***This chapter was one of those chapters that flowed quickly as I wrote it but may not be fleshed out as well as I'd like. I'm posting because I need to move forward and don't quite know what to change in this chapter yet. Anyway, please comment and give me feedback! I appreciate it.

<3libby

Chapter 6: Prejudice

Fog amassed and looped through openings between low brush, condensing where it collided until it was forced to swirl up and blur into the trees and sky. The morning was clear and cool, but the mist diffused the light of the sun so that only a grey void could be seen ahead, moving ever so slowly through the air it dispossessed. The moist particles were hitting her face and condensing into droplets that grew until their weight forced their decline down her cheeks.

Ilara turned her face and found the fog was covering all, both brush and tree, near and far. All was encompassed in the grey wafts of liquid light. All that is, but the throbbing she felt in her head. The cool water on her face was relieving that, but not erasing it. She reached up and felt the back of her head where the pain was emanating, feeling the halo of ringlets that were forming on the top of her hair as it was drenched in the humid air. Then something warm and rough brushed her fingertips and she turned abruptly to find her hand being held by a man… a familiar man. His dark eyes were clear and sharp but the rest of him was faded like her surroundings, hidden in fog.

“…Ilara,” he whispered. “Ilara.”

“Father?” she replied soundlessly. “Father!” she tried again and again, but her throat could produce no more than painful rasping.

He looked at her for a moment and then slipped his hand away. His eyes looked down and were hid behind their lids and blended with the faintness of the rest of his face… and he was gone.

“Father! Father!” she kept calling with no effect, running through the mists in desperation. She slipped and fell on a rock obscured in the veil of cursed mist and she succumbed to it without a fight, falling on her side and curling up like a child. Her head felt like bursting now for all the blood that seemed to be coursing through it.

And another voice came through the mists; a soft, matronly voice saying, “Child? Child, awaken. You are safe.”

~~*~~

Xavier sat feeling helpless and frustrated on the cot in his chamber as he awaited Ferran and Gojzia. The latter was the self-imposed healer of the three villages, and she did her job well. She had walked in first, her previously clean apron soaked in the crimson stain of blood. She was smiling in her usual irritating way, as if she knew something no one else could understand and it was a little joke for her enjoyment alone. Xavier gave her a sardonic look but it softened as she approached to check his bandage. He couldn’t get mad at the woman, no matter how condescending she tended to be. She had saved his life too many times to count, and besides, he was fond of her despite her rough spots.

“Well, the stitches are holding and you haven’t got a fever, so get some rest, don’t walk when you can help it and don’t run at all, and you’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.”

“A few weeks of being an invalid will kill me faster than a fever would have,” he grumbled, earning a light smack across the back of his head from Gojzia. Ferran muffled a laugh as best he could at the sight of a middle-aged woman putting Xavier in his place. He needed that from time to time, though few would say so openly.

“You’ll be an invalid and worse if you don’t do as I say and rest; lay off climbing and such until your wound closes up. Don’t make things worse for yourself. Now what’s the story—the whole story?” Gojzia sent her questioning look between Ferran and Xavier as she waited for somebody to speak up. Neither did. “What? Can’t admit a woman had the better of you?” She laughed in that mocking way she only used with those close to her.

Xavier kept silent and just looked at Ferran until the man was forced into a corner by the glares of his two companions. “What? Could you expect me to sit around and wait for you? I knew you were tired, and I knew you’d need me.” Ferran pulled his shoulders back and smiled with pride. “I followed you. And if I hadn’t done it, that little fireball would have killed you.”

“The little ‘fireball’ has been tormented in her sleep,” Gojzia cut in, true concern etched across her wise face. “Show her mercy, Ferran. You know nothing of her.”

“I know she tried to kill Xavier, and she would have if I hadn’t butted her good with my Shreika!”

“No grace, all force, you brute,” Xavier shook his head not disapprovingly. “Still, I could have defended myself.”

“I beg your pardon sir, but you would not have defended yourself.” Ferran looked at Gojzia for support and she smiled and looked at Xavier, waiting to hear him admit it or lie.

“I could never kill a woman, but to stop her from killing me I’ll do what I must,” Xavier replied.

“Only if that means asking nicely and offering her your cloak,” said Gojzia, smiling and putting her equipment in a leather pouch.

“Gojz, are we finished?” he replied, slightly annoyed once more. “Why don’t you go see about the girl and make sure she hasn’t run off with murderous intent toward yet another hapless male.”

Gojzia bowed and left the wooden hut with a smirk remaining on her face. “I can’t see why she finds this amusing,” Xavier mumbled, leaning back against the wall behind his cot. “Well, now this girl is here and there’s no keeping her from knowing our every secret. She could be anyone. Corillion could have sent her, or worse.” He motioned with his arm as he emphasized his words and clapped his hand against his bandaged thigh without thinking, cringing in regret upon impact. He breathed through clenched teeth until the pain subsided.

“I doubt there’s worse than Corillion,” said Ferran. “But really, you don’t think he would hire a girl like her, do you?”

“No. You’re right. Any woman in his employ would not be so by choice, or for compensation. I can’t imagine a woman willing to serve him without her life being threatened.”

“Then there’s no need to fear.”

“Maybe not, but we don’t know anything yet. Where is she, anyway?”

“She’s in Gojzia’s hut on my bedroll. Gojz said I had to bring it in for the fireball to make up for knocking her out. I can’t see why I have to be punished for helping.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t kill the girl. None of us quite trust you with that she-sword of yours; Gojz is trying to carve some chivalry into you, if not restraint. So… does the girl still sleep? Is she all right? Gojzia!” he called, wishing he hadn’t sent her away so fast.

Gojzia was back inside the hut in a moment, having not gone far after she had been dismissed. She answered his thoughts immediately, since she had been waiting outside for his inevitable summoning and heard everything. “She awoke for a moment, but no more, and faded back to sleep. Like I said, she sleeps fitfully. Her dreams are not peaceful.”

Xavier nodded in thought. “And what has been done with the leoptera bull?”

Ferran answered this time. “Oh, I took care of that beautiful beasty.” Xavier closed his eyes in anticipation of a boastful telling of how the beast was subdued after he had returned to the village to have the arrow in his leg removed—otherwise he would have seen to the matter himself. “He was unconscious for a good while and Gojzia made sure he stayed that way so I… well, a few of us… could hoist him on a cart and drag him back here. He’s in the pit I’ve been digging between the Weeping Rock and Renscha Face. His wing’s busted so he’s not coming out of there anytime soon.” Xavier was slightly surprised by the lack of adornment to the account.

“Has his wing been seen to?”

“Both wings, sir; a rope net has been fastened. He won’t be able to do any flapping, so that should set and heal in the next… well, I don’t know how long for sure, ‘cause I’ve never done this on a creature so big before.”

“And that pit will hold him?”

“Beasty’s never been stuck in a pit he couldn’t get out of, I’m sure, but he can’t fly now can he? Still, I posted Heath on guard of him to be safe. Better to take precautions.”

Xavier nodded approval of the report and gestured for Ferran to take his leave. He lay back down and closed his eyes at an encroaching headache. He could hear Gojzia falling in step behind Ferran and sat up quickly. “Gojz, wait. Would you wake me when the girl is conscious?”

“Of course. I’ll be wanting to witness the reunion,” she replied as she stepped backwards out the door and shut it softly.

~~*~~

Ilara felt the weight of her eyelids as they struggled open. She strained to blink until her vision cleared and she took in her surroundings—a small room lit by the light of the afternoon filtered through threadbare curtains over the window and covering the otherwise naked doorframe. She was on something soft and low to the packed-dirt floor. The cool damp of her dreams seemed to remain, which she soon realized was due to a moist cloth resting on her brow. The weathered face of a woman, black-haired, with dark eyes intense but softened around the edges stared down at her with questioning kindness.

“I am Gojzia,” she said, and her voice was rough yet gentle, as if worn from years of yelling but tempered by equal years of whispering to sleeping babes. It was the voice of a warrior; mother; angel. Whether she knew it yet or not, Ilara liked this voice. “How do you feel?”

Ilara closed her eyes briefly, trying to find the vision of mist and phantom but failing to grasp even a remnant. She opened her eyes again and tried to adjust to this reality, finding it almost as far from grasp as her dream.

“Child, can you speak?” the woman asked, removing the wet cloth to soak it again in fresh water and replace it on Ilara’s brow.

“Where am I?” she asked, comforted to hear Gojzia’s voice just speaking, lulling her out of the world of fog.

Gojzia smiled. “You are in my home. You are safe. Tell me how your head feels and I’ll try to answer any other questions you may have.”

Ilara just wanted to listen. She paused until she realized she had to find an answer. “It hurts… but the cloth is nice. Thank you.”

“Can you sit up for me?” Gojzia asked, as her hands gently supported Ilara’s back. Ilara acquiesced. “How does your head feel now?”

Ilara closed her eyes and put a hand on her temple as it throbbed anew. The pain slowly subsided and she opened her eyes again to answer. “I am fine. A little dizzy. It’s nothing.”

“You took a heavy blow. You were knocked unconscious for several hours. Can you remember what happened right before you passed out?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me?”

Ilara just stared at the woman. She knew what had happened. She had shot the man called Sa’Celim. She had seen that look on his face… that uncanny look she wished she didn’t remember. And then there had been a span of darkness before the dream. She looked past Gojzia at the curtain blowing softly with the breeze in the doorframe, wafts of dust moving in swells beneath it over the floor like dry waves over a dirt sea. It was calming, like Gojzia’s voice. But it was not enough. “I need not tell you,” she finally replied. “I know I remember, and that is enough.” She surprised even herself with her curt answer.

“I only ask so I can treat you. I am a healer.”

Ilara did not respond but looked up at the woman with unfathomable eyes. They shifted and glimmered with unknown depths.

“Alright. I’ll go get Xavier and we can figure all of this out together.”

“Who is Xavier?” Ilara was unnerved by the name without knowing why.

“Perhaps you have forgotten more than you realize. Do not worry, we wish you no harm. Xavier will explain much and put you at ease.” Gojzia stood and passed under the thin curtain at the door.

She was gone only long enough for Ilara to realize her head throbbed too fiercely for her to stand up, and she lay back down resignedly. She had only closed her eyes for a moment when she heard the rustling of cloth and the sliding of feet over the dirt floor. When she opened her eyes and took in the tall, dark form of the man she had recently made her adversary, her heart leapt and she went with it, rising from the bed with no regard for the pain it renewed in her skull. Her knife had been removed, which she realized too late as she reached for the vacant space for it at the back of her boot.

“Lie down! What are you doing? Lie down!” Gojzia was saying, getting between her and Sa’Celim and helping her unstable self back into the bed.

“What have you done with Anthem?” Ilara asked, looking through fiery eyes up at Sa’Celim, who stood rigid at the foot of her bed. She no longer noticed Gojzia’s presence, nor what the woman was doing.

“My men have tended to your beast. He will heal. And the wound you inflicted on my leg will heal as well, which should come as a relief to you, I am sure,” said Xavier resentfully.

“I hope it festers,” she replied, keeping her gaze firmly on him.

“Who are you?” he asked, ignoring her insult.

“Maybe I don’t remember,” she replied, the sarcasm in her voice increasing with each slowly spoken word.

“Fine. You can have your anonymity—for now. I am Xavier Sa’Celim, guardian of this village. What were you doing so near this place, and with such a creature?”

Xavier; it was his first name and she had not been quick enough to realize it. The thunderstorm taking place under her skull should have been excuse enough to lag in mental acuity, but she was silently chiding herself all the same. It just bolstered her attitude of contrary stubbornness. “I don’t have to give my reasons to anyone,” she said.

Gojzia stared between the two of them, waiting. Silence had descended and it did not appear that anyone would break it. “Xavier, what are you going to do?” Gojzia finally asked, seeing the wall the two had been erecting with their eyes to keep the other at a distance.

It took Xavier a few moments to respond. Ilara refused to release his eyes while he stood silent watching her. He was like a dark statue looming over her, oppressive in quiet judgment, and she would stare through him until she felt no more of his power.

“She can stay here until she is well, but she is to stay in this room,” he instructed Gojzia without giving her his glance. “I’ll post a guard. When she wants to leave, summon me. Without my permission she is not to go anywhere.”

“So I am a prisoner?” Ilara asked.

“Until you choose to be otherwise,” Xavier responded.

A slow and faint constriction in her chest had begun when Xavier had entered the room. Now it had increased and her breathing was regulated by mere will. She was a prisoner, and no matter what this man said or would say, she could not remain here free. He was not to be trusted. To stay here would be to subject herself under another Duard. The only choice she could foresee making was further confirmed for her; with or without his permission, she would leave. The only thing keeping her there was that she could not abandon her beast, but when he could travel, she would do whatever it took to take him with her and never return.

“Where is Anthem? Will he be freed when he has recovered?” she asked. She found it more difficult now to hold his eyes and await a response. They were unwavering as he replied, “I will do what is best for my village and the other two I protect. You may have some sway over the matter; that is up to you. I will not set loose a threat to these villages. So then, rest. And choose well your place here.” With that he turned to say something to Gojzia too quietly for Ilara to hear, and left the small dwelling.

Ilara watched the curtain over the door flutter in his wake and settle again as quiet settled within the hut. Gojzia’s gentle face sent sympathy to Ilara. “Do yourself a favor, child, and trust him,” she said, her tone and expression belying calm assurance. But the advice was not received. It was well meant—Ilara could perceive as much in the older woman’s face—but she could not heed it.

