The Caged Bird (Under Reconstruction... Not for reading)

07.

There are stories that the men and women back in the small villages that litter the countryside whisper when the soldiers backs are turned.

Stories of battles fought years ago, before King Loxley had even been heard of.

Before he had led thousands of men to the sea, driving the Fae toward their demise at the cliffs at it's edge.

I remember a few of these whispered tales. Bits and pieces flutter through my mind now and then, though the details are scattered from the many tellings in taverns and inns that I had heard them in or near as a child.

There is the story of the great King Demetorius, ancestor to our own King, who once single handedly defended our country from thousands of warriors that had traveled from near and far to sweep our land right from under us. They had heard of the resources buried within our mountains.

The riches our Kings had mined from deep within Aspia's core.

But King Demetorius had been determined to save his home. His people.

After years of battling the great king had swept one hand out, screaming as his very life had fled his body and corrupted the body of every man, young or old, that had dared enter his lands until they crumbled beneath his might.

And within moments they had been swept away in the wind like ash.

He had fathered Queen Aledentra, the Faefriend. She had been one of the last to form treaties with the magical beings her ancestors had once been so close to. She had also been the last to show the effects of Fae power in her blood, bringing life to the many orchards and farms that lay dry at the edge of the towns of Aspia. She had traded with the Fae, and in turn they had helped to protect our borders for many years.

King Loxley had come long after, the only sign of his Fae blood surfacing in his old age, and he had been the one to fully free us from our ties to the magic-wielders in our northern mountains.

"Magic," he had said, "was an honor his ancestors had once possessed proudly. But it had twisted the Fae it came from into dark creatures. Hungry creatures who had grown to hate the men who crossed their lands."

He twisted the Fae into such heinous creatures that men followed him eagerly into battle, and that was the last we heard of them, other than a few breathed words now and then in the taverns.

But as I scramble to my feet, rushing from the shadows that now lunge toward me, I can't help but to think that King Loxley had been wrong.

He had not expelled the magic that once lingered on our lands.

He had angered it.

My yell echoes across the sand, another wooden blade clutched in my hand as I am thrown to the ground. Searing pain blinds me momentarily, and even after there is a sharp, throbbing pulse across my face as a cool, moist limb seeps over the skin of my right ankle and pulls.

With another shriek my foot that is gripped jerks. I kick again and again, looking down only to be filled with horror as my skin is further enveloped by what looks to be nothing more than shadow and mist.

Adrenaline surges into my veins, pumping through me, causing my motions to become shaky and uncoordinated.

My leg jerks under the mass once more.

Fingers dig into loose sand, searching for a grip.

A hot, pulsing sensation flushes my cheeks and I grunt.

"Sloppy."

Amos's voice shatters through thought and focus.

The memory of those words is a slap to my already stinging face. I remember them clearly. I even remember the tone in which he had said them, irritation burning within his eyes. He had spat in my face one afternoon, glaring down at me as I lay sprawled across the forest floor. I had failed his tests for that day, losing my grip on the branches that had always offered peace and solace. And then plummeting to the ground.