CHAPTER 11 #2
The bow is carved with gilded leaves—it’s as much a piece of art as it is a weapon.
She pulls the string taut, testing it, before knocking an arrow and repeating the motion.
Bringing the string to her cheek, she lets her shoulders become accustomed to the weight of the bow and the tension in the line.
I think she’s about to let the arrow fly when she puts it down and pulls her brother into her arms.
“It’s perfect,” she says, her words muffled by his shoulder.
“You deserve nothing less,” he says into her hair.
She’s holding back tears when she looks at me, perhaps remembering that she has an audience.
“What do you think of it, Shivaria?” she asks, holding out the bow.
I take it reverently, marveling at the weapon as I run my fingers down its length. Never have I seen its likeness. Though it is imperfect, I find that the right type of flaw has an uncanny way of making something more exquisite.
Tracing the etched shaft with my finger, I can’t help but think back on the first time I held a bow, my traitorous mind wandering to the man who taught me. I discard the memory, as I discard the bow back into her hands, forcing a smile.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
The general scoffs at my perfectly genuine compliment and I scowl at him.
“You disagree, General?” Awri asks with a quirk of her brow.
“Not at all. It’s just—only a woman would describe a weapon in such a way.”
“How would you describe it?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I might describe it as accurate.”
“Have you already tried the bow then?” I ask.
The general balks at my question, taking it as an accusation. Looking over my head, he rushes to assure Awri, “Absolutely not. I would never take the liberty. The first shot is yours.”
I hum thoughtfully.
“What?” the general demands with a sigh.
“I just find it interesting that you would condemn a woman for describing the simple truth of a thing, while you, as a male, will only comment on your assumptions about it.”
A wide grin breaks upon Awri’s face as the general struggles to school himself.
“Awri, why don’t you take a shot and settle this for us? I believe you will find my assumptions to be quite accurate,” the general says, handing her an arrow.
“I’d love to,” she chuckles, walking to a nearby tree laden with pink flowers the size of my palm, and takes aim.
She looses the arrow, narrowly missing her mark, fluttering the petals as it flies by. Her mouth twists as she eyes the bow.
“May I?” The general extends his hand, and she relinquishes it to him reluctantly.
His arrow misses the flower by a smaller margin, taking one of the petals with it when it tears past. He frowns, hardly waiting before knocking another.
He takes his time, making minor adjustments to his position, offsetting the arrows trajectory.
I have little doubt he compensated correctly for the flaw, a minute curve in the shaft of the weapon. This time, he will strike his mark.
The pink petals flit about in a light breeze, the creek of the general’s leather vambrace the only sound to permeate the silence as he draws the string against his cheek.
I suck in a sharp breath, my hand flying to his arm, a plea in the form of a gentle squeeze.
The words won’t come fast enough, and I don’t expect him to stop.
I’m shocked when he loosens his hold on the string, following my line of sight.
“What is it?” he asks quietly.
“There.” I point. “In the tree.”
Just below his target, a pair of bright violet eyes stare back at us from within the thick foliage. He nods once, signaling that he sees it, and hands the bow back to Awri. The siblings survey the tree curiously, searching for whatever dissuaded the male from his shot.
When I look back, the violet eyes have vanished. A strong gust of wind sweeps up from the sea, churning the petals into a vortex as they are pulled from the tree in a cascade. If the general hadn’t confirmed what I’d seen, I’m not sure I would have trusted my own sight.
We make our way toward the cottage, Riesh and Awri at the front of our party. She’s still thanking her brother for the bow, and he continues to tell her how deserving she is. I can’t help but wonder if all siblings are like this.
“What was that thing?” I ask, looking over my shoulder toward the tree, hardly expecting the general to answer.
“A wood sprite.”
“Really?”
He nods, and I whip my body around, trying in vain to find the creature once again.
“She’ll be gone by now,” he says.
I sigh in disappointment and turn back, taking a few quick strides to catch up to my party.
“I thought all the fea creatures fled this veil in the sundering.”
“Not all of us,” he assures me.
“I didn’t mean the feyn.” Obviously.
“But we are fea creatures. Are we not?” he sneers at my unintentional slip.