~~*~~

Xavier walked out of Gojzia’s dwelling as mystified by the pale creature within as when she had first attacked him. He wondered how he could keep her here without endangering the village. She was uncontrollable, uncooperative, and as volatile as a mother bear whose cub has been killed before her eyes. It was as if she was without reason. And those eyes… But he pushed that thought away. She was an anomaly of humankind. He’d never encountered such a woman.

A subtle pang of conscience edged at his mind as he thought about her. He was walking quickly—more quickly than his wounded leg could stand without protest, each painful, limping step lending to the memory of the incident. She had attacked him. She deserved to be a captive. Yet that was somehow rankling to Xavier’s sensibilities. She was alone, his heart whispered. She was afraid for her life and the life of the creature she loves. Why should her act of protection be taken against her? If one of his fellow villagers had been attacked in the woods, he would have done as much to protect them. Still, this was different, he told himself. She was a stranger and her intentions or reasons for being in the woods in the first place could not be assumed. He would be naive to bestow trust to such as she so easily, especially under the current circumstances of his people. They were in refuge, struggling to form into a body strong and united.

They had to survive.

Xavier stopped where he stood and looked over the town square. People he knew and cared for were busy with their daily lives; daily toil; rest; love. Fellowship was deep here. It was core and it was prized. Every soul was well acquainted with the next. For Xavier perhaps more than anyone, these people were his family in every reality but the flow of blood. The elders were his parents. The soldiers were his brothers and the women his sisters. The few children kept within the gates of this village were as precious to him as his own life, and he felt that every time one caught his eye. He knew them each well: Yara, Dan’yal, Jeym, and little Hajz. These were the only children in Caelta, the least fortified of the triune villages—the one that was open to the plains that led east to Luria, and to the forces there that every villager feared.

Yara passed as Xavier stood in thought, the young girl shooting him the smile that melted his heart every time. And there it was again: his conscience. Yara disappeared and the stranger invaded her place in his mind. Who was this girl whom he kept prisoner, with eyes like the moors and skin like the snow? Who was this wild beast contained in the frame of a girl? She was someone’s daughter, perhaps someone’s sister, like Yara. He wondered what a smile from her might look like. He couldn’t keep her here as a prisoner. If he treated her as an enemy, that is what she would surely become.

A sigh of resignation escaped his lungs as he realized he would have to show the girl more grace than he had before. Give me your perspective, Deus, he prayed silently as he began to turn back to Gojzia’s dwelling to speak to the girl.

He had not made it ten paces when Gyan Ramoth, elder of Caelta, appeared to his right from inside his dwelling. Approaching slowly, the elder’s face made clear his wish to address Xavier. It was a heavy look the older man wore on his face, which was not typical for the leader of the village. He was obviously not coming for a casual chat.

Stopping mid-stride, Xavier turned and bowed in respect to the elder’s authority and watched him make the last few steps between them. “Master Ramoth, what can I do for you?” he asked and could not help taking a quick glance in the direction of Gojzia’s hut.

“I was told about your injury. You seem to be managing,” said Ramoth.

“It is merely an annoyance, sir,” Xavier replied, shifting his injured leg as he said it.

“And your other annoyance, commander—you’ve taken your attacker captive?”

“I felt it necessary to spare her. She and the leoptera I was hunting seem to have a bond of some kind. The beast has been tended to and secured for safety, and the girl has been seen to by Gojzia.”

“So the rumor is true,” replied Ramoth. “A woman attacked you… very strange. Corillion does not employ women, as far as we know.”

“No sir. She can’t be one of his.” He was surprised by his words, even as he said them. They were aligned in every respect with what he now knew he truly believed. “At this point I suspect she is more likely a vagabond or escaped slave than a mercenary. I believe her attack was an act of protection for the leoptera, but no other motives are clear. Still, that does not answer for why she was on Mt. Renscha in the first place. She is no Lurian refugee.” The elder nodded deferentially as he listened, appearing to think over the matter. “I was on my way to speak with her,” Xavier continued. “I believe her hostility will not be renewed if I can show her that the beast will not be harmed and that she is safe here.”

“What are you going to do with the beast?” asked Ramoth in a rote, protocol manner and tone. He was not addressing what was behind his eyes.

“For now, we will contain him and feed him. Until he can fly again, there is no danger in keeping him captive. Perhaps the girl will show me how to tame him. I did not think it possible, but as I said, I have much to discuss with her.” Xavier respectfully finished his account, impatient beneath his calm for the real matter at hand.

“A mysterious personage, I am sure. I wish to speak with her myself, but that is for another time,” said Ramoth. “An emergency council has been called. You are summoned. We assemble as soon as possible.”

“With Reirq and Sheia?” Xavier had been waiting for this summons.

“Indeed.” They started walking together toward the gathering hall in Caelta’s circle of buildings. Xavier glanced briefly behind him toward Gojzia’s dwelling, wondering how long he would have to wait to speak with the girl. “The three villages must be united now more than ever,” the elder continued. “I hope you’re ready for the position you may be required to take.” Ramoth held open the heavy wood door of the gathering hall as Xavier stepped under its shadow.

“My readiness will be supplied according to need,” Xavier replied. “Deus will ready me as He sees fit.”

Ramoth’s heavy glance eased momentarily and he smiled at the younger man in quiet acknowledgement. But the worry crept back into his eyes to reveal the doubt he was not giving a voice.

Xavier turned to survey the room and suddenly felt the weight of more than Ramoth’s tension alone. All the elders from the three villages were present, and each wore a face as grim as a plague.

Chapter 5: Confrontation

As the hours before dawn passed in wait of Anthem’s return, Ilara's pulse progressed ever faster. The rushing beat of her heart seemed a reflection of the passing time there in the stillness beneath the summer moon. She felt utterly alone. The void was closing in around her until new fears of the darkness began to play against her normal fondness for the night. Had Anthem left her? Would he return? Had he gone so far away as to not hear her call?

She could wait no longer; Ilara started a fire and by its light searched the clearing for tracks or any signs of where Anthem could have gone. Near Anthem's resting place, claw marks had dug into the earth around two hind-foot prints, suggesting a take off, but this did not tell her much, other than the fact that he had flown, which was to be expected from the winged beast. He was created for the sky. She climbed a tree and near the top scoped the horizon in every direction. Nothing met her vision but the darkened frames of the treetops.

Climbing down again, her mind cleared of fear as she readied herself for action. She grabbed her bow and made sure her boot securely held her sharpest knife, sheathed in its familiar, easily accessed place behind her calf. She threw sand on her fire and checked her back to ensure the quiver was still in place before she bolted in a random direction into the woods.

Failing to detect a sound set apart from the subtle noises of the pre-dawn forest, she retraced her steps, planning to choose another course as soon as she reached the clearing. Like the spokes of a wheel extending from the center, she would comb the forest around the clearing, hoping Anthem would be found while the clearing remained the point of reference.

The darkness soon dissolved in the immerging dawn and the faintness of morning began to expose the secrets of night as Ilara neared her campsite for the third time. Before she had reentered the clearing, she saw faint movement ahead, behind the trees. She crouched out of instinct and peered through her hiding place toward the source of movement, straining to make out the living shadow.

A pain-seared roar pierced the air just before she saw her Anthem crash through the trees on the opposite side of the clearing, his right wing hanging limp at his side. With his left wing he steadied himself as he backed away from a spearhead and a shadow.

“Anthem!” Ilara whispered, barely stilling herself as her first reaction had been to leap into the clearing and take on the form that was immerging against her beast. Instead she crept slowly forward among the low brush, trying to make out the shape of Anthem’s adversary.

As she approached the plants that edged along the clearing, she saw that Anthem’s opponent was a tall man with dark features. If some fool thinks to end my beast, I’ll have to end him myself, she had almost spoken aloud.

Before she attacked, she quickly weighed the situation. What little her brothers had taught her of hunting and fighting had been rudimentary, but after years of solitary practice with wild and hostile creatures she was now a master at assessing an opponent’s threat to herself and how much force was needed to defeat them. Yet she had never seriously fought against another human being—never with the intent to harm. Could she bring herself to do so now… to perhaps kill a man? It was slightly unnerving that she could find no immediate reasons not to. But she hadn’t time to philosophize or moralize; she would use as much force as necessary to preserve her only friend. Passing time and the dark hunter were equally against her purpose. She had to act. She reached for her knife and leapt into the lower branches of a tree.

Anthem and the hunter were each rapt in the moment, intent on taking down the other. Neither noticed Ilara as she positioned herself to descend into their midst. When the man was directly beneath Ilara’s perch, his arm held up, spear poised and ready to pierce Anthem’s heart, she leapt. Gracefully accurate, her feet struck the man in the back so that he was knocked off balance and his spear fell from his grasp. He was pinned; Ilara kept one foot on his back and the other against his cheek, pressing his face down into the dirt.

Keeping him down, Ilara turned away to see Anthem collapse to her right. He had either lost a lot of blood or he was too wounded to hold himself up. This evoked a silent, blazing fury within her and Ilara breathed not a word but pressed her foot firmly into the man’s cheek, holding the keen edge of her blade against his throat.

Shafts of light cut through the trees in front of her to the east—dawn’s blinding brilliance in her eyes. It was enough so that she was not able to see as the man beneath her grasped the spear he had dropped and with it struck her ankle, stealing her balance and knocking her off his back.

As if they were both trained in the arts of the predatory beasts, each was back on their feet in an instant. Now his spear was aimed at her, the two of them circling each other. Ilara finally caught sight of her opponent’s face. Startling recognition came with the morning and her anger blended with an unbidden fear. The result was only to make her wrath fiercer, though frozen beneath the surface. The man stared back, making no move but holding his stance of readiness.

~~*~~

Xavier stood still for a moment, surprised by the soft features he had not expected to find on his attacker. Despite all his combat experience, he had never had to face a woman in a fight. The proper response to this attack was hard to assess—his surprise kept him from being able to draw any conclusions to act on. One moment he had been just about to complete the kill of a bigger leoptera than any the records of renown had yet to boast, the next he was assured that kill was lost, and the cause was the unprecedented appearance of some unearthly woman-creature.

For a moment he just stood there with his spear and watched the girl’s murky grey-green eyes burn into his own. The sun cast low beams of light to illuminate her from the back as the wind tossed loose strands of raven hair that seemed to burn crimson as it caught the light. She was slender and taller than most of the women in Caelta, Reirq, or Sheia, and whiter than anyone he’d ever seen. Her tunic, jerkin, leggings, and boots were such as he’d never seen on a woman, but they seemed to suit her hostility. All that adorned her was masculine, but it was only a thin veil over an uncontainable beauty, and he was taken aback despite himself.

If he had realized immediately that his attacker was female, he wouldn’t have knocked her off his back. Now his chivalry would be a barrier to any violent means of defending himself. But even if it weren’t for this barrier, he would have been stalled merely by the intensity in the girl’s wild eyes.

He was slightly encouraged that the girl was as inhibited to follow through with the fight as he was. “Who are you?” He asked, finding his voice awkward and small to his hearing. Her eyes slightly flickered but she made no reply. Her left brow, delicate beneath an old scar, crinkled just barely. Like a deer caught unaware, she seemed mesmerized; her energy seemed pent-up below the surface, like she would bolt at the slightest provocation.

“Just put down your knife and…” he was cut-off as she jerked out of her trance, rushed at him, and pinned him between a tree and her knife.

Her eyes made clear her refusal to cooperate even before her lips parted. “You’ve no right to attack my beast,” she spat through the loose strands of hair that had fallen from her dark braid

Xavier glanced over at the fallen leoptera with curious eyes. “How is it that you call him your beast? Leoptera take no masters, nor can they be tamed.” He waited for a retort, but receiving none continued. “They are vicious killers. Can you take offense that I seek to rid my people of such a threat?”

She answered him not a word but pressed the flat of the blade more firmly into his neck.

“I answered your question; I was doing my duty. I couldn’t have known anyone cared for a bloodthirsty animal,” he said.

Clear offense was taken at the derogatory remark directed at the leoptera. The girl did not move, or even blink, but that conveyed enough. Xavier saw that she truly valued the life of the dark beast, so she would eventually have to tend to its wounds, leaving Xavier under her power to show mercy or malice. He didn’t put much faith in the former.

He could maneuver himself fairly easily and get hold of her wrist, but a stalemate was the only foreseeable result; the girl was not strong but she seemed to make up for it with skill. Besides, he could not bring himself to use force against a woman. “Look, if you release me and promise not to kill me, I’ll see to your leoptera’s wounds and let you both go,” he offered, the only alternative he could see to submission or brutality.

~~*~~

Studying the face of Sa’Celim, Ilara felt weighted on all ends. She was in control and she was not about to let him take that away under the pretense of a bargain. Half of her wanted to simply slit his throat—the part that frightened her, which she pushed back down even as it immerged. The other part was wary of his offer; it would probably mean going to his village. Why was that so hard for her to accept? She did not know, but she still clung to her aversion. Even so, she was distraught by the fear of what the consequences might be for Anthem if she did not accept help.

Sa’Celim’s brown eyes were meeting hers in the growing light, as if daring her to look away and submit. “What skill do you have to heal?” she finally asked, keeping her blade as firmly pressed against his neck as before and cloaking her misgivings beneath a harsh tone. She was unsure why she was pursuing this option at all, other than her fear that she could not minister to her beast alone and save him.

“I have dealt with wounds for the past ten years. I have seen pain like you’ve never known. I’ve dealt it, and I’ve mended it; if you care at all for the creature, you’ll let me go,” he finished.

Ilara hesitated. He knows nothing of my pain.

Having once more made no reply, the man must have assumed she was bent on violence, for he twisted out of her grasp and pinned her knife-wielding wrist into the tree and her other arm over her head. He met her eyes again, this time from above, looming with a new light behind his eyes.

