The General and the Princess

Chapter 3 || Kiva

What the Lavri Resistance lacked in brawn they compensated for with intelligence. Rather than keeping their homes on the ground, easily discoverable and destroyable by Vinrys's forces, the Lavri Resistance resided in houses built high in the trees. These homes were shaped around the giant trunks of trees, disguised and almost unnoticeable. Many homes were connected by swinging bridges, ladders, and ropes. From an early age, children could scale trees, ladders, and ropes as easily as run.

Kiva and Justyn's treehouse was small, and the only entrance was through a rope ladder that hung from a limb high in the tree. Kiva grabbed the first handle, lithely pulling herself up the rope rungs despite the wind pushing the ladder back and forth. She grabbed hold of the threshold and pulled herself onto the platform. Half of the first floor was surrounded by a wall with open windows and covered by a roof while the rest was exposed to the elements. Another ladder stretched from the floor to a second platform, and from there, a third platform was accessible via a single strand of rope. Kiva sat on the first floor of their small home, leaning against the trunk of their great tree host.

She remembered the day they had first come to the Lavri Resistance; she and Justyn had been young but not innocent. She remembered exhaustion, the feeling that all life had been drained from their bodies. They had been running away from Vinrys after he burned their family alive, and all Justyn and Kiva had wanted was rest and revenge. She remembered seeing Inver for the first time. He was younger then, not yet the leader of the Resistance, but still a powerful beacon of hope after their long desperate journey from Sari. She remembered wandering into Mevyl and collapsing in the dirt before she was handed bread and stew. However, the most distinct memory from those first few days was the moment when Inver told her and Justyn the purpose of the Lavri Resistance.

Inver had held Kiva's hand in friendship and confidence and exclaimed, with those infamously blue eyes flashing, "We stand. When others fall, we stand. We stand against every injustice we have suffered. We stand because we know what it is to lose."

Kiva remembered pledging allegiance to the Resistance, vowing to give her bloodlife to stand against Vinrys, the man who had taken nearly every good thing out of her life, and every other injustice lurking in the recesses of Zeina. She and Justyn had stood, side by side, in front of Inver. They had cut their wrists in solemn ceremony, whispering the words "I pledge my bloodlife." Kiva had closed her eyes when the knife sliced her wrist, reliving every pain caused by Vinrys, reliving the sounds of her mother's screams as fire consumed her. Kiva would both kill and be killed on behalf of the Lavri Resistance. As Kiva recalled the memory, she traced the rigid horizontal scar across her wrist from the knife, evidence of her lifelong vow.

"Kiva!"
She turned, startled from her memory by Justyn's voice. He had climbed up the ladder silently and was watching her.

"Sorry to startle you. It's almost time to go...Inver was going to come fetch you, but I volunteered."

Kiva gritted her teeth. "I'm almost ready."

Kiva traded the soft moccasins she wore now for a pair of boots that laced to her knees and wedged a knife into her belt. She quickly braided her hair, brushing the stray strands of obsidian behind her ears. She breathed deeply, trying to prepare herself for yet another confrontation. She was dreading standing before Inver's council and sharing about the last few months.

"Time to go, Kiv. Are you ready?"

"Will I ever be?"

Justyn put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her gently, "I'm here for you, and Inver is too, no matter what you think of him."

Kiva nodded, clenching and unclenching her jaw. She squeezed the pendant around her neck until the cage and the bird were seared into her hand.

"I'm ready."