Fugitive of the Sky

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Maybe He Is Speaking

Aqie woke to dark faces staring down at her. "Aaaaaaaa!" She screamed and threw an arm in front of her face. Light flashed and the faces jerked back. The hunters were here. She was captured. Everything hurt too much and she didn't know where she was and she couldn't fly away. She was in somewhere different, dark and hard instead of the leaf mulch she'd fainted in before. It smelled like wood. Was it nighttime? Where had they taken her to?

"Who are you and why did you bring humans into our forest?"

Aqie froze. They weren't hunters? Slowly, she lowered her arm and stared wide-eyed. They were darker than she'd ever seen, with hair that was all curly instead of straight like Dad's and they were standing all together, arms crossed and faces bent into scowls. But they had capes clasped around their necks, even though they were all made out of leaves. "You're Larkwings?" Had she really already found Larkhold?

"Farwings," one of them corrected. "Tilarkalraee foen'doth kiht iaeth itiaen kun timaynis i—" He was cut off by a nudge from the leader.

"Answer our question," he said. His hands started to glow with something and his silver hair glinted. Aqie watched with wide eyes. What was his identiae? How was he using it?

Aqie tried to sit up and yelped. Her side curled up on itself and she had to settle with looking at him from the ground. "I'm Aqie. Taliys," she added when the others frowned at her. Elder. What are the words for respecting elders? Her side hurt and it made it hard to remember and focus.

"Why did you bring the hunters into our forest?" The elder bent over her, hands still tucked in his arms and glowing.

Aqie shrank back. She didn't like this. Larkwings were supposed to be welcoming to each other, regardless of tribe. They had to be different tribe Larkwings, right? "I didn't bring them. They were chasing me over the fields and I was running from the city and there was no other place to go."

The elder settled back with a stony expression. "Because of that, we had to kill fourteen humans who strayed in too far. There will be more before the night is over."

"You did what?" Aqie screeched, forgetting it was bad to ask that to an elder. "But killing's sin!"

All the Farwings glared. "Murder is sin. It was pan tiskantani lay paianen Frarilraee," the elder said stiffly.

"For the good of what? Why are you using Larkwing so much? I don't understand." Aqie's hand crept to her kaprae clasp. They killed fourteen people because they'd followed her into the forest?

"Because Larkwing is the true language we are supposed to speak," another Farwing started before he was silenced by a look from the elder.

"The hunting of Larkwings began after the Great War. Surely you know this?" The elder looked at her kaprae and tsked. "The tribes' refusal to discipline the traitors caused the near end of our people."

All the Farwings muttered, "Unt kiht nahnin." Something about never again? Aqie tried to focus, but she couldn't translate and keep up with the elder's clipped words.

"So we split and severed ourselves in the Fonten Forest. The old ways have failed. We must return to even deeper roots."

"Iaeth siys foenden fin naethh loth othir siluhthiy," the Farwings intoned.

Aqie swallowed, but there was nothing wet in her mouth. This was getting a bit creepy. Succeeding where others had gone astray? Going back to the old ways? But what kind of old ways were there other than the Scrolls?

The elder held up his hand, and the others stopped immediately. He pointed at her kaprae. "Since you are a Larkwing, and the Scrolls forbid us to harm another chosen one, we will not give you the same penalty the hunters suffered."