Ilara was kicking herself for her weakness. She could have killed him while he was under her power, but she had not had the will. Later she would reflect that it was better her hands were not stained with unnecessary blood, but the value of a life was as yet unclear to her.

His look softened as he twisted the knife out of her hand. Stepping away, he turned his back on her and went to Anthem’s fallen form. It was not more than a moment before Ilara had notched an arrow at her bow and set her aim at Sa’Celim’s back.

“Are we still at that? Have you not yet accepted a truce?” the man called from his crouched position at the side of the beast, only briefly looking back at her.

The sight of Anthem lying in a pool of his own blood was enough to sharpen the edge of disdain Ilara clung to. “You took my knife, but you’ll regret leaving me my bow,” she replied simply, though the notion of actually killing him seemed unnecessary now. Still, she had to prevent him from any kind of double-cross, even if it required injuring him.

At this the hunter stood and turned to her once more, his full height and breadth lending to his response. “Are you really going to put an arrow in me? Do you really want to carry this to an ordeal where nobody wins? I see a leoptera with serious wounds and a girl who seems to care if he lives or dies. If you really want him to live, you’ll have to trust me. Afterwards, by all means, you can go on your way.”

Ilara held her arrow steady at her bow for a few moments more, not putting it down until Sa’Celim had turned back to attending Anthem. For some reason he was helping Anthem even without her cooperation. She had not promised him anything and indeed no bargain was struck, therefore she assumed there was something more he wanted. Of course he would never say so—that would be foolish—but this was almost certainly regarded by Ilara as mere leverage for Sa’Celim’s own unnamed benefit.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Examining his wounds,” he replied.

“What have you done to his wing?”

“I…” he began but altered his response, “It’s broken. I’ll have to sew it down and bind it. And I’ll need water and a lot of cloth to tend his wounds. But I don’t think any of that can be done here without my equipment and some of my men. I must get help in the village, or this beast will die.”

“I can get water from the stream and you can use my other tunic for binding,” she offered, a dread creeping up under her skin at the idea of more men being added to the scenario.

“No, it won’t be enough. The leoptera will die if we don’t stop his bleeding, and your tunic will not do much. Can you stay here and cover this wound while I retrieve my men?”

Ilara stared back at him, her raw repulsion as clear as the morning air. Something was unconcealed behind her eyes, which might have been fear, but as she responded her voice resonated with only anger. “You’ll leave him here to die… you’ll leave me alone to watch it happen… or you’ll bring others and get what you want by force.” She shifted her eyes for a moment and then lifted her bow once more, fitting the arrow with smooth resolve. Her choices were spent.

Even as her arrow was steadied, Sa’Celim had risen and was backing away with a perception of the new malice in Ilara’s intentions. “Wait, I’m not…” he began but could not finish. The feathers at the back of the shaft slipped between Ilara’s fingers as the arrow took flight and hit its mark in Sa’Celim’s thigh, silencing him in shock. He staggered backward, his hands around the bloodied arrow and his eyes wide in some emotion she could not recognize. She knew even as she looked at him that she had seen the look before; on the face of Taerith, and Aiden, and long ago, her father; disappointment. That was the cause for the look in their cases; disappointment tinged in their love for her. This look could be nothing of the sort, yet it was unmistakably like the other looks… those looks she’d now give her very freedom to witness again.

Such were the thoughts that coursed through her in the mere seconds after the impact of her arrow, and such were the thoughts that were blackened just as quickly as a hard object struck the back of her head and she slipped into unconscious oblivion.

***This chapter has been revised. I am reposting it because the end of the chapter was not as I needed it to be in order to progress in the story. The changes aren't huge; I merely re-wrote a few paragraphs near the end. Doing so has freed my brain to work on the next chapter! So, expect Chapter 5 sometime in the near-future. In the mean-time, if you want to re-read just the last 1/3 of this chapter, I'd appreciate any comments.

<3libby

Chapter 4: Strangers

Having slept from dawn through the heat of day, Ilara awoke several hours before sunset, fully rested and awake. The brief thought of Sam's medicine and its effectiveness entered her thoughts as she stretched and felt no pain, even on her left side. She smiled and pushed away from Anthem, who yawned and rolled over, not willing to arise for his usual nocturnal activity before the fall of dusk.

After a quick breakfast of cooked millet and Drakoberries—sweet and spicy red berries common to mountainsides—Ilara followed her ears to a brook, where she washed herself and her dirty set of clothes and put on her clean set. The water was cold and clear and tasted sweet. It made her dark hair shine and her white fingers whiter. When she had finished hanging her wet clothes, but before donning her dry leggings, she sat on the edge of the brook and let her feet soak in the frigid stream. All the while she stretched her toes between the flowing water she went deeper and deeper into introspection.

What am I doing out here? She wondered and the wind seemed to answer back by lifting and whipping her face with the long wet tendrils of her hair. If Taerith were here I would seek his council . . . but he's not.

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she looked up briefly as if in hopes of seeing Elsu again, but she knew it would be weeks if not months before she received the first reply. What she saw instead was interesting, but not wholly unexpected; lapping streams of smoke rising faintly over the tree tops higher up the mountain. People.

Her feet suddenly realized their state and begged to be warmed, tingling as she pulled them out of the water and pulled on her leggings, losing most pensiveness as she went back to practical activities as she analyzed the smoke sighting.

Her boots were soft and comforting to her shocked feet, and she walked in them in a circle for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. Biting her lip and standing in a position between the way back to the sleeping lion and the wild cliffs of the mountain, Ilara briefly weighed an impulse that had made itself present to her, and which she soon decided she could not deny. Her quiver was full and she had her bow should any danger come upon her.

She would seek the source of the smoke.

An hour's climb led her to a path leading north and east along the upward slope. She took it without hesitation, keen on her surroundings in the early evening light. It was of a brightness she was still unaccustomed to since her months of night-dwelling, now that the days had grown long with the sun's extended presence. The orange glow the trees and rocks took on was fascinating and wonderful. As she passed such luminescent objects, her hands were compelled to brush them to glean some of their magic. Each time she did, the phantom light seemed diffused by her touch, yet she could not stay her hands.

The mountainside smelled sweet with a mixture of crumbling rock and rain and the persistent pines and aspens scattered about. Ilara was immersed in it; so much so, that she nearly followed the trail all the way to the village gate to which it led, forgetting her reasons for taking this path in the first place. If it had not been for the gate attendant's whistling, Ilara would have found herself confusedly in his midst. And if there was one thing she wished always to avoid, it was being caught unaware by another human being.

The human being in question was whistling a strange tune, and very loudly, as if he wished he was a songbird. The sound was so very unlike the gentle song of a bird that it was unmistakably picked out of the other forest sounds by the now sobered and cautious Ilara. Immediately on hearing it, she fell back a few steps and to her left along the wall of the rock face that hugged the path. She was obscured from whatever it was pealing shrill notes into the air with wanton vivacity, and he was equally obscured to her. Slowly, she stepped a little forward, her back tight against the rock face, until she could see through the trees around a curve in the path the pacing, booted feet of a man.

Her hesitance to approach was as well known to her as her own breath, but the reasons why were difficult for her to rationalize as she stood there ambivalently. Stepping back again, Ilara made certain she was not in view of the whistling man and started a smooth, slow descent down the side of the raised trail. The loose earth beneath her feet was difficult not to disturb loudly as she walked, and she quickly improvised her trail by using the trees. It was for her as easy a passage from tree to tree, and silent as the squirrels she learned the maneuver from, as it was to walk below and keep silent. Innately tree-drawn, Ilara moved with ease and her nerves calmed as she came closer to the village while staying hidden in foliage.

When she was at last as close to the man as she could confidently come, she found herself in the uppermost branches of an oak, which provided a view beyond the gate the man guarded to the small village behind it. The gate attendant kept on with his mirth-filled tune and Ilara surveyed what she could while certain he did not sense her.

It was a town made up of about forty small wooden structures presumably for housing, considering the gardens adjacent to most, and the children scurrying in and out of them. Most had rudimentary chimneys with gentle, steady smoke rising through them. A natural spring ran from the cliffs above, through the center of the village, curving near the gate to pour gently down the mantle's edge. There was a simple bridge over its center in relation to the town. It was such a small stream it seemed the bridge was only necessary during the spring months when the waters would presumably swell.

Two larger structures stood at the back of the village, one on each side of the stream. Each was against the ascending mountain slope and facing the other buildings as if addressing a crowd that had formed a sort of circle around its leaders. Ilara saw that one of these buildings was a place of worship; a church or monastery of some sort as evidenced by the carved door depicting an intricate cross. The other building she could not account for.

The whole village was situated in such a way that it was nestled in a place of safety, a place one could equate with the location of an eagle's nest. Its gate connected to a wooden fence that extended to the rock face to its left and the cliff-like slope to its right and around the village, hemming the town into its protective arms. The mantle the buildings were built upon on this side of the mountain was a great height above the lower slopes, yet not so high as to make living here impossible. It was positioned in just such a way as to give the impression of impenetrable security, without the idea that it was impossible to access. And for such a precocious position, it was surprisingly large enough to accommodate a growing community.

Despite the natural aversion she felt toward society in general, Ilara wondered how these villagers had come to settle here. Keeping her attention captive on one person at a time going about their business, she slowly began to weigh her inclinations toward self-preservation as more weighty than her strange interest in the scene. About to return to Anthem, her curiosity was all but slaked when she heard a voice join the whistler below her and her attention was thus directed.

"Good evening, Laith," said the stranger.

"Good evening. I hope your appointment has gone well, Master Sa'Celim?"

"I believe so. Anything to report?"

"No sir, all is well."

"Glad to hear it. Carry on. I'll come to take my post before the end of supper," the stranger said, patting the whistler on the shoulder. He turned to go through the gate but stopped short and turned his head back, holding it there as if listening.

Ilara watched nervously from her perch as the man called Sa'Celim lingered at the gate and looked around and up at the trees. Hugging closely the trunk as much as possible, Ilara waited until the serious face of the man disappeared behind the wooden gate.

~~*~~

Seven days without solitude worked disturbing influence over Xavier Sa'Celim. His men were still in training, and in the state they were in, Xavier's fervent attention was necessary to their improvement. Each day he awoke before dawn and delegated to them as much of his work as would be to their benefit in training and so that he could maintain his foremost duties as Caelta's guardian. He would return in the late afternoon from hunts and trap-setting and conduct grueling—but not cruel—training procedures well past the setting sun.

The past week he had spent another major portion of everyday meeting with the leaders of the triune villages on Mount Renscha's three-sided eastern shelf: Caelta, Reirq, and Sheia. He awaited their decision on a matter that would most likely result in further extensions of his time and efforts, and less likelihood to find solitude from time to time for his own sanity.

Xavier was a quiet man in many regards, and if left alone the only expression he would ever make would be that of poetry or song. His needs for solitude stemmed not out of a desire for escape, but out of his need for introspection and meditation. Much depth and conflict dwelt within him that if ignored, would ultimately drive him insane. The immanence of the approaching breakdown always made itself clear to Xavier well in advance, and thus he had opportunity to evade disaster. In light of the possible promotion which was likely to be forced on him in the coming weeks, Xavier worried his needed time of solitude would become nonexistent.

When the watchmen for the second shift of the night came to relieve Xavier of duty at Caelta's gate, his body begged for sleep. Brushing off his fatigue, Xavier took this, perhaps the last opportunity he would have in weeks, to get away.

The wide cleft between two boulders sitting twenty feet below Mount Renscha's summit and overlooking his village had been Xavier's solitary place since he had come to Caelta some years ago. Taking out some vellum and his quill and ink out of his satchel, Xavier set them beside him on the rocky shelf and looked up at the stars. Their brilliance was not new to him, yet he delighted in them whenever a chance such as this was given him to really take them in. His thoughts were on the magnificence of Deus and his heart soon echoed his thoughts in reverent prayer.

Xavier believed in Deus, the one true God, and in Christus His son, who died and rose again that all men might live. Xavier had clung to this in his trials and lost sight of it in his successes; but he was always driven back by the quality he had been given to see his own failings and need. He confessed even then in his heart to his God, that he feared any more authority given to him in the villages would be too difficult for him to bear righteously. Pride was a threatening temptation he knew he succumbed to too often. He spent an hour in thought and prayer on the subject before a peace settled over him and he took up his pen.

As his writing most often took place at late hours of the night, Xavier often used an odd technique to make light to write by. He kept twigs and brush under a ledge of one of the great boulders on the cliff, thereby kept dry for the purpose of quick flame. Taking the fine fuel to his side, he would light small amounts at a time to burst into short-lived flame, writing one line of poetry per burst. It was a sort of check he had invented for himself so that nothing he wrote would be over-thought, but all from the first profusion of his heart.

It was nearing the death-hour of the night, as the people of the triune villages deemed the hour set exactly between midnight and dawn. It was called such because of the history of numerous deaths by leoptera attacks that had occurred at this time of night. At least two watchmen were always posted at this hour at each gate around the three villages, and all of them well armed and aided by torchlight.

Footfalls and panting entered Xavier's hearing as he read his completed poem over, having just finished and about to go down to his cottage in the village for a few scant hours of sleep. Recognizing the characteristically clumsy sound of Ferran when climbing, Xavier rolled up his parchment and put his satchel over his shoulder, standing casually to wait for his subordinate and friend.

"You're no use to me there," Ferran said with a grunt, his forehead barely showing over the ledge, "while I'm over here . . . trying to get up this cursed mountain." Xavier laughed and offered a hand to Ferran, who took it and allowed himself to be pulled the rest of the way up onto the cliff.

"Why did you follow me up if you hate the climb so much?" Xavier asked with a genial pat on his friend's back.

