’s thoughts the way they came out of their mouths. I heard single words, the dominant word. The way I heard the governing words of every living thing. The dominant word from Boojohni was always love, and I could endure his chastisement knowing that.
I sighed and continued walking. He hurried to get in front of me, extending his stubby arms to halt me. I side-stepped him. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but I couldn’t argue, and I could listen and walk at the same time. Boojohni could not. His mouth and legs had difficulty running simultaneously. He tugged on my arm.
“There is a war going on only miles from here! A war! Hundreds of violent men and beasts with no scruples about dragging a woman off by her hair! Especially one sleeping in the woods like a gift from the fairies!”
I nodded, letting him know I understood. It didn’t pacify him.
“Your father would cut off me beard if he knew how often ye slip away to commune with the forest! Do you not want poor Boojohni to find true love and happiness? What troll would have me without my beard?” He shuddered in horror. I tugged on it affectionately and started walking again.
He seemed momentarily lost in the horrified speculation of his possible beardlessness, and I allowed my mind to skip to the war in Jeru, the war my father and his advisors kept a close eye on. The king himself was camped on my father’s lands near the front lines of the latest skirmish. Carrying on his father’s legacy, the young king spent more time killing on horseback than sitting on his throne. This time, however, the creatures coming against him were even more terrible than he was.
Rumors of the Volgar were probably exaggerated, but the rumors were truly terrifying. Some said they killed only to drink blood and eat flesh, believing life force was transferable. Their leader, known only as Liege, had wings like a vulture and razor-sharp talons. He flew above his armies and directed them from above.
Liege wanted the Land of Jeru, believing there was power to be consumed, though the King of Jeru, King Tiras’s father, had purged the population of magic. Liege wanted the lands of Jeru and Dendar and Porta and Willa. He’d taken Porta. Then Dendar. And he’d left nothing in his wake.
Now he was on the border of Jeru, in the valley of Kilmorda, and King Tiras and his warriors were assembled against him. My father was caught between hope and loyalty. He was a lord of Jeru, and he needed Liege and the Volgar to be defeated. But he also wanted to be King. Preferably, King Tiras would die after he defeated the Volgar Liege and his swarms of miscreants. That way my father wouldn’t have to contend with marauding monsters when he ascended the throne.
My mother had told the old king he would sell his soul and lose his son to the sky. It hadn’t all come to pass—King Zoltev was gone, his soul still in question, and his son was very much alive—but my father was banking his future on the fact that it would. He was next in line for the throne. He wanted to be king, and I just wanted to be free of him. My mother told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. He had not doubted her, and I had spent the last fifteen years caged and cornered. My father watched me anxiously for signs of health and hated me because his fate was tied to mine.
When my father looked at me, I almost always heard the same word. I heard my mother’s name. Meshara. He looked at me, and he was reminded of her warning. I would hear my mother’s name in his voice, then he would turn away. Always.
He didn’t turn away because I looked like her. My mother was beautiful. I was not. My eyes were a flat grey. Not blue like the sky or green like the sea. Grey. My skin was pale, my hair a light brown—ash, my mother had called it. Not rich. Not dark. Just a quiet brown like the little brown mouse that huddled in the corner and waited for me to sleep so he could steal the crumbs beneath my table. My coloring was as timid and unassuming as I was. Pale. Insipid. So reticent that it had never fully materialized. I was a slight, grey ghost.
“Ye aren’t as invisible as ye think, Bird,” Boojohni huffed, as if he’d heard my internal musings. “I wasn’t the only one who took note that you were missing this mornin’. Strange things are afoot. Mertin, one of the stable hands, was found naked as a wee baby lying in the hay just after dawn. One of the horses was gone too—yer father’s favorite grey. Then Bethe comes screeching down to the kitchens claiming yer room is empty and yer bed wasn’t slept in. I made her swear to be quiet about it until I could sniff ye out, which I obviously did.”
I shook my head and sighed. Bethe was my maid. She was prone to fits of alarm, but the theft of the grey was upsetting. She was a good horse, and I hated that she’d been taken.
I touched my eyes and asked a question with my hands. Boojohni answered immediately, understanding.
“No one saw anything . . . except poor Mertin’s ass when he ran from the stables.” Boojohni snickered.