Feathers From A Lost Kingdom

Chapter 5

Asteria

The sound of birds chirping in the air echos through the forest. I sit on the ground, knife in hand while whittling the end of a branch. If we're going to make it to Tenebris we need to be able to hunt. Thankfully I had decided to bring a knife to the graduation, mostly because I felt a lot calmer with a knife strapped around my thigh, but also because it would come in handy if I needed to fight my way out of there. Certainly a lot better than giving away the secrets of fighting with my wielding - Lux and Nox. Now, sitting here in the morning light on the run from the Whitewing Government, I thank my former self for being prepared, but mostly awesome. The halfling, Llewelyn as they had called her, is still sleeping. Maybe I should just leave her here. She's already caused enough trouble for me, and most likely she has made me set off the war everyone has been working so hard to avoid. I could just stand up, and walk away. It's not like I haven't lived in the middle of nowhere before, I could just escape the world and become no one and let her clean up this mess. I discard the thought. She might be annoying, and the thing that might set off the bloodiest war we've seen in the last thousands of years, but she's also an innocent victim in all of this. And apparently half Blackwing, no matter how she feels about it, and I wouldn't let Whitewings take any Blackwing prisoner if it so meant the end of me.
"Get up, Halfling. The sun is rising, it's time to go."
Llewelyn stirs, but doesn't wake up.
I nudge her, and she frowns. I sigh and take a few steps closer and lean in, "THEY'RE HERE, LLEWELYN WE HAVE TO GO, THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE YOU RUN," I yell as loud as I dare.
She shoots up, panic clear in her eyes, and looks around frantically, "where are-"
I smirk at her and she stops, looks at me and says, "I hate you."
"Don't blame me, you're the one that can't wake up." My smirks widens.
She glares at me, "I'm up now aren't I?"
"Yes, great to know that if we are actually under attack you will wake up, even if you won't wake up so that we can get further away from our potential attackers." I turn my back to her. "Unless you got anything else to say I suggest we start walking," I swallow, the memory of a tale told long ago sends a shiver down my back, "these woods aren't safe." Hopefully you'll never learn why. Then we take the first step into the dark woods.

Usually I feel at peace in forests, more than any other place, but I know better than to let my guard down in a forest like this. Llewelyn walks behind me, ignorant of the potential danger. She breaks a branch from one of the trees, probably to busy herself on the long journey.
"Don't do that. They will notice," I eye her with a warning glare hoping she'll listen.
Llewelyn raises a brow. "You do know that trees don't have feelings right?"
I roll my eyes at her, and continue forward. This isn't the best time to share ghost stories.
"Okay then, where are we going anyway?"
"A human village not too far from here. We are to visit someone I know," I answer, relieved to change the topic.
"Well that isn't vague at all." Her annoyance is clear as day. I wonder if she'll ever grow up, or if she's going to hold on to this spoiled brat thing forever. 'Cause if this is all she is, then I really hope this whole mess is cleaned up quickly. There's no way I'm going to put up with this. I look up, and notice that the branches are unusually tight together. No flying then. At least it'll make a great cover from air attacks.
"So who's Eilam?" I try to keep the conversation going to distract myself from my thoughts.
The question catches her by surprise, as expected seeing that I probably haven't asked her a single question since we met. "Oh, uh, he's an old friend of mine. He was sent to Tenebris, in exchange for you being sent to Luminia," she says, with an almost friendly tone. We're getting somewhere.
"He's a whitewing? Huh, I assumed he was a blackwing seeing that we are meeting him in my capital," I think outloud. "This might be a bigger problem than I thought..." I furrow my brows in deep thought.
"Why is that?" she inquires, worry making her words faster than usual.
I take a deep breath, contemplating ways to make this sound not dangerous, but give up after a few seconds. There's no easy way to tell someone this. "Well, I have a few friends. Not friends, more like colleagues, back in Tenebris and they've put a bounty on his head. A huge one. Every able warrior not loyal to the crown, or businessman who would benefit from war is going after him. And there's a lot of them. Your friend might not make it through the night."
She stops short, clenching her jaw. "If any of them touch him I swear I'll gut them..."
I look at her in disbelief. I'd like to see a youngling go up against any of my "colleagues". The thought of it is so amusing that I laugh, making Llewelyn's face turn a light shade of red. "I-I'm sorry," I manage to say between laughing fits, "but that has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard."
Her face turns redder, but this time I don't think it's a blush. Her fists clench slightly before she supports herself with an outstretched hand on a tree. Llewelyn looks dazed and that's when I notice the flickering light coming from under her hand. Suddenly her hand is engulfed in flames, and they're spreading upwards following the tree's trunk.
"Llewelyn, get back!" I shout, jumping forward, forcing her to the ground. But it's too late, the tree is already on fire. There's no stopping it now.
Llewelyn faces the now burning tree with a confused look on her face, panic beneath her features. "I did not just do that"
"You did, and I really, really wish you hadn't." And then the screaming begins.

A/N: Hey! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and as always, feedback is our biggest wish!
          Looking forward to keep developing this story together with you guys :)