"Because I worry about you," he replied, catching his breath and dusting himself off. "Were you ever planning on getting some rest?"

"I am more rested now than I would have been in sleep. I know my limits as well as my responsibilities. You know that as well as I, so why did you really come?"

Ferran grinned. "If you hadn't noticed, it's death-hour, and I was mistakenly appointed as watchmen with Mehrk and Sean. They told me they could handle it and that I could go back to sleep, but while I was on my way, I sensed movement down the slope, on the southern cliffs. Can you guess what I saw?" Ferran finished with a bright smile that was clear even in the dark.

"I'm sure you'd rather I let you tell me."

"A dark, magnificent male leoptera, by himself. He was flying above the slope in just such a way as I could make him out with close observation. He was all shiny too. A real beauty. I'd love to go after him myself, but you know me and my . . . uh," he stammered.

"Your horrible lack of skill with an arrow, a spear, or any other projectile? Yes, all too well."

"Master Sa'Celim, if that beasty came right up to the gate on foot, I'd best him in an instant with Shreika here," he said, taking his thus-dubbed sword partially out of it's sheath, just enough to glint faintly in the starlight. "But my moment of glory has yet to arrive. So, are you going to go after him tonight or take the wiser path and get an hour or two of sleep before you begin again tomorrow?"

"What do you think I'll do? What would you do?"

"Is this a test?" Ferran asked, aware that in his position just under Xavier, he would take over as town guardian and militia leader if ever Xavier could not fulfill that duty.

"Just answer."

"Well, I think you're going to go after it tonight, forsaking all sleep because you do not even need it. You're a spirit, some of the men have said. I don't rightly know if they are wrong. But me, I am only human, so I would wait until tomorrow night and be prepared."

"Honest answer. Good. That's why I like you."

"And am I right?"

"Partly, you are. I am going to go after it tonight, yes, but I am not going to forsake sleep, for I am not wholly spirit—my flesh covers most of it. I am delegating the giving of assignments for morning duties to your shoulders. It will give you a chance to flex your leadership skills and me a chance to get a few hours of sleep. Besides, if I get this leoptera tonight, a male no less, it will more than account for skipping my morning announcements and hunt."

"Aye, sir."

"Good. Have you brought my spear?"

"Of course, right next to mine," Ferran replied, reaching for the second spear on the baldric on his back.

"Always prepared, Ferran. Remind me to keep you around."

"Naturally, sir."

Xavier, spear in hand, began the steep slide on his heels down the slope of the cliff down onto the wooded southeastern slope, bent at the knees with one hand feeling the passing rock face to his right for balance.

"Master Sa'Celim!" Ferran cried from the cliff before Xavier was halfway down.

Sliding to a stop by turning on the sides of is boots and grabbing a pine branch jutting out of the rock to his side, Xavier looked back up at his friend. "What is it?"

"How do I get down?"

Xavier laughed. "Figure it out! Think of it as a training exercise!" And with that he continued his slide, gravel loosening and falling with him. When he reached the bottom, he did not stop but ran carefully between trees and boulders down the steady slope and off toward the southern end of Mount Renscha. If he could find the male leoptera and take him down, the night would be a success. He said a quick prayer in his heart for wisdom and skill as he worked his way closer to where he hoped to find a trail, or better yet, the beast itself.

~~*~~

Since the one called Sa'Celim had shown himself, Ilara had found a strangely renewed curiosity for the village. She had stayed in the tree for over an hour simply observing the occupants of the town, especially curious about this Sa'Celim and what his status was here. She had watched him enter one of the small buildings briefly, coming out again and greeting his comrades as he went about many odd tasks.

His place here was difficult to decipher as she followed him with her eyes. He had gone from the large building she hadn't placed yet, seeming to issue orders to a dozen young men as they came out again, and then to one of the smallest houses to fix a door for an elderly woman who smiled and doted on him as he did. Next he had shoed a horse, followed by walking and talking with an older man who seemed dignified and to whom Sa'Celim seemed to be subordinate. He had bowed to the man after their meeting and went on to yet another task. Perhaps Sa'Celim was a teacher or a lesser leader.

As he went from one occupation to the next, Ilara found need to move from tree to tree to keep sight of him. She spent five hours doing so, watching him with earnest interest she could not account for. After he had sat around a fire eating with several others, he had taken up the post of the whistler at the gate and Ilara had cautiously made her way back to her former perch above him.

She watched him less and less avidly as her stomach started to make its needs known and she realized how long she had left Anthem back at camp. She was about to leave when two men approached Sa'Celim to take his place. They lit an extra torch and stood at attention before Sa'Celim as he was about to leave.

"Anything we should know, sir?" one asked.

"As it happens, yes. The night is as dark as the day was bright. If either of you is caught sleeping or inattentively guarding, I'll give the order myself to have you sent back to Luria," He said with a brusque tone. "This is a serious task, and I want to trust that my men take it as such. Understood?"

"Yes, Master Sa'Celim."

"I bid you a quiet watch," their master finished and turned curtly away.

As the one she had been watching with interest for hours passed under the shadows of the village walls, Ilara turned her mind to her own situation. She felt a certain amount of self-reproach in light of the fact that she had been spying on strangers for the better part of her waking hours, too afraid to act on her fascination. The thing she now wondered most was what made it so necessary for this village to be constantly guarded. She assumed she would never get the answer, because she was certain she could not enter the gates and make herself known.

For some reason, the man called Sa’Celim was the barrier she felt most unable to cross. He seemed to bar her from even entertaining the idea of entering the village, no matter how intriguing it was to her. Despite the interest she could not account for, something about Sa’Celim sat ill with her. When she had first seen him—the way he looked at his companions—it was as though his look could cut through to one’s very bones, exposing them to the harshest of scrutiny. Not understanding or accounting for her feelings of vulnerability, she willed herself to leave and put it out of her mind. She looked briefly over the village once more as if to bid it goodbye, and turned to find her way back to Anthem.

As she climbed from branch to branch on the arbor path back to camp, she realized she might not be able to ever be among humans again, at least not as one of them. She could not even attempt to approach these people to sell a river dragon; that seemed a vain endeavor now anyway. Who could buy such an extravagance and vanity, even if they believed she could catch one?

The name 'Luria' came back to her as she went along, the place which Sa'Celim had threatened to send his men. Ilara wondered if this was a large place, a city or kingdom perhaps. The idea of a mass of people still frightened her, but if it was large enough, she could go there fairly inconspicuously, as opposed to if she made herself known to this tiny village.

Perhaps hope still remained that she could find occupation and provision for herself somehow, even if it was simply by hunting and selling her catches to provide shelter for the long winter months. Or perhaps, if this 'Luria' was really a large city, her ambitions to get the bounty for a river dragon could still be pursued.

Possibilities were extensive, and she would try to be brave and not shut herself off entirely to anything before giving it a chance, though the prospect of having to deal with people was a barrier she perceived as impenetrable. The prospect was enough to rub her nerves raw, but she was not even off the mountain yet, so worry would have to be set aside. For now she was decided on only two things: she would leave this mountain with Anthem as soon as was possible and she would try to find this 'Luria.' The rest—whether she would enter that or any city or remain a reclusive vagabond—would have to come later. She could not wander forever; she had to do something. She would face that realty sooner or later, and something in her knew this well enough to force her to act.

Ilara had found her way back to the path when she knew she was far enough from the village not to be heard. She followed it through the dark until she came upon the stream she had bathed in several hours prior. She leapt it easily and was back at the camp within a few minutes, eager to get ready and take flight with her beast. Looking around the clearing, sitting cold and still amidst the rocks and trees, Ilara saw it was empty. The grass where Anthem had lain was trampled and there was an animal carcass beside it. So, one of us has eaten, she thought enviously.

Ilara whistled. Only silence returned to her. She lifted her voice and sang again the first song she had ever sung to him, sure it would draw him. She waited.

Anthem did not come.

Chapter 4: Strangers

Having slept from dawn through the heat of day, Ilara awoke several hours before sunset, fully rested and awake. The brief thought of Sam's medicine and its effectiveness entered her thoughts as she stretched and felt no pain, even on her left side. She smiled and pushed away from Anthem, who yawned and rolled over, not willing to arise for his usual nocturnal activity before the fall of dusk.

After a quick breakfast of cooked millet and Drakoberries—sweet and spicy red berries common to mountainsides—Ilara followed her ears to a brook, where she washed herself and her dirty set of clothes and put on her clean set. The water was cold and clear and tasted sweet. It made her dark hair shine and her white fingers whiter. When she had finished hanging her wet clothes, but before donning her dry leggings, she sat on the edge of the brook and let her feet soak in the frigid stream. All the while she stretched her toes between the flowing water she went deeper and deeper into introspection.

What am I doing out here? She wondered and the wind seemed to answer back by lifting and whipping her face with the long wet tendrils of her hair. If Taerith were here I would seek his council . . . but he's not.

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she looked up briefly as if in hopes of seeing Elsu again, but she knew it would be weeks if not months before she received the first reply. What she saw instead was interesting, but not wholly unexpected; lapping streams of smoke rising faintly over the tree tops higher up the mountain. People.

Her feet suddenly realized their state and begged to be warmed, tingling as she pulled them out of the water and pulled on her leggings, losing most pensiveness as she went back to practical activities as she analyzed the smoke sighting.

Her boots were soft and comforting to her shocked feet, and she walked in them in a circle for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. Biting her lip and standing in a position between the way back to the sleeping lion and the wild cliffs of the mountain, Ilara briefly weighed an impulse that had made itself present to her, and which she soon decided she could not deny. Her quiver was full and she had her bow should any danger come upon her.

She would seek the source of the smoke.

An hour's climb led her to a path leading north and east along the upward slope. She took it without hesitation, keen on her surroundings in the early evening light. It was of a brightness she was still unaccustomed to since her months of night-dwelling, now that the days had grown long with the sun's extended presence. The orange glow the trees and rocks took on was fascinating and wonderful. As she passed such luminescent objects, her hands were compelled to brush them to glean some of their magic. Each time she did, the phantom light seemed diffused by her touch, yet she could not stay her hands.

The mountainside smelled sweet with a mixture of crumbling rock and rain and the persistent pines and aspens scattered about. Ilara was immersed in it; so much so, that she nearly followed the trail all the way to the village gate to which it led, forgetting her reasons for taking this path in the first place. If it had not been for the gate attendant's whistling, Ilara would have found herself confusedly in his midst. And if there was one thing she wished always to avoid, it was being caught unaware by another human being.

The human being in question was whistling a strange tune, and very loudly, as if he wished he was a songbird. The sound was so very unlike the gentle song of a bird that it was unmistakably picked out of the other forest sounds by the now sobered and cautious Ilara.

Immediately on hearing it, she fell back a few steps and to her left along the wall of the rock face that hugged the path. She was obscured from whatever it was pealing shrill notes into the air with wanton vivacity, and he was equally obscured to her. Slowly, she stepped a little forward, her back tight against the rock face, until she could see through the trees around a curve in the path the pacing, booted feet of a man.

Her hesitance to approach was as well known to her as her own breath, but the reasons why were difficult for her to rationalize as she stood there ambivalently. Stepping back again, Ilara made certain she was not in view of the whistling man, and started a smooth, slow descent down the side of the raised trail. The loose earth beneath her feet was difficult not to disturb loudly as she walked, and she quickly improvised her trail by using the trees. It was for her as easy a passage from tree to tree, and silent as the squirrels she learned the maneuver from, as it was to walk below and keep silent. Innately tree-drawn, Ilara moved with ease and her nerves calmed as she came closer to the village while staying hidden in foliage.

When she was at last as close to the man as she could confidently come, she found herself in the uppermost branches of an oak, which provided a view beyond the gate the man guarded to the small village behind it. The gate attendant kept on with his mirth-filled tune and Ilara surveyed what she could while certain he did not sense her.

It was a town made up of about forty small wooden structures presumably for housing, considering the gardens adjacent to most, and the children scurrying in and out of them. Most had rudimentary chimneys with gentle, steady smoke rising through them. A natural spring ran from the cliffs above, through the center of the village, curving near the gate to pour gently down the mantle's edge. There was a simple bridge over its center in relation to the town. It was such a small stream it seemed the bridge was only necessary during the spring months when the waters would presumably swell.

Two larger structures stood at the back of the village, one on each side of the stream. Each was against the ascending mountain slope and facing the other buildings as if addressing a crowd that had formed a sort of circle around its leaders. Ilara saw that one of these buildings was a place of worship; a temple or church of some sort as evidenced by the carved door depicting an intricate cross. The other building she could not account for.

The whole village was situated in such a way that it was nestled in a place of safety, a place one could equate with the location of an eagle's nest. Its gate connected to a wooden fence that extended to the rock face to its left and the cliff-like slope to its right and around the village, hemming the town into its protective arms. The mantle the buildings were built upon on this side of the mountain was a great height above the lower slopes, yet not so high as to make living here impossible. It was positioned in just such a way as to give the impression of impenetrable security, without the idea that it was impossible to access. And for such a precocious position, it was surprisingly large enough to accommodate a growing community. Ilara wondered how they had come to settle here.

Her curiosity was all but slaked when she heard a voice join the whistler below her and her attention was thus directed.

"Good evening, Laith," said the stranger.

"Good evening. I hope your appointment has gone well, Master Sa'Celim?"

"I believe so. Anything to report?"

"No sir, all is well."

"Glad to hear it. Carry on. I'll come to take my post before the end of supper," the stranger said, patting the whistler on the shoulder. He turned to go through the gate but stopped short and turned his head back, holding it there as if listening.

Ilara watched nervously from her perch as the man called Sa'Celim lingered at the gate and looked around and up at the trees. Hugging closely the trunk as much as possible, she went unseen and the serious face of the man soon disappeared behind the wooden gate.

