The Kindreds, Volume 1

The Fifth, Pt. 1

Sada

Bright pain was hammered into her back and the right side of her body as she hit the ground, and breath once again evaded her. This time the feeling lasted much longer than the span of three heartbeats, though she was in no shape to count. She felt it was a miracle her heart was still beating. It wasn't the pain that was so overwhelming, but the disorientation, like her brain was on one of those stands that holds globes, and it had just been rotated on its axis. Yet even the memory of such a feeling began to fade with her bodily pain, and if she'd had the clarity to notice it that would have been concerning as well. Once she was able to take an aching breath, Sada used it to groan at the throbbing in her skin and muscles.

She then opened her eyes and groaned at the brightness they were met with. It seemed that amidst the pain, her vision had returned.

Regardless of whatever else ails me, at least I am not dead, and at least I am not blind. She knew the former was true because there could be no pain in the afterlife, and she knew the latter was true because she was looking at something orange. She stared at freshly fallen leaves as big as her face and colorful clumps of moss and saw, still disoriented, that she was lying on her stomach. Her back was hot, probably from the fall, and her front was damp and cool.

My dress! she thought briefly, but she couldn't summon the strength nor the will to stand. She reasoned that a little bit of mud wouldn't hurt her. Not any more than that fall had.

"Oh delightful. Now look at what thou have gone and done!" a man exclaimed above Sada.

"Hey." It was a dull, deep voice that answered. "At least we're back home."

"Oh jie, home," the first, sharper voice scoffed. "Most would beg to differ on that account. Truly, I envy thee's ability to forget such."

The voices sounded vaguely familiar, and she thought it might be the men she'd heard talking as she and Sir Caleb neared the guards, the ones she thought to be squires. Where was Sir Caleb? Had she been left alone with squires? Why had they not returned her to the manor, yet?

She blinked, hard, and tried to push herself up, but a wave of dizziness overcame her and she lowered herself to the ground again. It smelled wet. The usual scent of decaying leaves and bugs found in wet forests was absent, however, and it made some subconscious part of Sada's mind uneasy. All she smelled was moss and the sweetness of bark.

"Thou fancied stayin' in the mortal world? Fine, let's head back then," said the Dull One.

"We cannot, that is precisely my argument," the first snapped. "We ought to have remained. It would have been to everyone's benefit."

"Well, if it eases thou's mind any, 'twasn't my doin' that brought us back, neither."

Sada squeezed her eyes shut and managed to push herself to her feet. Pressure immediately pounded in her head, and her view of the forest was abruptly accompanied by pulses of black and grey blobs in her vision. She ignored it, focusing on the two men in front of her, one tall and the other short.

Swaying with nothing to hold onto, she managed to say, "Pardon me," and then she was on the ground again. This time her vision went out completely for a few seconds as she fell nose-deep into moss.

"What in the—Kindreds' kids, thee've brought a human with us!" exclaimed the first, angry man.

Sada was rolled over before she could say anything more. Hard roots pressed into her back, and she found herself blinking hazily up at the men. The short one was bent over her, hand still on her arm. Short brown hair to match acorn eyes fell into his face, most of it having come untucked from his tunic. His features were sharp, but not unkind. She briefly thought he could be Sir Caleb's younger brother. They had the same chin.