Bird of a Flock (Bow 2)

Chapter 19

Eyeri and Ryraso had barely been in the library an hour when the priests descended. Ryraso had actually been in the stacks looking for something, while Eyeri had been looking over some basic words. Eyeri looked up warily as the priest he recognised as the High Priest stopped in front of him. The man greeted him in k'nairi and had an almost pleased look when Eyeri answered back. The man looked at his paper and nodded before saying something Eyeri was almost familiar with.

Calmly Eyeri gestured at the phrase to check. The High Priest smiled pleased and nodded. "Where is Ryraso?" Eyeri looked over at the books shelves and gestured, not sure where exactly Ryraso had gone too. 

The High Priest nodded with a look of triumph in his eyes before the men around him started moving towards the books. The High Priest ruffled Eyeri's hair in a similar way that the Royal Triad often did. The familiar touch felt wrong somehow but Eyeri didn't complain. The man wasn't hurting him and he was clearly important in some way. 

"I am Ton'enth," the man greeted in k'nairi.

"I am Eyeri. Nice to meet you," Eyeri smiled slightly. 

Ton'enth nodded and gently look Eyeri's pen from him. "I am," the next word Eyeri didn't know but Ton'enth sounded it out carefully as he wrote it.   Gnu-seog Ton'enth. Eyeri looked at the word and slowly repeated it. The man nodded with a smile. 

"Inai... Is Inai 'Gnu-seog Inai'?" Eyeri wondered out loud. Did Gnu-seog mean High Priest or was it a title that just Ton'enth had?

Ton'enth nodded with a grin, clearly impressed that Eyeri had made that jump. He asked something but frowned as he realised that Eyeri couldn't understand yet. Instead, he wrote several other words on the paper. He sounded them out for Eyeri as he wrote them and quickly came to the realisation that Ton'eath was teaching him the titles of the Royals. Both Dyn'ad and Nel'os had the same title and Tai'ray had his own. Then he came to Ryraso. Ton'eath wrote two titles. He also wrote two for Eyeri. Eyeri listened carefully and quickly worked out the difference. One was in relation to their jobs and other to status. 

"Adchiog?" Eyeri said underlining the word and pointed to the healer crest on his shoulder as he tried to repeat the word. Ton'enth made an agreeing sound before gesturing for Eyeri to run through the list. Eyeri slowly worked his way down the words. Ton'enth corrected a few but seemed happy with how Eyeri said them. 

"Ton'enth," Ryraso's voice snapped as he was frogmarched from the shelves before practically yelling a ton of stuff in k'nairi. Eyeri listened not understanding the conversation but he could see clearly that Ryraso was unhappy with the man's presence. Though, Eyeri wasn't concerned. Ryraso had said he was going to be dodging the priests, it made sense he wasn't going to happy now they had him quite literally in hand. Ton'enth said something calmly and Ryraso scowled. "Eyeri, are you ok?" Ryraso finally asked gruffly. 

"I'm fine. High Priest Ton'enth was just teaching me Royal's titles," Eyeri smiled reassuringly at his father. Ryraso pulled out of the priests' hands to look over Eyeri's shoulder and see the new words written on his piece of paper. He rolled his eyes and patted Eyeri's shoulder, hugging him slightly.

"Of course, he did," Ryraso growled and kissed Eyeri's forehead, smoothing Eyeri's hair back. "Only he would consider that to be more important than knowing how to talk to people," he grumbled.