~~*~~

Seven days without solitude worked disturbing influence over Xavier Sa'Celim. His men were still in training, and in the state they were in, Xavier's fervent attention was necessary to their improvement. Each day he awoke before dawn and delegated to them as much of his work as would be to their benefit in training and so that he could maintain his foremost duties as Caelta's guardian. He would return in the late afternoon from hunts and trap-setting and conduct grueling—but not cruel—training procedures well past the setting sun.

The past week he had spent another major portion of everyday meeting with the leaders of the triune villages on Mount Renscha's three-sided eastern shelf: Caelta, Reirq, and Sheia. He awaited their decision on a matter that would most likely result in further extensions of his time and efforts, and less likelihood to find solitude from time to time for his own sanity.

Xavier was a quiet man in many regards, and if left alone the only expression he would ever make would be that of poetry or song. His needs for solitude stemmed not out of a desire for escape, but out of his need for introspection and meditation. Much depth and conflict dwelt within him that if ignored, would ultimately drive him insane. The immanence of the approaching breakdown always made itself clear to Xavier well in advance, and thus he had opportunity to evade disaster. In light of the possible promotion which was likely to be forced on him in the coming weeks, Xavier worried his needed time of solitude would become nonexistent.

When the watchmen for the second shift of the night came to relieve Xavier of duty at Caelta's gate, Xavier's body begged for sleep. Brushing off his fatigue, Xavier took this, perhaps the last opportunity he would have in weeks, to get away.

The wide cleft between two boulders sitting twenty feet below Mount Renscha's summit and overlooking his village had been Xavier's solitary place since he had come to Caelta some years ago. Taking out some vellum and his quill and ink out of his satchel, Xavier set them beside him on the rocky shelf and looked up at the stars. Their brilliance was not new to him, yet he delighted in them whenever a chance such as this was given him to really take them in. His thoughts were on the magnificence of Deus and his heart soon echoed his thoughts in reverent prayer.

Xavier believed in Deus, the one true God, and in Christus His son, who died and rose again that all men might live. Xavier had clung to this in his trials and lost sight of it in his successes; but he was always driven back by the quality he had been given to see his own failings and need. He confessed even then in his heart to his God, that he feared any more authority given to him in the villages would be too difficult for him to bear righteously. Pride was a threatening temptation he knew he succumbed to too often. He spent an hour in thought and prayer on the subject before a peace settled over him and he took up his pen.

As his writing most often took place at late hours of the night, Xavier often used an odd technique to make light to write by. He kept twigs and brush under a ledge of one of the great boulders on the cliff, thereby kept dry for the purpose of quick flame. Taking the fine fuel to his side, he would light small amounts at a time to burst into short-lived flame, writing one line of poetry per burst. It was a sort of check he had invented for himself so that nothing he wrote would be over-thought, but all from the first profusion of his heart.

It was nearing the death-hour of the night, as the people of the triune villages deemed the hour set exactly between midnight and dawn. It was called such because of the history of numerous deaths by winged-lion attacks that had occurred at this time of night. At least two watchmen were always posted at this hour at each gate around the three villages, and all of them well armed and aided by torchlight.

Footfalls and panting entered Xavier's hearing as he read his completed poem over, having just finished and about to go down to his cottage in the village for a few scant hours of sleep. Recognizing the characteristically clumsy sound of Ferran when climbing, Xavier rolled up his parchment and put his satchel over his shoulder, standing casually to wait for his subordinate and friend.

"You're no use to me there," Ferran said with a grunt, his forehead barely showing over the ledge, "while I'm over here . . . trying to get up this cursed mountain." Xavier laughed and offered a hand to Ferran, who took it and allowed himself to be pulled the rest of the way up onto the cliff.

"Why did you follow me up if you hate the climb so much?" Xavier asked with a genial pat on his friend's back.

"Because I worry about you," he replied, catching his breath and dusting himself off. "Were you ever planning on getting some rest?"

"I am more rested now than I would have been in sleep. I know my limits as well as my responsibilities. You know that as well as I, so why did you really come?"

Ferran grinned. "If you hadn't noticed, it's death-hour, and I was mistakenly appointed as watchmen with Roark and Sean. They told me they could handle it and that I could go back to sleep, but while I was on my way, I sensed movement down the slope, on the southern cliffs. Can you guess what I saw?" Ferran finished with a bright smile that was clear even in the dark.

"I'm sure you'd rather I let you tell me."

"A dark, magnificent male leoptera, by himself. He was flying above the slope in just such a way as I could make him out with close observation. He was all shiny too. A real beauty. I'd love to go after him myself, but you know me and my . . . uh," he stammered.

"Your horrible lack of skill with an arrow, a spear, or any other launched weapon? Yes, all too well."

"Master Sa'Celim, if that beasty came right up to the gate on foot, I'd best him in an instant with Shreika here," he said, taking his thus-dubbed sword partially out of it's sheath, just enough to glint faintly in the starlight. "But my moment of glory has yet to arrive. So, are you going to go after him tonight or take the wiser path and get a remnant of sleep before you begin again tomorrow?"

"What do you think I'll do? What would you do?"

"Is this a test?" Ferran asked, aware that in his position just under Xavier, he would take over as town guardian and militia leader if ever Xavier could not fulfill that duty.

"Just answer."

"Well, I think you're going to go after it tonight, forsaking all sleep because you do not even need it. You're a spirit, some of the men have said. I don't rightly know if they are wrong. But me, I am only human, so I would wait until tomorrow night and be prepared."

"Honest answer. Good. That's why I like you."

"And am I right?"

"Partly, you are. I am going to go after it tonight, yes, but I am not going to forsake sleep, for I am not wholly spirit—my flesh covers most of it. I am delegating the giving of assignments for morning duties to your shoulders. It will give you a chance to flex your leadership skills and me a chance to get a few hours of sleep. Besides, if I get this leoptera tonight, a male no less, it will more than account for skipping my morning announcements and hunt."

"Aye, sir."

"Good. Have you brought my spear?"

"Of course, right next to mine," Ferran replied, reaching for the second spear on the baldric on his back.

"Always prepared, Ferran. Remind me to keep you around."

"Naturally, sir."

Xavier, spear in hand, began the steep slide on his heels down the slope of the cliff down onto the wooded southeastern slope.

"Master Sa'Celim!" Ferran cried from the cliff before Xavier was halfway down.

Sliding to a stop by turning on the sides of is boots and grabbing a pine branch jutting out of a rock to his side, Xavier looked back up at his friend. "What is it?"

"How do I get down?"

Xavier laughed. "Figure it out! Think of it as a training exercise!" And with that he continued his slide, gravel loosening and falling with him. When he reached the bottom, he did not stop but ran carefully between trees and boulders down the steady slope and off toward the southern end of Mount Renscha. If he could find the male leoptera and take him down, the night would be a success. He said a quick prayer in his heart for wisdom and skill as he worked his way closer to where he hoped to find a trail, or better yet, the beast itself.

~~*~~

Since the one called Sa'Celim had shown himself, Ilara had found a strange new curiosity for the village. She had stayed in the tree for over an hour simply observing the occupants of the town, especially curious about this Sa'Celim and what his status was here. She had watched him enter one of the small buildings briefly, coming out again and greeting his comrades as he went about many odd tasks.

His place here was difficult to decipher as she followed him with her eyes. He had gone from the large building she hadn't placed yet, seeming to issue orders to a dozen young men as they came out again, and then to one of the smallest houses to fix a door for an elderly woman who smiled and doted on him as he did. Next he had shoed a horse, followed by walking and talking with an older man who was dignified and to whom Sa'Celim seemed to be subordinate. He had bowed to the man after their meeting and went on to yet another task. Perhaps Sa'Celim was a teacher or a lesser leader.

As he went from one occupation to the next, Ilara found need to move from tree to tree to keep sight of him. She spent five hours doing so, watching him with earnest interest she could not account for. After he had sat around a fire eating with several others, he had taken up the post of the whistler at the gate and Ilara had cautiously made her way back to her former perch above him.

She watched him less and less avidly as her stomach started to make its needs known and she realized how long she had left Anthem back at camp. She was about to leave when two men approached Sa'Celim to take his place. They lit an extra torch and stood at attention before Sa'Celim as he was about to leave.

"Anything we should know, sir?" one asked.

"As it happens, yes. The night is as dark as the day was bright. If either of you is caught sleeping or inattentively guarding, I'll give the order myself to have you sent back to Luria," He said with a brusque tone. "This is a serious task, and I want to trust that my men take it as such. Understood?"

"Yes, Master Sa'Celim."

"I bid you a quiet watch," their master finished and turned curtly away.

Ilara was startled by the harsh words of the one she had been watching with interest for hours. He seemed respected by these people, but her newest view of him made him out to be a man of arrogance and plotting. He seemed to have gone one moment getting on the good graces of an old woman, and next threatening his own men, come to do their duty. What was his place here anyway? She was fairly certain he was not the main leader of the village, but he seemed to stretch his arm of authority as far as it would take him.

She was reminded suddenly of Duard, pushing his way into their lives, pretending he had the right. At least Duard was always cold and did not attempt to hide his hold over her family, whereas this man seemed the conniving sort, the kind that could be even less trusted than such a man as Maeron Duard. The kind who would gain your trust only to use it against you when it suited him.

Ilara's stomach twisted inside her.

I will not make myself known here. I cannot become one of these people. It would be like thrusting myself under the authority of another Duard.

She looked briefly over the village once more as if to bid it goodbye, and turned to find her way back to Anthem. As she climbed from branch to branch on the arbor path back to camp, she realized she might not be able to ever be among humans again, at least not as one of them. She could not even attempt to approach these people to sell a river dragon; that seemed a vain endeavor now anyway. Who could buy such an extravagance and vanity, even if they believed she could catch one?

The name 'Luria' came back to her as she went along, the place which Sa'Celim had threatened to send his men. Ilara wondered if this was a large place, a city or kingdom perhaps. The idea of a mass of people still frightened her, but if it was large enough, she could go there fairly inconspicuously, as opposed to if she made herself known to this tiny village.

Perhaps hope still remained that she could find occupation and provision for herself somehow, even if it was simply by hunting and selling her catches to provide shelter for the long winter months. Or perhaps, if this 'Luria' was really a large city, her ambitions to get the bounty for a river dragon could still be pursued.

Possibilities were extensive, and she would try to be brave and not shut herself off entirely to anything before giving it a chance, even if it meant she would have to deal with people. But she was not even off the mountain yet. For now she was decided on only two things: she would leave this mountain with Anthem as soon as was possible and she would try to find this 'Luria.' The rest would have to come later.

Ilara had found her way back to the path when she knew she was far enough from the village not to be heard. She followed it through the dark until she came upon the stream she had bathed in several hours prior. She leapt it easily and was back at the camp within a few minutes, eager to get ready and take flight with her beast. Looking around the clearing, sitting cold and still amidst the rocks and trees, Ilara saw it was empty. The grass where Anthem had lain was trampled and there was an animal carcass beside it. So, one of us has eaten.

Ilara whistled. Only silence returned to her. She lifted her voice and sang again the first song she had sung to him, sure it would draw him. She waited.

Anthem did not come.

Chapter 3: Untamed

They had slept through the day, through the heat of the afternoon and the cool of the evening, until the sun fell beneath the trees and cast early summer shadows through the pale green filter of the trees’ young leaves. At the familiar sound of crickets—a cue to awaken—Ilara sat up. The mass of black fur and feathers encompassing her as she awoke was confusing . . . yet natural. Her head hurt, but she remembered quickly where she was and who the beast was whose warmth was a comfort she hadn’t felt in months. She lay her face back against Anthem and gently nudged him so she could escape from his cozy hold. He yawned, revealing the expanse of his powerful jaw, and lifted the wing that had been folded over Ilara to stretch it fully, the tips of its farthest black feathers catching the last beams of evening sunlight glinting over the treetops.

She slowly stood, tying her wild hair into a braid as she watched Anthem stretch his torso, legs, and wings in the fading evening light. It came as a fresh observation; he was magnificent. Like the night sky embodied, his wings glittering like a black expanse strewn with stars, his golden eyes the likeness of the autumn moon twice reflected. She petted his face affectionately and he purred in return before running off into the woods. He was probably being playful, but she couldn’t follow. Her body ached everywhere, so she let him go and sat on a tree stump. He came back almost instantly, growled softly with tilted head, and seemed to ask her to follow.

"Go on," she said. "Get some breakfast." And off he went as if he spoke her language.

Ilara gently removed the binding around her wrist to examine the damage. It was a deep purple with black web-like veins visible beneath. She tried to move the joint and found that she could—but with throbbing pain through the muscles. It had no damage to the bone, but the damage beneath the skin, in the flesh and muscle was enough that it would not heal for weeks. But a mere bruise—as she saw it—would not stop her from using her wrist. It would hurt to use her bow, but the bruise was not substantial enough, or the pain of moving it enough to keep her from archery. Archery was so much a part of her that she could not understand an existence bereft of it. Pain would not stop her.

Examining her other injuries proved the same; she was pretty banged up, but her bones were intact—the boat had been enough to prevent all manner of serious injury she might have sustained. She did not think on it, however, and merely began removing the sling she had made for her left arm.

Starting an exercise of moving her left arm from the shoulder, she found it moveable, and though tender, no longer painful. She thought Sam’s herbs had done their job well, but what she did not realize was that she had developed an unhealthy psychological ability to ignore physical pain. Her arm was as badly bruised and blackened as would prevent many from even the most casual movement, but the pain did not even register in her senses. All the years of getting hurt after stunts and hiding any signs of injury from Duard in order to prevent questions—this was a sustained result.

