Siege

this beast that you're after will eat you alive (vi)

Ridgethorn was empty when they returned. 

Only the housekeepers greeted their company after a long day of traveling. It seems the church's decision was hasty, urging the others to come down to the capital. It was inevitable. They were the Duke and Duchess of the biggest region of Odrivell. Their funeral ought to be ceremonial and grand.

"Whyever are we not setting off to the capital yet, sister?" A few hours of respite later and her brother is already impatient. He exasperatedly lay on the settee. "I wish to witness the audacity of those ministers, taking our parents' corpses down to the capital without prior notice," he fumed.

"Calm your horses, Eli, I do not wish to follow them immediately. We still have unfinished business left to tend to. Though, I may permit you to go alone," his calm sister coolly replied while skimming over leftover paperwork in the late duke's office. She paused when he was silently considering it and looked up at him.

"Do you wish to go alone? Are you in a haste to pick on the ministers?"

"Well, I don't see any good reason for me to stay here when all our siblings are at the capital, sister," he reasoned, scratching the back of his head.

"Not all of them." She shrugged. "Lilith is here. The maids told me she's been under the willow tree all day."

He stood up, surprised. "Is she? Whyever did she stay back?"

When his sister merely shrugged, Eli decided it was his responsibility to check on his younger sister. He made his merry way behind the estate and into the ominous snowy woods which hid a small clearing, the meadows, with a tall willow tree in its center. The hidden willow tree was a secret among the Trivith siblings. It was their favorite spot for picnics when they were still jolly young masters.

There he found a small girl and her friend tiger lying under the snow-tipped tree's shade. Lilith was barely visible over the thick bundle of clothes that puffed up even more because she was sitting, but the strong colors of Yor beside her were enough to scare away any hostile presence.

She looked up, her tame crimson eyes locking with his own. Her eyes slightly widened as he spoke, "Lilith! Whyever did you not go to the capital with the others?"

His sister, with composure and lax mien similar to Keres's, calmly fished her notepad and scribbled her response.

'I waited for you and Keres.'

He frowned and quizzically looked down at her. As he sat down next to Yor, who merely nuzzled closer to Lilith, he pried further, "Whyever for?"

Their mysterious sister merely shrugged. It did not help Eli's feeble mind come up with a reason. He eventually gave up after receiving a silent treatment and left the willow tree. Lilith was, presumably, the second most mysterious sibling, followed by Keres. Twelve-year-old or not, Lilith acted wiser beyond her age.

She was not born mute.

She cried loudly like a normal child in her first few years. However, at five years old, Lilith was kidnapped. She was harmlessly retrieved and her kidnappers were sentenced for treason until they cast a self-destruction spell thus turning them to ashes. They were a mysterious bunch. And from that day on, Lilith never spoke again. Her last words were vivid in everyone's memory.

"Words are futile. The mortal tongue cannot speak the language of chaos."

Until now, Eli could not understand a word she meant. Mayhap his smarter siblings knew, but they never chose to speak of it again.

Meanwhile, on the top floor of the manor, Keres tied a missive to the messenger crow waiting by the window. She pets it once and lets it flap its onyx wings, starting its journey back south. Her gaze followed the crow, reminiscing an image of white and gold feathers scouring the starless skies.