Feathers

Bracelet

He pressed the dirty piece down into his pocket and trotted back into the dry room. "What is it?"

She pointed above the doorway he had just come through and he turned, looking up. A painting hung there, the left side of the metal frame blackened, but it had protected the canvas from the flames. It was fairly large, but because it had faded and grown shadowed with age, he had easily missed it the first time. He could make out the figure of a female with unruly hair, falling freely over her shoulders and chest. Though she looked like a Feral, she was wearing some sort fabric, light blue, that made her eyes seem lighter by comparison. They were almost the only things discernable in the darkness.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know. She might have been the princess or queen of this castle, of whatever this place used to be. She is not wearing a crown, though," Link mused.

"But look on her wrist," Leda said.

"It is a bracelet. She was married."

Leda shook her head and he searched for any details on the dark band. "It is not metal," she replied. "It does not shine. Peregrines have metal bracelets and Ferals use either wood, shell, or bone. I may have heard of this before. It was a bracelet made from the antler of the largest buck in Deepfell, one that was completely white. He brought it to the Queen when it was ready to fall. That way, no creature was harmed in its collection. Once the bracelet had been carved, she flew it to where the river of Deepfell meets the ocean at its most northern point and buried in the sand where it turned black as midnight. When she found it again, she walked with it all the way back home. Now the bracelet had known life and death, wind and water and earth. It would forever remind the Queen what she was truly married to and what she had been charged to protect. That was a story my parents told me many times. Do you think it could be true?"

Link rubbed his jaw. "So you think that this is the portrait of the Queen of the Ferals?"

"Perhaps. But no Feral female would ever invite a Peregrine into her home," she laughed.

He would definitely have to bring Bain to the tower. Hopefully, he would know if there was any more to the story or as to which people had lived in the castle and who had attacked them. Link thought it would be very sad if the Avians that had died there were forgotten and lost, their lives with no more significance than the mushrooms that grew on their bones.

She followed him outside. "Link?"

He turned and watched her nervously rub her arm. She looked so innocent and beautiful, her dark hair blowing slightly in the wind, her eyes bashful. He felt a tug on his heart and held out his arm for her to move under. She laid her head on his shoulder above his breast and sighed.

"What will happen when your friend, Bain, captures a girl?"

Link felt a wave of anxiety wash down to his toes. He had been dreading this conversation, knowing that it would come before he had any kind of answer and it had. "I'm not sure. He will take her back to Incitatia and Arthur and Rutiger will go with him. They will expect me to go, too."

"Will you tie me up and take me there as well?" There was a hint of fear in her voice.

"No, Leda. I would never do that to you. I care too much about you to force that life upon you. I know that you would not be happy in Incitatia. All the time we have spent together was not some ploy to trick you into dropping your guard around me so that I could take you more easily. Though I am a Peregrine, I am not heartless," he said sadly.

Leda felt guilty for insinuating that he was. "I am sorry, Link. We are taught to think these things. So you will go, then, forever?"

He rubbed circles over her back and sighed. "I have not decided yet. I could go back, but come and visit you here. I grew up in Incitatia, you know. I am not as good at surviving here as you. My wasp stings are a testament to that!"