Her examination finished, she diagnosed herself as fully restored. She put away the cloth sling and continued stretching. Looking around the camp, she realized the lioness’ body was still lying where she had been slain the morning prior. Unfortunately she could not let it stay there; she would have to distance the dead creature from the camp to avoid pesky scavengers. But the creature was far too heavy for her to lift or pull. Anthem would have to help. She climbed the lower branches of a birch tree and waited for her beast. It felt good to climb again, now certain her injuries would not prevent her from any motions she chose.

As several quick successions of footfalls entered her scope of hearing, Anthem pounced into the clearing, a fresh kill in his mouth.

"You do speak human. I knew it," she said jovially as she lowered herself down to greet the winged lion. Her mood had been completely revitalized in the renewal of her climbing abilities.

"Venison would be better suited for supper, though, don’t you think?" she asked Anthem as he set the young deer down in the grass. "You can have that to yourself, I’ll find some fruit.
But first you have to help me." Holding a tuft of the side of his mane before he could tear into his kill, Ilara drew him to the lioness’ cold body. It seemed he understood without her needing to ask—he grasped the lioness by the scruff of her neck and dragged her away. Ilara was thankful she did not need to follow and spoil her appetite. When he returned for his meal, she left the beast to his beastly vittles and began combing the clearing for her own meal.

The air was crisp, as were Ilara’s thoughts. Things seemed clear, though she was still lonely. At least she had a set purpose at this point: she would seek a village or city and find work somehow. If she could convince anyone, perhaps she could get hired to catch a river dragon. But this seemed a bit farfetched as she reflected from her current state of mind. The likelihood of someone believing her account was about as likely as actually being able to find a dragon again and capture it.

At present she sought a raspberry bush. Wandering in wider and wider circles around the clearing where Anthem feasted on his catch, Ilara was soon out of sight of the beast. She came upon a blackberry bush and settled for it for the time being.

She picked the dark, plump berries and placed them in a fold of her tunic, which she held up for the purpose. Soon after, a falcon surprised her by swooping to the lowest branch of a maple right in front of her. It seemed to be looking at her cautiously. Continuing to gather berries, she stared at it intently. She thought it a lovely black bird and at first nothing more. As she continued to study it, she saw it had a small scroll of vellum attached to one leg—it was a courier. It can’t be . . . is that one of Wren’s falcons? she thought. Yes, the only one she had known by name, actually. "Elsu," she tried with softness to her voice, "Elsu."

The black bird looked directly at her and swooped down from his perch to land near her feet. "You are Elsu, aren’t you?" she imbued comprehension to the incognizant creature as she reached gently down to untie the scroll. As soon as he was free of the scroll, Elsu lighted his previous perch, a position of observation, as Ilara unrolled the missive. On it Ilara read words she could hardly believe she saw:

Dearest brother or sister,

I send this letter out with a prayer that it shall find you. I shall press upon my falcons that I wish for you to receive this, but I cannot be sure that they shall obey.

I know that by doing this, I am defying Duard and his direct order. However, I feel I am somehow right to do so.

Ilara gasped and drew a hand to her lips, every blackberry she had gleaned falling from her tunic to scatter over the ground.

Perhaps it is as Father Andrew said. We need to regard Deus’ will as higher than Duard’s when it comes to moral decisions. I think it is thus with this. If it isn’t, my heart will at least be at peace in the knowledge that I have attempted to contact you.

If you fare well or poorly, please let me know. Pen a reply on the back of this parchment and reattach it to the falcon’s leg. She or he shall return to me with your message, of that I am certain.

Your loving sister,

Wren

Tears came to Ilara’s eyes as she read her younger sister’s name. Wren! She had made contact! Of all the siblings, Ilara would never have guessed Wren to be the one to defy one of Duard’s commands. But Wren was always the glue that held the family together; it was fitting that she would not give up that purpose in banishment.

All hunger was lost to Ilara as she realized the opportunity she had just been given. She ran to her pack to retrieve the flint she carried to start a fire, and the single chunk of charcoal she had brought on a whim. Her favorite dagger was useful in sharpening it to a point once a small flame was going for the sole purpose of seeing in the now dark clearing. With the charcoal she wrote Wren a reply on the back of the vellum.

Dearest Wren,

Her heart flowed into the greeting and the words that followed.

I long to see you. My thoughts grow darker each time I think of the others. I wish I could speak to them all and know they are all well. It would ease my mind, as your letter has done for my thoughts about you.

The idea to attempt to send more than one letter via Elsu entered her mind and she remembered she could use aspen bark for the purpose. Fortunately aspens were common in the forest. Ilara went on with thoughts of Sam, Daelia, and Taerith in the forefront of her mind. She might be attempting too many at once, but it was too great a temptation to pass up. I’ll make them brief, she rationalized and continued her letter to Wren.

I am sending letters for Sam, Daelia, and Taerith with Elsu. Please forgive me if your bird is fatigued upon arrival, but I am hopeful he’ll succeed.

Thank you, Wren. Thank you for risking this for us.

Fondest love, Ilara

She had gathered three strips of the white bark and written the next three letters as she sat in the clearing, her back to Anthem. The first letter was to Sam, thanking him for the healing supplies she had already used up in the incidents of the past two days. The next to Taerith, whose understanding and insights she had missed since the loneliness had set in. Each question her heart asked without hope for answer drew her memory to his wisdom. And finally she wrote to Daelia—the most difficult letter of the four.

Daelia’s companionship had been the most difficult to release. In her first week of travel, Ilara had several moments of mistakenly relying on Daelia’s presence. She was used to solitude, but only the kind that was of short duration, with the promise of seeing her siblings again. When she had returned from such retreats in the past, she and Daelia were inseparable while together. During that first week of banishment, Ilara finished the supply of bread Daelia had given her and her immediate response was, I’ll just get more when I go back. The mistake was always caught immediately. She would hear herself saying it and a suffusion of fresh disappointment would enter in. There would be no going back.

Even as she made the deliberate motion to write to her closest sister, the pang of permanent separation made her thoughts difficult to frame in words. Every attempt to form a sentence was drowned out with the unrealistic desire to see Daelia again. With purpose and deliberation she avoided most speech on the subject. It would do no use. Instead she briefly related the loss of the riverboat and the remnant of it she kept on her person. She asked Daelia for news of her welfare, as she had her other siblings, and when the small sheet of bark was filled, she reluctantly signed her name.

Surprising her with its seeming anticipation of her intent, Elsu had followed her to the clearing. As Ilara finished and looked up, she saw the falcon perched very high in a cypress tree, looking down in perfect stillness. She whistled to it as she stood rolling her delicate letters and calling "Elsu" with as much coaxing as she could, but the bird did not budge. Finally it dawned on Ilara that Anthem had finished off the deer and his attention was as steady on the falcon as was hers. He began to crouch and unfold his wings with deliberate smoothness and his wild nature shot clearly to her mind.

"Anthem, no!" she said at the realization. All Ilara could think about was how important it was to keep Anthem from harming her only connection to her siblings. Her opportunity to steady him was passing, and Elsu was sitting precariously atop a tree as if his trust in Ilara was enough to stay him despite instincts. The poor bird was too trusting, and the winged lion was too wild to prevent at this point. He was getting ready to launch himself upward.

The same impulsiveness that had led to all the scars her body had accumulated over the years made itself useful as she sprinted for the crouching Anthem. Momentum and practiced muscle coordination sent Ilara in a leap at the last three feet between herself and the beast, just as his powerful back legs and wings sent him upward with a much faster ascent. Somehow her outstretched hands had grasped enough fur to give her a hold on him and he flapped harder to pull himself up with the additional weight. They went higher and higher through the trees and Ilara maneuvered herself enough to have a hold on his mane, her thighs pressing Anthem’s torso for support. He barely seemed to regard her there; he only adjusted the frequency of his wings’ flaps to accommodate her until they had breached the tree line. Ilara was balanced enough by then to see the falcon had got the better of its naiveté and was flying steadily upward and away from them.

Natural intensity made Anthem as keen on chasing the falcon as Ilara was on reining him back. Flying ever higher toward the silhouette that was the only sign of the falcon in retreat, Ilara pulled on his mane and tried to veer him off course, but it merely angered him. Temporarily distracted from his course, Anthem began a serpentine display of his agility, rotating and tumbling through the air to shake off his irritating human rider. She held tighter to him with the iron will to make him obey. "You are far from tame, you wild brute," she said in his ear as she clung around his neck in mid-spin.

When she was assured he had every intention to rear her off into the trees far below and that her physical attempts to subdue him were useless, she took in a breath and hoped another song would pacify him, feeling silly even as she began. Despite the force of the evening wind, made more intense by Anthem’s speed through it, Ilara was able to find voice. She found herself singing the same soft melody she had first used the previous morning.

She might have been surprised at Anthem’s immediate mollification, but she was the one who named him after all. As Anthem’s flight evened out into a slow glide, Ilara watched with relief, as Elsu’s tiny shape disappear into the darkness of the night.

Now on the mellifluous refrain, Ilara pushed on Anthem’s right foreleg until his response was a left turn. Then she tried the right and he responded likewise by turning left. All the while she sang she tried to maneuver him back toward the clearing, learning to push down between his shoulder blades to prompt descent.

At first disoriented, Ilara did not find the clearing until she caught sight of the smoke stream rising through the moonlight above where she had made a fire. When Anthem had glided slowly down to the clearing, he extended his hind legs toward the grass as he flapped his wings for balance and set down as softly as a horse might halt its trot. Ilara finished her repeating refrain when she had dismounted and smoothed the hair on the back of Anthem’s mane, which she had ruffled severely. The lion was purring and nudging his head against her hands.

"I’ve got you under my spell," she said to him, catching her breath. "If you misbehave again I might sing a curse on all lions." He tilted his head at her, his golden eyes incomprehensive. "Oh, would you go away for a bit? I’ll never get Elsu to come back here now." Anthem turned around languidly and sat in the patch of trampled grass where the remains of his breakfast lay. He picked at it a few moments and then got up again. He paced back and forth through the clearing as Ilara picked up the letters she had dropped in her rush to save Elsu.

Anthem got up and began crouching and pouncing near her annoyingly. One severe look from Ilara and the beast seemed to understand her unwillingness to be playful. He flew off on his own somewhere and she began to feed the fire and ponder how she could get the letters to Elsu.

An hour passed, in which Ilara gathered back her spilt berries and ate them with millet and a goblet of mixed ale. She had finished cleaning up and was waxing her bowstrings when she heard the unmistakable sound of a falcon’s cry in the distance. Dropping her work, she leapt to her feet and followed the continuing cry. The closer she got to the sound, the clearer it was, and soon she could hear wings fluttering as out of panic. Needing to go no further, she stopped when Anthem immerged, walking toward her with Elsu’s legs between his jaws. The bird was pecking at Anthem’s face and losing feathers as it flapped ferociously to escape.

"Anthem how could you!?" she screamed at the beast and he shrank down submissively as he looked into her eyes. Putting on her leather gloves, Ilara wrapped her protected hands around the frightened bird to stop its spasm as she took it out of Anthem’s loosened jaw. When it was out, Anthem ran away with his wings half up and his tail between his legs.

"Elsu, poor thing," Ilara said to the bird still secure under her right hand, its talons digging into the glove on her left. When the falcon was calmed, she slowly softened her grasp around his wings and to her shock he did not fly away.

"If you are injured I’ll have to kill Anthem," she said out of irritation. She examined his wings and the falcon seemed all right—not even bleeding, though he had lost several feathers. Walking him back to the clearing, she set him on the ground away from the fire and watched him waddle side to side and look around him seemingly paranoid. She couldn’t blame him. He was traumatized, if not hurt. She should send him away before Anthem returned, if he wasn’t too injured to fly. Calling his name once more, Elsu hopped onto her gloved hand and she thrust it upward to see his reaction. As she hoped for, Elsu flew upward and circled the clearing. She called him down again, thankful he did not seem hurt.

"You are amazing, Elsu," she said as he allowed her to tie the four letters to his legs, two on each. Before she added the one to Wren, she took up the charcoal again to add in the only and very small space left for writing:

P.S. Elsu had a scrape with my beast. He is all right, but if he is at all injured when he returns to you, please forgive me. I shall make it up to you if that is the case.

The resilient falcon seemed eager to take leave when Ilara had finished securing the last letter below the joint on his leg and bid him farewell. She watched him fly upward and into the face of the moon. Hope lingered there with her a moment and then she turned her thoughts elsewhere.

Anthem returned soon after, his head sunken as if he knew his offense. She was packed up by then and Anthem watched her from a distance as she snuffed out the flame and approached him.

"So you know I’m angry with you?" she asked the beast, her arms crossed and face serious. Anthem seemed to listen and responded with his head going lower in shame and his smart eyes darting shyly between hers and the ground.

"This," said Ilara, holding one of the feathers Elsu had shed during his panic, "is sacred. From now on, no falcon chasing! Especially not this one!"

Anthem looked slightly aware, but Ilara could not tell if he understood or if his intelligent eyes played tricks on her. To be certain of him, she took all the feathers she had gathered from where she took Elsu from Anthem’s grasp, and tied them around a stick. Waving it in front of Anthem, he seemed to liven up and focus on the stick. Taking that as playfulness, she threw it upward and to her chagrin Anthem launched upward with it and caught it in his teeth, feathers and all.

This was not something she could tell the beast, yet it was of the utmost importance for him never to attack Elsu or any other falcon again. Thus, when he landed, she yanked the feather-clad stick that represented Elsu out from his jaws and turned her back on him smugly. He nudged her back with his muzzle and she stepped further from him, now gathering up her pack with firm resolve.

