Bird of a Wing (Bow 1)

Chapter 1

Ryraso was human, not k'nairi. It was an obvious statement but an important one. The fact he had no wings or talons sort of made that more apparent to most but the k'nairi seemed to have different ideas about what made a person a k'nairi or not.

A powerful and typically beautiful race, the k'nairi saw themselves above the humans, and certainly above the two other races which existed on their continent. Humanoid in figure, what made them different from the other races was the fact they processed giving them the gift of flight. They moved with unparalleled grace, wielding magic stronger than most human mages. Even so, it seemed to Ryraso that what the k'nairi thought made a being k'nairi was not having wings necessarily but being connected to them through a magic older than human existence.

Every k'nairi had magic from the day they were born but most were unable to wield it anyway apart from one. An almost hive-like mind link, it was part of them from the day they were born and what they saw as made them k'nairi. It was a powerful magic and so much a part of them that when people of the other races lived among them, they sometimes joined with the magic that bound the k'nairi together, themselves.

Ryraso may have developed the link but that did not stop him being human. No matter how the k'nairi felt about people like him, he was not one of them. He refused to be considered one of them. He may have acted k'nairi. He may have gained a few of their tendencies, but so would anyone else who lived around the winged people for most of their adult life. You had to in order to survive in their world.

Signing, Ryraso's hands paused over his things as he packed his bag. He could almost feel part of himself scolding that he was making excuses now. He leant backwards and rested against the tree wall behind him. What he was going to have to do that night was going to be hard but needed to be done. Justifications had no place for things that simply had to happen.

Justifications didn't exactly make the situation stop the stabbing pain in his chest. Pain at the thought of leaving the place he had grown to love, to leave people he had spent the better part of the last decade healing, to leave the Winglord and the royal triad. Still, he mused as he wiped stray tears from his eyes, the Winglord had made his decision and that decision was going to affect more than just Ryraso and his relationship. It was likely going to sway the direction of the war too and not in a way which Ryraso could stand behind. He had lost too much of his human life already without standing by idly as the people he thought he could trust choice the other side.

Awacia was in pieces because of the damn war. Already so many lives had been lost. Innocent lives who had no power over the situation which had been forced upon them. A different pain sparked in Ryraso's heart that thought and something which made him grimly steel up. This pain was the loss of this family. Ryraso was safe in the mountain bound city of Navat but his family had not been. His entire village had been killed by the D'mar.

There were two main factions in this war, the D'mar and the Namya. The war had started as purely a human thing but soon the human's conflict had engulfed the nonhuman parts of the lands as well. Ignoring the k'nairi lands, but they were well protected from outside threats. The k'nairi were dangerous predators for a reason, the lands in which they lived were harsh, second only to the deserts where only nomads and exiles lived. The desert people were in a world of their own, and not one Ryraso had ever had the pleasure of knowing.