He isn’t wrong. The feyn are in fact fea creatures, but while they live alongside the humans of Terr, the rest of the fea largely belonged to the forests and rarely interacted with the human race, or so I was taught.
I want to yell at him for being intentionally difficult, but it occurs to me that it may be my own fault that he hasn’t warmed up to me at this point.
If Awri is inclined to like me, there is no reason the general can’t learn to as well.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
He huffs in disbelief. “Don’t worry. I’ve rarely met a La’tarian who consider feyn more than mere creatures. Your particular flavor of disdain is entirely unoriginal.”
Well, foc him.
In this moment, there is little else in this world I’d like more than to tear the general apart bit by bit, starting with his mind, moving to his body, and finishing with his soul.
For all I know, he is the oldest feyn on the face of Terr, and if that’s true, it’s no wonder they left him behind in the sundering.
He probably started the great war all by himself, with his hisht personality.
“Is everything all right, Shivaria?” Riesh stops to open the cottage door for me, wearing a rather concerned look as he examines us.
His eyes flick to the general and I’m not sure what he sees, but he frowns at his friend.
“Everything is perfect. Thank you, Riesh,” I say.
My murderous thoughts of the general fade away the moment my feet pass the threshold, landing on the heavily knotted wood of the cottage floor.
The home is every bit as charming inside as it is outside.
An array of colorful, heavily cushioned chairs litters the room by the stone fireplace.
A large table carved from the roots of an ancient tree sits at its center.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” says an unfamiliar voice. A tall male with green eyes and a mop of dark brown hair rushes down the stairs with a wide grin, gripping the banister that’s been carved to resemble the gnarled branches of a tree.
He rushes to Awri and pulls her into an embrace, resting his cheek on her head.
“She was never going to make it an entire day with an unwrapped gift waiting for her,” Riesh says, smiling.
“It wasn’t just that.” She pushes out of the male’s arms and looks from me back to him. “I wanted you to meet the new friend I was telling you about. Kishek, this is Shivaria.”
He dips his head and offers me a warm smile, dimples forming in his olive tone cheeks, and I smile warmly back.
Awri hands the male her bow, a proud smile plastered on her face as he looks it over, nodding approvingly.
Riesh makes himself at home, swinging a kettle over the crackling fire, and the general simply stands in the corner exuding his perpetual gloom.
The table is littered with papers and a variety of books, beneath which sits a map of Terr. In its entirety.
My stomach flutters with anticipation as I walk to the table, perhaps a little too quickly.
The general tenses in the corner, the floor creaking as he shifts his weight off the wall to hover at my back.
I lace my fingers behind me, bending over to examine what little of the map is exposed beneath the piles of papers and books splayed on top.
Not wishing to appear too forward by moving anything on the table, I drink in the details that are visible below the southern border of La’tari.
Where I have only ever seen The Smudge, this map boasts colorful depictions of mountain ranges and countryside in a land so vast A’kori could fit inside it five times over.
“I’ve been told that the La’tari censor Brax from their maps,” Riesh says, and I startle, not having noticed him settle against the table beside me.
“Brax?” I wonder aloud.
“That is the name for the land between La’tari and the southern sea.”
“It’s true.” I hate admitting out loud that I’ve been kept ignorant about something that is clearly common knowledge in the north. “I always called it The Smudge. It’s nothing more than a dark swath on our maps.”
“Why do you suppose that is?” he asks.
My brow pinches when I look at him. It’s clear by his tone that he has his own ideas about why that would be.
“To keep us safe,” I say, simply because it is what I have always been told.
The smudge—Brax—is incredibly dangerous. I have known many Drakai over the years who’d gone on missions into its unknown wilds and disappeared without a trace. If I ever had any doubts about the danger that exists beyond the southern border, they all vanished the day I met the crone in the woods.
“What other reason would they have?” I ask, letting him bait me into the debate he is apparently eager for.
After all, if we agreed on everything, we wouldn’t have teetered on the edge of war my entire life.
Riesh glances behind me, lifting his chin toward the general.
When I turn to look, I find the male resuming his lax position against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes nailed to the map before me.
Without lifting his eyes, he says, “Awri, would you like to show Shivaria your fea drawings?”