"Goodbye, beast. Find a new singer, because I cannot lift voice for an unworthy ruffian." She turned and left the clearing without looking back. Anthem followed and she ignored him. Trudging forward with clomping step, she averted her face from his direction as he tried to walk beside her and get her attention. Growling plaintively, Anthem took a low flight just over her head and circled her as she walked.

"Leave, Anthem! I won’t have anything to do with one intent on killing my only contact to my family!"

Continuing his complaining groans, Anthem came to land directly in front of her with pleading eyes. Ilara stared back and thought to test him one last time. Perhaps the brute had learned his lesson.

Repeating the tease with the feathered stick, Ilara threw it and received no response. Hopeful as she picked the stick back up, she tried again, this time trying tempting Anthem purposefully to get back into a playful mood. Again he stayed his ground.

When he had passed these second and third tests, Ilara approached him and met his eyes more genially. "I’ll forgive you, brute, if you promise to carry me where I want to go. And I guess we shall see how well we understand each other when Elsu returns . . . if Elsu returns." She rubbed his fuzzy cheek and hoisted her pack onto his back. He watched placidly as she tied a rope around the pack and his torso behind the base of his wings and secured it with a complex knot.

Sliding onto his back, she leaned over his heavy mane and sang in his ear one verse of a song she knew not how she had learned,

Listen to the raven crying

All the owls wise

And solemn are the falcons flying

How they trace the skies

This led to a purring response, which Ilara could only hope meant the words to the brief melody would be an influence somehow.

"Up, Anthem," she said, pulling lightly on his mane from her position in front of her bundle. Understanding as if he was a born and trained steed, Anthem lifted off and ascended through the treetops until Ilara rubbed between his shoulder blades to stay him. Hovering just above the trees, Ilara directed him in the direction going south and eastward from Mount Wedra, which she could now see in the distance beyond what she had traversed to arrive in this forest. Anthem obeyed and they smoothly took their course. "I may yet tame you, beast," she said with a sighing smile.

When at ease, Ilara began to sing to the winged lion a soothing song she formed from nothing, which she started slowly and simply and as she sang, layered and made more complex. It satisfied her as well, it seemed, as it did the beast.

And so their tiff was ended; all was forgiven.

They sifted through the night air until dawn brought a tangerine glow to an unfamiliar mountain range directly ahead of them in the east. In drowsy circles they soared down until they landed on a low mantle on one of these mountains. After watching the warm light of the rising sun from the opposite of its rise behind the mountain peaks, casting its dulcet ruby rays over the embroidery of fields and hills to the west, Ilara and Anthem settled down to sleep. Two creatures of the night, with likeness in their manes to denote the trait, getting more and more comfortable with the company of the other.

Chapter 2: Anthem


The gentle river Ilara was used to had never been more rapid than what she now struggled against, her arms aching from their effort to keep her riverboat heading in one direction. Several times she thought it was going to overturn but a burst of adrenaline had given her enough strength to steer the boat off to the side of a curve where the jutting ground protected her momentarily from the raging current. She had spent an entire night struggling to keep her boat in one piece and going in one direction, and now the sun was rising as she came to a fork in the river. She found enough strength to slow her boat and examine which way to go. She knew the fastest way to the town was through the narrower way, where the waters would crash against her boat the whole way and possibly deny her any safe place to land and rest for the night. The wider opening looked calmer, but it gave her slight misgivings. She did not have any idea where that way would lead, but that actually added to her sudden desire to veer course and take the unknown way. Even if she hadn’t had the adventurous spirit she did, her exhaustion would probably have led her to the same conclusion. Seeing how alluring it would be to have a bit of rest and a more likely chance of finding a safe place to dock her boat, she made her choice and began the final battle against the current until she was calmly floating down her new course.

After an hour of smooth sailing, Ilara began to look for a place to stop and rest for the hot part of the day. The forest surrounding the river was thicker than she had thought it should be. She stopped several times to pick at the brush with her paddle to find a clearing but each time she was disappointed. She kept going further and further until the sun was in the middle of the sky and an ominous stillness made her uneasy once more. Before long the river’s strength was picking up. At this point Ilara was exhausted and her eyes were strained from a lack of sleep. She began getting clumsy in her fatigue, letting her boat hit types of debris she would have been more careful to avoid hours earlier. When she began to despair of finding a place to land, she thought of just tying her boat to a log or low-lying branch along the river to regain her strength. One such anchoring point came into her vision and she paddled toward it, all the while the river seemed to be flowing more and more strongly. About to grab hold of the tree branch, her hand slipped and her boat continued forward with the strengthening current. One horrifying glance up and something she had been too tired to realize set in: this river was quickly coming to a drop-off, and the sounds of falling water crashing against rocks of indeterminate distance below came thundering to her senses. "God of heaven"… her voice took off without her control and formed words she didn’t hear. "Deus, help me!" she muttered under her breath as she turned in her seat and began paddling fiercely against the current and off toward one bank. It was pointless, even with the adrenaline coursing through her and making her limbs useful and her mind quick, the current was too strong to fight. She turned back again as she saw the approach of the ledge and out of instinct grabbed hold of the sides of the boat and pushed her feet into the bottom, every muscle tensing as forcefully as the next.

Her eyes were wide and her heart was in her stomach as the boat reached the end and began tipping forward with the flow of falling water. Weightless, Ilara and everything she could claim as her own careened downward and time seemed to slow to a halt. An eerie calmness took her and she found herself looking around and catching sight of the beautiful scene before her: the immense waterfall and the peaceful lake it flowed into, the wild hills and trees around it, the water droplets as they passed before her eyes and the strands of dark hair that were flowing freely around her face. This is my end, she thought, and the way time slowed and varying memories pushed themselves to the front of her mind in stark clarity actually fooled her into believing it were so.

As alternately quick or sluggish as time seems to arbitrarily flow, the moment of stillness ceased and a powerful, chaotic disturbance sped things up before the darkness of unconsciousness.

Coughing, Ilara awoke and expelled the water in her lungs. Her head ached in tune with her body and a cold numbness made her teeth chatter. She made the rash decision to crawl toward the dry ground, as she was currently lying in the rocky shallows of the lake. As soon as she supported her weight on her left arm, she felt a surge of sharp pain in her wrist and collapsed back into he shallow water. Looking down she saw red clouds spreading in the water. She had bleeding cuts on every limb and her ribcage stung and throbbed.

"I’m alive," she whispered to herself and closed her eyes at the pain of sitting up. She frowned and wondered how it was possible, then inwardly shrugged and brushed it off as luck. No Supreme Being could care enough to save her meaningless life, so what else could it be?

She cast a brief thought to her outcry to Deus, the god her older siblings had raised her to believe in. It was done out of desperation, but she was almost ashamed she had let herself be weak enough to cry out. She needed to be sufficient for herself, and even if she couldn’t be, Deus would stay as distant as always and no hand of help or voice of loving-kindness would He reach out to her. It was better to be in control and leave the tough things up to luck; chances were better there than with a god she couldn’t trust.

These cynical thoughts passed and she struggled to her feet. Her legs had minimal damage, most of her pain coming from her left side along her ribs, shoulder and wrist. Coming up to the sandy shore, she surveyed her surroundings and spotted her pack, still tied securely and seeming to be intact along the waters edge fifteen feet in front of her. More luck. She turned and looked for her boat. Tattered chunks of carved wood were scattered on both shores and many fragments still floated out over the calm waters the waterfall poured into. One piece the size of her hand floated toward her and she bent on her knees to lift it up with her right hand, discovering even with cautious movements that pain was inescapable.

She took the remaining fragment of her home and took a slow seat in the tall grass surrounding the lake. She rubbed her thumb across the delicate iris carved into the stained wood that had once formed part of the riverboat’s sturdy wall. Anger and disappointment mingled across her brow and she tried not to cry, looking through blurry eyes at the other massacred shreds of Daelia’s former masterpiece strewn about the lake. She lay down in exhaustion and anger and closed her eyes.

Unconsciousness took her again. She slept through the afternoon and into the evening. When she awoke, she was assaulted with the realization of her circumstance and the throbbing and stinging of every part of her body. Her eyesight was blurry and she felt dizzy; she had a goose-egg on the back of her head to account for it. She had a scrape over her left brow and bringing her hand over her face, she discovered it caked with dried blood and stinging at the touch.

Several moments of fuming and groaning and a fight with her will brought her to her feet to retrieve her pack. Everything was in order, though a little wet. This made her spiteful at her own pack, if such a thing were possible. She shoved it about and treated it like refuse in light of the loss of what was dearer to her. What is the retaining of amenities compared with the loss of a comforting, priceless memento as her boat had been? She had her quiver of arrows and her bow within the large pack, and for these she was grateful, but it gave little comfort in light of her loss.
She fished through the pack and retrieved an ointment Sam had given her. With this she treated her wounds and bound them in torn cloth. Finding that her wounds were mostly superficial and only her left upper body was much affected, She made a sling for her left arm and adjusted it for comfort. She easily took to favoring her right as she tested her abilities by gathering her things back into her pack. Carefully, she strapped her bow and quiver to her back, a more deliberate motion now that she was being careful with her left side.

When she was finished, she closed her eyes and tried to evaluate her condition. She felt pain, but nothing she could not bear. She knew she had damaged her head, but the dizziness had worn off and she was too upset to just sit still, even if she had still been dizzy. She decided to move on.
Before she turned to make her way through this foreign wood, she carefully crouched and took hold of the stray remain of the boat she had found earlier. She looked again over the lake that now sparkled in the moonlight and up at the waterfall she knew not how she survived, and placed the piece of wood in her pack. She could not leave every shred of Daelia’s gift to the decay of the elements. She would not let every piece of her former life be taken from her.

------

After a full night of hiking over the forested hills her misadventure had destined her to traverse, Ilara found a clearing in between two small hills and deemed it as good a place as any to make camp. The sun was rising, her usual cue to get some rest when it wasn’t possible for her to take pleasure in the sunrise. She settled down under a pine and was asleep before the sky had lost its morning blush.

She had been asleep through the early morning when the sound of feet through tall grass awoke her. She opened one eye slowly and remained still, her nose telling her there was a beast in her camp.

All she could see were gigantic, black wings, spread open to a width as long as most trees are tall. She slowly and quietly sat up, reaching for her knife, knowing her injuries would not allow her to use her bow. What in the world? –she could not decide what kind of creature it was that had invaded her camp. It’s wings spread out a bit further, as if stretching, and then swiftly folded together over the back of a catlike beast. It’s back was to her, displaying its long, swaying tail, strong back legs adorned with fierce ebony claws, and the back of it’s head, which was covered with a thick black mane of the same tone and shine as its wings and fur—it was a male. It was some kind of winged lion; the likes of which Ilara had never seen or heard of. It walked slowly to her pack, a fair distance from her place beneath the pine branches, and nudged it with its nose. A soft, rumbling growl escaped its throat. It hadn’t noticed her—yet.

Ilara remained frozen, knowing not how to react to the creature. She was in no state to attempt to subdue it, like she would have been apt to do had this beast happened upon her a few days ago, but now she berated herself for her lack of readiness. Why didn’t I just take the set course? She asked herself, wishing now more than ever she hadn’t sought the unknown. If she had known the river path she had taken would lead to the loss of her boat and the loss of her ability to defend herself, she would have taken the rougher, surer course without a second thought. Still, she was where she was now and there was nothing to reverse it; she would meet with her fate whatever it may be, and she might as well meet it bravely.

She held her knife in the preparatory throwing stance, keeping her aim decidedly on the side of the beast’s chest, hoping it would just leave so she could avoid the need to fight such a majestic creature.

Perhaps it was the racket of her harsh breathing or the pounding of her heart that gave her away; the beast turned its head and looked directly into the eyes of the poised Ilara. It leapt in one bound to stand in front of the pine and stare down at her, its head just under the lowest boughs, and its wings held steadily spread to the fullest of their span. Spreading its teeth and growling what seemed to say, "Foolish creature, you’re now my prey," the lion crouched lower and moved slowly closer to her, it’s golden eyes intent on her own.

Moving would have done little good, and since her body set itself like stone in its place, she didn’t fight with it to gain a useless flight. The beast edged closer, its eyes glaring at her as emotive as that of a human—displaying an angry thirst for violence. It would have been easy, at this point and with her skill, to launch the knife the small distance and hit the beast between the eyes, but the thought—in the infinite span of a moment that can produce such complex movements of the mind—was somehow repugnant to her. What else could she do? On impulse, Ilara dropped the knife, closed her eyes, and did the first thing that came to mind—she sang.
The words and melody of her song were as foreign to her as they were to the lion-beast. She did not know she knew the song until it poured forth from her lips; an old melody her mother sang to her as a very young girl. It was a lullaby that bespoke the turn of the seasons and the ever-steady sun shining over it all. Tears came to her closed eyes as she sang, not knowing how she would live through this; not knowing if it mattered.

A moment for no more than a line of verse passed and nothing had happened. She sang on with unsteady voice. Two lines. Three. A stanza. Words came from nowhere. Her song was soon ended and she opened her gray-hazel eyes to see the beast standing calmly before her, his stance passive, head tilted to one side, and golden eyes set on her face. Shocked, Ilara stared. He sat down, much like a dog, holding her eyes captive with his own. He tilted his head the other way as if to request her to continue. What else could she do? She opened her lips again, a bit more calmly now, and began a song of which she had recollected as she had sung the one before it. It was an anthem of the deeds of Deus. How ironic, that worship should pour forth from her lips—steadier now than before—to a god she saw as distant, for a beast she thought untamable, and that it should be the very thing to save her life.

