Fugitive of the Sky

Chapter Thirty-Three: Hurt Begets Hurt

Go back.

The words were clearer than sunlight on water and Aqie stumbled to a halt. Adonai had never talked to her like this before.

Go back.

"But the hunters!" she whispered fearfully, tucking her kaprae close and glancing back through the trees. They were somewhere behind her, along with the hunter who'd betrayed her. They'd be more than ready to kill her.

Go back.

This was like the time in the Scrolls where Kial heard Adonai's voice three times and had to follow. Aqie's eyes widened and she swallowed. Did that make her a prophet too?

"I'm scared," she told Adonai, slowly turning around and hiding herself behind a tree. "What if the hunters kill me?"

Waiting silence. Aqie screwed her eyes shut. If she was going to prove Cloven wrong and showed she really obeyed Adonai, she had to do this. Maybe this was Adonai's way of helping her avoid the hunters. They'd never suspect she'd charge right back at them, would they?

Deep breath. She could do this. Adonai was in control, right? He'd obviously done something so she could run away this far. Now He was telling her to go back...

Far more timidly than she would've liked to admit, Aqie peeked out from behind the tree and started winding her way back through the forest. She kept expecting for hunters to jump out of nowhere and slice at her with their swords or shoot her with their arrows, but nobody was there. It was like they'd all melted away when the sun started poking through the trees.

Aqie started moving faster. Hunters didn't just disappear like that, did they? They'd been following her for ages without ever letting up. Why would they give up now?

Her hunter's cold face in the moonlight stared down at her, and she flinched. Tears started to well up, but she blinked them away. She needed to be ready if any more hunters came charging at her.

Why had he gone with them to kill her?

She thought he'd been different, nice and protecting her from the other Mongors. He had yelled at her and taken a piece of her kaprae, but he'd promised not to do it again and he'd asked her to let him take it when he needed it instead of taking it by force. Had running away from his house really made him angry enough to kill her?

Some branches looked suspiciously spiky and Aqie nearly ran away before looking closer and realizing it was just a bush. She let out a shaky breath. Not a hunter. All this running away meant she was always somewhere new and she couldn't get used to what all the trees looked like. Back home she would've known it was just a bush right away. Aqie wiped her eyes and mouth and kept going.

What had she done that he'd been going to kill her just like all the others? Was it because she'd yelled at them about the war? But it had to have been more than that. Even when he'd been angry about the war the first time he hadn't tried to kill her. Why? Why had he betrayed her? She'd trusted him and had been sad about leaving but she had to and he'd tried to kill her.

Unless... unless her kaprae was the only thing he'd ever wanted, and when she ran away, he decided he'd just have to kill her to get it.

Hurt expanded in her throat and stuffed into the chasm so far she thought it'd burst. Aqie stopped sneaking and fisted her hands in her kaprae. The sobs were still going to escape anyway, so she turned it around and buried her face in the warm, lumpy sunlight. After everything she'd gone through, even the people she thought were her friends just wanted to have her kaprae. Nobody wanted her for anything except to take away her kaprae. If only Mom and Dad hadn't died to the hunters. They would've wanted her without taking away her kaprae.