Favored and Forgotten

Gifted Ones

"Aleks, why is Madraya making us move again?" the little girl asked her brother as they trudged on through the snow. The wind whipped violently leaving its lashing on her cheeks, turning them red with cold.

"Lena, be quiet," he scolded, gripping her hand and pulling her along.

"I don't want to go into the mountains! I hate the snow! I want to go home!" she howled, tugging at his hand as hard as she could.

"Lena, quit it."

The reason their mother had decided to take a five-year-old on a snowy hike through the bitter and frosty Fjerdan terrain was both simple and complex. It was a matter of safety, but the reason their safety was in question was a very long story, one dating back centuries.

"Stop your bickering. Milena, stop bugging your brother and stop complaining!"

"But Mama, I'm cold and I'm tired," she whined, tears welling in her eyes.

"Enough!" Milena ducked behind her brother, cowering slightly at her mother's stern tone. "Now, back to what I was saying," the woman continued, ignoring her daughter's shaking form. "The northerners will want to call you Eryk."

"Why? I was supposed to be Arkady."

"If we're to be from the south, you need a southern sounding name like Arkady. But Eryk will fit better on their tongues. They're Fjerdan here as much as Ravkan. You'll see. And you, girl, you will be Sofiya. Do not forget it. Now, what are your names?"

"Arkady. Eryk," her brother said.

"Sofiya," she repeated.    

"Where are you from?" their mother asked sharply, quizzing them on their cover story as they continued on through the barren winterscape.

"Balakirev," they chorused, their voices dying out in the wind.

Milena waited for the next question, the one that always made her cry no matter who was asking or why: where's your father? Aleks always replied the same way, he's dead, but little Milena wasn't sure that was true. What she did know was that she couldn't even picture his face or his voice. The question never came.

Their mother continued to drill them, asking again and again what their names were and where they came from, and each time both children would monotonously respond the way they had been conditioned. They marched on through the Elbjen range, up and down the rocky foothills. Melina tried her best not to slip even when her knees kept trembling, threatening to give out from underneath her. But she kept going, never again complaining about her sore legs or runny nose, never once giving in to the desire of requesting her brother carry her the rest of the way.

The biting chill of Fjerda made her wish they were back in that cramped hunter's blind, hidden away from the elements with nothing but millet cakes and salt. There she and Aleks had camped out for two days while their mother went on an adventure, one her brother had attempted to explain to her. "She's searching for the Gifted Ones," he had said, "Grisha. They will help us and keep us safe. Once she finds them, she will come back for us, and we will have warm beds and full bellies."

Her brother had not slept for the nights they were alone in that makeshift shelter, but he always held her tightly and lulled her back to sleep when she awoke in the middle of the night, frightened by the storm or the wolves. No matter how lonesome, scared, or weak he felt, he protected Lena and cared for her first.