When her song was ended, the lion-beast got up and approached her. He sniffed her face and tunic and licked her cheek; the rough buds scratched in a way reminiscent of kisses from her father’s beard-covered face as a young girl. Feeling relieved as well as triumphant—lucky, again—she placed a hand to the lion’s thick mane and it was silky and warm. He rubbed his head against her arm and walked slowly out from under the tree and sat down in the middle her camp, yawned, folded his massive wings over his back, and laid himself down in passive observation. She stood up and walked over to him, marveling not only at the intense beauty of the strange creature with fur of obsidian and eyes that stared at her with the brilliance of sunbeams, but also at the absurdity of her safety.

Before she could discern what next to do, a shadow fell across the campsite. Dark clouds moving in so quickly? A glance up proved otherwise; two winged lions descended quickly, their combined shadows separating over the grassy clearing as they landed before her. With first observation, Ilara saw they were of the same species as the one who preceded them, but the arrivals were female—and as aggressive as the first had been prior to her songs. One was a red-brown from tail to wing, the other a less unusual tan, and both nearly as large as the male.

As the new arrivals took the expected course—stalking slowly forward with teeth spread and intent clearly to make the human their prey—the song-soothed male placed his body in front of Ilara’s. His wings spread to cover her so that she could see nothing beyond them. It was not long before the others attacked his protective stance and he took them on in defense as Ilara fell back to watch. Of everything she had yet experienced, this was perhaps the most surreal.

Her eyes followed the fierce struggle that ensued between her ally and the intruders; it was obvious that though the fight was unevenly matched, the male had the advantage. It was not long before the dull-tan colored lion was subdued and sent flying away unsteadily, it’s face wounded and bleeding and its left paw held awkwardly up from a debilitating bite. The red-brown was more determined it seemed. Ilara began to fear for her male when the female struck him a vicious blow to his side and blood from the wound shined as the sunlight hit his dark fur. Still, her hero fought on. Finally, feeling both relief and repulsion, Ilara watched as her ally held the female down with his teeth in her jugular until she ceased the struggle and lay dead. The victor released the fallen beast and let out a roar of triumph that made Ilara shudder.

Questioning herself only briefly, Ilara approached her protector and stood beside him looking down at the defeated. It was a pity such a creature had to die. Now Ilara’s attention returned to the mercurial beast at her side. His wound catching up to him, the beast collapsed at her feet and his eyes shut. She quickly took to tending the wounds with the supplies Sam had given her—she sewed the wounds shut with a needle and thread when they had been well cleaned and the last of her ointment at been applied. The beast just lay there as she worked, occasionally opening his bright eyes only halfway—a signal Ilara quickly realized was a request for a song. In the act of singing to the beast and wiping away the last of the blood on his fur, Ilara began to see that he and she were now irrevocably connected. He had shown her mercy and protected her in the span of a few minutes, and she had tended his wounds and soothed him to sleep in return.

Drowsy from the exertions of the past hour, having been awakened from equally as wearying occurrences from the day before, Ilara lay over the beast and he protectively covered her with one wing. Before she fell to a heavy sleep, she grasped a clump of thick hair from his mane and whispered, "Thank you, my beast. Anthem; I’ll call you Anthem."

Chapter One: Wood

The wind was picking up again. Ilara hated that. Of any time for the wind to bully the world with its strength, why must it always be when she was at the top of a tree? Eastward leaning, the pine bough that had been of ample strength to hold her lean frame a few moments before was now swaying violently in the gusts that came before a storm, prompting her to slide down a branch or two for stronger bearing. This necessary move was always an annoyance, for it detracted from the allure of her stance. There is always a modicum of novelty detracted when one has to settle for the second or third bough from top, rather than the actual top. Of course she knew the reason the wind always seemed to get so strong when she ascended to her favorite terrestrial position; when Ilara climbed, it was always to watch an interesting sky. There were the usual attractions—beauty, like dawn and dusk and wisps of irregular cloud formations. But usually, like a bleeding sunrise mingled with roiling thunderheads over a distance, views most glorious produced an accompanying wind of some strength. This particular blast was a result of the storm she was studying with keen interest, rapidly approaching the slope of the mountain her current pine grew upon. For now she clung to the thin upward stretching limbs of the pine’s peak and awaited the onslaught, mindless of the pine needles scratching her limbs and the sap and bits of shedding bark sticking to her hands and hair. She was intent on the black and flashing glory of the furor to come.

She certainly wouldn’t stay up there through the storm. When the wind died deceptively down, the sky grew ominously dark and hued green, and lightening became close enough to allow thunder an immediate retort, she would slip down to the bottom like a falling cone, to land gracefully on the soft soles of her leather boots.

Only a few moments passed before the signs were clear that it was time to descend. Once back on solid ground, Ilara prepared to delight in an activity her siblings used to say suited her moodiness and esoteric personality. She liked to walk around the forest floor during a storm, allowing the falling sky to saturate her. Even the lightening and its accompanying booms did not deter her from the practice. She would often wander during the most impassioned parts of the storm, when the sheets of water came so continuously down that it seemed each drop was connected to the one before and after it.

When she found a place, between the stretching branches of two adjacent pines, Ilara closed her eyes and waited for the wind to pick back up and the rain to crash against her shoulders and head and stream down into her boots. It did not take long for what she anticipated to arrive. She stood there for a few moments, feeling each drop and beginning the tensing effort not to shiver. When she was thoroughly soaked, her jaw clenched tight, she opened her eyes and began to make her way to the river. She wanted to laugh and cry but for now she knew she had to put off the strengthened feeling of the moment; she had just had the impulse to attempt something she’d never done, and if anyone knew Ilara, they knew she was impulsive.

Rushing and dancing in its cleansing flow, the Caerith River came into sight. This was the place she sought. Slowing when she reached the riverbed and crouching down, Ilara stilled herself like an ancient stone, as if she belonged there and there she would remain until the rending of the earth. Anticipation and excitement caused her heart the boost her body required to keep warm. Blood rushed through her veins and the effort to keep still was unhindered by any need to shiver.

She waited. Her eyes were held on a single rock jutting from the undulating waters. The rain kept on and the winds grew stronger. The crashing of thunder became louder, closer. Ilara kept still, her eyes intent on the jagged rock in the river.

She had been there for as long as the storm had raged—at least an hour’s passing—when a blinding flash of light struck her peripheral vision. A tree some distance away burst out into a sizzling explosion of light and heat and the most terrifying sound Ilara had ever heard—a growling, hissing, fleeting sound of agony. Poised and dangerously used to the sudden outbursts of a storm, her eyes alone lifted and she watched motionless as elder oak’s life slipped out of him with sparks and smoke. His limbs and trunk had been hewn down the center to reveal what youthful flesh might have sustained him countless years to come. She was nearly distracted as she saw the scorched wood doused with the continuing rainfall, but her will and purpose was resolute and her eyes found their former focal point in the swelling river.

When at last the storm seemed spent, Ilara nearly gave up hope of finding what she sought. Exhaustion and hunger nearly pulled her to her feet to return to camp for rest and supper, but what remained of her dwindling hope and conviction kept her still. When it seemed like this would result in merely disappointment, there came a sudden movement under the surface of the river, beneath the skewed reflection of the sky overhead and the intermittent ripples caused by the last remaining raindrops. A vibrant blue coil was there and then gone in so little time it could not have been known if it had ever existed. Ilara remained poised. Out of the corner of her eye came the shocking realization that a shimmering blue creature was climbing up the bank and then moving smoothly over the wet surface of the forest floor. She dare not move, but a slow turn of her head was more movement than she could contain. She stared as the shimmering scaled creature crawled on its four short legs over and through the little puddles of varying depth filling every depression in the ground. It stopped when it was facing the oak still mourning the flaming destiny its height had made inevitable.

I knew it! They exist. Ilara thought as she elatedly observed. The river dragon was smaller than she had expected, but moved as gracefully as she had imagined. It was the length of a small serpent and its body was as thick as Ilara’s arm, with sharp blue spines running down the length of its horizontally coiling torso. As the sun began to reemerge from the clouds, it’s rays caused the river dragon’s scales to shimmer in hues of varying color, all complimenting the stark blue.

As Ilara watched, the river dragon had yet to notice her as anything more than a rock or some other benign fixture of nature. Its slithering gait led it to the very foot of the stricken oak, where steam still rose in the mists that lingered after the storm was spent. To Ilara’s fascination, the dragon began climbing the hot, torn trunk and climbed down into the rent wood until it was obscured from her sight. She took this as her chance and moved fluidly to a nearby tree and ascended to a low bough with a swift leap. There she perched, looking down into the oak’s corpse and watching as the blue reptile devoured the glowing ashes of the tree’s very heart.

The ethereal creature was eating the steaming wood splinters by ripping the soft innards off with its sharp jaws and swallowing them whole. Steam and smoke lifted out of its nostrils as it ate in ravenous ferocity. By the time it seemed to have finished its feast on the still warm body of the unlucky oak, the dragon began discharging bursts of bright flame from betwixt its white teeth. Its energy seemed renewed and it crawled out of the oak’s trunk and slithered animatedly right back into the river, where it disappeared beneath the flowing waters.

Ilara got down and walked, still dripping, to the river’s edge and stared down into the depths where the creature she had just seen became as invisible as nonexistence. She felt a strange thankfulness wash over her as she realized her endeavor to see a river dragon would have been fruitless had she not been present for the lightning strike of the oak, undoubtedly what drew the dragon from its watery lair. She laughed at her luck, for that is what she assumed it was.
Next time she would use mostly-consumed firewood, still hot, to lure one to the surface. It would be a great improvement to just waiting for it to rain. She had assumed from legends that rain was what drew the beasts out of the rivers, but now she suspected the truth was that these beasts required burnt or heated wood to create their own flames. She wondered what purpose they possibly had for flame underwater. She laughed. Her love of adventure and mystery had had its fill for today and she felt satisfied, but she would continue pursuing this new beast. Surely she could get a reward for such a catch in a town, if only she could find some sort of apparatus to contain a wood-eating, fire-breathing monster, even if said monster was only as large as her own arm. She’d have to find a town nearby and make some inquiries and discover if anyone would be able to pay for such a rarity—that is, such an impossibility. She wondered if anyone would even believe her. But if they did, perhaps whoever could pay for such a catch could also provide the fee to a smith for making a metal basket-weave cage of some kind. Still, this would mean she would have to leave the forest, a place of solace and solitude she hoped she wouldn’t have to leave before the onset of winter. A sigh escaped her and she admitted to herself that she could not stay here forever.

And so she headed back along the riverbed, down the mountain, to the place she had made camp at the joining of the Caerith River and the River Theine, which had brought her this far. Despite the sobering realities of her situation, she still wore the smile that the afternoon’s pleasures had brought her, the smile which obliterated, momentarily, the pangs of longing she had for her siblings all that day and the two months she’d been gone.

But now, back at camp, the glory and ecstasy of that day’s discovery took a blow. It was agony seeing once more her overturned riverboat on the shore. She could not be near reminders of her memories without succumbing to an adhesive gloom, which stuck to her and followed her everywhere until some blissful distraction made rid of it.

Despite the acceleration of gloom she knew it would cause her, she went to the boat and began to trace the intricate etchings along its sides. She slipped under it and lay on her back, looking up pensively at the carved flowers and scenes Daelia had spent so much time and dedication carving into the seats and walls of the sturdy boat. Ilara’s fingers found their way over the patterns they knew by heart and she expelled a heavy sigh, her emotions having been too greatly varied and extreme lately to have much left to express. She wondered what Daelia was doing right now; where she possibly could be; if she was all right. She wondered similar questions for all her siblings as she lay there and freely partook of the moody gloom she was so prone to.

Having no strength to continue focusing on the reminder of her sister, Ilara slid halfway out from under the boat and looked at the clear, dimming sky of evening. She half fancied she saw one of Wren’s falcons flying overhead, but it was nothing more than a common hawk.

She had lost her appetite and will to move. Her eyes shed their nightly tears, grown less and less impassioned since that first night. For hours she lay there motionless, letting the deep of night set in around her. Eventually she slid back under the boat and reached up for the blanket she kept there and wrapped it around her for comfort and to still the shivering that had set in again. It was here that she usually slept—a practice of mingled comfort and torment. She felt close to her family under this last piece of home, but the unavoidable recognition of the emptiness she felt in their loss consumed her thoughts and made sleep a difficult thing to attain. But on this night sleep came quickly, for she wanted nothing more of the waking world.

It had been this way since her journey began; sleep came at such random hours that she never truly knew time save for when she saw the movement of heavenly bodies. She usually awoke late in the day, having had no luck with sleep for many dark hours. This became such strong habit that unless she was especially depressed and went to sleep early, she would spend most of her waking hours in the darkness of night. Late afternoon became the time she awoke each day, bathed in the river, and ate her breakfast. The rest of her day was soon the evening and night, where she roamed and hunted and climbed trees to watch the moonset and the sunrise and the cycle continued. Often she would explore a segment of land around the river for a few days and then pick up and journey further south. She didn’t know what she was seeking down the Caerith River, she only knew she was living. Just living.

In the two months she had been gone she had reached a mountain called Mt. Wedra, upon which a mainly coniferous forest clung to the steep slopes as far up as a waterfall that poured down to supply the Caerith for another hundred miles. It was in this forest she had seen the dragon and had learned the reason this forest had been called Dragonwood Forest for centuries.

On the morning after she had seen the river dragon, she gathered her things into her boat and set off for a town she knew of only as a spot on a map—a map which she hadn’t seen since the day before she left her home. Of course, it might not even be where she thought it was, twenty miles further down the river, but she had nothing to lose and so she set off with little anxiety. Had she known how far from predictable her journey was about to become, she might have chosen to change her course.